All Forum Posts by: Abel Curiel

Hello @Ignatius Okeke,

If you're looking for a cold-calling company for initial outreach to home owners, I've used a bunch and found that virtudesk had the best system to vet and manage cold callers.
I paid a premium with this company compared to cold callers I found through different sources (i.e. referrals, fiverr, upwork, etc.).

I have never heard of a company that specializes with cold calling sellers specifically for negotiating. This is a high-level type of conversation that I am not sure cold-callers are equipt to handle. 

Cold callers are usually tasked with calling 1,000s of numbers to then narrow down a contact list of qualified leads. The next step is to then convert these leads to an appointment. At the appointment, or subsequent appointments, pricing is discussed and negotiated.

In my experience, the folks negotiating directly with sellers on pricing are investors, acquisition managers, and Realtors. 

Hopefully there is a recommendation out there that fits your needs!

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@Kenneth Johnson

You are at a starting point that many investors can relate to. Low salary, low on funds, low on knowledge. Each of these things can be worked on and in a few months of consistent and persistent action, you can see a gradual change in your situation.

Don't let current circumstances paralyze you.

As far action steps:

- Research and strongly consider the househacking strategy. I used this strategy at 24 years old with little money and even less RE knowledge. What I got in return was valuable experience and equity.

- check out the BP bookstore and start with 1 book... then move onto the next. I'd also recommend an amazon audible account so that you can listen to books on the go.

- There are plenty of good RE podcasts including the BP podcast. Search podcasts on Youtube and check out some of the recommendations

- get out there and network both virtually and in-person. Meet like-minded people and start building your own community of people who willingly share helpful information

All the best!

Abel

Hello @Jordan Wisser,

I agree with you regarding competition heating up if/when rates drop. This could potentially drive up the price on the subject property. 

Another option here could be to buy down the interest rate a bit. 

If you, your lender, or agent can pull up higher comps, there may be a way for you to negotiate a seller's concession and use it to buy down the interest rate. You'd be borrowing a slightly higher amount but your monthly debt service could drop by a few $100s. i.e. Purchase price is 500K + a 25K concession, provided the property can appraise for 525K. The 25K would go towards a rate buy down.

As far as accounting for cap ex and maintenance for newly replaced/updated items, I'd still recommend doing it. Instead of 5% for cap ex and maintenance respectively, perhaps 3%. Something will likely come up within the first couple of years.

All the best!

Abel

 Hello Heath and welcome to the BP forums!

It looks like your family is all-in on RE, I'm happy for you guys & wishing you all the best. I, too, shifted from working with adolescents and young adults to getting into Real Estate... in hindsight, that past experience has helped me in this field, and I believe it will help you as well.

2 things I recommend for new BP members in your position:

- Use the search feature to find people and topics of interest. You can use it as a RE investing 'google' search to find past forum posts that match up with any keywords of interest i.e. 'investing north carolina'

- Set up keyword alerts so that you can receive notifications anytime a location or topic of interest is mentioned in the forums i.e. 'Raleigh multifamily', 'Coastal NC rental', etc.

All the best!

Abel

Hello @Ricky Hernandez,

Though I'm not familiar with what is customary in AZ, I'd recommend a home inspector over a contractor/handyman. Mainly because home inspectors already have tools and systems for quickly generating thorough inspection reports to help you negotiate credits, concessions, and/or price reductions. 

To find a home inspector, you can look online via homeadvisor or thumbtack. 

Local investors and agents will also have helpful recommendations—they are two of the best sources for finding a reputable local inspector.

 anytime!

And @Bruce Woodruff makes a great point. You will see income a lot sooner as an inspector vs. being an agent. Having both licenses could come in very handy so long as you're OK with the fees/costs.

 Hey Jake!

The answer depends on which avenue you believe will give you the best chance to reach your income goal AND which avenue you believe will give you the most opportunity.

Both options will require you to run it as a business vs. a part-time job. Furthermore, you'd want to look at these options as sales and marketing businesses vs. a realtor/inspector business.

Agents market and sell to prospective buyers, sellers, and investors.

Most inspectors market and sell to Agents.

Think about who you'd want to spend your time marketing and selling to.

With your investment experience, chances are you've already connected with a number of agents AND you've had your share of conversations with property owners and other buyers.

Which group can you envision yourself spending 2-3 hours each day marketing and selling to?

The lowest barrier of entry may come from being an agent. You already have relationships (friends, fam, co-workers, neighbors, former classmates, etc.) with people who own property or want to own property soon. This would likely be your highest quality source of leads/clients as you get started since these people already know and trust you.

On the flip side, you may already have agent contacts who know and trust you and would consider recommending you to their clients as an inspector.

There are 2 challenges I see here:
1. Agents already have their trusted team of inspectors, attorney/title, lenders, etc. Getting your first opportunity with these agents will take time and consistent follow-up... aka you'll need to be top of mind AND ready to go the minute they need you bc their preferred inspector(s) are unavailable.
2. Agents are reluctant to recommend an inspector who is NEW and who they have not yet worked with in that capacity.

Hope this helps!

Abel

Hey @Mitchell Gunlock,

What are you looking to accomplish? I see this is posted in the house-hack forum so I'll make the assumption that you want to owner-occupy your next investment.

To work more hands-on, you'll want to spend time searching for deals, analyzing deals, and networking/building a team.

Before your property search, I'd recommend speaking with a lender to find out how much you'll qualify for. This will help direct your search to the right areas, property types and price point.

If you're purchasing all-cash, skip that step.

Depending on your goal and preferred timeline for closing, the majority of your time should be spent searching for and analyzing deals.

Searching: Look at public listing sites; connect with an investor friendly agent and choose 1 to work with who can search MLS and off-market inventory; for additional off-market options, consider growing your own database of wholesalers and homeowners

Analyzing: Your agent can send comps and you can also search public listing sites for sold homes. In your analysis, look at local rental apartments to determine income potential of any properties of interest. The BP rental estimator tool is pretty good as well and is usually within about a 5-7% margin of error. Agents may also have macro data on historical data, local median sale prices, absorption rate, etc to help with your analyses and projections.

Networking/build a team: Attend local meetups, virtual meetups and stay active on forums like this.

A lot of this will be done in front of a PC unfortunately but if you cut out the noise, you'll be able to maximize your time.

Lastly, something that has helped me tremendously with respect to focus and improving efficiency is the pommodor technique. 

These are all surface-level recommendations. The deeper issue behind analysis paralysis may be some underlying fear, hesitation, and/or anxiety that you have to uncover and work through. This is very common so don't feel discouraged by maybe having to do some "inner work" or whatever you want to call it.

Hope this helps!

Abel

Hello Dennis and welcome to the BP forums,

You'll get some great insights on this post from experienced wholesalers in and out of your target market. 

In the meantime, I'd recommend using the search function and set up keyword alerts to find other questions on land wholesaling, best investment strategies, and any other topics of interest.

Excited to hear what you and your son have in the works, all the best!

Abel