All Forum Posts by: Ryan Substad

@Cody Schoenen welcome to BP! I'm located south of Seattle. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any specific questions.

@Sydney Vasquez it took me about 3 months after I started looking but I had been studying for almost a year before that. I didn't have a mentor to start out but have since found a mentor and that was really helped out with learning.

@Duane Whittaker it shouldn't make any difference either way. Some smaller banks like you to have all your accounts with them if you want to get a loan with them.

I agree. Don't do your mail by hand. It takes a long time and your time is better spent on other higher-value tasks. There are tons of good printing services out there. Just pick one and go with it as they all tend to be similar.

I like the idea of a HELOC because that way you'll be able to use it and only pay interest when you use it.

If you can use leverage with hard money or conventional financing you will get a greater cash on cash return and will be able to do more deals at once. However your profit will be a little lower using hard money.

@Todd Redden have you read the book Long Distance Real Estate Investing by David Greene? That would probably be a good place to start. That book will help you set up a good "boots on the ground" team. Hope that helps.

Business cards are very good to have (and pretty cheap) so you can hand them out to people you network with and anyone else you meet. They help you look more professional. As for a website...I would recommend at least a landing page where people can go. It will give you more credibility when talking to sellers. Usually they'll search for you online and if you don't have an online presence it'll be harder to build trust with them. Hope that helps.

I pull tax delinquent, code violations and evictions from the county website.

I wouldn't do too much research on different companies for sending direct mail. Most of them are similar and the goal is to send out letters and start getting deals. I'd recommend picking one and start sending letters. PM me and I can share a company that I use that has been pretty good and decent priced. Hope that helps.