All Forum Posts by: Matt H

Try this, maybe this sounds crazy but I know it works:

Step 1) Buy a map of your city or town
Step 2) map out where all the "Big Box" stores are, or shopping malls.
Step 3) Make up some weatherproof cardboard signs saying "I buy houses" and include your phone number and or website.
Step 4) Post them anywhere you can get away with it near the main entry points and exits to the big box centers. Here in my city those get about 100,000 cars going through per day.
Step 5) When you start getting calls have a questionaire ready to qualify the house. Especially the reason for selling, and to find out if they're willing to sell below market value or with exceptionally favorable terms. EI they'll lend you the mortgage because they own the house free and clear. Or theirs a death, divorce, bankruptcy, or other urgent need to sell below market value.
Step 6) Go to the bank and tell them you just bought a home and that you need a line of credit to do the rehab. If that doesn't work then maybe you don't need to spend a ton of money on the rehab anyway. Just buy some paint from walmart for cheap paint the inside and outside. Go to an "end of the roll" discount carpet center and sign up for one of their "store credit cards" so that payment is deferred for 6 months. Buy the carpet on the CC which you'll pay for later from the proceeds after you sell it.
Step 7) New paint inside and out, perhaps new fixtures and new carpet and lino. That will make about 90% of the house look brand new and your out of pocket expense was $100 worth of walmart paint.
Step 8) Now list it with a "flat fee realestate company" on the mls. Be sure that they are one "flat fee" for listing it. Also post signs directing people from the major arteries to your home for sale. Have a website for the house with photos so that people can do a virtual tour. Put that on a nicely made brochure which you can make with your computer printer.
Step 8) Sell the home, use part of the proceeds to payback the bank and the instore credit card for your materials for the rehab. And then do it all over again. Do that just 4 times a year and if you only made a sliver of a profit of say $25k you'd be making $100,000k per year. But infact you can usually do much better than that. I just made $140k net net on my last flip.
Step 9) Get started!

Hey how's it going? Listen, I've been developing websites for years. And only recently when I had some spare time I developed a website for my realestate company just so that I could add it to business cards and email sig files to do what your saying, "give a good first impression". But trust me, if you're just starting out here's what you need do concentrate on. Forget getting a website, forget getting some fancy business cards done, forget going to the mall because you think you need a new suit to wear. You don't need to waste time with any of that stuff. What you need to do is concentrate your time on studying a good realestate course like "carlton sheets" and also making tons and tons of offers. Remember the 80/20 law? 80% of your time needs to be spent finding properties for sale and making offers. That's the most important thing you can do and that will reap you the most rewards. Damn I should take my own advice, and even though I have a deal on the go still be out there making offers! Like Robert Kiosoki says, "look at a deal a day"....or what I say "make an offer a day".

that's why I'm never going to get married because somthing like 70% of divorces are caused by financial differences. But it sounds like a catch 22 to me because your damned if you do because your partner is not interested, and your damned if you don't because you don't have the money for any down payment nor his support because you can't sign for a mortgage alone now that your married.

Interesting. I didn't go to harvard either. I just go by Net Operating Income and cap rate. But just don't blindly accept the numbers given to you. Often wise to do your own income and expense statement based on the most current numbers. And then some projections such as if you upped the rents to market value, then what? And do all that if you plan to sell to paint the "future picture" for the new buyer. Like I bought a building off a guy earlier this year. But I don't think he bothered to do any of that. And no he's probably kicking himself because his former investment is up by about 40% in equity alone and this is only 8 months later. Rents are also up by about 30% of what they were when I bought the place. Anyway but getting back to things, like I said, i think most importantly you just need "Net Operating Income". Which tells you how much you have after expenses to service your loans on the place.

If I were you I wouldn't become a realtor. Why? It's simple really. It would give you the wrong training, the wrong idea about being a realestate investor, and the wrong direction on your career path. As a realestate investor, or making big money in realestate you just want to do 1 thing. Accumulate as much good debt as you possible can. Millions of good debt. So just focus on that. Which you can do by trying to find as many little to no money down deals as you can. You'll get way further ahead way quicker than trying to become a realtor. Up here realtors also have to complete about 30 credits worth of college courses every year to keep there Realtors license. So there's ongoing upgrading and testing involved. Remember you don't want to help someone else to buy, you want to help yourself to buy. And you don't need a realestate license to do that. If you haven't already, read Carlton Sheets course.

I'm not sure what he can do, but I know that the US has about the worst legal system I've ever seen. I'm up here in Canada. And recently there was some major law suits against the company Haliburton. So what the law firms did is look around for anyone else they could add who had anything to do with the oil industry. Because my business was in the oil industry they added me too!!! I couldn't believe it? I had done nothing wrong, but yet they added me to a law suit because they thought that perhaps Haliburton might have been advertising on my website. Unbelieveable. It cost me 10k to get out of the problem. After that I realized that your not safe to have any corporation in North America. It's just way way way to easy to be sued and lose everything. So I set up everything I do online offshore. So ya he's going to lose his house and everything else I bet.

Get carlot sheets course, and get Dolf Deroos course, and study them.

Well I finally got all moved in. I know this neighborhood has gone down hill, but within the first 24 hours there was a fire next door, there was a police car with their syrins blaring in the middle of the night, and then another fire truck right in the morning with syrines blarring. Then some punk teen blarring their car music really loud as they got home, only to go inside and crank the stereo so loud that I could here it from sever doors down. Man what gives!!! The next 24 hours have been okay though. So far there's been no major surprises as far as the house goes. I'm not sure if I'm gonna bother flipping this house. At least right now I don't think it would be worth it, which is good, because like I said I purposely need a break from this flipping habit. Ya anyway I guess I better get back to unpacking. At least I got my computer back up.

I just got a large apartment building. It's already individually strata titled. I'm just debating whether or not I should try selling off the units. I paid just over 2million for the building. It has about 50 units and if I could sell them as condos at the market rate I should be able to make around $45k net per door, ending up with a total next profit before tax of around $2.25m . Probably would be the best thing to do with the building. Especially since it's across the country, long ways away. Then I'm thinking I could take those funds and buy several properties, perhaps even right here where I live. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Or any insights on the best way to do a condo conversion? Or would you just buy and hold and not sell it off?

Hello, I need advice from anyone whose done well in realestate. My situation is that I own one 15 unit apartment. I've been selling off my paper investments and have made $500k available to invest in another building or investment. Can any experienced investors offer any advice on what they would do?

I've been thinking of perhaps doing a condo conversion. Any thoughts?