All Forum Posts by: Michael Wentzel

I'm not sure what percentage of Real Estate investors or investments fail, but in the world of small business the odds are stacked against you. That is why we say to look for your friends, family and/ or fools.

Thankfully we have been able to pay all of our private loans back over the years and our friends have made a good profit off of their investments.

But I have been the fool a few times, investing in small businesses with friends and never seeing a return. 

Mike

@Daniel Haberkost

Send me a PM. My former Realtor in Pueblo was involved in a lot of building and development. She will probably have a few recommendations for you.

Mike

The process of learning and building a team is more of an art than a science. For the interviews, I think I had 5-6 questions I asked all of the Realtor and 5-6 questions I asked all of the Property Managers. If you search, it is likely that someoen has already posted something like this on BP. 

Choosing who to work with is a mix of personality and experience and willingness. And I've made a few wrong choices of the years for both Property Managers and Realtors. So it is a learning process. At the beginning, I managed to find a Realtor who was also an investor. That was incredibly helpful. 

Mike

Another way to get into a new market is to interview 3 Realtors and 3 Property Managers. That doesn't take that much time and will give you great insight into the community. If you find a good Realtor and/ Property Manager, they can also connect you with other investors, lenders and contractors in the area.

Mike

Welcome to BP.

For learning, I highly recommend the UBG. Here is the link... UBG. This will give you a broad overview of different strategies. I also recommend the podcast BP Real Estate podcasts. I think I have listened to all of them over the years. They have been the biggest source of input to my journey along with the forums.

Then you probably need to start meeting people in the market where you want to invest. Hopefully you can connect with a few investors on BP or at local meet-ups.

Mike

@Dan Searight

Hello Dan. It is more of a guideline, not really a rule. So as a guideline, it is a bit more ambiguous. I just divide the monthly rent by the listing price or purchase price to get a general idea if it will meet my criteria. If it does, I still need to go ahead and actually run all of the numbers in detail to get an idea if it is a property I want to move forward on.

In some markets and some market segments, investors are still looking for the 2% rule. In other markets or properties, investors are happy with 1 to 1.5 % on the monthly rent to purchase price.

Mike

@James Zobrisky

Meeting investors from the area in-person or on Bigger Pockets will be a huge source of learning and wisdom for you. Beyond that, when I was entering a new market in Colorado I met with three property managers and three realtors. This was part of building my team in the area, but it also gave me input and perspectives from six people who were very active in the market.

Mike

This is a good question. I guess investors will be all over the place on this one. For our 19 properties in Colorado, we have slowly built up $20,000 in reserves over the last 8 years. We have never had to touch this, but it is helpful for our peace of mind and it keeps the lenders happy.

Mike

@Pablo Vidlak You might find a partner by posting hear on BP, but it is long shot. It is great that you have some experience, that should give you a much better shot at finding a partner than the newbie. I think most real estate investors and entreprenuers in general start with the three F's... Family, Friends and Fools. These are the people most likely to give you money for investment  or a new business. Over the years we have worked with several friends as private lenders. It allowed us to grow our business and we were able to pay them a good return on their cash. If you don't have connections with any of the three F's, you are probably back to partnering with hard money lenders and banks.

Mike

Good morning everyone,

I have a few properties in Akron and the surrouding areas... Canton and Massillon. I have a great bank I have been working with over the last year, but they are located south of Akron and prefer only to loan on properties in Stark County moving forward. So I'm looking for banks or lenders that are happy to work with Real Estate investors in the Akron market and Summit county.

Mike