All Forum Posts by: Dan Schwartz

For those of you that are still actively using bandit signs as part of your marketing strategy...I believe I actually found a legit solution to help you outsource this task...

www.simplecrew.com is an app that allows you to track your team members as they put up signs. It shows you on a map where exactly they put the sign, as well as a picture of the actual sign that they put up...so at the end of the day you know exactly where and when they were put up...PLUS have proof that they were put up.

You can also place pin points on specific intersections you want to target from your computer, while your sign guy goes to that pin and places the sign...

Here's a campaign we did in Baltimore: http://app.simplecrew.com/p/UKPVJfMmgeN-AJlq?k=dXo9zN5S

It's pretty slick. They have a free trial too...www.simplecrew.com

Let me know if any of you end up using this!

OK, so in this instance, all properties would need to be converted into a performing investment before simply swapping deeds with someone via a 1031. So, it would require some capital, or just resourcefullness, to renovate/rent the assets.

However, that will make it easier to "trade up," because now you can exchange a turnkey single family home for say a vacant duplex. The seller of the duplex is just a motivated seller, but will gladly take a performing, cashflowing asset instead. Now, you will own a duplex with some equity, and you can rinse and repeat the process and trade up to a fourplex next...slowly raising your cash flows and property values as you continue to trade up your turnkey properties. It would be a proces of delayed gratification and forced appreciation...

Right, so it would obviously be several exchanges, but apparently 1031 exchanges require 1 year seasoning on any asset your trading if I'm not mistaken...so I'm not sure what the tax implications would be if I just traded say a duplex for a triplex that someone didn't want anymore without ANY monetary exchange...basically just swapping deeds. ARE there any tax implications?

I'm seriously considering trying this, but want to understand the feasibility of it, and the time it would take to accomplish...

It looks like DC developers have the option to trade up to the famous J Edgar Hoover building...so the idea has validity!

http://news92fm.com/307079/fbi-will-trade-j-edgar-hoover-building-for-new-headquarters/

That's exactly what I was thinking...Also, it would probably require a lot of your own cash in order to increase the value of whatever asset you got in the trade...unless you could get some sort of equity line of credit?

Nonetheless, It's interesting to think about how it may be possible to get creative with equity and appreciation and trade up from a 1br apartment to say a 250+ unit apartment building completely TAX FREE using 1031 exchanges??

How would you guys do it?

For those of you who are unfamiliar, a man was able to trade his up from a red paperclip to buy an entire house in just under a year...

You can read the story and see the various trades he made here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip

These trades happened all over North America, and were done as somehwat of an experiment. However, it has always had me thinking about how this can be applied to basic investment strategy, and with real estate in particular.

I'm just getting my feet wet into actually buying/fixing/and holding properties for my own portfolio after doing 60+ wholesale deals these last 2 years, but through 1031 or like-kind exchanges and such...can't this same strategy be applied directly to real estate? ie. trade up from a 1 br apartment to a 250 unit apartment building, through realistically attainable deals, rehabs, financing, and value plays?

Do you see any issues that would arise with this? Or is this generally the idea in the first place and it took me "the red paperclip" to fully grasp wealth building...?

-Dan

Is it uncouth for a title agent to refer a buyer in their network to buy one of your wholesale deals?

It only makes sense, since they know everyone who is currently buying, but is it legal? Or is it only illegal if they ask for a cut of your proceeds?

I use www.YellowLetterMail.com. They create campaigns for you w/ simple yellow lined paper that looks like handwriting. It gets the phone ringing like crazy and only costs around $1.00 per letter from this site. The only problem is you really need to weed out these leads, because most of them aren't motivated at all, but there's always some that are! I got an 8% response rate on my last campaign w/ this. Best bet is to market to absentee owners.

Michael is the guy who runs the service. He will let you use the same yellow letter campaign (wording and everything) that he uses himself in his business.

How to Be a Quick-Turn Real Estate Millionaire- Ron LeGrand

Sure. Basically, once I got my first deal done and saw it was possible, I then decided to position it as a business, and had some capital from the first deal to create an entity, operating agreement, logo, website...etc.

Do your first deal on your own basically to get the capital to take it to the next level..