All Forum Posts by: Spencer Scott

@Kenny Ramsey I pray for jewish lightening every day!! Haha

I think we have a better chance at having a cooking meth related fire. 

The City Manager has pooped on my concept of having the taxes waived. After speaking with multiple people it sounds like having the taxes waived is near impossible since Taxes are handeled by the county. On top of that, I was informed that if I did wanna persue the taxes being waived I would have to reach out to all the parties who collect on the taxes and have them approve individually. 

If someone knows more about that, I would love to hear it. 

I do not have an estimate on the total rehab, but 2 parties have taken a poke at it and expect it to be above 2 million. 

Quick update for anyone who is interested. 

I spoke with a Real Estate Analyst for the college and they are interested, which is great news!!! They are currently reviewing the property and should have more information for me early next week. 

Also, I sent the deal over to a local Real Estate investor who has been on the Bigger Pockets podcast and he is interested as well. He is looking into putting a team together to work with the city and rehab the property. Which is great because I would get to take a back seat on what it takes to rehab and own 112 units. 

This has been an amazing learning experience and everyone I have spoken with (including this forum) has been great! 

Even the Guru/Mentor/Coach(s) (Plural) who have called me after reading my post telling me "a deal like this could change the trajectory of my career" and "do I have the right people in my corner coaching me to success?" 😂 People are funny. I guess I can't hate on someone chasing an opportunity. 

Anyways, I'll try to keep everyone updated as this deal progresses. There are soooooo many variables I will be super surprised if I can pull anything off. 

Cheers,

Spencer Scott 

@Jay Hinrichs that's why I put it under contract. I wanted to take a run at it. The problem in this situation I think is going to be the city. They look at it now and see a potential for more "slum loards" - Mayor of the City. 

@Jay Hinrichs I have the property under contract for $250,000 which I thought was a smoking deal, but if the city demands a tear down and removal then it could cost up to $1 million, making this a not so great deal. 

@Nick B. Yes this property is in the DFW area. 

Hello Bigger Pockets Fam,

I am in need of HELP! I put a 112 unit (abandon) apartment complex on 9 acres under contract with the idea of rehabbing it, but after meeting with the Mayor and the City manager, I don't think the property is a good fit for my investment team.  

Did I mention the property is 1 block from a College campus? Haaha the City manager described it to me as a GOLDMINE but my investment team doesn't have the money to pull off what needs to be done. 😞 Even if we did have the money, I have only rehabbed 1 house ever so I may have bitten off more than I can chew. Haha

Here are some notes on the property. 

The current owner hasn't paid the taxes in years and currently owes $80,000 in back taxes and $70k in other debt. 

The City has a deomlition order on the property but can not afford to demo it. 

The City has not forclosed on it because they don't want it to go to auction or worse, be purchased by the college who doesn't pay taxes. 

There is a theory that is has asbestos (information from the city who wants to knock it down). 

Any advice would be much appreciated! At this point, I am considering selling the contract, but honestly I have never done that before and don't know the first thing. I wholeheartedly believe this property is a home run but I don't know what to do. All I know is if I back out of the contract I am missing out on an amazing opportunity. I just can't figure out what that opportunity is.... 

What should I do?!?!?!?!

PS: You can see the College Football stadium from the property.

Please help! @Brandon Turner @David Greene @Mindy Jensen @Scott Trench

Sincerely,

Spencer Scott 

@Sarah Givens

You and I are very similar. I have been bitten by the wholesaling bug and decided to dive in head first. I am only a few steps a head of you though, so let me tell you what I have learned thus far. 

I spent two months reading and listening to everything I could possibly get my hands on. After reading everything I started to reach out to fellow wholesalers to ask for advice and offer potential partnerships. The first thing I learned is that wholesalers are amazing marketers and even better sales men/woman. Almost every wholesaler that popped up in my searches have designed a "coaching" program that requires a large finical commitment. I went one step further and decided set up calls with various coaching programs to hear their pitch and learn what they have to offer. After three sales pitches, I must say, I was thoroughly let down. A major selling point in a coaching program is having a "hands on accountability coach". Which also sounds great to me, but after speaking with three different "coaches" I learned that they barely do one deal a month and none of them had any motivation to grow past one deal. That's not real exciting to me. 

My next step was to find a mentor to teach me, but after speaking with a well known local wholesaler, I was again thoroughly let down. The local guy told me he would NOT be interested in helping me in any fashion because I would be a direct competitor of his. He wouldn't even give me any nuggets of information because "that information is proprietary". He then told me he liked my drive and offered me a job under the condition that I would sign non-compete documents. I said thanks but no thanks. 

@Sarah Givens I have found all the information that you could ever want is out there and if you post very specific question on Bigger Pockets people are willing to help ya out.  

With that being said, let me tell you what I have done/learned in the last month of wholesaling. I decided to buy a very targeted list 1,500 from listsource.com thanks to Michael Quarles  how to build a list guide . Once I purchased a list, I then decided to type a message using Microsoft Word's Mail Merge feature in two different fonts. One font was Ariel and the other was my hand writing. Check out Calligraphr  if you want to design your own font. I used two different fonts so I could learn which one has a higher open rate. Since you are starting out, I recommend looking into setting up a local Google voice phone number for both you and your husband (two different numbers). Put one number on one message and the other number on the remaining messages. I chose Google voice because the numbers you set up have the ability to receive text messages as well as phone calls. 

Next, I used a printer that has front and back capability to print off 750 specific messages with the address on the back of the paper. I am cheap and plan to use the actual paper as the mailer. Meaning I am NOT using envelopes and I tri-folded the paper and taped them closed. After a large amount of research, I found there is no easy way to cheat the system when it comes to cutting cost on stamps so I drove down to the USPS store and bought 1,500 stamps ($735). 

Learning curve, if plan on becoming a wholesaler and budget is not an issue, I would look into using a mailing service like  YellowLetters or something comparable. It sounds like a dumb idea if you considering the cost savings of doing everything your self but then there is a moment when you are sitting at the dinner table with your husband, your back and finger are hurting, hours have gone by with what seems like no progress, folding 1,500 pieces of paper, putting a sticker and a stamp on them. After losing hours and hours folding, the idea of outsourcing sounds really great (folding machines are expensive!). 

To bring you up to date. I felt a huge sigh of relief and excitement when I dropped off our first batch of mailers today..... Pray for me..... HAHA 

Sarah, I hope this was helpful. I will update the form if/when calls start coming in. 

Sincerely,

Spencer Scott

Other wholesaling posts

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/93-wholesaling/topics/476566-how-to-build-a-targeted-wholesale-list?page=1#p2967444

Nice work @Steve DellaPelle !

Not many people jump in and take the risk like you have. I would be interested in learning more about your story. How did you find it? How did you fund it? what are the numbers? etc. 

Let the Bigger Pockets family learn from your story.

Hello Bigger Pockets team, I want to put you to the test.

I want to buy a house with little to no money down, what should I do?

With that being said, let me give you my situation. I am a 27 year old W2 employee with a base pay of $50,000 plus commissions. I am married to a school teacher who also makes around $50,000. We currently have two properties, one of which is a rental that is only bringing in $1,000 of the $1,600 mortgage (currently being rented to a friend, we know it is bad business). I have about $5,000 of investable cash not including any cash she has saved. We have found multiple duplex deals that according to the Bigger Pockets calculator (and an investor friend) are cash flow positive, good deals. Here comes the problem, we do not have enough money for a down payment..... cough... cough... @Brandon Turner @Mindy Jensen @Joshua Dorkin . 

I would describe myself as a pretty ambitious guy, so let me tell you what I have done so far. I have called every duplex I am interested in and learned that 80% or more of them are willing to owner finance. Which means I only need money for a down payment, which is a problem. I spoke to my private lender who said he will finance me for any amount assuming I can put down 20%, which is a problem. I called my bank and applied for an unsecured line of credit for $35,000 which I was approved for with my wife as a co-signer at 10% interest, which is less of a problem. I looked into a hard money lender but quickly learned hard money may not be a good idea for a buy and hold and a down payment is required, which is a problem. The only thing I have not done is ask friends and family, which I am not interested in doing. I live in North Dallas and have yet to find someone motivated/willing enough to partner on an opportunity, which is a problem. Are there any other methods out there that I have not exhausted?

Should I be actively looking to buy a third house, or should I wait till I have a down payment? 

PS: I can't wait, so if waiting is the recommended option I plan on getting into wholesaling or flipping to raise money for future buy and holds. 

Thanks Bigger Pockets family!

Sincerely,

Spencer Scott

@Claire Trammell I was also wondering, what is the best day to send out the mailers? 

@Claire Trammell  

Thank a ton for the input. I have decided to go with a $3k budget and stretch it over 3 months. I took your advice and used Listsource to purchase a list in my city. The list returned just about 4,000 leads which I then had divided into a partial list of 1,500 and removed the duplicates.

As far as the mail goes, I bought 1,500 sheets of plain white paper and printed 2 different types of messages with 2 different numbers for split testing. The messages are exactly the same but the font is completely different. One font is just plain computer font and the other is my handwriting. I used a cool app called Calligraphr (www.calligraphr.com) to design a font that truly is my handwriting. I then printed off 750 of each and am currently in the process of folding each letter. My plan is to tape each of the tri-folds, place a stamp on them, mail them out, and pray.

@Claire Trammell and Bigger Pockets family, does anyone have any advice on what I should do for postage? The postage part has been extremely difficult for me. Do I just buy 1,500 stamps at .46 cents each? That seems extremely expensive. Is there a better way?

Thanks for the help!