All Forum Posts by: David Yates

You don't need to be a realtor to do options.  Options are just about the best way to acquire land, especially if the plan is to develop.  There's some really good options education out there from guys like Jack Shea and the late Jack Miller.  DM me if you'd like to know more.

No money, no credit and just getting started as an investor .......humm ..... Sounds familiar. Sounds like a description of me........but that was 48 years ago.

I can't tell why or how I stuck with this crazy idea of creating financial freedom....I don't care what the books or folks selling courses say......this ain't an easy business to make money in even if you are starting with a bank roll. Getting stated in this business is like being asked to perform a medical procedure on a stranger after reading a few chapters in book or attending an all day seminar.

I knew I needed an education, a formula and guts to Fake it until I could make it. I understood that I didn't know what I didn't know! I needed time and money as well. 

A real job would never pay me enough to reach my foggy image of financial success. Exchanging my eight hours a day for a pay-check that was being reduced by taxes and other meaningless deductions ........ selling my time and the incarceration of employment was not for me.

What gave me time and the ability to write my own check was a job as a direct sales person. When I created more leads, had more in home presentations ..... I discoved an amazing thing......I started to make more money, work less and had time to go to real estate seminars, buy tapes and books and build a savings, Oh...... a supportive wife was a big help........married now this Wednesday will be 47 years.

I'll be 75 years old January 16, and as I look back over the many years of Trial and Terror, I don't think I'd want to start over learning to be an investor.

What I didn't have and new investors have today makes this business easier; a computer, cell phone, Internet, Bigger Pockets and lots of folks to render help and encouragement. Getting stated today is easier - but still in my opinion the key to financial success in this real estate is knowledge. 

Hi Dave. Great to see you getting started.  That "first deal is your toughest" stuff is true cause you feel like you're drinking from a fire hydrant.  Couple of things to think about...

1) Yes! You can get started with no money, and bad credit, and wholesaling is probably the best place to enter the business, if that's where you think you are. However, you'll probably go faster if you have a local mentor to show you the ropes. As a wholesaler, it's all about deal flow. The best way to kill your deal Flow is to get "hung up" on any one deal. As a newbie wholesaler you will typically find deals to wholesale one of two ways: a) putting out a ton of written offers, using the MAO formula, and b) identifying the top neighborhoods where investors are buying, and going direct by targeting these neighborhoods through your own direct marketing. A good local mentor will show you the ropes on how to do either (or both) of these things, but the key is DEAL FLOW. Meaning put in place a system(s) to quickly target/market/capture, then take the deals back to your list of investor/buyers. Which takes me to my second point...

2) The deal you are describing is a great way to get "wrapped around the axel" and (potentially) waste a lot of time, energy and possibly money, even before you know if you have a deal.  Here's why... when you say the value is in the land, you are now looking at a small-scale commercial deal.  Specifically, you are looking at an in-fill lot, land development.  These kinds of deals are not only (potentially) the most lucrative, especially for wholesalers.  They are also (guaranteed) the most time consuming.  Couple this with an absentee, non-motivated seller, and you're looking at a deal that could take you months, if not years to put together.  Not attempting to dissuade you, simply pointing out what you may not realize yet.  The deal could be promising, but the first rule of land development (including in-fill lots) is that "Land is inherently Worthless!" The value only comes from what you can do with the land, and once you know this you, or your buyer, will "back into" the value.  Forget about what the Assessor says, and forget about COMPs, when it comes to land/in-fill lots.

If you're going to pursue this, please recognize two things:

1) It's going to consume more time and energy than you can possibly imagine, and

2) You probably want to come up with a different wholesaling strategy, while working this deal.

In either case, a local mentor can walk you through how to do both things (pursue this deal, and set up a viable wholesaling strategy), but it may not be the same person.  Land deals are a niche, within a niche, so you may need to see out the advice of a local person who does infill lot development, and or wholesaling. But your "bread and butter" will not be these types of deals, so don't be afraid to seek out the help of a local person to decide what your bread and butter wholesaling system will look like.