OK, next Step...Mentor Sherman Ragland

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OK, next Step...Mentor Sherman Ragland

Derek Smith
Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes

OK, I have been going it alone attempting to wholesale for about 3 months now and I have not made that first deal yet. I live about five minutes from DCREIA and its "Dean" Sherman Ragland lives in my development on the next street. I have heard so much about him and his programs and finally gave in and joined the DCREIA and signed up for the 90 day apprentice program. In this program I am assigned a RE agent, hard money lender, wholesaling mentor and form a mastermind group with my fellow apprentices and we get that first deal during our 90 days. I know naysayers will say that I don't need a mentor or the support I will get in this program, but going it alone is difficult and I know folks who have been successful in this program and now regularly do deals. I am determined to succeed this year and will do what it takes to make that happen. I will let you know how successful I am (because I WILL be successful) during this 90 day program. Wish me luck!

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J ScottPro Member
Moderator
Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
14y
Originally posted by Derek Smith:
ANd to me is that all of this only costs $1600 dollars.

...

I am excited. I have folks I know who are in his 1 year VIP program who have done 5 deals and made crazy money. This program costs $11,000. But next year I am there.

Here is my issue with mentoring. It sounds like this guy has both a $1600 course and an $11,000 course. What does he teach in the $11,000 course that you're not getting with the $1600 course? And doesn't it bother you that this guy is mentoring you but holding back certain information because you're not paying for the premium course?

Seems like for $1600 he should be willing to tell you everything he knows.

I'll tell you everything I know for free if you ask...

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  • Will BarnardPro Member
    Moderator
    Developer · Santa Clarita, CA · Member since 2008 · 15k+ posts · 10k+ votes
    14y

    Jason hits the nail on the head in his last post. No matter how good the information and no matter how good the mentor/coach, if the student is bad, he/she will certainly not succeed and that is by no means the fault of the educator but the student!

    I think the point to take from this thread is that paying for coaching that is taught by a proven and active investor is worth while if the price is reasonable for the education and time invested by the educator and just as important, that this educator teaches ALL that is needed to know for the price, not just half or some of it, then expect to get paid more for the balance of the info.

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  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    Agreed Will! I will go into this eyes wide open.

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  • Will BarnardPro Member
    Moderator
    Developer · Santa Clarita, CA · Member since 2008 · 15k+ posts · 10k+ votes
    14y

    Good for you, and again, congrats on pulling the trigger. Know now that you will run into many hurdles along your journey and it can become an emotional roller coaster, just stay the course and keep your determination fire always burning, in my opinion, that is the secret to success.

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  • J ScottPro Member
    Moderator
    Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
    14y
    Originally posted by Derek Smith:
    As you said J I have the desire and the drive...and some knowledge, now I have the help. I wish you were here in Maryland...

    I'm actually from Baltimore and lived in Maryland for much of my life...the family and I may actually be living there again at some point soon... :)

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  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    Great J, come on home...and know...how does the song go "You just call out my name, and you know wherever I am I'll come running, oh yeah, to see you again, you've got a friend" LOL!

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  • Ember Meadows
    Real Estate Investor · Columbus, OH · Member since 2011 · 74 posts · 25 votes
    14y

    J I just checked out your site for the first time last night! Was really impressed with your rehabs and how awesome your houses turn out! And of course the numbers!

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  • Joel OwensBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Real Estate Broker · Canton, GA · Member since 2010 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes
    14y

    As one trainer put it "you have to be coach-able".

    If you cannot specifically follow a plan as described you will not get the results you want.

    People often want to skip steps out of laziness or they think they can build a better mouse trap.This is why so may fail or do not even start.

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  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    I agree Joel. My mentor told me that in this business you don't have to come up with a new way of doing it. If it works you keep following the formula over and over duplicating the success.

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  • Paul Timmins
    Specialist · Rockland, MA · Member since 2010 · 7k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    14y

    Derek

    Are you dealing with the listing brokers directly or going through another broker resulting in split commissions?

    Paul

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  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    Hi Paul, I don't know yet. The program starts Feb 25th. I will let you know. I know that Sherman Ragland is a broker and has agents working for him who will make our offers. Since 90% of the houses are listed I assume it will result in a split commision (they primarily use the MLS).

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  • Steve Babiak
    Real Estate Investor · Audubon, PA · Member since 2009 · 13k+ posts · 8k+ votes
    14y
    Originally posted by Derek Smith:
    ... I know that Sherman Ragland is a broker and has agents working for him who will make our offers. Since 90% of the houses are listed I assume it will result in a split commision (they primarily use the MLS).

    So, to understand this clearly. There is a fee of $1600 (or even higher) to participate in this program, where the "mentor" will be receiving ADDITIONAL compensation from you via commissions.

    The one benefit to you out of this is that the "mentor" is incentivized to have you do deals ... so long as the deals you pursue are with him making the offer as your agent/broker.

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  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    OK, so this mentor thing was not such a bad idea after all. I have 2 properties under contract and I have 30 potential buyers with 2 supposedly making their firm offers by 11am tomorrow. I say that it is already well worth the money. [SOLICITATION REMOVED]
    Sometimes it pays to have a little faith.

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  • Ember Meadows
    Real Estate Investor · Columbus, OH · Member since 2011 · 74 posts · 25 votes
    14y

    Let us know what happens Derek

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  • Steve Babiak
    Real Estate Investor · Audubon, PA · Member since 2009 · 13k+ posts · 8k+ votes
    14y

    Wow, looks like you didn't need this program for much.

    Given that on Feb 8, you posted:

    Originally posted by Derek Smith:
    ... The program starts Feb 25th. ...

    And on Feb 12 you post that you are under contract on property already ... Didn't even need whatever was supposed to happen on Feb 25 it seems.

    Or did I simply miss something?

    1Reply
  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    You are correct Steve, the official program that I am in starts February 25th. However I am in what is called the GOLD+ program with the REI where we are put into groups and recieve some mentoring on a more limited basis. I started that 2.5 weeks ago. We meet once per week and have several telephone conferences. This is a result of that limited mentoring program and a direct result of the resources I got here (my mentor for this program is a realtor and these houses came from the MLS and he rean the comps and negotiated the deal for me) The full three month program is much more indepth and is designed to do more deals over a 3 month deals. But you made a good observation. However, without being part of this program I would not have known about these deals. @moderator....my apologies for the solicitation. It was not meant to be an offer to sale, just an example of my first deals.

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  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    As an update, I start the apprenticship this week and as you recall it runs 90 days. This week we focused on several things. One we were broken into a team of 5. The five of us formed an LLC to do our deals. So far we have a realtor, a hard money lender, and a contractor assigned to our team to help us with our deals. We also identified an investor freindly title company to work with us. We meet with our agent tomorrow and Saturday we start analyzing deals and making offers. The five of us are to make a minimum of 5 offers per day each. Our source for these offers are on the MLS. We start with 50-55% of the asking price to test for motivation. More to come.

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  • J ScottPro Member
    Moderator
    Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
    14y

    Are you going to be making offers on REOs, short sales or retail sales?

    If REOs or retail sales, I'm going to guess that you'll get somewhere around 0% positive response rate. For short sales, you'll get plenty of seller interest, but no bank interest.

    This just doesn't seem like a fruitful exercise to me, and I'd suggest learning how to analyze deals FIRST so that you don't have to make ridiculous offers that get you a bad reputation with listing agents (and it will).

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  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    I here what you are saying J, but making these "ridiculous offers" netting me 3 deals in the last month (or so). Two of which are advertised on this site and one I am completing now. BTW the 2 on this site, I closed on 1 Tuesday and one Yesterday. I got all 3 by putting ot 50 percent of asking price offers. All 3 came from the MLS (ListingBook). My agent had me send them directly to the listing agents. Those that were interested gave me counters. Now I will admit that I put out a LOT of offers, but I got 3 deals out of it quicker than I imagined possible and not really knowing what I was doing. This beat putting out a LOT of bandit signs. I am not discounting your experience and knowledge. But in my REIA, in my area it is working. I am not the first to do it this way. So I will keep learning from you J, but I will also keep doing what my mentor tells me until it stops working. I have been doing it on my own for about 4 or 5 month and closed NO deals. Now with working with my REIA and the MLS I have closed 3 likity split (and made almost $10K BTW!)

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  • J ScottPro Member
    Moderator
    Investor · Sarasota, FL · Member since 2008 · 17k+ posts · 17k+ votes
    14y
    Originally posted by Derek Smith:
    I here what you are saying J, but making these "ridiculous offers" netting me 3 deals in the last month (or so).

    How many deals would you have gotten under contract had you done some analysis before submitting the offer, and had offered something more reasonable that still worked in your favor?

    Probably a lot more...

    Btw, the fact that your agent had you submit the offers directly to the listing agent instead of going through him/her is pretty telling...why didn't they want to submit for you? Probably because they'd rather it be your reputation that took a hit and not theirs.

    I'm completely serious about that, btw...

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  • Ember Meadows
    Real Estate Investor · Columbus, OH · Member since 2011 · 74 posts · 25 votes
    14y

    Derek, Just trying to get an update about the 3 deals you mentioned. Also did you get my email?

    0Reply
  • Ember Meadows
    Real Estate Investor · Columbus, OH · Member since 2011 · 74 posts · 25 votes
    14y

    Derek, you going to keep us posted? You doing some deals???

    0Reply
  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    Yes Ember thanks for reminding me. So the program started Feb 25th. I was put into a team of 5 guys and we formed an LLC. Together we have complete 3 deals and we currently have 3 deals under contract. We are considering rehabbing 2 of these deals...and, I still have 30 days left in the course. Many people on this post were against having a mentor. I agree that there are many forums, books, websites, course etc. However there is nothing like being able to pick up the phone and call your mentor with a question. In addition, I have several contractors, 3 hard money lenders, and two realtors as invaluable members of my team as a direct result of this program. I also built quite a buyers list and simply have to send an email to sell my deal. I paid $1700 for this and I think it is well worth it and the course has paid for itself. I (my team) close a $10,000 wholesale deal tomorrow. It took us 2 days to sell with a blast to my list. It has truly accelerated my learning and my activity. To each their own, but I highly recommend a mentor (in addition to reading post, blogs, Bigger Pockets, which I love, and everything else you are doing.) I don't knock any of the methods. Instead I learn from them all and incorporate into my system. Now the MLS is a large part of my system.

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  • Jeff S.
    Specialist · Portland, OR · Member since 2010 · 3k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    14y

    Remember when, as an agent, gurus would come to town and disrupt the markets with all kinds of stuff. Just had to wait until all the fuss died down and business was back to normal.

    For anybody who puts in the effort, best of wishes, guru or not.

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  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    OK, so here is the verdict from my experience in this program. We completed 5 deals up til now. The latest is $16K plus. The program is officially over and I made my $1600 investment back many times over. I ay it was well worth it.

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  • Derek Smith
    OP
    Investor · Bowie, MD · Member since 2011 · 81 posts · 17 votes
    14y

    Please forgive me...it is 7 deals in 5 months...not 5 deals.

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