All Forum Posts by: Taylor Jennings

@Robert Cross My suggestion would be the following...

Go read: Driving for Dollars Bible Part 1

and: Driving for Dollars Bible Part 2

Pick out a target neighborhood (I would suggest $80k-$200k neighborhoods depending on your market)

Also, when I say pick out, I mean jump into your car and go find those areas... Don't spend the next week doing research. "Preparation is often an excuse to launch."

Bring a pencil and notepad. If you have an Android I would suggest using Google Track for GPS and placing pins at each house you drive by with just the street number. That will allow you to quickly mark the houses and review them later to identify the streets they are located on.

The articles I listed above will tell you what to do to find the Tax owner's name and mailing address.

I would then go by a store and pick up some college ruled paper (white/yellow), pre-cut tape, #10 envelopes, and stamps.

Take a clean white piece of paper and lay it over the lined paper so you can see the lines through it.

Write a generic letter saying you want to buy the person's house, you pay cash, and to give you a call today because you need to buy a house within the month. (Remember to put your number in there)

Put the college paper into the printer tray and make copies of the template you created. (Test one to make sure it prints along the lines correctly)

Then get to it for addressing the envelopes! (Remember the return address so you can remove bad addresses)

Sending (100) letters < $80

And you'll get calls, no doubt with (100) letters sent out.

With $400 you can rinse and repeat four times in 3 week increments. I would say chances are good you'll find a deal in that (100) too.

Only variations here would involve you being decently tech savvy, creating an excel sheet, then mail merging the list into Word and printing a handwriting style font onto your envelopes to mail.

@Ben G. I'd be happy to do either.

I'll take a look into how I can publish my apps on there and send them over. If I can't figure it out then we can get together sometime and I'll help u duplicate them.

I recently setup podio and I'm in love. We will be trying to tweak it for tracking leads, screening callers, taking steps in closing and wholesaling, to project management for flipping and expenses.

Takes a minute to understand but once you do then it's a wonderful tool.

The toughest part is creating the workflow. It's a work in progress for us but I will likely make our template available on BP once I'm done.

@Derek Carroll thanks for the feedback.

What would you use the public records history for?

Would you be browsing neighborhoods online and selecting houses from the aerial view randomly or would you have an address list already created to search?

@Dev Horn thanks. I appreciate the feedback. Glad it made sense and I'm happy to see you mention this may just be my style. (Which is often overthought lol)

I had to over complicate it a bit because I was cash and time poor so I needed to create a structure for other new investors to be interested in filling in the gaps. It worked, but I think I'll be eliminating some of the sections moving forward.

I would rather pay somebody straight up to do a few of those tasks I listed above.

Plus I've met a few contractors locally who I'm going to have visit the potential deals to estimate rehabs and gather pictures. In return I'll give them the work (only 2-3 contractors).

Your point about the VAs is totally understandable. I have actually been answering the phone, but would prefer to have somebody here locally take the calls. I've recently asked my retired mother lol she has interest.

We are in our pre-launch stage for www.REILdeals.com and are in the process of creating useful tools for real estate investors to help improve their business.

So far the apps include:

• Driving for Dollars: GPS location; click on street #s on device; sync with profile; automatically pull tax owner name, mailing address and taxes owed; puts it into a mailing list
• Bandit sign tracker: same thing as D4D app but it allows you to 'mark' your location and track stats; have a team ability to merge maps or see how many signs somebody you hired actually put up; set an alert for when signs have been up for 'x' many weeks
• Camera Uploader: Mobile app camera with checklist of pictures you should make sure you get at a house; make notes; sync with profile as new or existing deal
• Floorplanner: quick measurements of house (like magic plan app)
• RehabList: Select the neighborhood type (A, B, C, D) and be walked through a checklist on what needs to be fixed or replaced; sync scope to profile which will have estimated rehab costs based on the type of template you selected for materials used (standards will be created and imported into site)
• MAO: Pulls local rent data based on subject property (better than rentometer); enter your exit strategy, desired cap rate/profit; calculates Maximum allowable offer on the spot
• CRM+walk through App: potentially integrate this with podio; preset questionnaire template for using VAs, closing a deal/wholesaling, estimating rehab, preparing a house to fix up, rehab steps + project management, select standards to purchase, finding a tenant, and posting the house on REILdeals as a turnkey property

These are just a few tools we are looking to create (in no particular order), but I wanted to get validation on what I listed to see if any of those have value.

Each app described is just a general overview of what they do. All apps will have a freemium usage model with in app upgrades available for purchase (this is conceptual).

We plan on launching the apps in Indianapolis, then expand to Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, etc. mainly Midwest starting out.

The question we have is,"If you had an app for your REI business, what would you want it to do?"

@Bill Gulley : 1

@Shawn Holsapple : 0

Dang lol

I'm a fan of thorough answers, but my goodness Bill I hope you have that first reply on a clipboard ready to copy paste!

That is dedication to the BP community. I love it.

Btw @Brett Snodgrass welcome to BIggerPockets! Glad to see another investor from Noblesville.

@Eric M. I totally agree with you from a cash investor standpoint.

There are many new wholesalers in my area thought and they are looking to learn and get plugged in.

I don't have much available cash or time to invest right now so I set this structure up for newer investors to get plugged in.

The first portion (Jennings Home and Property) would be what I bring to the table which is pretty significant. I've spent most of my time putting together systems, creating software, and learning about the neighborhoods.

I agree 1-2 consistent investors would be nice, but any passive wholesaler would be hiring out bandit signs, driving for dollars, or visiting properties. That is my goal only I offer a % from the deal rather than money up front.

Good point with the target properties! I should probably add that in there.

Anybody who receives this layout is generally somebody who I've spoken with already and it isn't intended to be a marketing piece.

The estimates on the wholesale fees ($5000) serve as an average to expect from typical wholesale deals in our market ($60k-$80k ARV)

Thanks so much for taking the time to review and reply Eric. Can't tell you how much I appreciate the feedback!

Did someone say Noblesville? @Brandon Turner

@J Scott it's always obvious to the guy who thinks everyone knows what he's thinking =) Great question for clarification... Sorry about the lack of explanation!

The wholesale JVs are for the following:

• Boots on the Ground Partner
• Lead Generation Partner
• Partner to Finance Marketing

The %s listed determine the partner's payout from the wholesale assignment fee.

I'm limited on time, like many other part-time investors, so the intention of the partnerships are to help accomplish the things I don't have the time to do.

Hope that helps!