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110
Posts
78
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Alex Ficco
Pro Member
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Reno, NV
78
Votes |
110
Posts

Stop Being a CRAB and Go FISH - A Post for My Fellow Hermits

Alex Ficco
Pro Member
  • Flipper/Rehabber
  • Reno, NV
Posted

It’s interesting how we keep getting the same lessons over and over sometimes. As simple and generic as some of them are, those are usually the most important ones.

Admittedly, I’m not a great networker. It’s actually one of my biggest flaws. I have to be super intentional about talking to people, going to meetups, talking to people specifically about work, etc. When I started my own local real estate meetup about 4 years ago, I didn’t realize how much it would help me network by default - it’s much easier to network when you’re the host vs being an attendee.

This week, I was at a different real estate meetup here in Reno, NV. Doing my best to talk to some new people afterwards, I got talking to a younger guy who had an off-market deal in contract that he doesn't know what to do with.

I give props to anyone that has a deal in contract, because truthfully that’s further than most people ever get. I talk to a ton of new people at my meetup. A lot of them want to get into wholesaling, and the vast majority never are able to make it work.

For the few that do make it work, 9 times out of 10, the first deal they get in contract isn’t a deal (which is why they probably got it in the first place). I don’t blame them. You don’t know what you don’t know. I was there 5 and half years ago too - contracting my first deal while simultaneously ******** my pants not really knowing what was next.

Back to the kid with the deal. He said it was a land deal. Just a single family lot in a remote mountain town nearby. Land without zoning, small town, 45 min outside of the metro area, yeah… basically no chance this is a deal, and also basically no chance he finds an actual buyer for this at a meetup.

But he found me! Some of our best deals this year have been land just like this. We got the first one by accident, forgetting to filter land out of our SFR data. So I asked him about it.

Surprisingly, at face value, it sounded like something we could actually make some money with. I’m eager to dig into it more, but this post isn't about the deal.

When I was asking him about it, he said he knew the Seller and had a pretty good relationship with him. Knowing how to process this lead, and knowing land takes a bit longer, this was good news because we would probably need to extend the contract he signed.

I asked him “how long do we have?” His response… “3 years.” … He signed a contract for 3 years with the Seller… irrelevant but I just thought that was funny. I was expecting him to say “we are supposed to close tomorrow, please help.”

The point? Talking to people. This kid probably contracted this only by talking to the Seller about it. He probably heard about wholesaling, thought “who do I know that owns property” and asked the Seller about it.

If the deal is what I think it is, the kid is only going to be able to successfully make money on this deal because he talked to me at the meetup.. and vice versa.

When I was thinking about this situation, I was reminded of the first house my partner and I ever flipped. A 90’s build single family in Sparks NV. I had experience wholesaling and he had experience managing rehabs, but we had flipped on our own yet.

How did we get the deal? From someone I met for the first time at my meetup a couple months prior. He wholesaled it to us.

More importantly, how did HE get the deal? This was his first EVER deal. First ever contract, etc.

He didn’t do any paid digital marketing. He didn’t send out any mail. He didn’t make any cold calls.

He literally just started telling people he was buying houses. He started talking to everyone he knew saying he was looking for a fixer-upper. By taking that simple action and a friend-of-a-friend situation, he came across this deal. Distressed condition, divorce, and a set of Sellers needing speed and convenience.

Because he knew us through the meetup, he reached out for help before he took the appointment in exchange for getting us the deal. So we helped him along the way and he was able to get it to the finish line.

You never know how you can work with people. What you might be able to do to help them. What they might be able to offer you.

We actually track "network" as one of our marketing KPIs. It's a catchall for any deals that we didn't have to directly pay for through direct-to-seller marketing or weren't listed on the MLS - wholesalers, agent pocket listings, people from the meetup, etc. It's made us well over 7 figures in gross profit over the last 4 years.

Your next (or first) deal might be one conversation away. Hope that helps.

  • Alex Ficco