All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

My company is looking for a motivated closing agent with experience working with investors. Creativity is a MUST. Assignments, double closings the works! If you, or someone you know, fits this criteria please let us know.

Once the bandit signs have been utilized, you may realize they don't work all the time. In my particular case, I got a few signs stolen, some taken down and regardless NONE of them worked. This may not be the case for you in your area. 

The next step for me was direct mail. You can use a paid service such as listability.com to find investors, absentee owners, landlords etc. and send them a mailer to let them know your interest in buying their property. 

I use Impact Marketing Specialists for my direct mail. They have anything from postcards (recommended as first contact due to lower costs involved), letters, zip letters (they have your business card attached to the side that the owner can tear off and save for later) and other great products.

The great thing about this service is that you just import your mailing list (which you created through listability.com or some other service) then pick the piece you want. They handle everything else! You don't have to stuff envelopes which is not the best use of your time...unless time is all you have then I may recommend that to keep costs down.

Once you send out your direct mail piece, you will need to be prepared to answer some calls and prequalify your sellers. Find out the WHY behind their interest in selling. Is it a problem tenant? Are they just tired of dealing with a property? Are they just wanting some quick cash to get out of a financial situation? Finding out the WHY is critical. If the person is just curious about what you would offer then send them to an agent you work with. You want the people that NEED or HAVE to sell. 

I just sent out over 1,500 postcards in my last mail campaign. It's a numbers game. During your research on listability or whatever service you use, if you don't generate enough names, try to broaden your area or tweak the search parameters to get between 1,000 and 2,000 leads. My 1,555 leads cost me $87 to find and the mail pieces (postcards in this case) cost me around $750. 

If that is out of your budget at the moment, try online marketing. Create a "squeeze page" that will capture their information. These sites are ridiculously affordable. Mine is www.webuycaliproperties.com for an example. This site is working for you 24/7 so you can generate leads while you sleep at very low cost! 

The great thing is that you can create a squeeze page for buyers as well so you can build a list of cash buyers AND motivated sellers using these computerized "minions" that never sleep and always work to help build your business!

I'll keep the BP family up to date on the results from this latest mailing. You have to TAKE ACTION. Get out of your comfort zone and make your dreams come true!

Brandon, 

It literally changed my whole attitude about getting things done! Amazing stuff from a great speaker! BP never disappoints. Classic golden nuggets of genius!

The Grant Cardone book, The 10X Rule, is vital for anyone looking to grow their business and works great with REI! For an introduction to Grant Cardone, listen to the BP podcast #108 HERE. He is a bit in your face, but sometimes that is what a majority of Real Estate Investor Newbies NEED! Make success your goal in life! Don't change your goals if they don't look like they are attainable, CHANGE YOUR WORK EFFORTS! FInd a way to make it happen! If you set a goal for $100,000 and fell short would it feel worse or better than if you had set a $1,000,000 goal and fell short? Take massive action and make your real estate dreams happen! Thanks BP family! This podcast literally opened my eyes and forced me to look in the mirror to see if I was the man I wanted to be! You guys are AMAZING!

I love the house hack idea. Use an FHA loan and you only need 3.5% down if you are going to live in the property. Find a great duplex, that may not be in your favorite neighborhood and live there for a year then move on to a better property and rent out the unit you left. Pretty awesome.

The learning never stops so keep asking questions! The person that doesn't ask questions has stopped growing! Always learn, always ask, always GROW!

Brittney,

I think it may be better to be a bear than a longhorn as far as football is concerned lately! I'm stoked you're still asking questions even with 4.5 years of experience. You never know, I may be looking into Texas as an investment option. I REALLY want to find some 4 plexes in that area (near UT) that I could use for student housing. Sounds like YOU have all the right connections! You never know...maybe we'll be colleagues some time soon. I would need a real estate attorney from Texas on my team to make sure I do it all legit as well as a title company. Do you have any hookups with rehab crews and such?  

Brittney,

I live in California, but played for the Oilers back in the day! I love Texas and have a patient here (I'm a chiropractor) that is a part of one of the biggest developers in California. I also suffered from Analysis Paralysis and I think that is expected with something as big and complicated as REI. I read books, bought investing programs way back to the Carlton Sheets program, but never took the leap! Eventually you will get to a point that watching from the sidelines is not enough for you. Watching is not going to get you a retirement income 10 years from now! While I am only slightly ahead of your position, it took me getting sick and tired of being sick and tired! I started an LLC for some online businesses that have done pretty well and, on top of our successful chiropractic practice, finally had no more excuses to just "watch" people's success stories in Real Estate Investing. I still fall into some analysis paralysis and have joined bigger pockets...twice, am a part of *************'s Insider Elite group, also signed up with the Clever Investor program. The one thing I noticed about all these "gurus" is that they just dove in and made it happen. They didn't now everything, made some mistakes along the way, but that is how we learn. The advantage of BP is that you can ask people that have been right where you are and I don't feel like competition is an issue. There is an abundance of wealth out there just waiting for you to claim it! If you take a glass of water from the ocean, does the level drop? No! Abundance abundance abundance! Here are the exact steps I would do in your case.

1) join a local Real Estate Investing Group (you can find a good meetup in your area)

2) contact local real estate agencies via email and let them know you are an investor that needs an aggressive agent that isn't afraid of making lowball offers to sellers. I did this and got connected to a broker that has been investing for over 30 years! Focus on Keller Williams or Remax because they are aware of the importance of investors.

3) post "ghost ads" on Craigslist, Postlet or even in the paper. A ghost ad is where you take a great deal that has recently sold in your "hot areas" (the agent will tell you where those are) and you just post it as if it hasn't sold yet. Make sure not to post any address so people won't be able to look it up. If it's a good deal YOU WILL GET RESPONSES. I have found over 6 CASH buyers in my area doing this.

4) try bandit signs. Only post them on the weekends and make sure they are in the area you're interested in and at busy intersections. You can simply google 'busy intersections in Austin' and a list will pop up. A bandit sign should just say something like "We buy houses ANY condition. Then a phone number and/or website". Don't use your real phone number but rather go to Google Voice and get a free local number that will be forwarded to your cell. It's a great service and will prevent you getting weird calls at all hours because of the ability to ONLY have calls sent to your email. It's awesome! 

5) If you don't have a website, get a local 20 something to make you a Wordpress blog. You can use that for all your online stuff. Make sure you have an optin for people to enter their name, email and phone number to join your email list. You can even offer them a free ebook or something to entice them to give their info. You can do this for buyers AND sellers. Make sure to have separate sites for each.

6) When people contact you from the signs or website, make sure you have a script of what to say. You need to ask them their name, phone, address but more importantly WHY they are selling. You want people that NEED or HAVE to sell because of financial challenges they are going through. ASK LOTS OF QUESTIONS and empathize with them. They will end up telling you the real story.  You obviously need to ask what price they are asking, neighborhood, condition of the property etc. to get a good idea of if it is worth your while.

7) Always defer to a "higher power" who can be your husband, brother, sister or even your dog. The point is, this takes you out of the equation during negotiations and makes your "business partner" they bad guy. 

8) I am starting out as a wholesaler which means I go in and get the absolute best price I can for the property while making it a win-win for everyone involved. Then I get it under contract which gives me the rights to the property for a certain amount of time. 30 to 60 days or more is best from your end because you then find a CASH buyer that is willing to take over your contract by you assigning it to them. There are some specifics on assignment contracts and purchase agreements and each state is different so find a good real estate attorney that works with investors to make sure it is 100% on the up and up. Make sure you have added your "assignment fee" when you "sell the contract" to your buyer. For example, if the house is worth $150,000 and you can get a great deal at say $80K then there is some wiggle room for you to make a good $20-30,000 while still giving the buyer a great deal. Everybody wins! The seller gets out of a tough situation, the buyer gets a great deal and you make a nice chunk of change for setting it all up! Best thing is you didn't have to use any of your credit OR money! Make sure you always have a good exit strategy written into the contract so that if you don't find a buyer, the contract simply expires and you aren't out any serious cash. You will have to pay SOME earnest money to get it under contract so the buyer knows you're serious but that has been done for as little as a few hundred bucks!

Hope that helps a little. Feel free to ask any and all questions. When I talked to my big developer, she said she LOVED Texas and has several properties out there.  My sister is also a UT grad...small world huh?

I actually came across a great vacation property one mile from Disneyland! It has a phenomenal pool, 2 suites and 2 additional bedrooms that share a bath...not to mention a game room! It made $86,000 in net profit last year under owner management but he was only able to keep it at 59% occupancy. We believe that at only $760,000 our professional management team could get the occupancy up to 80% which makes the value go from the asking price of $760,000 to well over $1M! Shoot me a message if you think you may have a buyer for this deal.