All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

I'm a draftsman. I might be able to help you with this project.

I think it might've been Loopnet

It was listed online. I just contacted an agent in the area and they helped me with the transaction. 

Quote from @Jonathan Mueller:

Whoa! Cool story! Glad I read it to the end, I am going to look into ResNexus, I use Little Hotelier right now, and while it is cheap, it is very basic and doesn't have any yield management or dynamic pricing tools. Also for anyone wondering, I use RemoteLock door handles and locks and they sync with another program(Guest Talk) that links to Little Hotelier and automates everything. Great flip! Finding cleaners would be the next thing that is nearly impossible to find. That's why I just purchased an RV park, still get to work in Hospitality but the clients take their mess with them LOL. 

Will you buy another motel or is this a 1 and done for you? 

I think Little Hotelier has a yield management feature but you have to upgrade. I never use that system, so I might be wrong. The RemoteLocks sync with ResNexus and I ordered 19 of theM only to have to return them because they wouldn’t fit the doors at the motel. Funny you mention RV park and cleaners. There is a whole community of people that travel around the country and do seasonal work. So, if you have an RV park near by or have RV slots at your property you can hire these people to clean or run the motel for you. I would buy another motel but I would make sure it was in a location that I would have access to a pool of contractor, cleaners, and other workers. And that pool better be big enough to allow for healthy competition. I wouldn’t mind an RV park either. Like you said, they take their mess with them. It’s if a motel and trailer park had a baby. I think the rents would be lower but potentially less headache. 

Quote from @Janel Kolbo:

Quote from @Account Closed:

Quote from @Kai Kopsch:

Quote from @Candice Coates:

Our leads are not vetted. The investor goes through the agent finder tool, see who is in their market, and selects the agent(s) they want to gain more information from. 

Digital leads convert between 0.4-1.2% according to the NAR. Digital leads also can take more than just one attempt and a drip campaign to convert, it can take up to 6-8 attempts to connect with an investor. I had an agent that I met with at EXPCON that had an investor from December of 2022 reach out in October 2023 that is ready. It's all in the follow-up. 

Understandably, an immediate return and a positive ROI plus some, are what most agents are looking for. Keep in mind, that a transaction can take 3-6 months on average to get to the closing table.

We have a personalized onboarding experience where we strategize with our agents in the beginning and throughout the experience to ensure they are exhausting their resources on the BiggerPockets platform. We cover systems and leverage and how to make the most out of their experience.

We have over 700 agents and over 1,000 subscriptions being used and we are still growing. If you have more questions, feel free to book some time with me here.

Good morning Candice,

Sadly, your reply showed precisely what is wrong with the featured agent program.

"Digital leads convert between 0.4-1.2% according to the NAR."   At around ~$60 per lead, with the best conversion rate, I would pay $ 6,000.00 per transaction! My rate is around 4% in a high-interest market with low inventory; this doesn't work.

I love the BP community; this program could run perfectly and help BP members start investing. Please, BP make some changes.

Anytime anyone criticizes this program they are met with these same flimsy arguments about its effectiveness rather than listening to the customer and making the necessary changes. It leads you to believe there is a very obvious incentive not to change the program. BP has failed its members on this one and those of us who paid for and tried the Featured Agent Leads are giving them our honest feedback and facts like Kai stated above. I feel for anyone who gets duped by this program and am completely disappointed in the response from BP.

 I had someone reach out a couple weeks ago asking if I'd like to expand into other Florida markets since surely I did so well (do your homework, I ended up with a refund) and when I told him about my experience he said this. They clearly don't care or want to hear what we have to say....

I had this same guy give me a crap response as well. When I called him out he blocked me on BP. 

Quote from @Kai Kopsch:

Quote from @Candice Coates:

Our leads are not vetted. The investor goes through the agent finder tool, see who is in their market, and selects the agent(s) they want to gain more information from. 

Digital leads convert between 0.4-1.2% according to the NAR. Digital leads also can take more than just one attempt and a drip campaign to convert, it can take up to 6-8 attempts to connect with an investor. I had an agent that I met with at EXPCON that had an investor from December of 2022 reach out in October 2023 that is ready. It's all in the follow-up. 

Understandably, an immediate return and a positive ROI plus some, are what most agents are looking for. Keep in mind, that a transaction can take 3-6 months on average to get to the closing table.

We have a personalized onboarding experience where we strategize with our agents in the beginning and throughout the experience to ensure they are exhausting their resources on the BiggerPockets platform. We cover systems and leverage and how to make the most out of their experience.

We have over 700 agents and over 1,000 subscriptions being used and we are still growing. If you have more questions, feel free to book some time with me here.

Good morning Candice,

Sadly, your reply showed precisely what is wrong with the featured agent program.

"Digital leads convert between 0.4-1.2% according to the NAR."   At around ~$60 per lead, with the best conversion rate, I would pay $ 6,000.00 per transaction! My rate is around 4% in a high-interest market with low inventory; this doesn't work.

I love the BP community; this program could run perfectly and help BP members start investing. Please, BP make some changes.

Anytime anyone criticizes this program they are met with these same flimsy arguments about its effectiveness rather than listening to the customer and making the necessary changes. It leads you to believe there is a very obvious incentive not to change the program. BP has failed its members on this one and those of us who paid for and tried the Featured Agent Leads are giving them our honest feedback and facts like Kai stated above. I feel for anyone who gets duped by this program and am completely disappointed in the response from BP.

I didn't have that information but I was able to get financial and tax information from the previous owners. They told me what they were charging per night and I searched other motels/hotels in the area to get an idea of what the going rate was. Also, based on the information they provided, I was able to estimate what the occupancy rate was per month. I used a spreadsheet designed for analyzing large multifamily properties and modified it for the motel. My estimates were fairly close as far as occupancy rate, though I was a bit optimistic about the winter months. However, I did zero advertising. I was very low on my ADR. I blew that out of the water and was able to make a lot more per night than I was expecting. I used a booking engine called ResNexus, which allows for dynamic pricing (actually called yield management) based on vacancies and events going on in the area. If you buy a motel in the area, I would highly recommend ResNexus or look into Little Hotelier. 

I signed up to be a Features Agent program with the intention of connecting with and helping other investors in my area. I made it clear that I wasn't looking to work with inexperienced investors. I paid $1600 for 20 leads. 18 of those leads were new to investing with no deals under their belt, which there is nothing wrong with, just not who I wanted to work with. I was not happy with how many new investors were contacting me because each lead counts against your quota. I reached out to the person that set me up with the service and I was told there is no way to filter them out. Trying to make the best of the situation, I told all the new investors that contacted me that I would work with them and offer them more than the typical agent. I offered them access to my entire network. I am a full-time real estate investor and I offered to connect them with my contractor (very few investors would even think about offering this), to my lenders, and insurance agents, to help them run the numbers on a property. And as I predicted, not a single one of them followed through. Personally, I felt the Featured Agent program was a waste of money and canceled it. The other frustrating aspect of the program was that they offered a premium membership, which also went away after canceling the program. I had not met my 16 lead quota yet when I canceled but they canceled the premium membership. I thought that was a bit of a raw deal. If you are a full-time agent and willing to work with whomever, then by all means sign up for the program. Just be aware that the quality of leads might not be there. If you are looking to connect with ready-to-go investors, I would save your money and head to your local REIA. BiggerPockets could easily allow you to filter the leads. Before a member can find a featured agent they have to answer a series of questions, one of which asks how many deals they have completed. Sure, people can lie but the majority won't. Because the answers to the questions live in a database somewhere, BiggerPockets could allow the Featured Agent to set up a filter based on the answers to the questions. There is an incentive not to, though. Your lead quota gets burned up and you have to buy more. I'm sure there will be arguments to my comments but these are my opinions of the program. If you had a great experience with it, that's great. You and I are most likely not pursuing the same goals.

Quote from @Kevin Escobar:

I visit the ADKs every December up near Lake Placid. I can't believe you picked that up for $389K - that's insane lol. 

 Haha yeah, they didn’t know what they had. 

Quote from @Kevin Escobar:

Quote from @Natalie Gelbke-Mattis:

Great story!  I am also in the process of purchasing a motel in NY.  Luckily, my husband is a general contractor so I don't have to deal with finding quality workers.  That really is over half the battle!   

That's awesome. I own in NY as well. Did you find your motel on the MLS?

Yeah, it was on the MLS. I spent about 2 to 3 months running the numbers and was still able to get it for about $15k under asking.