Realtor · Virginia Beach, VA (Virginia Beach) · Member since 2015 · 21 posts · 5 votes
So I've been debating about spending the cash and getting BP Pro. I've made a significant amount of connections already, and I love that, realistically, I don't have to buy another ebook on real estate (I still will, but i don't HAVE to do so).
So I wanted to get some unbiased feedback from those who have had the basic edition and upgraded to pro. How much better is it? Do you regularly make deals through connections in the market place? What are the major pros and cons?
@Griffin F.@Scott Rowsick Quick tip, sometimes if you sign up for a BP webinar, they will offer sales on a Pro membership. @Kyle Penland I started feeling bad taking in all the information around here for nothing too! I own several REI books and everything in them I can find free on the site, with more detail and more personal examples.
@Scott Rowsick I am still a basic member (obviously) but to me the two big ones right now are the ability to search the member database by zip code and to view who is looking at your profile. Right now that's not worth the money to me. I am sure that in the future I will be upgrading. I'm just hot there yet.
Ditto to @Neil Schoepp in addition to those, being able to post on the marketplace is a big one. You can create ads for financing, if you have a property for sale or are looking to buy a property with a specific guideline, etc. The perks are great. Discounts on all sorts of stuff. My personal favorite is 30% off Wix websites, which are awesome by themselves. A really nice thing for me is being able to use the calculators unlimited times. If I have a property that I want to pitch to a potential partner or investor, I run it through the calculator and it spits out a pretty presentation ready copy with pictures and numbers to satisfy anyone.
However, I will say it's worth spending the time to make sure you're comfortable with yourself as an investor before going pro. Especially with the calculators, it's way too easy to get excited about a property because the calculator says it's a good deal. You should know if it's a good deal and why before you plug it into the calculator.
I just felt wrong for the great wealth of knowledge for free! Also I enjoy watching the webinars at my leisure and also the calculators are GREAT! My bank loved the pdf I generated and I can do as many of them as I want. It brought me to a new level with my lenders. I haven't even began to fully utilize the marketplace yet but will be doing that in the coming weeks.
@Griffin F.@Scott Rowsick Quick tip, sometimes if you sign up for a BP webinar, they will offer sales on a Pro membership. @Kyle Penland I started feeling bad taking in all the information around here for nothing too! I own several REI books and everything in them I can find free on the site, with more detail and more personal examples.
I have been a free member for a while, I really like the unlimited use of the calculators they are very useful for me. Also It looks more serious to others. As @Dustin Smith
said, the market place is a great way to boost your RE business, plus I caught it on a sale!
It's a small change I made for 2015 and It will pay off!
Thank you all for the insight. It's awesome. I like the objective look at things. @Dustin Smith great point about the calculators. I think I will be getting myself a bit more comfortable with my property valuation skills before I join and get unlimited use of the calculators. I definitely should have the ability to know it's a good deal before I enter it into them. And also, I have attended a few webinars with Brandon and he's offered a discount code for the pro membership. He did say, however, that he occasionally will give one away. That's certainly even more incentive to attend them--not to mention that boatloads of free information you get (if you're reading this and haven't signed up for a webinar, it's totally worth it--regardless of the topic).
I guess my follow-up question is about the market place. I'm in a hyper competitive area (or at least it seems as such--DFW). So when I'm a pro member and I go to offer a property on there, will my property get lost in the shuffle? Even with a relatively small audience like the one on BP, would I need to take steps to ensure that the property gets a proper amount of hits? Are there guidelines? Can you track analytics?
Also, if I get a property under contract in the near future, would you recommend getting the pro membership at that point? It seems to me like that would be good timing. Until then, I may keep my money.
@Scott Rowsick as a basic member you can check out the marketplace. You just can't post. I'd head over there and see what posts look like, whose commenting, how often new posts are added, etc. Keep in mind that a lot of the contacts from a marketplace ad will be done in private, so you can't see them. I haven't tried to check any analytic data on them, but I'm sure you can.