33 Transactions in first full year!
As we start another year I wanted to take a few moments to share my journey this year and hopefully help someone out along the way!
I finally found a niche that I was comfortable with and started buying and selling deals. Before I know it we had reached December and I had completed 33 transactions. If you looked at my old blog you can read about a new investor trying to find deals via direct mail. I really wanted to be a flipper. I probably sent out over 10,000 pieces of direct mail over 24 months and never bought a deal. It was tough. You deal with a lot of rejection. I spent two years talking to sellers but never found that great deal. The market was building momentum month after month and I did not have the guts to put my families nest egg on the line for a house that I did not feel was a great deal. I also never wanted to be someone who would tie up someones house and not close the deal. I had a solid team waiting for that great deal, but I never found it. I did partner on two deals for an equity split, but I was nothing more than a money partner and made about 12%. But I really wasn't happy with putting up 130,000 to make 15K. We never had anything go wrong, but I knew that opportunity was always there.
I always loved the idea of direct mail. Easy to scale all you have to do is spend more money! While I wasn't buying deals I was building the skills necessary to buy property from people over the phone! I spent a lot of time listening to most of the podcast on BP. One that really stuck out to me was Seth Williams and vacant land. The deals required a low barrier of entry and you can fish in a pond where there are not many people looking. I sent out my first direct mail campaign for vacant land in Northern California. I had a few tire kickers but I received a call from a lady in San Francisco who owned 40 acres with no access in Northern California. She said she knew it was worth 12K but the land had been in her family and she just wanted to get rid of it fast and she wanted 5K. I wasn't sure if this was even a deal or not. But I decided to purchase the deal. After marketing it for 48 hours had the deal sold for 15K. Basically I made 10K in 14 days on a 5K investment. I was sold!!
My strategy is to buy land no one wants for .35 on the dollar. Sell it for cash at .70 or at full market value at 10% interest with seller financing. I ended up buying 23 pieces of land in 6 months. I have sold 11 of those. I also have 7 purchases already in the process that will spit out in January.
I have very aggressive goals for 2016 which is to create 60 notes and sell 20 flips. I have a marketing machine now and will send out 12,000 pieces of direct mail this year. I get a ton of deals and can hand select the best ones. My problem will be running out of money, not deals. From reading the post of many wholesalers on the forum I mail to a great list that you cannot buy. It takes some time to get the information and in a format so that it is usable.
I just want to thank everyone who takes time to answer questions. I have not asked that many but I have spent weeks combing the bigger pockets forums looking for the answers to my questions.
Hoping I can help someone out along the way I will go in detail about my first 10 transactions on my BP blog.
Thanks again for all of your help!