All Forum Posts by: Kyle Clark

My family has a real estate brokerage; mom is broker, stepdad an agent, Im an agent(+ other licenses). I spend most my time now working at an appraisal firm. 

Im looking to add property management to my families brokerage. 

Always trying to use my free time to learn something regarding real estate. Started a LLC to do some kind of wholesaling/lease options but wasnt confident to do anything without being licensed(felt shady, perhaps since I come from RE agent family).

Ive taken a course at community college on property management before and have a couple books. I just purchased 4 courses to obtain PMC(property management certification). It will be a big brush up on things. 

ANYWAYS, Im wanting to set this up with my mom so we can have passive income from managing properties. As all we're involved in now is commission based, it could be a nice change of pace. I know it can be a headache, but she has some experience managing her own properties in the past, Im gaining some much needed knowledge and my step dad once managed 78 properties for his mother.

What kind of structure should we have? I was thinking of setting up an LLC, getting a DBA and all that. Simple enough? My mom will be the broker in all this, though she works sales she has lots of free time to manage things and take calls.

Are there other certifications I should focus on? I know experience is huge. PMC seems ok, but what else should I consider?

Marketing wise I can devote up to $500 a month to obtain new clients. 1 client a month wouldnt be a bad thing. As Im working other stuff, my main focus would be the marketing and setting this up, while family handles the rest. I think I will use two marketing methods to keep things simple, with basically all my marketing fund going into direct mail. Mailing 5-7 times to each prospect.

1. Direct mail to absentee owners

2. Cold calls

What am I not considering? What are some expectations?

Im a real estate agent in California, recently started. My family has a real estate brokerage, but I hung my license with a different brokerage. Now I am considering working with my family, my split isnt what it should be and why not let my family benefit as well.

In the past year or so I did a lot of courses after college: Appraisal, tax prep, notary, loan officer and real estate agent. I was trying to find what I like haha.

Though the property management niche is probably competitive here in my area I would like for my family to add it to their brokerage. My family has a long history in real estate and they just do sales now, but I think more regular paychecks would be good for them.

My stepdad used to manage 74 units for his moms brokerage long ago. I took a property management course in the past in college.

Heres what Im considering....Setting up the structure of it first then I can perhaps pick up a client or two each month from marketing to absentee owners and others.

Whats needed? I read E&O insurance, a separate entity(LLC), trust account, a broker(mom). Whats missing?

Could I help them set this up while I work at a different brokerage? So the structure is set up under them and I find them leads

I got a lot of reading to do, any free resources out there? My stepdad is knowledgable on property management, but is the least excited to add a property management portfolio to their company from past headaches.

So Im on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.

Facebook I have heard you can send messages to people you dont know as long as you stay under like 20 messages in a row. But I notice they go to peoples "other folder" or something which might be resulting in the low response. How do you know if theyre going through?

Now for linkedin Im not too sure how to prospect. Networking with professionals like lawyers, CPAs, Taxpreps and whatnot might get some tiny result. Whats a better way to be productive on this site?

Now as for twitter I have no idea how to prospect, Im not too familiar with this site. I know how to use their advance search feature which can be useful, but how can I use this to a greater use?

Im a new real estate agent. Im focusing the majority of my energy on Doorknocking, followed by targeted cold calls and then online prospecting. I want to make as many contacts as I can and make those people who arent #%#$^holes into friends and lifelong clients.

Whats working for you on the social media front? Im trying to focus on prospecting now as a new agent. Those groups/fanpages though might be good in the future.

Im having a hard time getting a hold of people over the phones. What Id like to do now is put all the addresses of Expireds/NODs into some GPS app on my iphone. That way when Im driving around and see I am close to one I can just pop by.

Any suggestions?

So Ive been through a number of real estate investing courses. I decided to get my license because all my family has it and it feels more comfortable for me to help sellers get market price than to have one party lose. Ive been through enough courses of different kinds, Im sick of them and ready for action finally.

So I began planning this a while back, I got my real estate sales license and mortgage license(well just about, fees..). The marketing on those is really similar so theyre a good combo.

Im starting to realize whoever said "the money is in the list" was right and my focus is to get targeted lists and make as many contacts as possible. I realize now theres only so many ways to contact people. Plus youre either investing time or money to get results. Theres all these different ways to find "motivated sellers", but most of them are not worth putting your time in because theres too few sellers to be found, so therefore youre scattered trying 20 different niches. The following is some of the lists that I got put together now, these are the ones I see as worth chasing. I did a test on the FSBO list the other day, called 50, got 2 appointments set and some other stuff(like yeh well pay you if you bring a buyer..)

RANDOM: About 15K+ in my county that arent on the DNC list. I put together this list and plan to just call to see when they plan to move. I can take this list and create surrounding listed/sold but theres likely too few on the street, so best to just keep running through it

EXPIREDS: Great list

NOD: Much smaller nowadays, plus theres only a short window of time apparently.

FSBO: Great list! But so small

FRBO: Theres always a good amount

2 Lists I wanna target after I burn through the ones above^^:

Probate: I think I gotta go to the courthouse to pull these.

Absentee: I can get this list, but without phonenumbers. Crap! So I dont wanna have to lookup each one. Imma have to buy this list or outsource the lookup of phones.

Im not seeing all that much else that meets the criteria I wan to target, which is: long enough list, motivated sellers.

Some things like lis pendins, divorce, vacant lots etc seem semi-promising

So thats basically my plan to jumpstart my business, burn through the targeted lists, then random list. Then expand my area to include perhaps San Fran/San Jose and stack 3 appointments a couple days out and make the drive.

Cold calls, cold calls, cold calls, cold calls. 100+ contacts a day. Other than that heres what Im planning:

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Cold Calls+Thankyou notes

OpenHouses+Doorknocking

Classifieds+Emails to ads on CL

Social Media(groups, friends, prospecting)

PPC/Video/Blog---Optins/IDX

Car signs/Yard signs---IRV 1800

SocialGroups/Walkins to Office/Businesscards(in magazines, BB boards,etc)

Database-Newsletter/Referrals

*Direct Mail( No $ for this)

*Voiceblast( No $ for this)

*Leadboxes( No $ for this)

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The good:

So prospecting seems to work great!

The bad:

Prospecting is hard work. Lists need to be assembled. Planning is key.

Sales, scripts and many touches with the same contact are needed to get a listing.

Google changed their formula, Ive been lost since for SEO. My video and blogs will take a long time to snowball into something.

Craigslist used to be gold, but they got rid of HTML ads and hide contact phone. Ive been posting but without much results.

My broker is against some creative things like lease options.

Good or bad?: Sothebys and the big name brokerages have consolidated a lot of the small players.

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So I know if I put in the work and make the number of contacts I plan Ill get business. Takes discipline though to prospect hardcore!

Im trying to foresee things as much as possible. Do you think after I burn through my lists Ill have to resort to working the bigger cites that are over 1 hour out or should I focus on building referral business from what I generate off my list and pour my energy into local doorknocking thereafter?

Im a new real estate agent, one thing I was considering doing with my license was bidding on HUD properties in my states and wholesaling them. I hadnt kept up much on it or the HUD homes site. There was a lot of homes on there before but now theres not too much, I dont think there is 1 HUD home in my county at the moment.

I guess most of the distressed proeprties out there went away; REOs, shortsales, foreclosures etc. HUD takes over FHA foreclosures it thinks can be more profitable to them by selling it themselves if I remember correctly.

Has this boat sailed?

A friend of mine is living in a apartment above a commercial unit. The property management recently changed hands. Below in the commercial unit there is a employee who non-stop talks trash about him and slanders him at every chance. He called the property management company and they said they could do nothing about gossip, only if there is damage to the property or such action. He asked "you cant do anything about the employee disturbing your tenants?" and they replied that his name is not on the lease.

In my opinion, isn't it true youre a tenant after living there over 30 days? This would be disturbing the tenant from the things that have been said. What California laws protect tenants in this situation? He will go meet with the passive property manager soon to put his name on the lease, what are his options?

A broker told me that in order to counsel FSBO's for compensation you have touse a form given out by NAR. Does anyone know what this form is? I would like to add "FSBO Kits" into my toolbox for those FSBO's that do not wish to sell by other means but still would like marketing advice/Forms and so on.

I keep hearing of people selling "leads". Azam Meo tells agents he refers business to that its not a referral fee, but a marketing fee. Anyone with first hand experience that can chime in?

Under RESPA I believe agents are not allowed to pay for referrals. They are also not allowed to get paid to refer business to mortgage brokers and other professionals.

A friend of mine took Kinder-Reese's real estate course for agents. In it they say that you can get paid to sell "leads" to mortgage brokers, carpet cleaners and so on. They call is Host-Beneficiary relations, but it seems referrals are just called leads.

I see that there are many lead companies out there so perhaps there is a area for us to operate in.

Theres no problem with a agent selling "leads" to a mortgage broker?

Theres no problem in an agent buying a "lead" from a individual?