All Forum Posts by: Mohit Madaan

@Brandon, The question has been discussed about million times on the forum and quick search would get you the answers, depending upon if you are full time or part time here is what i would do

Free resources

• Start knocking doors, this one can start from your neighbors house. Knock doors and leave a business card with everyone you speak to. Make sure the phone number listed has a professional voice mail and you answer most of the calls you can.
• Post ads on craigslist, there is a limit on how many ads you can post but again, doing this on daily basis will get you calls, sooner or later. Make sure the rule about professionalism on the phone is applied.
• Hand over your business cards to friends & family and explain very clearly that you are professional real estate investor/wholesaler.
• Get in touch with local realtor who understands what you are looking for. Keep in regular touch with him to ensure when the deal pops up, he wants to speak with you before anyone else.
• Attend local REIA meet ups and network with other investors. There are people who would happily give you leads because they came across something they don't work. For example, i would give away all leads of SFRs over 250K etc etc.

Small budget lead generation ideas

• Telemarketing, this one is not easy because you will have to go through hundreds of voicemails, not availables, kids answering, not interested, stop calling me, etc, etc before you get some one to even talk to you for more than 30 seconds. Again, the key is to be persistent and make certain amount of calls every day and ensure your inbound number if professional if some one returns a call.
• Mailing letters - This one again involves some investment to buy lists and send out the letters but again, getting your phone to ring is the first step.

The list is endless, at the end of the day all you have to do is eat, sleep, breath real estate and ensure you don't let any lead slip through the cracks.

Good luck for your journey.

@Mike Hello Mike, Did you ever get anything going in Stockton?

Why is no one talking about the Big Student loan Bubble thats about to burst. Doesn't this scare you from all these college towns?

Cold calling is probably the hardest if not THE hardest. I use to work at a call center and on average, we would speak with about 350 consumers a day to generate 1-2 leads per day of consumers interested in refinancing. Now this was 8 years ago, but the point is to get consistent results from cold calling, you have to show up every day, take every call with same energy and target your list.

Believe it or not, its the third most stressful job in world after Neurosurgeons & air traffic controllers. (read it somewhere few years ago)

As the title and category of the forum suggests, i am foreigner investor who is going to invest living in another country and while this may sounds challenging to some, i personally feel i am more than ready. I am 28 years old, have experience investing in real estate in my country (India) and have some finance to give myself a head start. Now, here is the real question:

I have a partner from another business who lives in Stockton, CA area. He is been my partner for last 9 years and we have enjoyed working with each other very much, and there is nothing we can complaint about in our business relation. The ideal situation for me is to start in his market because that's an area i visit anyway few times a year and starting with a multi family apartment complex there won't be that bad. He is also interested in real estate investing and knows most of the local big players. So the benefits of starting out in the area are obvious. The biggest one for me is "foot on the ground". But, as alot of people would agree, stockton isn't the best market for real estate investing. The city itself was bankrupt couple of years ago, it was the hardest hit market by the crash in 2008, not enough jobs, etc etc.

On the flip side, if i want to go out of Stockton, San francisco & Chicago are pretty much same to me, well they are both about 24 hours plane ride away. The partner friend of mine wont' really like to drive by my property even if its 2 hours away, so i am pretty much own my own if its not in Stockton, Tracy, Lodi, manteca, Sacramento area.

Please comment and advice on what do you think about the situation and how would you approach it?

bumping a thread from a while back, we are in touch with few lenders that are willing to lend as a non recourse loan but won't go beyond 75% LTV, which i think isnt' that bad. We also have a plan B which is buy all cash and refinance later. Made some offers and still haven't closed our first deal.

 interesting question @Ess Dee but i think the 10% is suppose to be part of the 40% and you are still liable to pay the rest yourself. The point of this is IRS wants some portion of the taxes collected upfront because its very hard for IRS to collect from a foreigner as compared to US citizen

 @Ess Dee I am in the exact same shoes that you are and i think we should exchange ideas with each other. I am from India, and have found some properties in california that i want to buy. Here are my two cents, more like four actually

Working with Large banks like wells fargo, Bank of America might not be the best idea as they are going based of your Income in home country (Indian/UK) which means even if they end up lending you with their crazy terms (like 60% LTV, PMI), it might not be good enough since they won't lend you for more than 1-2 properties based on your income in home country. I haven't done alot of research but i think working with small portfolio lenders will be the best option for people like us. The way portfolio lenders look at this is, the property is in US, lets lend safe amount say 75% and if anything goes wrong, we can always go against collateral.

As far as working with partner, i think that will help for sure as the bank can look at it as they still have 1 US citizen if not both. I have a long term friend and partner in california (from other business) that i am planning to work with. The idea is to form an LLC where we both are members and buy propertie(s) under that LLC.

Another option, i am considering is buying all for cash and then refinancing after holding a property for few months. This does few things, shows lender the positive cash flow (if they loan based on that). It will let me close deal when i find one, as a offshore investor i am going to make lower offers, lesser offers and obviously get very few opportunities to buy deals, and if i do, i don't want to loose the deal because bank took 5 months to lend to a foreigner. I realize this isn't an option for everyone as buying all cash needs something called CASH.

non recourse loan is one option i have heard some private lenders offering, 75% LTV, 6% interest and 30 years fixed, who knows if this is true or not.

Oh and dont' forget, seller financing is always a bonus if you can find some.

 Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

OP is visiting US on visitors visa (B1/B2) which means he is not MOVING to US, which means he can not get Social Security Card or number to create credit history. Please do not provide wrong information, if you aren't' aware of the facts.

Do you work with foreign investors? Non US investors, investing in commercial real estate in US?