All Forum Posts by: Christopher Janney

I'm not sure about how many construction loans you can take out at a given time in your state (something your lender should be able to answer for you very easily), but I'm curious why you want to use a construction loan for your primary?  There are "rehab" loans from Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac (as of this year, to address the shortage of housing), that let you take a loan for purchase *and* the rehab costs of your primary residents. 

https://sf.freddiemac.com/working-with-us/origination-underwriting/mortgage-products/renovation-mortgages

@Cynthia Harrison Carrot is a web hosting company, with real estate investor templates that have great SEO to help you rank up in the searches organically, or for you to invest marketing dollars in Pay Per Click advertising.  Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but in trying to help people, I don't assume.  So with a carrot site, you'll get leads by people finding your page either by organically searching for it, or by ads you are paying for that direct them to your site, where they will fill out a contact form, and you or a team member get in touch with them ASAP to get their info and qualify them (is it really a deal, or someone just kicking tires...e.g. what's my house really worth, but I don't want to sell at the moment).

The short answer to your question, which I have immense difficulty doing...obviously :^)  is you *can* get very good leads with carrot, after your site starts to get traction, because the people filling out your contact form on your carrot site are seeking YOU out to solve their problem, and are therefore very qualified leads, where as leads from a list source like I've listed below, you're getting the same leads everyone else is getting and it's either timing, reputation or just shear dumb luck that one of them converts into a deal before someone else snaps it up.

With something like listsource.com or foreclosuresdaily.com you can buy lists of leads to either direct mail, door knock, or skip trace so you can either cold call, text or email.

Sites like propstream.com or realeflow.com give you leads as well by searching their database. The leads are not as fresh, necessarily as the lists mentioned above, but you can do intersting things to "stack" lists to get people that are in pre-foreclosure *and* out of state *and* have a tax lien *and* are not listed on the MLS.

Great news Anthony!  It's hard to step of that ledge, not sure if your chute will open, but you did it.  Now keep going!  

Podio and HubSpot are both free, and then there's Monday.com.  @Brian Shreeves is right, if you want enterprise strength, Salesforce is the gold standard.  There are several specifically for real estate (and there are packages for podio to do the same, for cost and for free).  You can go from Investor Fuse ($497 non-refundable startup, then $250/mo for 5 users), Realeflow (about $99/mo after a $997 feel to get "premium leads"), REIPro (I forget, but I think it's $147/mo).

At the end of the day, you have to decide what features you want and what your budget is.

- save and categorize contacts (seller, buyer, agent, contract, escrow, lawyer...etc.)

- save and categorize properties (lead, active, sold, wholesale, rehab...etc.)

- track campaigns and leads (type of campaign: cold call, door knock, text msg, direct mail | how did the campaign perform or KPIs)

- manage project (wholesale deal transaction coordination and/or rehab management)

- special features

    - integrated call system (like callrail for cold calling)

    - integrated text system (send and receive text from within the app for a given lead)

    - direct mail (send post card, pen letter, etc campaign from within the app)

    - skiptracing (given the names and addresses from my lead list, get me the phone numbers for the leads)

    - setup squeeze page templates within the app for lead generation (funnel clicks from ppc ads or facebook ads to squeeze page)

So, you can go from just tracking contacts and leads on spreadsheets to spending a few hundred a month, plus $1200+ in setup.  This is part of your marketing budget, and you need to decide how much automation is important to your business.  Most experienced investors that are doing multiple contracts a month will tell you the sooner you can afford to automate, the better, because nothing helps consistent marketing quite like automation, and nothing helps boost lead conversion than consistency.

@Garrett F Anderson I can't stress enough how important it is to walk every house you can, with a repair estimate sheet, looking for every issue, then going over it with a contractor (buy them lunch!) and see how your numbers are. Every morning, look at new listings on zillow, redfin or if you have MLS access and ask to see the the property. The other upside is you get to know a lot of agents in your area, give them your card, and let them know you are an investor and you wont make a high offer to get the house under contract, then beat the seller up for credits and adjustments, because that's just bad business, and not the way you work. Also, ask them if they would give you comps on the ARV for the property, then compare your own with theirs. Practice, practice, practice!

Good luck!

have you tried zoom video?

@Garrett F Anderson Purchase price was $880K, wholesale fee was $10k.  I had a buyer lined up before I even had the contract finished, so I had no earnest money deposit, no closing costs.  What I did do is not only broker a very complicated deal with a seller (there was a tenant in place, and the seller didn't want to give 60 day notice until she had a signed contract....etc...etc.), but I stayed on top of the deal all the way to escrow, and was on the phone often between seller, title, escrow and buyer to iron out issues that flared up.

My repair estimate as almost dollar for dollar with my buyer's contractor, and my ARV was spot on with her selling agent. This was very important to the deal. A lot of investors will tell you they don't trust wholesalers' numbers.

Having a buyers list is SO important. If I had to take the time to look for a buyer when this deal came to me, I would have probably had to come up with a %3 EMD, and would not have been able to move as fast as we did. We had a 5 day inspection period and closed in 15 days. I earned my money. ;^)

Because I was there for my buyer throughout the process, she is my best ally in gathering even more buyers, and is a fantastic reference for me.

@Brandon Spurlock, congratulations! That looks like a great success for your first BRRR (R still to come). Looking forward to seeing your next deal and how you apply your lessons to the next one.

@Julie Kern, great story, and quite an inspiration.  Thank you for taking the time to post all the details!  Good luck on the apartment building.

1.  do your own comps.  Do them every day.  Do them on properties you aren't even interested in and follow them to see where they sell at.  You *have* to do your own numbers first, because you wont know when someone else's numbers are bad until you know how to do them yourself.  Just walked away from a deal because I *didn't* fallow my own rule, putting out so many offers with the same agent, took their comps instead of mine, and when the offer was accepted, I re-ran my numbers, did my own comps and damn...why off.  I would have lost tens of thousands if I didn't run those numbers and would have taken that deal as is.

2. Don't be afraid to do it wrong. You will eventually get it right, but not until you get out there. Done is better than perfect. Don't focus on the house, focus on the seller and whatever their problem is. Dig deep, and establish that repport with them, so they feel comfortable just telling you everything, "Tell me your story. What's going on that you're selling this beautiful house?" When you find out what the problem is, you can solve it with all the tools in your toolbelt; subject-to, seller finance, lease option, or just buy it, cash. The house is the symptom of a problem. If there's no problem, then there's not enough motivation, and you're at the wrong table. A seller last week was living in China with his new wife. His father passed away and mother went into assisted living. I talked to him to find out, "what will you do with the money from this house?". He wants to go back to China or Thailand where he can retire on $130k. The problem was, the house had a reverse mortgage on it that was already up to $480k and the ARV for this property was $620K. I told him to list the house and get as much as he could. He'll probably get $500k in it's current condition, and end up paying to sell the house. I hate reverse mortgages...such a scam.

3. Look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, you got this.  You are the problem solver these people need and you have the answers, or you know people that do and you can help them move on with their life.  This is your role here.  Helping people solve their problem.  They feel they can't sell their house because it's ugly and full of junk.  That's ok, because you can close on their timeline, with an offer that helps them move forward, and they only need to take what they want from the house, and you'll donate and take care of all they leave behind.  Need help moving?  Need boxes?  We know movers and we can set that up for you.  You are the problem solver.

You have this, just get out of your own way and let yourself make some mistakes, so  you can learn and succeed, because you will make mistakes, but as long as you learn from them, you will succeed too.

God bless you too, and take care.