All Forum Posts by: Christopher Blanco

I have two attorney's I work with. One helps me with complex entity structures, he is expensive, but I only need to use him once or twice a year. I have another attorney I use for contracts, and day to day stuff.

Make sure you know WHAT you need before you call an attorney, or find someone who does a free consultation. Time is expensive. 

I send out 300-400 targeted mail pieces a month. I am targeting a specific audience in a specific area with a specific message. I get 3-8 responses each month. If I make 3 deals a year with a profit of more than $1000 each, it more than pays for the cost of those mailings. Once I get a bit more capital I plan on expanding that marketing 10-fold. 

The flip I am working on now should make enough profit to fund my marketing for the next 2-5 years at its current level. If you do it right...it works and works well. 

Just FYI, if you are adding a bathroom and bedroom to this house, you are going to spend a lot more than $25K. 

What are you doing to find deals? 

I will echo a lot of what others have been saying. I have been taken down the river by so many "wholesalers" who have a completely unrealistic idea of what a deal is and what profit they should make. On the deal side, everytime the ARV is high by 20% and the rehab costs are 3/4 what the real world rehab is. This does not make a deal. Also, if I can negotiate you down from $80K to $55K, then I know you are padding your numbers way to much. At this point, these are the wholesalers I have been dealing with. That makes them useless to me as I can do better on my own.

Its time for you to start putting processes in place and training your tenants. How many units are we talking about?

I paid $2200 to have mine done. It did not look like a job I would want to tackle. 

@Allan Smith, I will be the first flipper to complain about wholesalers, simply because as a flipper, if a deal is only a deal because of an inflated ARV and an underestimated rehab with a $20K assignment fee, that is useless to me. Make yourself useful and less complaints will come from flippers.

The only appreciation is FORCED appreciation Forced appreciation can happen in two ways: 1) You purchase the property for under market value and improve the property. 2) There is a large amount of growth in the city or surrounding areas. . 

Please don't jump into Wholesaling with having no experience in investing. Here are the things I would recommend:

1) Education, Education, Education. Don't fall for the Gurus, but if you can find a LOCAL investor who can get you under his wing, then do that. You need to find what you can bring to the table for that investor, but once you do, be persistant. 

2) Network. You need to start attending Local REIA meetings and networking with other investors, lenders, and potential partners

3) Write a business plan. It will change, but getting your ideas and goals down on paper is a huge benefit to you

4)Practice evaluating deals. Get on Zillow, Redfin, etc and work on evaluating deals.

5)Practice calculating ARV. You can start by finding a realtor to help you, but get good at doing it on your own

6) Build your team. Start with a CPA and find an investor lawyer (see #2 on where to find these people) and set up your entity structure. If you want this to be a business you need to treat it like one.

7) Start making deals!