All Forum Posts by: Cornelius Garland

@Alesha Bracey Paying a skip tracer any part of your deal is ridiculous. Look at skip tracing like direct mail. It's a marketing expense and should be comparable to the cost of a mail piece. For instance, one skip trace for a seller should cost at or below the price of a mail piece. 

A lot of investors make the mistake of contacting private investigators. These people skip trace for law enforcement or similar purposes. You're barking up the wrong tree. Find a service that can skip trace in bulk. Whatever you do, please do not pay anybody a percentage of your deal for just finding owner information. Don't even pay anybody a flat fee. I would check out Locate Plus if you're doing volume under 100 searches per month. They have the same exact phone numbers that TLO does, except you don't have to qualify through a site inspection. That's a rip off! 

@Account Closed Hey man, I really like pulling highly targeted lists in my area because it has made it a lot easier to move the properties. I bring deals to my buyers in areas that they're looking for and that fit their specific criteria. It's a great feeling when every lead that responds to my marketing has a property that checks all of my blocks for being a qualified lead.

I'll explain the criteria that I usually use and why I do. Since most of the areas I target have bounced back from the recession (in a big way), I'm not too concerned with equity. I even wonder how these list providers are determining equity. If it's based on the year it was purchased, then the equity filter most-likely will be way off. For instance, if it was bought in 2010 for $100k, but the area has seen a 30% increase in property values, then the equity in the list vendor's system will be too low. It'll have the equity around 33% when in actuality, it will be around 60%. The only accurate way to pull equity, in my opinion, is for the house to be appraised and then calculate the equity based on the appraised value (not the purchased year and price). 

I know most list providers aren't calculating equity this way, so what I do is target properties with 20%-100%, but I put the last purchase price at or below what the cash sales are going for. So in my area, I'll add a filter to only target properties that have been purchased for less than $100k. In my area, if I can get a house below $100k, I know I can make a profit. I only need the seller to have enough equity to cover their taxes and any liens at closing. So if they owe $99k on a mortgage and owe $1k in taxes, then I can buy this property all day because I know the ARV will be around $175k. This is just in my area. Your metrics may be different.

You'll open yourself up to a lot more leads if you do this because most investors are still targeting high equity, not realizing that equity really isn't that important nowadays. I do put my last sale date before 2005, to avoid the recession. Also, I'll put the year built of the property around 2000 prior. Hope this helps and wasn't too confusing. Let me know if you want me to explain anything I stated.

@Forrest Shealy No problem at all! Hope this helps.

@Anthony Thomas Welcome to BP and congrats on getting your start in real estate investing. Wholesaling is great to get started in real estate; however, please realize that it does take money to get started. While you may not have to pay for the property, you need to pay for your marketing and systems. I highly suggest getting your license, especially since you're in such a competitive market. Any way that you can monetize your deals will help you gain momentum and turn a profit.

To get started wholesaling, I would definitely check out the  Ultimate Beginners Guide to Real Estate Investing. I read it several years ago when I first started and it cleared things up for me. Make sure you understand the basics before you dive in. It'll save you a lot of time and money. If you have perseverance, then you'll be able to make it. You just have to push through when things go south. Trust me, they're not going to go well immediately. The people that make it past this rough patch, in the beginning, are usually able to turn this into their full-time gig. I've seen multiple people, like you, come and go over the years. The question is: will you be one of them?

All the best.

@Carlann Mckenna Really sorry to hear this. It's unfortunate when others have a scarcity mentality and end up cheating others out on their hard-earned money. I work with a few investors in the DMV area. I'll see if their attorney does work in your area and also see if he can handle this issue.

If they sold the property already, then it's too late to put a lien on it because it's owned by a new person. You can likely sue them for damages or put a lien against their current assets. Any paperwork you signed with your business partner would help you get compensated. The attorney of this deal messed up big time if he didn't have you sign. I've had multiple deals hanged up in escrow before because one or more members of an LLC couldn't (or wouldn't) sign the closing documents. The notary at closing, which should be the attorney, checks the licenses of both individuals at closing to ensure he's working with the correct individuals. This definitely sounds like legal malpractice, and you may also be able to sue the law firm that closed the deal for damages as well.

I believe there's a search feature on BP where you can search local attorneys. Anybody that's registered on here should be legit and investor-friendly. Hoping that this situation turns out in your favor.

Disclaimer: I'm not an attorney, and please don't take this as legal advice. I'm just an investor that has had experience with similar situations.

@Jacob D Adamczak Dude that's awesome. There are a lot of duplexes you can house hack in Ladson. There are some in North Charleston, but Ladson is a nicer area and the prices are just as affordable. There are a few deals that come across auction.com. However, a lot of eyes are on these so the prices get pushed up quickly. Let me know if you have any questions. I know the area well and if I can't answer a question for you, I know someone that can. Best of luck!

@Rob Badhorn Follow-up is so important, but it's not "flashy", "cool", or "hip" to talk about. Most people just want to chase low-hanging fruit all day and find that ever-elusive motivated seller. That's a good way not to have a business in the long term. My whole business changed once we started focusing on the follow-up. It's crazy because it doesn't seem like it works because we often think "well if someone told me no once why would they change their mind when I call a second, third, or fourth time." It just works. Can't explain the underlying psychological reasons why it works, but it does! I agree with you on the ringless voicemails. I sometimes throw this into my follow-up sequences in case I can't reach the seller after multiple attempts.

@Clark Nowlin That's great that your neighbor is giving you the opportunity to purchase the property first. What I would do in this situation is see if the owner will sell it to you on a land contract. The seller will essentially finance a portion of the property. It'll be awesome if he'll finance the whole $475k, but that's unlikely. See if he'll take a small down payment and take payments for his equity (assuming there's no mortgage). This way you don't need to involve other partners.

Separately, I would only partner with other investors on a multifamily unit or a package of single-family houses. Keep us posted on how this goes.

Hey @Account Closed . I invest in Fort Lauderdale virtually from Charleston, SC. I moved a deal this summer in Dania Beach through another wholesaler. I found him by typing in Google "we buy houses Fort Lauderdale" or something to that effect. He was on the first page. His name was John, and I can dig up his information and shoot it to you. He saved me on that deal because I had no buyers for that property, and my contract close date was approaching. Do you have a deal already? Or are you looking to build up your network before you start marketing to sellers?

@Jacob D Adamczak Glad to help out. I seriously went down this rabbit hole for about a year before I finally figured out the real reason why some properties downtown still haven't been renovated. I like Goose Creek (29445) and Ladson (29456). Ladson has seen tremendous growth over the last three years. I started back in 2015 and largely overlooked the area then. I think the lack of dirt to build houses in Summerville is causing there to be a scarcity in inventory. A lot of parents want to put their kids in Dorchester District 2 schools, and Ladson is on the fringe of being DD2 and Berkeley County. If you're looking for buy and holds, then North Charleston isn't necessarily a bad spot. You can pick up a 60k property in decent condition and rent it for about $800-$900. Not a bad ROI, but the area overall, outside of Park Circle, hasn't seen the same improvements as other areas in Charleston.

I grew up in Summerville and there are a few neighborhoods that have investment activity. However, there are a lot of neighborhoods built post-2000. So it's going to be another few years until there is a surplus of "blue-color" homes that investors can buy and rehab, due to them having deferred maintenance. Hope this helps!