All Forum Posts by: Stephen Morales

Hey Joshua,

Welcome to BP! I think you made the right call to wait. The market is definitely shifting, my market has more active listings than 2008 and spec home inventory is also creeping to to 2008 levels. Looks like we're on the precipice of a full blown Buyer's market. Time will tell but either way there will be opportunities!

Hey Yosef,

I would definitely look into finding off-market land that fits the criteria you're looking for. There are various data sources and platforms out there that can help with this, some offering free searches with a bit of digging ;). 

You would still need to skip trace to get their owner information in order to call or email those owners. 

You can also do Mailers which can get pricey and you need to be consistent, SEO which a good amount of time before you see results and PPC ads which can be very expensive but also effective. 

I would also look at reaching out to local realtors in your areas of interest that specialize in land deals to send you new listings before they post them. Don't forget about attending REIA events!

Best of luck!

Welcome to wholesaling! It's great that you've been learning, but nothing beats hands-on experience. The best way to get started is by networking with local investors, wholesalers, and real estate meetups in your area. Look for REIA (Real Estate Investor Association) meetings or local Facebook groups where active investors share deals and strategies.

One of the quickest ways to learn is by offering to help experienced wholesalers with tasks like cold calling, driving for dollars, or handling follow-ups in exchange for mentorship. I used to help new wholesalers by allowing them to do my cold calling for me and providing a dialer system. There are also some larger wholesaling companies that would even pay you a meager salary to start however most are commission only. I would only really suggest this if you really need your hand held. 

At the same time, don’t wait for someone to teach you—start taking action by practicing running comps, talking to sellers, and making offers, even if you don’t have buyers lined up yet a good deal WILL move on its own. There are also sites where you can pull a list of targeted off market properties to help get you going on your prospecting. 

But If you’re serious about getting into the business, focus on providing value rather than just asking for help. Also, I would highly advise against any overpriced courses or gurus trying to sell you on courses or programs that costs thousands of dollars. You can literally fund a marketing campaign for MONTHS instead of paying for one of these. 

Your strategy plays a big role in how you approach these deals. If you're wholesaling or looking to purchase investment properties, I’d highly recommend focusing on off-market opportunities rather than competing in the MLS, where you're seeing these above-asking offers.

If the properties you're making offers on are As-Is investment listings, a few things could be happening. Some buyers may be inexperienced and overpaying, possibly miscalculating repairs and ARV. Others may be buy-and-hold investors banking on appreciation, willing to keep the property as a rental until it gains more value. There's also the possibility that owner-occupants are purchasing these properties as primary residences, meaning they don't need to worry about flipping profit margins.

If you're consistently getting outbid, it may be time to adjust your approach. I would look at expanding your lead generation efforts to include creative financing options, absentee owners, tax-delinquent properties, high equity and probate deals that are off market. 

Totally understandable to have concerns but you don’t need to be a math whiz to succeed in real estate. Many investors come from non-financial backgrounds and still do incredibly well. I would also say congrats on saving $150k in investing capital, that's more than most start out on and depending where you invest you can probably get to your goal in a fair amount of time. 

But investing in real estate is definitely a compounding effect, it starts off pretty slow...but over time it will really start to take off as you get additions to your portfolio and reinvest your cash flow into new acquisition opportunities. You could also have a little more risk tolerance and pull equity out of your existing portfolio to roll into new opportunities. 

It's definitely a blessing to have a friend that is willing to guide you through the process! One other things to remember is that repetition is the mother of skill. The more you analyze deals, the more you will realize what's a good deal and what's a bad deal along with new edge cases that pop up that will further expand your experiences. 

Good luck Olivia!

This is a really interesting approach. sounds like you've created a robust framework for filtering properties efficiently. I'm am curious though, when you're evaluating tenant behavior and narrowing down properties, what kind of data sources are you using? I'm assuming you're primarily leveraging MLS data, but would you be willing to share a general idea of what those other datasets are that are used to improve accuracy?

I've seen how inaccurate MLS data can be, so I'm always interested in learning how others verify and refine their data. We always encourage users to do their own comps and not rely on automated valuations as they are more so a general guide then a highly reliable metric. There are some things you just can't automate I suppose.

You're unfortunately going to lose more than you're adding to your original numbers. 

As a first rental property I would definitely advise against purchasing a negative cash flow property just to claim losses or bank on appreciation. 

If you're local market is the issue I would definitely venture outside of that and look for other markets and go virtual. 

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