All Forum Posts by: Benjamin Ervin

I have. I really like the Mobile, AL and surrounding areas a lot. There are 1 or 2 heavy hitters in the area but I think there’s is plenty of love to go around.

I am primarily focused in my market right now, though. I will be doing a good portion of the rehab myself in the beginning and want the location to be within reason of my commute to and from my day job. Fortunately I have a 30 mile commute one way, so I am morning limiting myself too much in that regard. 

Thanks for offering that advice, Joe Villeneuve . I have spent a great deal of time doing just what you’ve described and I have a good understanding of where these pockets are at in my market. I’ve also lived here in the Escambia/Santa Rosa county Florida area my whole life. This is the reason I am considering smaller, more targeted direct mail campaigns.

Joe Villeneuve I think we are agreeing. The very reason I don’t have a property yet is my lack of willingness to “force” a deal. My question is really more-so regarding the generation of adequate deal flow.

This thread is already a great read. There are some real heavy-hitters in here. I’ve enjoyed and greatly appreciated learning from several of you through podcasts, blogs and forum posts. I will lay out a few of my goals here for a few of you too performers to look at and laugh about (or possibly reminisce?) lol. - Generate deal flow to necessary to be successful at a low volume while implementing systems with scalability in mind. - Generate $100k of profit through house flipping - Obtain a real estate license (my wife, actually) - Read 10 books associated with business/real estate investing - Establish a BiggerPockets meetup for the local Pensacola area investors - Establish and build great, profitable relationships - Increase my personal savings capacity by 15% Thanks again for the thread. Good luck to everyone on accomplishing their goals in 2018.

@Joe Villeneuve, terrific points. Couldn’t agree more. Had I been willing to pay market rate for these properties, I’d have one and would be disappointed with the financial results. 

Regarding your first point, my goal was on acquiring my first property for a couple of reasons: 1) it implies I have successfully found, offered, closed on a property which encompasses a large number of critical skills in this business, and 2) it seems to me that closing on the first deal forces you to “make it happen” or, in another way of saying, taking the property and generating profit. 

Dean H. Thanks for the reply. I have a difficult time wrestling with that approach. I feel that in order to achieve the type of return on my time I am looking for, I just can’t pay the prices that foreclosures are going for here locally.

Apologies for the long post. When I posted on the app, it consolidated my entire post into one paragraph.

Failure probably isn’t the right word to describe my action thus far, as there are still a few days left in 2017. In Late October, I set a goal to buy my first investment property by Jan 1, 2018. I suppose I can still get one under contract, but am not likely to close. Falling short of my goal to this point certainly hasn’t been a result of low effort. I’ve made tens of offers and analyzed dozens more properties since I set my goal. In fact, I even had one under contract, but unfortunately had to back out due to extensive termite damage. That said, the hot market I am looking at and numerous failed offers aren’t getting me down, but rather they are fueling my motivation to succeed even more. So, moving into 2018 I have goals that I am determined to meet. It starts with the first property. My question to the forum is regarding deal flow. I have been unsuccessful in generating anything remotely close to “flow”. I have begun networking with some local talent and am coordinating the start of a BiggerPockets meetup for Pensacola area real estate investors. But other than staying in touch with wholesalers, scraping Craigslist and the MLS, I have (admittedly) been unsuccessful to this point in finding good deals. For those of you who have found direct mail to be successful, I am considering doing very targeted and small mailing campaigns in addition to the other channels of deal generation I am currently trying to leverage. I am looking to close and flip on the properties, not wholesale. I would love to get some feedback on small, highly targeted marketing campaigns to generate deal flow for low volume startup flippers. Additionally, many of us are dealing with hot, competitive markets across the country - what strategies are working for you to generate the type of deal flow you need to be successful? I question whether or not my criterion are too strict, or I am just not yet generating the right deals. All in all, I am analytical by nature and refuse to offer what competitors are paying in the area for REOs. Anyway, thank you in advance for your feedback, and best of luck on accomplishing your goals in 2018.

 @Gregory Flores, Jr.,I'm not sure where to start on this one. J Scott's Book on Flipping Houses has been instrumental for me in getting started in real estate.

Are you analytical, by nature?  J certainly is, and for someone like myself who works in the "business optimization" world (really hate this terminology, but its widely understood, so...)  it really resonates with me.  I work to a large degree with process mapping, value streams, lean six sigma, etc. and so, for me, the gold was in the spreadsheets that came with the purchase. 

In particular, the deal analysis spreadsheet has been a staple in my day-to-day real estate work.  I have probably analyzed 50 properties using his spreadsheet (albeit slightly modified) and I only got started about 3 months ago.  To be honest, I'm not sure if I got that spreadsheet from the book purchase or on one of his posts/blogs, but I highly recommend tracking it down either way.  The excel-based spreadsheet basically breaks the financial evaluation down into 4 categories and the costs associated with each: 1) Purchase Costs; 2) Rehab Costs; 3) Holding Costs; and 4) Selling Costs.  It allows you to itemize your expenses within each category and, by using various formula functions, serves as a calculator for net profit.

Overall, if you are looking for the "one-liners" of golden wisdom or motivating language, this really isn't that kind of book.  I'd recommend Kiyosaki, Tim Ferris, etc. books for that.  Rather, J's book is more of a blueprint or roadmap for how to systematically approach both finding and flipping distressed properties, as well as estimating rehab costs (the 2nd book in the package). 

Hope you enjoy the book!

I leverage the following from my agent:

- Pulling comps (hands down worth what I pay her in commissions for this alone)

- Writing offers

- Getting through closing

- Letting me in the door on walkthroughs

That alone is enough to make me feel bad considering what her commission is on a $50k property.  Seriously, I feel bad asking her to pull comps on ten properties this morning and she knows we will probably make several offers that won't be accepted.  

In my opinion, she is providing a tremendous amount of value for her compensation through these services alone.

Of course, I am not buying rentals and she understands that we will list properties with her on the back end of our flips. Even still, once my wife gets her RE License, we will do all of this in-house so we can be MUCH more efficient, effective and respectful of her time.  Her time spent with us is $10/hour work when she is very capable of doing $1000/hour work as an investor herself.