All Forum Posts by: Colby Hager

@Account Closed Not sure where your house is in San Antonio, so can't advise on pricing but don't die a death from a thousand papercuts.  No more 10K price drops.  Get it as low as you are willing to accept and get that bad boy sold.  Priced appropriately, I would think 20 showings in 2 weeks and you would be getting some offers. Good luck!

@Divya Reddy as was mentioned previously, much depends on how you plan on running your flip. Do you plan on being there daily or more like once a week?

Conventional wisdom is that if you “GC” your own flip, you will save money. That CAN be true. But you could also really suck at managing subs, overpay, get crappy work and the list goes on. So, in that case, it might be better to let a pro do their thing.

I personally like good mix. I like to for sure hire my trades like electric, plumbing, roofing, foundation, and HVAC. I prefer not to have someone else making these choices just because they are overseeing my flips.

On a side note that probably can take up another thread entirely

contractors were made to be fired so I strongly advise against putting all of your eggs in one GC’s basket so to speak. No matter how great they are, you will eventually need to fire them or just move on from them (in my experience) due to any number of reasons that always seem to crop up

Good luck!

@Lynnette E. Thank you so much for taking time to reply. This goes to show that what @Will Barnard was hearing has some real validity.

I’m sorry to hear about your experience. Unfortunately liars and crooks are out there making people who take this business serious look bad.

Hopefully you taking the time to share your experience will help the good guys in this business better at what we do so that we can be the ones whose message resonates with people who need to sell to an investor.

Thanks again for sharing!

As someone who has mailed hundreds of thousands of postcards, I don't think it matters to be quite honest.  I think that if someone is motivated enough to call a tiny postcard, they don't care too much about the name.  

More than likely, they will have a stack of postcards from other investors as well.  

In my experience, one of two things happens

1. They run down the list and call and talk to as many of the postcard senders as possible and schedule multiple appointments. 

2. You are the lucky winner, you are on top of the stack!  They call, you answer, they love you.  You set an appointment for later in the day and you get the deal! 

I think much more important than your name is does your postcard stand out?  I've had marketing agencies design fancy postcards and they had all the data in the world on why theirs would perform so well.  Well, those sucked.  

The best postcards in terms of calls are simple, non-glossy, and they typically offend people.  "property notice" "3rd Notice" "Warning" phrases like that.  Color doesn't matter much.  Yellow seems to be the standard.

These postcards will seriously piss people off.  They don't just throw them away.  They call you, cuss you, threaten to sue you, and are genuinely hurt, angry, upset, and offended.  

Trust me, I've heard it all.  

However...

For some reason, legit motivated sellers call these as well.  So...If you don't mind dealing with all the noise, you can get a deal this way.

Be prepared to send thousands a week though.  That is what it will take to really move the needle with postcards no matter what anyone else tells you.  Anything less and you might want to think about a different mailing medium.  Also, a really great list helps a ton.

[Solicitation Removed by Moderators]  Best of luck!

@Ralph E. The landscape was totally different when I started back then.  I'm not sure that biggerpockets was even around.  I read some books and actually attended a 5 day seminar from a "guru"   The seminar turned out to be a total sales pitch for other stuff but luckily I was so broke, I couldn't afford any of it.  I learned enough there to get started though.  Today, everything you could ever want or need to know is available online for free.  The trouble is figuring out what is solid advice.  Additionally, wholesaling laws vary from state to state so what might work great for one person in Montana, might not work for someone in Florida and vice-versa. 

@Will Barnard I see your point, I just view OP's question from a different lens.  I assume if someone is wanting to wholesale, it is legal or they wouldn't be doing it.  When I say deal, I don't mean a thin deal.  To me, a thin deal isn't really a deal.  

OP should go out and find a homerun of a deal.  A deal so sweet and juicy, every investor within 100 miles will be crying because they didn't get that deal!  

Thin deals are available on the MLS. @Lawrence Green is out driving for dollars.  He wants that white whale!  Is it hard to find?  Sure.  Is it out there?  Absolutely!  And will he be able to sell the white whale with no pre-existing buyers list (assuming he's not too greed) You betcha!

Incidentally, when he does find that deal, all the investors who wanted it but didn't get it, will be the beginning of his buyers list.  Then, he has credibility.  He just sold a deal on 123 Any Street to Tom Investor and Tom Investor loves him.  

I find them and he can too.  However, if he spends his time trying to prequalify buyers who view him through the perspective of getting those phone calls that I mentioned before, he will likely come away discouraged thinking that no one is out there looking to buy deals.

If a wholesaler came to me asking for proof of funds for a deal that doesn't currently exist, I doubt they would get much from me.  Does that make me an unqualified buyer? Of course not. 

Buy and Hold real estate might not be a way to get out of lots of debt, but real estate as a broader category CERTAINLY is.  I personally was swimming in debt when I first started wholesaling in 2007.  Between my wife and I, we had well over 100K in student loans and credit cards.  I had a crappy job that wasn't paying the bills and we had young kids.  

Enter Wholesaling

The first wholesale I did was for $12K.  Do you think that paid down a huge chunk of credit card debt? Yes sir, it did.  

Now, we were using the snowball method of Dave Ramsey fame at the time and continued to do so, but every time I wholesaled a house, we would be able to chunk away at that debt faster than we ever could by using the snowball method. 

Back then, my marketing budget was non-existent and everything I did to get deals was free, or close to free.  Incidentally, all of those ways still work, most people just won't tough it out and go door-knocking on their day off for 8 hours.  

Fast forward a couple of years and we were living debt-free.  So from where I sit real estate and more specifically wholesaling got my family and me out of debt and quite literally changed my life. 

Good luck!

@Benjamin McGuire Don't focus on a minimum profit per deal.  That's half the reason why so many bad deals are circulating out there.  People have a set number they want to make.  If you get a great deal you could make 50K!  If you get a crappy deal, you might be lucky to make 500 bucks.  

All parties benefit when the seller is getting a price they are willing to accept and the buyer is paying a price they are willing to pay.  You benefit when you can make those two things happen with the biggest spread you can negotiate in between.  Sometimes that is 2,500.  Sometimes it's 10K, sometimes it's 50K or more.  That part largely depends on you and how well you do your job. 

I love adding additions to houses with pier and beam foundations.  Easy, cheap (nowhere near 175-250 per foot as quoted above), and fast to do.  Since you mentioned the area you are looking in was built in the 1950s, I'm assuming they are all on slab which adds challenges with plumbing and increases the cost. 

Adding a bathroom within the existing footprint in the house is a must if the sold comps are all 3/2's.  Making a house substantially larger than the sold comps just to get it to a 3/2 is something I would pass on.  

Best of luck!

@Lawrence Green without a doubt get a deal first. Buyers will come if you have a good deal. The key is getting a good deal. I cannot stress this enough.

Forget about a buyers list...that’s seminar talk. I promise you, if you have a deal there WILL be buyers. What’s the point of having a great list if you have no properties. That’s a great way to make a bad first impression.

It happens to me every week. People call me with deals that will be coming in the future. I never hear from them. Why? They wasted all their time on generating a list instead of generating a contract. Don’t be that guy!

Trust me, you will be a flipper or buy and holds hero if you just call and introduce yourself with an actual deal to offer. Make it a really sweet deal and they will be begging you for more. Doesn’t that sound better?? Of course it does!