All Forum Posts by: Drew Clements

@William Hochstedler Responded to your PM before I saw the forum response - thanks for the thread link!

Hi Utahans of BiggerPockets!

I'm working with a Friend in Utah on some projects and we need to find a real estate attorney to review a number of documents (contracts, leases, etc.)

Do you have an Attorney you'd like to refer business to? We're working around the Cache Valley and Ogden areas; but don't necessarily need a local attorney, although that would probably be a plus.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Hi All - If you'd be so kind as to review my strategy for entry below, I'd appreciate any thoughts, insights, warnings, etc. you may have! But first, some context...

My degree is in business management with a marketing emphasis. By day I run an online marketing agency in Colorado. But for the past year and a half, my wife and I have been remodeling our duplex - our first "deal" - and I'm doing all of the work myself to make the "numbers" work. It's turned out to be a live-in flip/rehab of sorts as we plan on selling it in a few months given the very favorable market conditions in our area. In other words, we paid too much for it, it's an old house that's surprised us with deferred (but covered-up) maintenance, and we'll be lucky to "break even" not counting our time when we sell. Chalking it up to tuition.

SO now that we're a little smarter, we're trying to figure out a better strategy for entry (round 2). Here it is:

Last week I called up a family friend who has been working in real estate for decades... he's an agent, owns his own construction company, and is getting old :)

I wouldn't call him a sophisticated investor, but he has the skills I lack and I think we're very complementary. This is element #1 of my strategy - leverage an existing track record.

During our call, I pitched him on me bringing my skills (general business management and marketing/advertising) to the table in exchange for the opportunity to use them - i.e. he would enable me with his skill set and I would help him to scale, using his track record as a springboard to craft a win/win situation. I originally thought that I could help him with his deal flow through advertising, but as we talked, I discovered that although that is something he's interested in expanding, his immediate need is investment capital.

Turns out that, of course, he's maxed out on the conventional financing side of things so all of the deals he's doing now are financed with hard money. He's known that he needs to get started with raising private money for years, but hasn't been able to make it happen. I'm confident that I can make it happen, though, so I'm volunteering to take on the task of raising capital.

Once I figure out and refine/streamline my process for raising capital, my next goal is to scale and balance incoming capital with incoming deals.

Now, I don't have all the details yet, but I know that there's a lot of opportunity to get into hot water in the process of raising private money (i.e. SEC regs on advertising, etc.) so I plan on consulting a real estate attorney as part of the setup and refinement of this campaign.

That's the basic vision for what I plan to do. But I would really like to get feedback on any relevant points from those of you with experience in working with other investors and raising private money (e.g. action/awareness items for a newbie).

Also (and this may sound strange) but how do I make money in this? I've pitched this all to my investor friend with a general "I'll eat what I kill" approach so as to align our interest and not be a drag on things. But to be honest, I'm not sure how to structure in the eating when I'm not sure what's being killed when it comes to raising capital. Bringing in leads/deals is one thing, but what is the value of bringing in a private money lender in dollars and cents? This seems like a non-standard approach, so any advice in evaluating and realizing the value is appreciated.

I'll wrap it up with that as this post is getting long, but I look forward to discussing your insights and advice!

I'm in the same boat as Adam... This is actually the first forum post I've started reading the my research process. Definitely looking to leverage existing experience to understand the boundaries for advertising to raise private money.

I'm planning on talking to a local real estate attorney, too. So to extend the question, what "interview" questions should I ask the RE attorney to make sure he or she knows their stuff with it comes to private money?

Hi @Jonathan Avila,

To specifically answer your question, no, becoming an AdWords Partner will have no impact on the success of your campaigns. The exams can help you to know what you don't yet know, but the subject mater covered is relatively basic - the resulting "badge" does nothing for you unless you're trying to acquire PPC clients and manage their campaigns (that's what it's geared for). It's quite literally a sales tool for Google and nothing more - if you spend enough, you get a "rep" that's just a Google salesperson that tries to get you to spend more (regardless of ROI). I'd say it's irrelevant if you're running your own campaigns.

hey @Brandon Turner, I actually had the same question - any update on where past webinars will live? YouTube channel, etc?

Well, @Heather Turner, that's what editing is for, right!

So I've listened to all 100 podcasts now - by the way, super awesome stuff - and my wife has also listened to them. It seems to us that the "founders" have always been on the podcast, and that's great, but it's starting to seem like "more of the same" (although the details change). It's also interesting to note how all of the interviewees, in some way or another, give due credit to their supporting networks and systems - especially the key people on their first tier team, and for many that's a spouse.

BUT except for the few couples who have been interviewed together, we really don't get the perspective of that first tier team, the people on the front lines. Would be really interesting to get some perspective from some of these folks on how they view their role on the team and they could probably offer some great insights on building a team.

So, @Brandon Turner and @Joshua Dorkin , how about an interview with Brandon's wife, or some of the other key people that work for/with the RE pros?

(And just to clarify, THANKS to all the contributors on the podcasts to-date - you're all awesome - not intending to detract from your content at all with this comment!)

I'm remodeling my duplex - doing all the work myself - and needed to learn to do drywall. So I watched a bunch of youtube videos, read articles, etc. BUT the best resource I found BY FAR was http://www.drywallschool.com/protips.htm

It's all free with step-by-step articles with great images and videos. Enjoy and good luck with your project!

I just redid the plumbing in the kitchen and bath of one of my units with pex - loved it.

Only thing I have to add is that It's worth it to get the tool for the crimp/barbed fittings (vs push-on which are much more expensive) if you're doing a fair amount of work. There are two types of crimp bands - you can get the copper bands or stainless steel. The stainless crimp tool is about half the cost of the copper crimping tool and can also do more sizes of pipe. I also felt like the stainless steel crimps are easier to control position on when crimping because it's not hidden by the tool.