{"id":43806,"date":"2013-05-29T11:40:12","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T17:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=43806"},"modified":"2024-06-11T05:49:10","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T11:49:10","slug":"2013-05-29-find-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2013-05-29-find-investors","title":{"rendered":"Where Do You Find Your Investors? Here’s Exactly Where I Find Mine…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Being both a fund manager and a speaker on the topic of raising private money, I\u2019m often asked where I find my investors for my business and Real Estate deals, especially the larger investments like my note business or commercial properties. Usually I give a rough answer of \u201cnetworking and speaking\u201d but today I did the math and finally broke down the numbers. Now before I get into the percentages, I must state that in my world, all my investors are accredited BUT that doesn\u2019t always have to be the case. Some of you might be asking, \u201cwhat does it mean to be accredited?\u201d Well, there are multiple qualifications<\/a> that all accredited investors must have, but the two biggest ones that help determine if you\u2019re accredited or not are the following:<\/p>\n

– All accredited investors must be high net worth individuals with yearly incomes of $200,000\/year if they’re single, $300,000\/year if they’re married<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

AND\/OR<\/p>\n

– Accredited investors must have $1 million in net assets not counting their primary residence, for the last two years, and expect to have that same situation for the next two upcoming years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like many people starting out, I didn\u2019t know a lot of accredited investors and even with my current business I started with both accredited and unaccredited money, but there is a reason why I stick with only accredited investors today. While there are more unaccredited people to raise money from, accepting their money can be more of a hassle than you would think. Having unaccredited investors requires audited financials and more reporting requirements (so your legal work could cost more) and this takes a part of your funds. These things can be recuperated when factored into the funds that you raise but many times this is after the fact, so you could be paying for these things out of pocket.<\/p>\n

Not to mention, one of the biggest difficulties when dealing with the unaccredited is that they\u2019re more likely to need their money they\u2019ve invested, so if anything goes wrong with the investment they could be taking a bigger hit than the average accredited investor. They also might be more eager to get their money back as well, so you\u2019re ability to turn the money over and recycle it again could be limited. But of course that\u2019s not always the case, and sometimes even your unaccredited grandmother can be invaluable to starting your first private placement. It also worth noting that you can have up to 35 unaccredited \u201csophisticated\u201d investors in your first private placement, so don\u2019t be discouraged just know the risks.<\/p>\n

Finding Private Investors: Breaking Down the Numbers<\/h2>\n

Looking at my current fund, I decided to dig deep and find where every accredited investor in the project actually came from.\u00a0 It’s been a few years now and although some folks have been paid back, I took a good look at my current list and here’s what I found:<\/p>\n

46% of all investors are Referrals<\/b><\/p>\n

3.5% of all investors are Friends<\/b><\/p>\n

11% of all investors are Family<\/b><\/p>\n

2% of all investors are found Online<\/b><\/p>\n

37.5% of all investors come from Networking Groups<\/b>\u00a0 (this includes speaking engagements and conferences I attend)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also, I discovered that out all of these percentages over 30% of this capital came from self-directed IRA, 401Ks, HSAs, and Coverdale accounts<\/b>. Retirement and certain savings accounts are a great resource for private capital that you may want to become well versed in. I mention it to all current and potential investors because many people have at least one of the types of accounts mentioned above, often times with money sitting idle (or at least getting sub-par returns) and they just haven\u2019t met the right investment yet.<\/p>\n

Related<\/strong>: Private Money Lenders: Who They Are & How to Find Them<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

My Biggest Source of Private Money<\/h2>\n

I’m really glad I did this exercise because it points some things out to myself about where I should focus my time. The first thing that I noticed was that 60% of my capital came from friends, family, and referrals. So, I guess what they say about your “Network is your Net Worth” kind of thing holds true. A good friend of mine, who raises private capital for a living and lends private money, once told me years ago that the best source of private money is right in your cell phone. After looking at the percentages, I\u2019ve come to realize that he\u2019s absolutely right! So how did I get these people in my cell phone? Well I started small, by showing close friends and family how to make money in Real Estate \u2013 whether it was by buying properties together with family or even just giving financial books to friends, I\u2019ve found being helpful to the people in your life will only come full circle. Prove that you\u2019re educated and trustworthy and you\u2019ll gain the confidence from your peers to invest, it\u2019s that simple!<\/p>\n

As for all referrals for new capital, I guess I can attribute that to doing the right thing, “doing what we say we\u2019re going to do”, and having a great track record. So it really comes down to trust<\/b> and credibility<\/b>. We also have things in place to facilitate referrals, such as a “Referral Compensation Plan” and our “Customer for Life Program.” So the former is pretty self explanatory, since our business is notes we usually give note credits for all referrals and that\u2019s based on a point system, but the Customer for Life Program is a little more complex. Basically we want to keep all of our investors for life, so we do whatever we can to facilitate a renewal, that includes: investor Q&A\u2019s (both live and streaming online for out of state investors), company updates, easily accessible financials, frequent thank you\/gifts, and streamlined note purchases \u2013 all documents are downloadable, etc. We also have an investor relations department whose major task is to just to stay in touch, and I myself personally try to call everyone in advance before their investment maturity date to discuss other possibilities and new opportunities our company offers. For those of you who have invested with funds and companies probably know, a Customer for Life program like this is a huge difference than what often times happens: you, the investor, gives somebody money and you hardly ever hear from that person again. Programs like these are usually how we recycle our money over again, saving us time raising capital and keeping our investors happy.<\/p>\n

Related<\/strong>: How to Build Your List of Local Private Money Lenders<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

The Next Best Source<\/h2>\n

The second source of capital seems to come from networking. I can\u2019t stress this enough, if you haven\u2019t joined a group already DO IT NOW! Most major and minor cities have REIA<\/a> chapters across the nation, and there are also Real Estate Meetup<\/a> groups all over the country as well. Okay, but what if there really aren\u2019t any? Or what if they aren\u2019t very well run? Start your own! That\u2019s what I did; I was one of the founders of a networking group of over 8,000 members in a five state region. But it didn\u2019t start out that way. Years ago, I was in search of a group where I could discuss my deals and have others discuss there\u2019s with me, not just a standard \u201cexchange a business card\u201d meeting or only a teaching seminar (that\u2019s chosen by the group).<\/p>\n

So I joined up with my lender, my insurance agent, and my accountant to form a group where we would try to bring as many people from our network as we could to lunchtime meetings where we could connect and discuss our business deals. We started out buying lunch for 8 people to eventually buying lunch for 45 people! Then the amount of people showing up was astounding that we had to charge for admission (the majority of which would cover the meal) and we eventually had to bud off and start groups throughout multiple cities. Now it took about 5 years to get to that point, but imagine all of the people I met along the way. Running the group not only gave me and my co-founders a lot of credibility, but running the group I was able to interview all the speakers we had and create bonds with people all over the country. This helped immensely when I started to expand my investments to other states and when I myself started to speak in other parts of the country.<\/p>\n

I really think it’s more than just networking and expanding your network, it’s really about “relationship building,” which is why I always loved the lunch or dinner format \u2013 it\u2019s not an elevator pitch, it\u2019s a conversation. Like Ron Jaworski, former Philadelphia Eagles’ quarterback and owner of Philadelphia chapter of Business Clubs of America says, “You have to meet belly to belly with people.”\u00a0 You need to break bread, have a meal, and really get to know people. Besides some of the tips I mentioned, where do your investors come from?<\/p>\n

Photo: Tyreke White<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Being both a fund manager and a speaker on the topic of raising private money, I\u2019m often asked where I find my investors for my business and Real Estate deals, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":807,"featured_media":170088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5524],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-investing-for-beginners"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/807"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}