All Forum Posts by: Martin Sterling

It's a difficult question. When I had little to no knowledge, BP was great. The resources BP pointed to have helped. Most of my working knowledge came from learning from other investors either one on one or workshops. And not those $30,000 workshops. Local meetup kinda stuff. 

The biggest value I get from BP is from the podcasts. They illustrate to me what's possible. They also make me realize the various levels of creativity that can be used to attain success and that's there's not one singular path.

On a scale of 1-10 from where I started to where I am now, it's a 50. But it was a combination of all those factors.

For Example, I didn't learn much about taxes on BP. I learned about them from Mark Kohler, who I learned about from a local meetup. But after I learned about taxes from him, I realized some people on BP have threads about him.

I know it's not the answer you were looking for, but it represents a more realistic way to look at it for me.

Greetings All,

1-I wanted to know for those that go door knocking who are successful, what's your strategy?

2-How many hours per day or week do you devote to knocking on doors?

3-How many doors do you usually have to knock on before you get a deal on average?

4-What are your preferred door targets to go after? I'm actually focusing on scheduled Sheriff's Sales right now.

Thanks In Advance

Greetings All,

I wanted to know, is there a source to find out the average days or months it takes to flip a property in various markets?

Thanks in Advance

Hey All,

I wanted to know some ways you guys find deals other than Direct Mail. Direct Mail is great, but I don't think you should rely on one strategy. Maybe we can get a list of different ways people are using. Here's a few from me:

1- Code Enforcement: Houses with lots of violation tend to have motivated sellers.

2- Driving For Dollars: Driving the block seeing what has uncut lawns and a deferred maintenance.

QUESTION: If it's vacant, how do you guys contact the owners? That's always been a challenge.

Thanks in Advance

Typically, if your goal is to wholesale it or fix and flip it yourself, if you don't have comps in a 0.5 to 1.0 mile radius, the deal isn't worth doing.

A lack of comps will give you immense challenges on the exit of the property no matter how nice you fix it.

If you are buying for cash flow, it may be easier, however, if you are using acquisition capital (hard money) to purchase the property, and plan to refi out of the hard money to a 30 yr fixed, you still may have problems in having the property appraise for what's required to cash out or repay your lender.

An exception to the above is if there are few comps because the area is so desirable that once people own in that area, they never sell. You'll sometimes see that in extremely high end markets or downtown areas going through positive changes like an area marked for Amazon to come into. These areas typically have a very low days on market (DOM)... less than 30 days.

In summary, few comps are a bad sign.

Some of the greatest mentors are those that you don't even "get" right away. Like in Karate Kid, Danielson sought after Mr. Miyagi to mentor him in martial arts. Mr. Miyagi had Danielson paint his fence and wax his car and seemed to pay little attention to him. Danielson was unhappy, confused and thought his time to be wasted. But, little did Danielson know Miyagi was actually teaching him core martial arts strikes and blocks.

Some real estate mentors may have a similar indirect approach where you don't even realize you're getting a valuable lesson. Other mentors are just full of crap.

I would say, spend as much time around people who are at least 10X further than where you want to be because even if you only learn 10% of what they know, you would've hit your target. Example: If your goal is to make $100,000 a year in real estate, stay close to people who make $1,000,000. Eventually, you'll at least pick up how to make $100,000.

I would also suggest never paying for some expensive guru program either. It's all scams. Yes, I'm using the word ALL. Even some local experts have scam mentor programs. Conversely, at one point I paid $350 an hour for some sit-down time with a big time local investor going over his strategies. That was extremely beneficial and about as far as I recommend going in terms of payment.

Hope this helps

You can try searching on upwork.com for a VA. You would need to give your job description and you can choose candidates that meet that criteria, or just wait to have people apply.

Greetings all,

So my question is if there any resources you would recommend for someone who is interested in assisting homeowners recapture the excess funds from a sheriff sale when bidders pay far more than what's owed.

I notice this in certain areas and wanted to know if there was a standard approach to get the previous homeowner their funds from the state for a portion of the funds you can reclaim for them. How would I go about figuring out the contracts and protocol?

I've seen some courses online for over $1000 that look shady. I've also seen something called recoverycourse.com. They're only about $150, but, they deal with recovery of judgments, and their reviews aren't filling me to the brim with enthusiasm in their product.

Any suggestions?

I think this strategy can work with my current strategies and make me feel good about helping people.

Thanks in Advance.

I know several turn key property providers.

I met them in my local REIA groups. I built relationships with them over months and years and have relationships with those they do business with. I suggest the same for your journey.

Nothing beats real life relationships.

If it's out of state, I'd suggest building relationships with people who own properties through that provider. Over time of building a relationship with them, you'll hear the good, bad and ugly.

I don't think it's smart to jump into any major commitment without a reasonably long period of relationship building and regular contact.

I'm not a fan of those large national turn-key property providers marketing everywhere. I've heard many nightmares of management issues. For example, management not treating tenants in an ethical way (not repairing air conditioning when they were supposed to, or not repairing plumbing or other major issues in a timely manner.)

I've also heard some stories of success too, so I say be very cautious.

Greetings,

If you win a Sheriff's sale (brought by the 1st mortgage), if there are taxes or HOA's due, are you responsible as the winning bid and new owner to satisfy them?

Thanks in Advance