First Week on BP

[Steve Burk]

Hello again,

It's been a week since I've found BP and have been doing a lot (A LOT) of reading, and have decided it's time to start some actual activities.

I've decided to concentrate on wholesaling in the middle income neighborhoods in and around where I live (South of Chicago & Northwest Indiana) for the next 8-12 months in order to (hopefully!) build some capital for my first rehab project. Long term goal is to use real estate investing to be secure in retirement since I have slacked off on my 401K at work for years.

I figure most of my early cash reserves will be going toward marketing, so I decided to write up a quick marketing budget:

$ 300.00 - Bandit Sign Supplies (10 to start)
$ 50.00 - 100.00/week - Yellow Letter Supplies
$ 100.00 - Business Cards
$ 50.00 - 100.00/month - Website & additional phone line (Website may be a future endeavor)
$ 250.00/month - Misc. Expenses - Fuel, office supplies, Red Bull :)

I think I'm high on most of these but I wanted to be conservative at first until I can see for sure what my expenses will be.

As for a time budget, I plan to dedicate at least 1.5 - 2 hours per night after work to preparing signs, letters, etc. and at least 4 hours on weekend days driving the neighborhoods looking at various properties, looking for red flags of distressed properties, and generally learning the market I plan to work in.

I'm working on spreadsheets to help keep me organized and on task.

I've spoken with my landlord who strictly does rehab & rent and altough he said he's never used a wholesaler, he would be open to any deal that "his people" deem a good one. So hopefully I may be able to start my buyer's list with him.

I'll also be attending the July 9th meeting of the WCRT subgroup meeting in Merrillville, IN and hope to network with fellow investors, realtors, attornies and hopefully some folks in my shoes
*********** , Thanks for the info!

Well that's how I plan to start! As with anything, I'm sure the plans will change and evolve as I get going.

Thanks to everyone on the site here for all of the information I've absorbed so far already, and also for the warm welcome!