BiggerPockets

Hi All,

I'm a newbie to this site (just found it last night) as well as a
newbie/wannabe RE Investor. What a great site! Thanks to all you experienced investors willing to take the time and share your hard earned knowledge!

My partner and I are newbie/wannabe RE investors. I am in the process of hammering out our business plan and looking to this site for feedback and advice on investing in Orange County, CA. (We have a 'significant' amount of cash to be invested), now we need to find a smart way to invest our time and money.

So our focus for the time being is on flipping: wholesale then move to rehab/retail. Is there anybody successfully doing this in North OC (Garden Grove, Westiminster, Santa Ana, etc?). A couple questions:

How realistic is it expect to be able to find wholesale deals in this area: (65-70% ARV less repair costs), and still collect a wholesale fee ($5-10k)?

I know finding the deals is the hardest thing to do. I am prepared for the hardwork/thinking outside the box. My main concern: are there deals to be found if one puts in the requisit effort/smarts. Or is it akin to winning the lottery trying to find deals? (The prices in my immediate area can be discouraging)..

I need to decide if we continue down the flipping/wholesale path
locally or consider a different avenue, perhaps out-of-area investing. I'll be out of town all next week, but look forward to reading all responses that you all are kind enough to give!

Any input from investors active in OC will be greatly appreciated!!! And even get yourself a free lunch if you are so inclined :)

George (Rusty) Eddy

Still looking.. I've called most every REO broker or listing agents I can find. I did have a couple close calls, but no cigar. I have two offers out now. I am now starting to look into the LB/LA area seems to be a lot more going on out there.

At the risk of lacking focus I figure I need to expand my odds a bit, also it is interesting talking to people and hearing what they have to say..

In addition to contacting the brokers, I going to start contact sellers. I have a feeling something will happen soon. I'll update when it does happen..

I personally have no wholesale assignments deals under my belt as of yet, but I am enrolled in come online courses right now as well as receiving coaching. I just started a couple weeks ago.

But to answer your question, from what I have been told you can find wholesale deals anywhere, even in the OC. There are motivated sellers everywhere. You'll come across people that have free and clear properties, people that need to sell quickly b/c of a move or job relocation, individuals that have inherited property, plus many other types.

Start advertising to find your sellers. Bandit signs, vehicles magnets and wraps, window decals, business cards, online advertising, penny savers ads, + many more areas.

Brokers are only one area to focus on when it comes to locating sellers.

Start building your buyers list also. Check out this thread I found yesterday, plenty of useful information here.

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/93/topics/31418-wholesaling-1-1-housing-panic-strategies

As I have been finding out, it is really hard to do in OC, in the current market. not impossible though.

LA is and the inland empire are easier. Comparatively speaking OC is pretty small and has a lot of people with a lot of money. LA and IE are much larger with a bigger spread in inventory. We are in a "manufactured market", at the moment.

I'd venture to guess that nailing short sales or doing some door knocking may be the way to go for now..

I figured I need to start doing direct mail and contacting sellers directly.

I just started working on getting building some lists with listsource.com and grabbed with a list of NOD's, etc.

However, the door hanger strategy sounds like something I will try.. Now putting together some mailers and I'll do the door hangers also.

Thanks for the feedback!

Rusty,
My partner and I have 2 properties in the Santa fe springs/norwalk area (just outside Orange county) where we need a cash partner. We would be willing to split the deal with you, while at the same time showing you exactly what we are doing, and some projects we have just completed.

Neither of us are experts, but we are learning and are willing to share our experience and the deal.

We currently have our cash and our private lenders cash tied up in 5 projects, and we may have to pass or wholesale these two deals if we can't locate the cash.

The numbers on both are about the same. We have a purchase price of $265k, both need about 20k in repairs (using our GC and crew), one resells for $350k, the other $380k.

So, these are not "juicy" deals, but we can make some good money fairly quickly. This area is a hot buyers market for the time being.

Thanks,
Brian

Mr Matthews what does
'middle market (Alt-A paper) mortgages '
mean

I am thinking about virtual wholesaling in CA : Is their any laws in California against Wholesaling

Is their any good counties to wholesale in CA

I reside in Wisconsin [fyi]

Hey Rusty I wanted to ask if you have thought of doing a shortsale flip ?
You could get a list of 60 day lates or even freshly recorded NOD's and then market to those clients & work from there ?

Just a suggestion :)

Brian W : Yes I do have a website

Send me some of your parameters :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
what county , zip codes , properties style ( Multi-family or SFH or Duplex or Commerical )

To be honest with you :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I would take $1650 for bird dogging my first 5 deals with you

Reason : I rather you keep the difference for mentoring / guidance
into the CA market [ virtual wholesaler ]

Send me some parameters via email
, if interested