All Forum Posts by: Christopher Sparacino

Wholesaling seems to be the ground floor for real estate investing, you learn how to market to find good deals, what a good deal looks like, how to estimate repairs, how to calculate ARV (After-repaired value).. Understanding and knowing these things are like critical to becoming a good investor

well this is what i do, i find some JV partners that are also my boots on the ground, i vet them for experience to make sure they have some deals under their belt, then i start marketing in the areas they serve, then i qualify the leads i get and find the true wholesale leads, i talk with my JVs to see if they are worth pursuing. If we decide one looks good, we sign a JV agreement, then I more or less hand off the lead to my JV partner. so far everyone is happy, my partners are happy with getting free leads, im happy with working to my strengths (lead generation) and "hiring out" my weaknesses (estimating repairs) and the sellers sell, and the buyer gets a good deal!

Okay so my first thought after reading this, does the Pocomoke, MD, market have alot of activity in the past 30 days - 6 months? My mentor advises me to stay away from markets that don't have alot of activity. Also you need to determine the ARV, After Repair Value, meaning, if fixed up how much would the home sell for. Also you need to get an estimate on repairs, these numbers need to be as exact as possible with enough room for you to make money wholesaling it to another investor, make sure you take into account soft costs. Also, post this in the wholesaling forum and google Max Maxwell and join his group.

When you say "renovations" what does that mean exactly? It could get costly, you don't want any hidden surprises coming up that kill the deal for the rehabber and for you. It's time to crack open some reading material, I suggest getting some BiggerPockets books on flipping and rental properties, and start watching some videos on home inspectors and general contractors, they will help. 3 bed 3 bath is good because those are the houses that rehabbers are looking for. If you can, walk the property with a GC, the bigger pockets book on flipping writes of a 100 house rule, meaning walk 100 properties, preferably with a GC if you're new.

Wholesaling is marketed as a get rich quick, but in reality, it's not at all. Yeah there are some lucky ones, but if you want to make consistent income from it you need to wear a few hats: rehabber, landlord, agent, marketer, general contractor. If you knew all the things they know, if you did, it would take 15 minutes to analyze a "deal" and how much profit you and your buyer could make from it, and how much to sign the contract for. 

These are just my thoughts after doing this for a while, good luck!

I would question the seller on repairs, you need a purchase and sales agreement to place the property under contract and an assignment agreement to assign your contract to another investor, and you can find cash buyers in cash buyer facebook groups, search facebook for "cash buyers" and join a few groups. Dont send the property out to anyone unless you have it under contract with the purchase and sales agreement. Make sure your purchase and sale agreement has "outs" in it. And do your own research to determine the ARV, hope that helps

I have a coach, she helped me a bit with certainty and investigations of property, and giving me some confidence to do a deal.. but the rest is online and up to me. There's nothing that can't be googled or asked in this forum or in a Facebook group for REI.

Looking back, over the past 3 years I spent about $10k trying to get my RE dream off the ground, so far nothing. Lol

My biggest blunder for 2019 was having too much fear to put anything under contract for a wholesale deal. Also making it too theoretical and complicated instead of taking action. I could’ve just hired a contractor to go out and estimate repairs, but I didn’t. I ended up doing a lot of marketing, getting a lot of leads across the country, but no closed deals.

Now what I do is I JV with some people in their markets, I have them place the properties under contract, with both our names on the P&S agreement, then we work together to calculate repairs, ARV, and find buyers. Works for me. They handle negotiating, I work on what I'm good at. Which is getting leads.

so skip tracing to my understanding is just basically tracking down a persons contact information, sites such as truepeoplesearch.com will let you plug a name and a city and state and will give you back phone numbers, relatives and friends of that person. and yes i use truepeoplesearch.com 

my best lead source to date is buy/sell and yardsale facebook groups. I post in there that I am an investor looking to purchase an off market property, and that I am looking for vacants, fixers, and unwanted.. It works really well 

have you tried posting in your local buy/sell facebook groups? that usually works for me.. I havent gotten my first deal yet, but i have an excel sheet with about 80 off market leads along the east coast from this year. try targeting homeowners with a simple message saying you are an investor looking for properties to purchase this month.. It usually works for me pretty quickly.. the other thing you could do is Drive 4 dollars.. Where you drive around different neighborhoods and look for beat up houses then take down the info, skip trace the owners contact information and reach out to them to see if they want to sell. 

I would just add that you should take some actions in terms of marketing to get your phone ringing, then you need to understand comps, ARV, and repairs.. the least you need to know is how to run comps on a property, for repairs, you can hire a licensed and insured general contractor to come with you on appointments so that way you can give a fair and intelligent offer...

Side question, what part of NYC? are you brooklyn, queens, bronx, staten island, or manhattan? just curious because i also am in NYC, im in brooklyn...