All Forum Posts by: Travis White

Hey BP!

How are yall finding your leads? House flooded in Harvey, but up til then I was on a mailing list for 2-3 wholesalers. The soggy house issue is getting resolved, so now I'm back to looking through leads.

Anyway, what mailing lists are out there that yall like? Right now, I'm getting leads for Jet, H&L, and New Western but I'd like to expand that as much as possible. Any recommendations for good wholesalers? 

Does anyone around here utilize an MLS search or other lead generating software? I used Quest through Lifestyles Unlimited for about a month but I'm interested in checking out other options.

Lastly, I wanted to  ask about some your experiences negotiating with wholesalers - do you do it, any specific strategies, how has it gone? I spent about 2 months looking at deals before Harvey and I felt like I was constantly finding deals that were pretty "thin". Do wholesalers tend to price their deals with room for negotiation? Is the industry standard a no-haggle, take it or leave it price? I want to form solid relationships and I don't want insult anyone by trying to penny-pinch but I also want to try and get the best deal I can. 

Thanks all!!

Travis 

@Ronnie Howard - Living on the westside, not quite all the way to Katy. In terms of properties, we're looking for something that is under ~45 minutes away, hopefully less, and 125-225 price range. Those are the types of homes and neighborhoods my wife and are most most familiar with. How about you, where are you located and what are you looking for?

@David Olson - Sounds like we're on the same side of town :) I'll check out the webinar you mentioned, always looking for as much quality information as I can get my hands on. Do you mind sharing a little about your buying process so far? Do you already have a target property? Did you go through wholesalers for you leads? Something else? How are you doing your financing? I'd be happy to hear anything you'd like to share about your process so far...it sounds like we're in a pretty similar spot. 

Ok, thank you guys so much for the insight here; this all makes a whole lot more sense to me now. 

My initial thought was that deals were financed 100% through syndication and that wasn't making sense to me. 

@Ari Bauer - thanks for the piece about investor risk vis a vis a 10-12% return, that makes sense. 

I'm just getting started investing now...hopefully someday soon I'll be back with more questions as I move up the food chain. 

Thanks again! 

Dumb question incoming - 

Why would a lead/sponsor investor opt for syndicating a deal vs accessing traditional lending? It seems like I'm hearing syndication deals offering passive investors a return of 10-20% and traditional financing for an apartment complex can be had for 8-14%, so why not go with the cheaper money?  Clearly, I'm not wrapping my head around this in the right....educate me, please! 

Howdy fellow Houstonites!

Newbie investors here looking to gain some knowledge and hammer down a first deal by summer. A little about us....my wife Randi has some experience working in transaction coordinating services and title work, so if anyone has questions about any of that we can try and help. I've spent the last 2 or so months analyzing SF leads (mostly wholesalers) for a rehab project. Unfortunately, our house flooded during Harvey (second time in 2 years), so if anyone has any questions about that process re:insurance, build back, selling as-is to investors or anything else, I can try and help out there too. 

We currently listen to a couple podcasts, spend time here on BP (trying to become more active) and attend some local networking events. We're also members of the base level of Lifestyles Unlimited and trying to decide whether or not we want to escalate our involvement with that program. While it's all very exciting, we're also very eager to make use of some of the connections we're making and get this first deal done! 

I've talked to a number of hard money lenders in the area but I'm still looking for contacts in construction (I know they're slammed right now!), wholesalers or other sources of leads, real estate agents, and well, pretty much anyone else to be honest. Just trying to meet and greet as much as possible.

I look forward to hanging around this forum and trying to be as helpful as possible...I'm sure I'll be following quite a few of the threads on here. As I mentioned, if I can help in any way, don't hesitate to drop me a line!

Happy New Year! 

Me (Travis) and my wife (Randi) are new investors in the Houston area. Randi has some experience in the REI space, specifically in terms of transaction processing and title work and if there's any questions we/she can help with along those lines, don't hesitate to drop us a line. I have a career in psychology, so if that can be of any help to anyone let me know!

Our main goal is to grow a real estate investment business as a profession for my wife and gain some financial independence. At this point, we're looking at a combination of rehabs and buy and holds to grow the business. I've spent the last 2-3 months looking over wholesale leads and, while we had a few close calls, we haven't found anything we're ready to pull the trigger on. I'd be happy to learn more about deal analysis, alternative leads, negotiating with wholesalers, rehab cost estimation, and/or Houston related info. Towards that end, please feel free to direct me towards any helpful reading on any of those topics :)

Anyway, glad to be hear. Definitely looking forward to jumping in making some connections, especially Houston related. . As I mentioned above, if me or Randi can help out with anything, please let us know!    

Wow Greg, thanks so much for the thoughtful reply! I think you're probably right in calling me out about using guru in connections w/ Lifestyles - so far all the information I've gotten from them has been solid and well-organized. 

Do you have any thoughts about the performance discrepancy between your pre and post Lifestyles properties? Were your first batch of investments in Michigan? How did you find Lifestyles and what led you to jump on board w/ their program? 

A big part of my interest in the SF and small multi-family programs is in accessing their leads. I've spent the last 3-4 months of analyzing SF leads (mostly wholesalers) in the Houston area and am having trouble finding quality deals. I'd love to hear a little about what you thought about the leads supplied by Lifestyles and any other factors have helped your success in Dallas. 

My Dad-inlaw is a new participant in the Preferred program and I'm waiting/excited to see what sort of opportunities/returns are available to him.  

Hello hello, 

I know this and other guru/coaching topics have been discussed frequently, I've gone back and read most of the ones related to LU. Most seem to eventually devolve into guru vs anti guru and I'm hoping I can make contact with some folks that have had some experience with the LU programs and might be willing to share some of their numbers. We're already members of the base level membership and are considering upgrading to their multiunit program. Also, if anyone out there is a lead investor in LU and have the time to chat a little, that is something we could be interested in down the road. We also attend local REI and networking events when we can.

FWIW, I tend to fall in the anti-guru camp while my wife sees a lot of value in networking/community represented in belonging to an REI organization. I'm happy to discuss the topic here in this thread, also very happy to converse one on one over private messages.

Oh yeah, a little about us. We're first time investors still looking for our first deal. We have some experience in the real estate field but no investments on our own yet. 

Thanks!!!

Travis

Thanks again @Paul Timmins , I feel like using those basic building blocks I can start to put together what I'd want a month, a year, five years to look like in a very rough way.

@Pierre Thernize - Thanks for all the encouragement in your post! The focus on knowledge acquisition and developing skills/abilities that I can bring to the table was helpful to hear. Being in a position where I'm not ready to purchase anything right now, its good to hear that research/learning/preperation are valuable and important parts of the process...makes me feel less like I'm spinning my wheels!

@Paul Timmins - This is the type of number I've been looking for. I know it's just a rough estimate, but that helps me to get an idea of what's possible, or, to ballpark what I'll need to own to get to where I wanna be.

Is there a similar ballpark number for flipping properties? My wife and I may be moving in the next five years, so we're kicking around the pros and cons of multis vs. flips. I feel like I can use the $100/unit to mock up a rough strategy for multis....is there anything like that for flips?