All Forum Posts by: Trevor Smith

Hi Jeremy. I'm no expert. In fact, I am here because I'm looking for answers for myself. But I don't see the downside of an FHA loan. The down payment is so low--what cash do you really need free that is only 3.5% of this purchase?

Trust me, you got it made being able to get an FHA loan. I'm here looking for a way to finance a deal with no income, no down payment, and I'm not going to live in it. 

Hey Brandon, I'm doing a flip now, my first one, with similar numbers, in Richardson. I bought for 272k, putting 80k in rehab, and ARV is 430k. But there is one outlier comp that sold for 460k. I'm really hoping to sell it for 440-450k. Because of the hard money loan, rain delays, flea delays, we are actually very tight on this. I would be happy to talk with you about it. Ask me anything.

-Trevor

Well, I took a look at Realeflow.com. which is what Mike Hurney was referring to.  Of course it sounded too good to be true. It would cost me $4,500 in credits for 500 probate leads. I didn't have the stomach to find out how much it would cost to mail them. I guess this is a good system for people that can afford it. 

@John Hixon My plan is to continue with the SEO and PPC of my website. It seems to me that those lists in markets like Dallas are useless. They're no different than the MLS, especially with websites like Realeflow. Everyone checks the MLS, and everyone checks the other lists. So what is left? Inbound marketing. At least those people that visit your website WANT to be there. That is my theory. But I am a beginner still. Good luck!

There is a BIG upside to having a day job while you start investing and that is that you can get bank financing. My first deal is being funded from hard money and I paid $10,000 off the bat in points. Last week I had to practically beg the lender to give me my first draw for the rehab. Then it took a week for the wire to come through, meanwhile my contractor was paying things out of his pocket. 
I think you will be amazed how easy it is if you can get a mortgage at 5.5%. All you have to do is learn to crunch the numbers and you can't go wrong. The numbers don't lie. You don't need a money partner, and interest rates are so low. You have it made! 

Hi Kyle,

I live in Dallas and I have pretty much the exact same goals. After listening to 30 or so podcasts, I concluded that house hacking was the best way to start in real estate. I'm in the middle of my first flip in Richardson now and I have learned a lot. I had to learn about hard money, insurance, inspections, appraisals, title companies, contracts, and now I'm learning about rain and fleas delaying my rehab! I like the way Patrick worded this--feel free to reach out. 

Thanks guys. I will use Google to try and find phrases that people are using. Hopefully ones that will not cost me an arm and a leg. 

Low cost lead gen would not be my focus if I had a marketing budget. I wouldn't mind spending $5,000 for a $50,000 deal, if I had $5,000. But I looked into Perry Marshall and I will probably end up buying one of his products. Thanks. 

@Evan Hunsberger

Thx for the info Evan. Interesting. 

Hi guys, adwords question here:

Investor Carrot recommends that I use long-tail keyword phrases. Well, maybe they made that advice before Google made some changes? Because all of my "long" keywords are disapproved for being too low search volume. Keywords like Sell My house as is Dallas, Sell my probate house dallas, sell my inherited house dallas. Also, I made these phrases exact match. 

I don't think those phrases are even that long or specific. I was excited about this strategy because I wanted to save money. I don't need that many leads--in fact, just one lead a time is fine. And so having just a few leads that would have very good conversion sounded perfect. The theory is that long-tail searchers are going to have higher conversion because if they're typing something that specific, then they are serious about finding a solution. 

Why does google even care? If no one is searching for my phrases, then that is my problem, not theirs. If no one searches for them, then the ads will never show up, and that is my problem. I really don't understand it. 

What should I do? Phrases like We buy houses Dallas has a recommended bid of $47!! And then if you use Dallas county as the location, then it becomes $97!!! That is just absurdly far out of my budget. 

Thank you for any help. 

@Evan Hunsberger

Hey Evan,

You mentioned competitors spamming your ads. I was wondering why there are not bot programs that continually spam competitor ads, causing your competitors' budget to deplete. Is there such a thing? Even if each click needed to come from a different IP address, a program could be made to make a new IP and then click it again. Those programmer people could do it I'm sure. Seems ingenious actually lol. 

Hi Jarred! I'm in Dallas too and I'm in the middle of my first flip in Richardson. Practically everything you need to know is on this website so check out all the education sections, webinars, and podcasts.