All Forum Posts by: Pavel Sakurets

I was just quoted $1600 for Geotech services. They will drill 2 holes to 25 foot depth or rock to evaluate requirements for new foundation/home. How does this compare to what you've seen?

Very reasonable if they supply the soil test report. We usually pay $1800 per 0.5 acre

0 Votes

Update on Radio advertising:

I advertised for 3 dyas Monday through Wednesday at WCCO this week, cost $1200 for 3 days.

This is what my 30 seconds ad says: If you want to sell your property fast at top dollar, call Real Estate Liquidators today, they are a licensed local Co and will provide you with a fair cash offer within 24 hours. Have you tried selling before and could't, does your property need repairs, are you tired of being a landlord? Call (this number) or submit your info online at www.RealEstateLiquidators.com Real Estate Liquidators, we create win-win transactions!

Within 3 days, 3 people called (one wanted too much, second was already working with a realtor who she wanted to fire, 3rd was a seller of a commercial hotel/farm 75 miles from Mpls (motivated seller) but I don't want to go farther than 30 miles from Mpls.

Will provide additional feedback after 2 more weeks

0 Votes

Caleb, I attended over 20+ boot camps within last 10 years and from every boot camp, I learned something that I implemented in my business. My Co is one of the largest and most active investors in MN, every week we buy or sell several properties and I still go to boot camps, at least twice per year. My goal when I go to a boot camp is to learn only ONE thing that I didn't know about before and if I learn ONLY ONE thing, I consider this time well spent. It's not only the info and presenter, it's people that you meet, it's ideas that could mix with your ideas and synergize in something bigger. If I have not attended boot camps, it would take me much longer to be where I'm now.

I learned about BP only this week, and I'm loving it, and agree that this is a very good site and has a lot of smart people and the info is free.

2 Votes

#1 Angieslist.com (all contractors have reviews and if they want to succeed in the business, they will do everything so they could get a good rating from you. It costs a member about $20/month. I'm a GC myself and found many good subs from AL)

#2. Homeadvisor.com (Have been using it since 2004) similar to AL, but when you submit a request, contractors will contact your themselves, because they pay for every lead $10-$70.

I would try AL first.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Ibrahim Hughes:

Well @Roc P.

- this is the reason why I, like my friend @Rick H. , always suggests researching the liens on a vacant house BEFORE searching for the owner or heirs. You have to remember, You're chasing EQUITY, not owners. So you have to find out FIRST if there's equity. No equity, no chase imo. Also you will want to know the laws of succession in your state. You can't go around making promises to folks connected to the owner and then find that you can't deliver. Every cent you have allocated to the seller must now go to the next of kin in line to receive the proceeds.

And I respectfully disagree with @Pavel Sakurets . It may be minimum wage labor but it's also PRICELESS education to do your own title searches. The knowledge you acquire about the laws and customs of your state and market is priceless and will help you see opportunities where others don't. Not to mention it will put you a few steps ahead of the competition. Plus you can later train someone to do it for you.

The good thing here Roc is that you learned something in the process. That's never a waste of time.

Good points Ibrahim. I also believe that one person can not possibly have enough time to learn everything and do everything by himself/herself. If a person has nothing better to do than searching through property's records, sure more power to him/her. But I also believe in leveraging other peoples' time and do, what you do best, and hire the best from the rest. (works for me every time!) Once again, it's an argument that doesn't have a definite answer. Everybody should do what feels right for him/her.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

@Cortney Jones Thank you very much for your insight! This is really helpful. I'm going to have someone put them up this weekend.

Do you leave them until the city puts them down or do you usually put them up just for the weekend?

Daniel, one of my workers installs 50-70 signs every Friday after 5pm and picks them up on Sunday night, he has been doing it for 4 weeks now. No calls, yet. I have answering service that answers 24/7 but still no calls.

However, I own a rental on a busy street in Minneapolis where I put 2 bandit signs, they have been there for 6 months now. I bought only one house of those two signs, no more leads. Thus, I'll be putting bandit signs for another 3 months, if I get no leads, I'll stop it. I pay $150 to install and pick up 100 signs, plus $500 bonus if I buy a property from it and the guy who installs them gets a bonus, to keep him a bit more motivated.

Also every time after signs are installed, 5-10 are missing. I use good signs with T-stakes, they cost $15/each. Thus every time it costs me $200-$300 (labor plus missing signs). Thus I'm a bit skeptical about ''bandit signs'' buzz. If anybody has other feedback, please share.

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Kyle B.:

I wanted to see if anyone has been able to (legally) avoid paying self employment taxes on the profit from their flips. I met with an accountant and he said I would have to pay a 15% tax for self employment - essentially the 7.5% an employer would withhold for social security, medicaid, etc. as well as the 7.5% contribution an employer makes on their employees behalf.

I asked if it were possible to categorize the profit from a flip as a short term capital gain, therefore avoiding the 15% tax, but he said that it wasn't possible given the fact that it was not a passive investment - essentially I've established this type of work/investing as my primary job and was actively involved in it.

I just wanted to see if was possible to avoid this tax at all or if it is some thing I will always have to anticipate.

Thanks,

Kyle

Ask 3 best CPAs in your area, it is possible. S-corp is one way, and you can set it up yourself (just read instructions on IRS site or ask your CPA to help you). Since I don't know what is your revenue or net income it is difficult to suggest anything. If you are making more than 200k net, I would spend 1-2k and have attorney to prepare minutes of S-corp as well as operating agreement. Big guys set it up several S-corps where one S-corp is the owner of another S-corp or LLC. Companies that are subject to SE tax show as little net income as possible (typically you have one Co that collects rents and pays for operating expenses that shows small net income and S-corp would show hire income to reduce SE-tax., maybe a construction Co that you run all your construction expenses through.) Find a good RE attorney that will help you with that. Spend the money ones so you could sleep better and never think about it again :-)

0 Votes

Originally posted by @Andrew Carter:

@Pavel Sakurets

Wouldn't it be better to print the envelopes to keep a constant for font between the envelope and the letter? I could do 1000 envelopes on my own. Saving the money and knowing that all the envelopes made it to the mailbox is enough of a motivation for me. ;)

@Tiankhy Hinton Glad this helped!

When you print the address on the envelope it doesn't look as ''real'' as somebody handwrote it. In my opinion, the font on the envelop doesn't have to match with the font on the letter. Hand written mailing address do not look as junk mail and I think they have a better ''opening rate'' than computer- printed envelopes. I strongly believe that the Co that mails out my envelopes really wants me to succeed so I could bring them more business; I doubt that they don't bring all envelopes to the post office.

2 Votes

Originally posted by @Samantha M.:

@Aaron Mazzrillo Great points, the only thing that didn't make sense to me was this comment.

"B. You think that if you wholesale, all the risk will pass to your buyer and you can just get checks for tying up properties..."

If you wholesale correctly, there really is no risk. Get an option period to find a buyer, and then contractually limit your liability. You can make it such that the only remedy a seller has for non performance is earnest money, no specific performance. Just be warned, if you are going to do that, be ready to put up more EM to sweeten the deal.

@John Chapman Of course at 80% ARV here in Dallas for flips most people are going to pass. I am talking about buy and hold land lords, lots of people are salivating for 75% ARV, and many of the biggest wholesalers in town are selling the rentals at 80% ARV and the contracts dont last more than 48 hours. I would throw out some names as examples, but I don't want to go triggering the name alerts. PM me if you would like some names.

Samantha, when you sign an option agreement with intention to wholesale a property within 1 month, do you record a memorandum of option? If you do not record it, what do you do if seller executes an agreement with other buyer while you still have a valid option. What is a typical option period that you ask for from the seller and what is the option fee that you pay to the seller?

0 Votes

Thank you to everyone that has participated: from 12 people-9 do double closing,

1 person does assignments, 2 persons do both assignments and double closing (depending on the profit level).

Linda, who spend 25k, I spent over 200k on my seminars over the course of 5 years.

I finally stopped now, I do not spend more than 13k per year anymore (its' a membership fee to be in a commercial pull of buyers). I joined BP 4 days ago and found all the info that I was looking for within 3 hours spent on BP. I wasted a lot of time on boot camps and other seminars. Thus, my advise- stop spending money on courses, you can find all info here. Just ask questions and follow what successful people have done, I'm sure they will be happy to share for FREE.

1 Vote

All Forum Posts by: Pavel Sakurets

Pavel Sakurets has started 48 posts and replied 316 times.

Post: How much do you pay for soil tests?

Post: People that do wholesaling, what's are 3 best sources of leads that you close on

Post: The Guru Circus...

Post: Best sources to find contractors

Post: Deceased owner no relatives , phantom house

Post: Bandit Signs- Response rate

Post: Avoiding Self Employment Taxes

Post: [TUTORIAL] How to print Yellow Letters on the CHEAP! With Pics

Post: Wholesaling Haters. Im bummed.

Post: People that completed at least 20 wholesales, do you double close or you do an assigment of the contract?