All Forum Posts by: Ryan Webber

Crap Dad's home. We're busted.

Jake Kucheck , I don't do business in California, sorry.

Its unethical because you have decided it is? And because they don't follow through what they ink in a contract? Did you really mean that? Aren't you the one who advocates letting properties go back in foreclosure to rich banks even if you inked your commitment in a Note and Deed of Trust? I'm not sure how you reconcile those ideas of ethics. I guess ethics means different things to different people.

Every time you post with me you take the conversation back to this topic. Its getting real old Brian. If there is a contingency inked in the contract then I have no issue with someone using that contingency. If there is NO contingency inked into a contractual agreement, like let's say in a Note and Deed of Trust, then I do have an issue with DEFAULTING on that obligation. Contingent agreements and non-contingent agreements. There is a difference. I know you are smart enough to know that but you don't seem to want to accept it.

Huh?!? I think you got mixed up in your threads. Your whole point about brokerage seems to be really off topic, but whatever floats your boat Brian. And for me personally, your rants about the ethics of letting properties get foreclosed on because the bank is rich really deflates the wind in that holier than thou sail of yours.

I don't disagree with your general point of it inflating people's hopes, but when its true, its true, even if its inconvenient to your perception or mine. This wholesaler was one of the first people who challenged my whole perception of this business. She understood the dynamics of wholesaling very deeply without having a strong understanding of the fundamentals. She's really one of the best wholesalers I've ever met. Either way you can meet her next week. You can ask her about the full details then. She's my business partner now, and my wife. And she still prefers to work in her pajamas and slippers.

Score 1 for more false hope for the NEWBS! See my bigger point is that I don't believe its false hope. I think it is a very real hope. The possibilities are very real. Yes, less than 1% of those that start will achieve any level of sustained success, but that's true in any business and in any investment strategy. That has to do with the person not the business model. The business model of Wholesaling works. I've seen it work and made it work time and time again.

Well I have no issues with a good forum fight, especially when its at a wholesaler bashing convention. I think bashing newbies is a disservice to the BP community and I'll be glad to stick up for them and for the viability of wholesaling.

I forgot that we can now look this up on people's profiles. Your profile says 12 wholesale deals. And really and truly I think you've probably learned a tremendous amount from those 12 deals. You are obviously a sharp guy, but to assume that you understand how to teach someone to professionally wholesale houses because you've done a dozen of them seems like a long shot to me.

See let's take your statement here. I personally know a wholesaler that did not know how to evaluate exit values, rehab costs, market conditions, and wasn't very good at building a buyers list and YET still managed to wholesale 30 deals her first year. Well how do we reconcile those facts? She made about $70,000 working part time (10-20 hours a week) in her pajamas!!! She didn't know what ARV was or how to figure it. She had no clue about how to estimate repairs, and she had less than 10 people on her buyers list.

Well my point is that there are many ways to skin a cat. I'm not arguing that understanding the fundamentals of investing is not the BEST route to take in wholesaling. I actually agree with you, Will, that doing a handful of rehab-to-retails will teach you a tremendous amount about wholesaling, but trying to tell someone that they won't be a wholesaler unless they fit into your little box of what it should be is NOT true.

Experience has taught me that there are many perspectives to solving the same problem, and my perspective isn't always right . . .

. . . except with you, Will. I'm pretty sure you're always wrong, and I'm always right.

:)

If you are the first one I called, I absolutely do this. Well not the "unbelievable deal" part. I don't fluff my deals. That's for real estate agents. Either way, you need to know that you need to hurry or I WILL sell it to someone else. I've had multiple investors mad at me because they take too long and I've sold it before they get back to me. So I am very clear about how many others I've called and how many I'm going to call in the next hour. I normally prefer to give one of my regular customers a clean shot at it without competition but it depends on how long you are going to take to look at it.

I had some newbie mad at me a couple weeks ago because I sold the property before they got back to me 3 days later. She is going to report me to the BBB because of my business practices of giving people I've done business with priority over other investors that I don't know.

LOL

I guess I didn't prep her enough that she REALLY needed to hurry with an answer.

I wonder why you feel that way about my first post. LOL

My first post was laughing at the absurdity of YOUR idea of wholesalers tying up properties being the cause of banks asking retail prices for REO's.

And Will, really, you are NOT a wholesaler. You are a rehabber that has wholesaled a couple houses. You've wholesaled how many houses? What maybe 10? I would be supremely surprised if it was more than 20. And that's okay. I'm not saying you don't have some solid knowledge about wholesaling, but you wouldn't understand the perspective of a professional wholesaler because you are NOT one. I read once that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a field. How many hours have you put into wholesaling? I've got my 10K plus some to spare.

And what is this about a solid post vote? I agree its rigged. Its those pesty wholesalers artificially inflating the vote counts just like REO prices.

You know I wouldn't appreciate me if I was you either.

Spoken like a true old time investor. This idea is exactly my biggest issue to overcome with the majority of solid investors I work with. I usually don't even share that I am an investor on the front end. I just tell them that I heard they buy houses and I have a house for sale. I want my deals to speak for themselves. Once I've sold them a deal then I will explain my business model more but most long time investors don't understand why you would EVER sell a good deal.

Let me explain why I do. At one point in my business, to keep up with the amount of deals I could find I was employing and running 10 full time construction workers on top of other specialized contractors like plumbers and electricians. This was on top of constantly marketing for and analyzing deals and property management. My overhead and management was a nightmare. If I went a week or two without a project I got to eat a tremendous amount in lost payroll ($3,000-$5,000 a week) on top of all my other overhead. The model was extremely inefficient and extremely stressful. I decided that I did not WANT to rehab that many deals myself because of the inefficiency and the stress. If you are doing one or two deals a month its a chore. If you are doing 5-10 deals a month, its INSANE. I found by focusing most of my energy on finding deals and wholesaling them (which dramatically increased the number of deals I could do in a year), I could make MORE net profit at the end of the year and decrease my stress and overhead dramatically. That sounded like a winner to me, Rich.

Well that sucks for you. It seems like doing just that would help solve your problem. First, it would eliminate them sending you garbage in your email, and second, it would make an army of newbies out there looking for deals FOR you. Some of us see the opportunity inherent in life's circumstances and some of us don't.

In my opinion, Brian, it will be difficult for you to get on their "regulars" list. Most experienced REAL wholesalers, don't want to mess with smaller investors. From the wholesalers perspective, smaller investors are going to be a waste of their time and efforts 90% of the time. I will have to call and babysit at least 10-20 smaller investors for the same effect of 1 large investor. Most REAL wholesalers are ambitiously lazy and are very good at finding and taking the path of lowest resistance that brings the highest return. That path is calling the 5-10 VERY solid investors, like Rich Weese, that they know, for all intensive purposes, have unlimited funding and will buy as many houses at those numbers as we can find.

If you are going to jump back in, you should take the time to read what you missed. Newbie wholesalers sell the sizzle. And they sell the sizzle because they don't know any better. Professional wholesalers don't sell the sizzle. They don't sell the sizzle because they don't have to. The steak sells itself. I don't give comps, ARV, repair estimates, or profit potentials. I tell my buyers pretty much, "here's the address and I need $X amount for it." Now if they ask, I am more than glad to share my opinion and my research, but I offer nothing and I sugar coat NOTHING. I am looking for return customers. I want investors to keep coming back. I want to give them the absolute best advice that I can. My goal is not for them to buy my house. My goal is for them to succeed and come back and buy another and another.

All of us "supposedly good wholesalers" are dead set on defending the idea of wholesaling because there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with the idea of wholesaling. And unlike you, I don't need to spend my time complaining about the newbie wholesalers who suck at it either, or the gurus that always have and always will profit from ordinary people's dreams of what could be if they would actually do something about it.

I got in this business because of my dream of making my life into what I wanted it to be financially. I've made it into a reality thanks in large part to Wholesaling. Which is exactly why until the end of my days, I will defend the idea of the newbie being able to utilize Wholesaling to achieve their dreams too. And I'm not even a guru. I have nothing to sell but houses. :)

Well I have to say this whole thread seems like a GIANT nit picking for the sake of it.

My point is that complaining about and trashing newbie wholesalers (which is what most of this thread essentially is) because they are ignorant is counter-productive and frankly a waste of time. All new investors are ignorant, so why do we need thread after thread regurgitating the obvious fact that new investors (including newbie wholesalers) are ignorant of the fundamentals of investing?

The point is we don't need these repeated trash dumb new investor sessions.

I would argue that a wholesalers inflated offers that they back out on only affects the supply (not demand) of houses temporarily and in a way that does not fluctuate the overall supply of properties. Therefore it would not affect the overall price balance of supply and demand in any significant way.

Will, that's the case all over America and it has been that way since AT LEAST I started investing 9 years ago. That's not because of a recent increase of wholesalers. And really this whole "There's so many wholesalers RIGHT NOW" thing is so old. I've been answering this post for YEARS. It is NOT a RECENT influx of wholesalers or newbies. It has been going on for many years. They come, they go. Get used to it.

I am all for getting educated and learning how to do any strategy properly. That's why I am here right now writing this post on BP, but I feel like so many people just want to bash new wholesalers or wholesalers in general because newbie wholesalers don't know what they are doing. The fact is that ALL newbie investors don't know what they are doing, newbie wholesalers just email you their ignorance.

And I guess I see the newbs as an opportunity. I take them under my wing and teach them what I am looking for and even some ways to find some deals. That way I don't have to wear the delete button out. If they are diligent and find a deal, I get to make money on their efforts. Its worked well for me over the years.

I guess some will always see the glass half empty and criticize, whine, and complain about it, and some will always see it as half full and figure out how to profit from it. I just prefer to be in the later category.