All Forum Posts by: Curt Smith

@Diya Shenme  are you doing a skip trace within propstream?   And no phone number(s)?   Its a generic skip service and doesn't know the source of any one lead.  It may be no available guessed phonee number.  And per above, all data has risk of being stale or bad.  So phone number lookup is just best guess. 

I also sub to these skip services for one at a time look ups:   peoplefinders.com and premium.whitepages.com.  I find calling both sources that which one has the correct nbunber alternates.  ;(

Its a numbers game;  market to 1000 leads, maybe 200-400 are actually correct and reach the owner.  I'm just guessign at this poor hit rate, but its what I see and believe whats REALITY in the data business.  ;(

Good luck, curt

@Ria Gupta The above are experts in the SD-IRA/solo k space. We've started with a big well known custodian who doesn't allow check book LLC under a SD-IRA and was miserable with trying to run rentals and buy houses. BUT any custodian will be ok lending funds from. The latest tax bill / IRS regs (??) are wittling away at check book LLCs under SD-IRAs so watch out jumpig into that. IMHO you do not need a check book LLC for lending! Check book LLC was/is useful if not necessary if you are running rentals, buying / selling houses and need funds fast. Custodians are not good at "fast". But they are fast enough for lending. We did create an "active business" that qualifies us for a solo-401k and we retitled our rentals into the solo-k. Was expensive and miserable but necessary to get away from this "big" named custodian. The smaller ones repped by the posters above are much much better at speed and helping you do your deals. Like they said above, call a few and learn and any here (to my past reading) are great.

BUT I always dig into new folks wanting to "lend" and often find that the lending is on deals that probably sould not be lent to!!!   Please please learn how to vet/underwrite/qualify whata deals you lend on.   Be secured with a 1st position lien with EQUITY.   Be sure you would want to own that deal if (when) the borrowr defaults.   Also;  please don't lend to friends and family!!  Its the surrest way to ruin friends and family relationships.   Deals never NEVER go as planned especially if everyoone is new to real estate.

Best of luck, curt

The comb of events, high interest rates for >6mo or more has created more expired listings then we've seen in many years. I'm seeing those sellers progress to the FSBO sites!!! Not rocket science to guess theres more motivated and stuck sellers then we've seen since 2020-15!!

Tripple down on your creative deal learning!  Buy the BP Zero down book(s), other resources, watch youtube videos on subject to, lease option, talking to stuck sellers, how to negotiate "taking over the payments" and "would you take a small down at closing and then monthly payments?"

I reco you paying at least 2 of the found on youtube creative trainers for their learning/system/contracts/videos:  Joe McCall,  maybe John Jackson.   Do a few weeks of searching on youtube creative/subject to and pick at least 2 folks to buy their education.  One will not cover all angles and you may learn from bits and pieces from many.  

Real estate profit has always been a knowledge gig. Invest in your network: join the local REIAs in your area, all of them. find REIA in meetup.org. Buy courses, boot campes, read books, build your local network (locals are in REIAs)). Talk to sellers (easy to say but how?) .

I have a free pdf on all the docs needed to close and post closing manage a buying subject to the existing financing.   Please connect THEN PM me.  I hate to have a sub to go south, its complicated.

My strategy going forward is to SMS market to expireds and FSBOs a drip campaign. Lots of deals if I wanted to buy deals with cash or financing. Some deals will take rent before I buy. Fewer will take payments. My focus is to toss all those leads and just look for stuck sellers who have but one chioce of me taking over their mortgage payments. This is my focus. Bought one back in Nov. Have bought a few sub tos yrs prior. I'm using a business in a box all setup for you tool to SMS to creative leads; creativereireply.com . Not cheap, but it works. I will say the easiest deals to buy are listed, just setup a zillow email alert!! I bought 90% of my rentals this way. When you move to off market, post cards, cold calling, SMS, buying lists, buying a tool that pulls in expireds etc, your time between deals and costs to buy all go up. Why am I SMS marketing using a tool costing $$/mo? Because I dont need or want to buy any more rentals with bank financing (or DSCR lender financing like kiavi.com, lendingone.com), and am only interested in creative deals, win-win, more interesting to me and more helpful to the seller. I'm doing the only system that I know from years at this that works today. Post cards to vacant/absentee is super expensive and IMHO doesn't work today. Atlanta area (hot for some time) pro-wholesalers tell me they spend $5k-$8k/mo for post cards and FB/google PPC. Geeze! My $100/$200/mo is cheaper.

Side topic; what mo / costs to I have,  Maybe between $500-$700/mo, one is propstream.com / $99/mo.  Search here on propstream.   Many other lead gen, local deed access service, a few skip trace services;  premium.whitepages.com,  peoplefinders.com (one service is not enough).

Good luck to all,  curt

The borrower MUST be kept on the new policy, adding your name/llc.  You must cancel the occupant/owners policy and replace with your landlord/rental policy.

PLEASE connect/PM me for my free sub to training doc with all needed doc examples needed to properly manage the lender/ ins etc post closing. IE You need a POA power of attorney etc etc.

Good luck, curt

Hi Guys,  My wife was a teacher when we started buying rentals and I was an engineer and bought rentals like you,,, then we quit.  I did a few JVs, was a partner in a 5 way partnership that bought a moble home park as owner operators.   I can offer a few lessons learned.  I read the good comments re how "professionals" do partnerships, water fall fee structure,  Sec registration of a syndication, etc etc.

1) Number one absolutely number one partnerships of freinds or family is nearly a guarranteed way to ruin your relationships with those folks!!! Ask around here on why JVs with friends go south. In my experience, you would be well served with a good contract attorney for the LLC op agreement, but words cant prevent relationship issues, disagrements, un expected negative results...

2) if yoiu can live within just your own means I believe you will be happier longer term.  You'll still have your friends and relatives.

3) Debt is the best way to take in friends cash!!! Its simplest to impliment a security deed. Equity and operational sharing gets into the problem areas. Today after 10 yrs and 40 doors I would never do a JV. Newer folks think JV is some huge solution. Its more a case of risks and problems and just one or 2 benefits.

4) How ever you take in friends cash, please screen their risk tollerance.  Ask;  "are you ok with not getting any of your principal back in more then 5 yrs?   How about if you only get your principal back?"  IE some deals don't work out, some actually loose money.  RE investors are too conditoned to real estate only going up!!!!  It goes down too.  Please folks;  google right now;  commercial deals going south due to not being able to refinance their balloon mortgages".   Commercial is extremely risky right now, similar to 2009-13 where lenders aren't refinancing existing debt on perfectly good deals.  Risking the deal going back to the bank.

5) hire a good contract attorney who does Operating agreements!   Know your states Safe Act / Banking regs re pooling cash.  You may have to do an SEC syndication to pool cash.  It depends on your deal structure, and state banking / lending (borrowing) regs.  Its not that simple to pool funds (depending).

6) Mentioned above the risks, pooling funds so you can get into bigger deals;  apartment buildings,, self storage etc.  Has been a way to put larger amounnts of cash to work.  But today the lending environment has added high risk!!  IE lenders only offering 5 yr balloons / rate resets / quarterly - annually re vetting the P&L of the deal/principals.   Please dig into the fine print from commercial lenders if you go this route.   Today the fine print can kill the deal come reset/refi time and you.  

7) Please google "million dollar teachers". You have a secret strategy to ramp up your savings rate and a way to peel off your 403b savings periodically and making it available to buy rentals in a SD-IRA you move your 403b funds to. There's tricks and some challenge depending on your state's / counties teacher pension plans. My wife's SD-IRA (now moved to a solo-401k) has 18 rentals. The hocky stick effect allowed a single funding of $203k rolling a 403b into a SD-IRA and bought rentals some 10 yrs ago. We did use some non-recourse debt on 2 houses to buy 2 more. Today the 18 doors in the solo-401k only have debt on 2 at 50% LTV. It was fundied only once with just $203k. Learn how to buy rentals in a tax defered self directed custodian. A few good folks giving advice here on BP. We now use advanta ira. Look into how to create an active business so you qualify for a solo-401k the better way to hold rentals in a tax defered account.

8) ask others who have done JVs with friends!!!   Learn from their mistakes.  My #1 mistake in JVing was to not handle how the person who actually does the work gets compensated.  Partners go in idealistic what they will al share in the work.  Guess what this rarely happens.   If there's no compentation in the Op agreement for the party that does the work,, I can share, there's much frustration and tension!

Great to hear of your current progress buying rentals!!!   Great!  Again;  I suggest you figure out how to move to buying via creative deal scenairos;  Lease Option to buy, keep and rent.   Buy subject - to (my current focus).  You won't need new mortgages and not as much cash per deal.   I give out a free sub-to training PDF;  connect/PM me.

Instead of JVing and using new debt, move to creative and take over old debt instead.

Good luck, curt

@michael  I hate to hear of sub to closings going badly.  Its out of give back that I offer a sub to training pdf with doc examples free.  BP requires you connect then PM me I'll send the pdf.  Its the center of the road;  trust, affidavit, assignment of trust, POAs blabla.  

And yes, today many non-investor friendly attorneys are backing away from non std closings. Onee needs to ask; will you close a purchase without me the buyer paying off the mortgage, AND me bringing my own trust and POA docs? Best place to get referrals are in local REIAs. Google; your state or city REIA. Or search in meetup.org REIA or real estate investor associations. Local old timers are in REIA.

Best to all, curt

Quote from @Phylicia A Fletcher:

@Curt Smith Can you expand on the problems you've had with getting blocked, and how it was addressed with REI Reply?

I'm pretty new to real estate investing and have been using a manual texting app that just recently starting blocking me, so I'm looking for something more automated that knows how to circumvent / comply with the latest laws, without having to worry about downtime potential. 

REI Reply seems like a pretty good upgrade from what I was using, but I'm interested in knowing what roadblocks I might encounter before signing up. Thanks in advance!

By the time you sign up now I think (guess) that you'll get setup or trained on how to setup the network providor registrations to never be blocked.   All I can say is creativereireply.com is moving mountains to provide a service that best avoids the networks blocking my SMS marketing and my replies to sellers.    

Telling you the whole story; I still see now and then my personal reply to a seller who decides to reply to the multi month multi touch campaings that are built into this creative system, that the system sends out 3,4,6,8 msgs asking in different ways if they want to sell, if they'd like me to call etc etc, so they say; sure whats your offer. I reply back too long of an explanation. This system right away shows if the network blocked my typed response. Weve been trained via weekly live zooms that the network filters hate punctuations, and long messages and many words like buy, sell, low-ball etc etc. Its both amazing the networks have the computing power and algorithms to filter each message sent. So I shorten my reply, remove some triggering words and my reply goes through. Ive found its like learning to dance. At first you step on your parthers feet, you get feed back, then eventually you've learned what the network will allow us REI SMSers...

Good luck,  curt

Just adding my SMS'ing experience through today.   In short; miserable!  BUT recent success with my SMSs and chats with sellers are now going through without being blocked.  It was very difficult to properly get your rented phone numbers setup with the networks per the newly enforced spam rules.   

I credit the platform's amazing hard work figuring out the new requirements and walking us users through the process; a website, EIN/LLC, registering for 2 levels of sender ligitamit sender; something called shake/stir (???) blabla. Confusing. Util they in the last 2 weeks got us figured out and helped I had varying degrees of being blocked.

I'm using creativereireply.com a new super set of reireply.com. The creative... is an add on that scrapes creative deal leads from an areas of your choosing FSBO and Expired leads. Sends a compaign of DRIP to the leads for you and your job is to deal with the replies. It really is a business in a box.

So far I got one sub to deal off this system.   The majority of the users are doing lease options, just options.  I'm only looking for sub tos to buy and hold.   FWIW the lead flow is decent, after all they are what ever sellers expire or post on some fsbo sites.   A few a day in my 2 geo areas I chose.   Not going into costs.  Go to the website yourself.   

Just reporting here that recent network (etc) anti spam rules that where slapped into effect over the last 3 mo where severe and did shut down this systems SMS but we are all back up and no blocks.

Good luck to all, curt

Respectfully to Eliott, hes we experienced, but I disagree.  My specialty and focus is on buying sub to and you have to bring ALL your own docs, trusts, POAs, disclosures, how to add proper adendums to the purchase contract etc.  Attorneys, etc do NOT help with sub to.  I just can't imagine this advice working.

I give out free a thorough sub to training with complete examples of ALL docs and how to fill the contract out and added verbage to get the seller to initial.   Please Connect THEN PM I'll send this doc to you.  Id hate to hear of a good sub to screwed up.  Best to all.

@Lexey Vezzoso  glad to hear of your buying sub to.  I like helping folks with how to close into a trust, use POAs, do the insurance correctly.  Glad to send you my sub to training pdf as over view for your process.  Good luck, curt