New Jersey Investor Seeking to Build Passive Income—Let’s Connect!

[Hayat- Hyatt Barron]

Hi BiggerPockets Community!

I’m Hayat, and I’m excited to join this dynamic group of real estate investors. I'm based in New Jersey and have recently embarked on my journey to build a real estate portfolio. My primary focus right now is on finding opportunities to generate passive income through real estate investments.

As a beginner in the field, I’m eager to learn from others who have gone through the process and are now experiencing the rewards of their hard work. I’d love to connect with investors who are experienced in flipping, renting, or managing properties—especially those in or close to the New Jersey area.

If you’re involved in property management, real estate investing, or anything related, I would appreciate any advice or mentorship you can offer. Let’s network and share experiences to help each other grow and succeed!

Looking forward to connecting with you all, and I hope to contribute to the community as much as I learn.

Thanks,
Hayat

[Earl White]

Welcome to the community!

My suggestions would be in this order:

(a) Determine the type of financing you qualify for - this will short cut the process considerably and save time on investment angles and next steps. Hopefully save time/money on deals that get cancelled.

(b) Once you know what you can buy, you would line-up a real estate agent that works with investors in the market you are buying.

(c) Submit offers - real estate agent would help with this. Market might be competitive but there is angles to stand out depending on what you are comfortable and able to handle, such as waiving an appraisal contingency, limitng inspection rights and time frames, closing time frames, allowing seller to stay-post closing, taking on difficult tenants, buying properties that might need repairs, etc. Obviously, each bears certain risks, and usually the agent would advise on these topics in the beginning.

(d) If you strike out on landing any on-market deals, you can search for off-market deals. This tends to be more time intensive and more for someone that has a lot of time and limited income as you may find a "home run" type deal with some effort/energy. You could also look into seller financing. Head-over to the marketing and financing section of BP and you can learn everything. 

However, if you're a W2 high income earner or business owner, I can't imagine it makes any sense to flip houses, mail mass post cards, wholesale, or build lead gen websites with the value of your time being better spent other places (such as learning about real estate and increasing your income through proven means), such as at your 9-5pm or growing your business, and your real estate is a long term process and you don't need "home run" deals to qualify or make it work. Really about growing a strong portfolio of solid deals.

Now that being said, if you are a high income earner, well qualified, and can't find reasonably good deals: 

(i) you can connect with a well connected real estate agent for off-market deals; 

(ii) you might do a very narrow cost-effective cold call or letter writing. Narrow it down to like a very small amount of properties and just give the people a call, write a letter, or have your assistant do the same. Some of my clients in this scenario literally just pick-up the phone, tell the seller of their specific property they are interested and they are well qualified, and see if there is some kind of fit. If that is a stretch as to your qualifications, I would not recommend this as it would with relative quickness go to the attorneys to move forward with drafting, inspections, title search, etc. In north/central NJ, 95% of serious arms-length real estate deals (i.e. not wholesales or  family/friend), attorneys will be assisting. South Jersey that 95% probably is 50% (higher price points will still have attorneys).