All Forum Posts by: Tom Lafferty

Good idea, thanks. I may just start dropping the price, as I'm currently looking at going in on a small apt complex with a few others and would like to have the funds more liquid.

Non-Circumvention Non-Disclosure; holds up in civil court.

Ha! Not busted, as we didn't officially have an appointment. Played email tag for a while and just hadn't made contact yet. The HV thing had been going on for a while.
Thanks for the call Jerry, I appreciate your time!
Chuck, are you local or in Colorado? I've got some good construction sources but it never hurts to have another.

Okay, I feel like an idiot admitting this, but over the last few months that I've been researching and learning about rei, I assumed that marketing was only done by wholesalers. I originally set out to buy several buy and hold rentals in crappy shape, rehab and rent them and end up with instant equity in the 100-130k ARV range. Apparently I'm about six months late to the party in the Dallas area, and the deals everyone was scooping up all day long are not so plentiful now. Then I decided I had to look into wholesaling, which does not really interest me. I've even been talking to Homevestors for the last month regarding an associate franchise. It seemed like that would be a great way to keep the best ones for rental or rehab and assign the rest.
I've been scouring the marketing forums on BP and didn't even consider the fact that one could market just for their own deals. I guess all the studying I've done on wholesaling and the consistency and volume necessary to be successful clouded my thinking.
Finally my question. Is it reasonable to think that smaller amounts of marketing would be effective enough to find a deal here and there to rehab and sell or hold for rentals? I was listening to an interview with a successful wholesaler this week who does about 4 deals a month, and spends $10,000 a month on marketing to do so. WOW. While that is still a profitable endeavor, do I need to set my expectations accordingly? I realize lots of factors affect the success of anyones marketing efforts, but I sure hate to start dropping thousands a month in yellow letters and postcards only to find that its not near enough.
I'm working on cultivating some relationships with realtors and wholesalers in the area, but I'm thinking as a newbie, its gonna be tough to find deals with decent margins in such a tight market.
Another possibility might be to find a rehabber in the area that has had some success but might be willing to partner with me using my capital, and let me learn along the way.
I canNOT seem to write small posts so thank you if you read this far! Any insight would be appreciated.

So you knew somebody was going to ask.... What do you think are the top few qualities/strengths that are necessary to have success as a wholesaler?
It would also be great to hear from those of you that have seen many come and go what you think are the common qualities/weaknesses that promote failure?
I realize some of this is covered in the truth about wholesaling post but thought some concentrated feedback re strengths/weaknesses would be good.

I know this is an old thread, but anyone else have any experience since then? I've been talking to them for a few weeks, initially was not at all interested, but have become less hesitant each time I talk to them.
I fully understand the fees, and understand that I could start up my own "marketing machine" that would hopefully start to put out some leads after a while. I'm really wondering how valuable it would be to have that all done for me, pay my share of marketing (which I understand would be higher than doing it on my own), and immediately start sharing leads. There is no minimum, its just whatever portion of the marketing money you put in, you get a proportional share of the leads.
I'm only considering this due to the fact that several successful people in the Dallas area keep talking about how quickly the leads have been drying up. I know there will always be deals, and the successful people will keep at it, but do I want to come in as a complete novice and try to compete against these guys and learn how to market in a situation like that?
Whew, sorry so long!

I'm with you. I looked at a lot of those same numbers. There's one other that sold near ours that's not on the books that sold for just over $100k but took forever. Ive got a connection with a builder that i could get a great deal with but I still dont think it would come close to putting the money into some rentals.
I'm hoping to 1031 any gains and will probably list it soon. Thanks for the input!

No. There's a private neighborhood park on the water at the end of the street but mines no on the water.

Its in Eagles Landing. Weve been debating getting rid of it for years. First it was the bridge going up that we wanted to wait on. Now its done. Then it was a new school. Done. Now all the retail and other news. It just hasn't gone up that much and we're probably not gonna build on it. Time to get rid of it and let someone put a nice house up!

I've got a 1.3 acre lot in Oak Point, TX that I'm getting ready to list. We bought with the intent to live there, but it probably isn't going to happen. Being new to real estate investing, I'd like to put that money to work in some rentals. We owe about 50K, and its probably worth 110-125K.
Does anyone in the area know if it would be worth partnering with a builder to build a house on it and then sell? I talked to the realtor we bought it with 8 years ago and he said the big lots like that are not really moving. I would imagine it would be a terrible idea to even think about speculating on a house, but with the supply of homes being so low right now I thought I'd better at least ask!
Main problem I think will be the number of buyers looking for large lots for a luxury home. What do you think?