All Forum Posts by: Matt Buroni

It sounds like you are steering towards a rental property. Would you manage/run the car wash or laundromat? If so, do you know anything about those businesses? They may not be as automated as you think, although I have no idea. When I used to sell commercial real estate I would meet people all the time who wanted to buy a restaurant and then quickly realized that they just bought themselves a 16 hour per day job! So that may be something to consider.

As long as a deal makes sense, you can't really go wrong with purchasing a small rental property and getting your feet wet. Nothing is perfect and owning real estate doesn't come without it's own set of headaches, but from the sound of your post it seems like a good option for you, in my opinion. Hope this helps :)

@Paris Scroggins that sounds like a great idea as well! But I think you are in the right place to find people that you can work closely with. Ideally you're looking for something of a mentor to help guide you, but good luck fining someone who will do that for free! (hence having a few potential deals to entice them to work with you). But it's not hard to find properties and the people who own them so start talking to property owners and when you find something remotely real, present it to a wholesaler that you have met in your area and see if they want to come aboard with you. More than likely they will. 

Also, look around for some networking groups in your area too. RE agents, wholesalers, attorneys, flippers, you name it are at these meetings. You probably won't find many deals here, but you will find flippers and wholesalers. Learn from the wholesalers and connect with flippers/investors to have someone to sell your deal to after you get it under contract. Maybe get yourself a few business cards and start passing them around.

Not hard stuff, just takes a little bit of work and before you know it you are putting one foot in front of the other and you are moving baby! Books are good for concepts, ideas, etc. but if you want to really learn something you should do it.

@Scott Thibeau Hey Scott! I think you would benefit quite a bit from running these questions by an attorney and accountant. If you don't have those yet, might be a good place to start.

@Peter Bocian Try searching through your county tax records to find deals. They will usually display # of units so you run through and gather yourself a lot of potential properties. There will be the mailing address for the owner, then you write them a letter. Tell them you are interested in purchasing their property and you will certainly get some calls back. Mailing isn't the cheapest means of prospecting, but it is tried and true. It is also efficient time-wise. To raise your call rate from your mailers, leave the envelope open (not sealed). I used to do this when I started out wholesaling and got a BUNCH of calls. Who doesn't read an open envelope they got in the mail? Hope this helps! :)

@Devang Patel My first thought is a 1031 to utilize all of the equity you have acquired. It appears you are planning to remain investing, but if NJ is becoming troublesome, why not move to a different market?

@Paris Scroggins I do not have any good books on wholesaling for you, but I would say that finding some people in you area to meet up with and learn from would give you a great amount of knowledge. Find a few properties that you think would be good for wholesaling then offer for an experienced wholesaler to work it with you and split the profit with them. They get a cut of a deal, you get the knowledge you desire, win win! Books area great, but you can't beat learning by doing! And wholesaling is a great place to start because of the small financial commitment. I started out in the wholesale space as well. Good luck!

@Jacob Knowles There are a lot of people that make great money with mobile homes/ mobile home parks. I would say that tenants could be an issue so vetting tenants would be a high priority for you.

@Xiomara Davila I don't think either one is right or wrong, just have your goals in mind. Houses that are used for your primary residence and not rentals will require you to pay for the mortgage with your active income. There are plenty of people who take that money and instead but a rental property and continue saving until their eventual primary residence is paid for by the money they make from rentals. Opportunity cost of the initial down payment is the biggest difference I think. Hope this helps! :)

@Xiomara Davila hello! What interests you about upstate NY?

@Josh Carmona have you tried reaching out to the tenants of the listing you saw?