I run my entire "empire" using Excel/Sheets for tracking expenses, Apartments.com for online payments, MysmartMove for credit/background checks, DocuSign for electronic signing, and Zillow & turbotenant for posting up listings.

Hope this helps...keep building that empire!

For example, if an appraiser has two equally valid comps that are $5K apart, why wouldn't you want to do whatever you could to encourage him to select the higher one.Like Vikram, I only have empirical data, but here's my experience -- for the first 5 properties I rehabbed, I never met the appraisers and appraisals were hit or miss.

Since the the housing market has appreciated so rapidly over the last few years, the wholesale business margins have gotten very thin and will continue to get thinner within the next year or two.If you want to start wholesaling properties with a lot of meat on the bone (profits), I would suggest looking East and Inland towards some of the areas where the affordable housing has shifted to such as Inland Empire, High Desert, Coachella Valley and any other markets that always tend to ride on the coattails of the Metro markets such as Los Angeles. 

There's the "Cash Flow" game from the Rich Dad empire.

You really took all this and ran with it.Sounds like a ton of hard work and commitment,but you turned this into an empire,congrats on that for sure.I hope my path is half of what you accomplished and I'll be happy.Im 48 and feel my time is ticking,but don't want to rush and make mistakes,that's a whole other post lol.Thanks again for the inspiring story!

I think we are going to be seeing both more posts on this area along with increased interest @Jack Matthiashttps://www.hgtv.com/shows/lakefront-empire/articles/lakefro...The new TV show on HGTV is all about the Lake of the Ozarks.

I don't know much about LA but I've heard Inland Empire is more affordable. 

Added benefits: Indianapolis is pro-investor / landlord, much less red-tape for building a rental / STR empire, and the property taxes here don't drown your cash flow (although they have gone up like elsewhere). 

It may work for somebody who intends to grow their real estate empire, but it’s not for us – it feels like a runaway train that you can never jump off. (5  Having said all that, everybody is entitled to their opinion, but since Bigger Pockets is more of an educational site, I think it's important that we do not confuse opinions from facts.