All Forum Posts by: William Bannister

Its too much just read his books most of them are in the library and 15k for a course non sense. you can buy a 4 year degree with 30k.
Just hit the library in the real estate section and read every book u can on investing then read about finance and accounting. also you can borrow books from other libraries just by asking your local library to send it on over.
Authors like Robert Kiyosaki,Trump,Ron Legrand,Conti Finkle,Sam Zell. William Bronchick,Shemin,Larry Loftis, John Beck, Plenty have books that cover real estate. They all might want to upsell you into an expensive bootcamp.
This forum just by searching subject matter can teach u a lot as well.
Hope this helps.
btw welcome to BP Cody enjoy we are a big community of real estate investors and ect helping each other without asking you for money;)
I will say this I do budget at least 200 to 300 a year for education annually in my business.
PS: There are plenty of battle tested investors in this forum to help out!

Housing bubble has been through the worst already the bond bubble is headed for armageddon. The long term low interest rates and mass printing press of money globally has caused a great deal of capital to push the stock market upward and this will not end until QE ends. The inflation will continue and there are signs that the bond market is about to explode. Even with a historically high stock market the bubble is in bonds.
I also see Bob Rubin US former treasury secretary warned of the international reaction to the last QE was not good. Japan and China are no longer interested in propping the US up via bond purchases.
When a private firm like KKR decides to go public and put's together such junk bond packages to sell when the US gov has a hard time buying there own debt your getting close to the end of cheap corp debt.
KKR would not share action with the public unless the show was over and they were about to off load there own garbage which in my estimation is junk bonds. Certain companies you study can tell you what the market place is up to..Like Goldman Sachs,Bear Stearns, JP Morgan, HSBC, Duetsche bank and others I wont go into a long rant on. These are a few big players that do things right about the time before something big happens in the marketplace.
Everyone is tired of it and right now smart money is chasing cash flowing assets. The junk bonds are no longer producing and there monthly balance sheets proves it. The hedge funds are being suckered into these investments are now beginning to look elsewhere for returns. They are even looking at real estate. I think the show is over for the bond market and as soon as QE ends and it will once the risk of inflation becomes more apparent the bonds will crash hard.
When QE stops which will happen when inflation begins to force them to stop, the higher interest rates will drive money away from Stock and bond markets. Unless the goal is a complete capitulation of the currencies.. Which is quite possible. Either plan would end in disaster for the bond market. Of course we all hope they dont totally destroy currencies as that hurts all of us.
The real question is how fast 3? 6? or 12 months? I thought that April 2013 would have been my prediction for when this bond market would crash as the round 2 of fiscal cliff talks would probably take a little longer to patch a deal together. The entire system right now is on shakey ground as gold and silver keep ramping upward as they print to pay off the debt they cant afford.
Real Estate is really a great safe haven because not only is it a hard asset but it produces income if you buy the right kind.
I have been watching the price of gold and silver too as it seems to be another indicator of what is going on beyond closed doors lately.
I think real estate without debt and silver and gold are nice bets in this market. notice I said silver before gold..hint hint.
Re: web market hard to say but look at Facebook stock its already plunged although the income there just doesn't justify the price. In my opinion Facebook isnt worth 6 bucks a share.

Welcome to BP. J Scott is correct there are lots of posts on the matter of wholesaling and the key is to set up a phone answering service that is automated to run your wholesaling business like for example pat live.
Once you have that going you can focus on funneling in sellers and buyers and attempt to collect enough prospects to make a deal.
Your answering service is there to eliminate wasted time on bad prospects. Ron Legrand has an excellent course on the matter that talks in great length about how to do this and goes all the way from setting up your automated phone service to the close of your deal. His course is called wholesaling.
The goal of finding which prospects of sellers are better sellers then others. This is where you are using your "funnel , auto answering service" to separate the good from the bad so you dont spend 16 hours on the phone to find one good lead to get a deal from.
Once this is in place your advertising campaign to rein in sellers and buyers to put deals together. Using internet,newspapers and craigslist and signs on your autos or on telephone poles and where ever you can get away with it.
Then the key is how to put the buyer and seller together so you can get paid at closing which can be very tricky until you understand some of the many things that can happen leading to closing deals.
While I have simplified all of this in this short post Ron Legrands 10 or 12 cd on the matter of wholesaling spells it out in details.
I know his course might be 150+ dollars so maybe instead you find in cheaper online used or ect ebay,amazon or what ever internet place you get cheap educational materials. I have been able to buy some of these 200 dollar courses on the internet for less then 60 bucks.
I paid more then 60 bucks for my anatomy book used in college! Before you do drop one dime on learning materials I would also suggest local library and look up the matter of real estate wholesaling. I would check out books on the matter and borrow and have them shipped to your local library of your library has relations with other library's. This is how I taught myself about real estate law and broker type regulations in the business. I have also been able to teach myself a lot about the subjects of accounting and finance.
Also I spend time doing research in old newspapers finding deals on apt buildings listed 6 to 12 months ago that today... I want to know if owner ever sold building and maybe he would like sit down over a cup of coffee if he never sold building and sell it to me or ect.
I search newspapers in a geographic circle about 2 hours from my back door on apt buildings. I live in Evansville Indiana so I might ride up to Indy and put a 4 unit under contract for 10k and sell my contract to another guy for 4k. If no one wants my contract I get a little hard money and buy the building then continue marketing till I sell it. If the deal is right and you can tie it up with 1000 bucks and give yourself 45 days to close with a contingency to put up another 500 to extend out closing 30 more days you buy yourself just enough time to find a buyer and then make your money.
Or on a few deals I have closed them and Im paying 13% interest and 3 points to a shark and then I have to let the rents pay the 9000 in debt I have and I will go up there and get the 4 units up and occupied and use that 1600 monthly rental income to pay my hard money lender until I can find a buyer. Now if I close a deal now I need more money for it. I tack on another 5k to 10k to make it worth my while. The rent will easily pay my hml but Im outta that deal fast.
Who wants to drive 2 hours to pick up 1600 in rents every month and spend the day dealing with tenants unless you can find a manager and go the long haul. Even though an 8 hour day to get 1600 isnt bad for a days work by the time you factor in taxes and ect expenses your better to take fast money on a small apt building if its not near the core of a rental operation you already own.

Good Idea Jon. Great it was solved positively, I just hate these management companies putting those clauses in there about commissions to sell. I guess its just life of a property owner if you dont want to self manage or manage employees.

I am with Brandon on this regarding short sale offer. Get 30% cash in place ready to put down on the property get approved with your local commercial portfolio lender. Talk to the bank that has mortgage since they can put you in contact with owner.
I might be inclined to do some market research and get some comps to see what that type of commercial is selling for per sqft so you have a good idea when you subtract repair costs and ect what its going to be worth to you to buy. If you have never owned commercial before remember your vacancies can last a lot longer. I would just make sure you are liquid enough to handle it. If you have enough tenants in place and they arent all heading for the door you might be fine.
If you have to pay rent there anyways its definitely worth it to go after!
2 year redemption on the tax certificate so there is a lot of time there before anything happens about that. But the clock is ticking at 18% unless they bid the interest down.

Loan fraud is the definition. It is a felony btw. Its unlikely anyone would come after you for that they would probably just call the note due but you dont take a chance with your freedom.
Why not just play by the rules and move into it for a 24 months? After that you can move on and rent it out.
Then the worst that can happen then is they call the loan due and you have to refinance. I had it happen to one of my deals I did many years back and I was upset because it cost me 2% interest and closing fees but I survived to live another day.

I know in more expensive markets this would not work but I never pay more then 36 months rent for an income property. I might deviate a little if it was ocean front property and has a nice harbor nearby.
Its just easier for me to compete against reits that are flush with capital when I dont pay more then them for rental units.
It has driven me to more average neighborhoods. But what do I care? Im not trying to flip to make a 100k over night I just want each building to bring home 400 dollars and up profit every month. Im an optimist saying that and understand those that argue with me.
I have tried 200k duplexes and I have tried 35k duplexes. When the 2 rents coming off a 200k duplex are 1200x2=2400 per mo and the rents coming off a 35k duplex are 450x2=900 per mo.. I am inclined to take the 35k duplex for returns. Even if i knock off an extra 100 for maintenance on a smaller building its better deal to buy 35k duplex in an older neighborhood.
There are some that might argue you have to consider the older 35k duplex will cost more to replace roof and all that other stuff thats aged.
I will say I have seen 35k duplexes that have a better roof on them then 200k duplexes that are only 10 years old. If you know a 35k duplex has a shorter life expectancy then take a little bit more off every month for maintenance. Eventually when you get some good cash saved up and decide to buy a larger income property like a 50 unit apt building then I would be inclined to pay an extra 5k per unit and buy in a better neighborhood. That part of Tenn is a relatively reasonably priced market and I think you could probably find some great returns in the 20k to 40k range and ratchet up your returns a bit especially if your first starting out.
When I was first cutting my teeth in this business 20 years ago I focused on 30k duplexes that pulled rent of 400 rents from each side. I bought em from banks and when I would get them fixed up a bit and occupied and for some reason the appraisers always thought they were worth almost 2 times what I paid for them. Today, in that market those same 60k duplexes are selling for 90k to 100k. I no longer live up there but you get the idea.
They didnt really appreciate much but they were stable cash flow. Stable cash flow can get you through good economic and bad economic times. As long as you manage your units tight and are able to save money along the way adding value to your business some how. Once your business is going and you can afford it then to hunt for a nicer property that will appreciate is a good idea if it cash flows. Just my 2 cents.

Jon did u ask tenants your going to rent to what the small claims case was about. Maybe there explanation could help clear up your doubts or help you decide if you want them. On the edge potential tenants I usually ask them for a little extra security deposit. These people with 50k income sound able to easily handle 400 per month. The key is do they have a lot of monthly revolving debt that would eat up that 50k. It shows the pattern of there ability to make pmts or rack up debt.
If they had a fat car pmt and tons of credit cards with balances I might be inclined to say no but if just the opposite low dti I would say yes.
What happened 10 years ago I do look at that stuff and try to evaluate it. For example if the person was 22 when the stuff was on there record 10 years ago I would probably not hold it against them if it was civil. A 10 year old housing claim Im not going to worry too much about. I do look for patterns of non pmt and patterns of things that could get you fired from job like bad driving record or numerous petty criminal charges. For example you could do something like 550 to 650 credit score pays extra 100 dollars security dep. 650 to 680 fico credit score pays extra 50 dollars. Then if they have over a 680 just let them get into your unit if your comfortable with the rest of the back round check. Extra security on someone that is 500 to 550 credit score if you really want to go there ask for last months rent and a double security deposit. Money can buy there way into my units as long as they are clean on there criminal part of back round is good and arent totally tied up in court on numerous open cases. Its nice all the data you can find online now on someone. Facebook,google,myfico.com,criminalchecks free.and so many others.
I have also been known to ask to see there last place if I decide to approve them. Its like a last minute look as to how they live.

I need to finish setting up voice over software so I can talk instead of type when I post to save myself from typos. Between this forum and 4 forums on real estate and politics and a another one on crypto and other subversive subject matter it gets very time consuming and often I lose concentration on matters when I have numerous windows open for engagement. I suspect my English is unrefined and maybe even a bit lacking in capacity.

Sorry about the typo on vacancy vs occupancy. I need a secretary to do these posts for me. lol