All Forum Posts by: Eric Hettena

Daniel HornsbyFirstly, you have taken action and sent out mailers. That is definitely taking you in the right direction. I am putting together my first direct mail campaign and it is exciting to hear you have pulled the trigger and taking action. Of course, being efficient, talking to motivated sellers and diversifying your marketing strategies is all important, but your doing something. I suspect your going to get a solid lead, or more, from your letters, and I am keeping my eye on you....in a not creepy way of course :)

Missy Improta Welcome to the site. It is always great to see more California investors joining Bigger Pockets. I grew up in Calabasas and miss it, such a wonderful city. After a quick research through this site typing in yellow letters in the search bar you will have plenty of answers, and even examples of different letters you can send and strategies behind them. Michael Quarles is one of the resident go to yellow letters specialist here.

Many of the local small community newspapers/publications have really low costs to advertise in them.

Check with local stores and ask if you can put up fliers. You are doing community outreach for homeowners who might be in a tough situation with their home. You can provide solutions to help.

The pros are:

Having access to MLS(which is awesome)
Being able to see listed properties yourself and make your own appointments and lock box codes
Submit your own offers

Cons:
Pass the exam
Hang your license with a broker (although probably not hard)
Pay MLS dues
Take a course for the exam (but preparing for the test you will learn a lot about real estate)
Do continued education (but not really a bad thing)
You will have to disclose your an agent if you are dealing directly with a homeowner/seller

Welcome to Bigger Pockets. I think you have an advantage as a newcommer because you already know what you want to do. Buy a house and rent it. Boom.

You should do a search on bigger pockets for cash flow and cap rate (capitalization rate), which are two factors to help determine if a property is a good rental investment.

But in general read specific to your goals and rental properties. There is so much information on different strategies, so its good you have a gameplan.

It does have its perks for sure. There is a higher standar agents have though especially if you are making offers on properties directly to homeowners. As a licensed agent you have a fiduciary responsibility to the homeowners you are buying from as to make sure you do not have an unfair advantage over the people you are buying from. You can have more liability if things don’t work out. You will need to disclose that you are a Realtor during your intial contact with a seller.

Awesome Arthur. They won't have a choice but to call you if at least to tell you to stop. Keep us updated for sure. Good luck.

George ArgyrisWelcome to the site. I can totally understand where your coming from. There is so much to learn about REI and so many different angles and exit strategies. I also can understand the temptation in paying for a "guru" to show you the ways young grasshopper.

I would look for your local REI clubs. Check out meetup.com and search for them. Network and talk with other investors. Reach out to local people in your area that are on Bigger Pockets. I think you will surprised on how many people will help you and you can very well find a mentor who can work with you on a couple deals first.

I think by learning on your own and spending the time to figure out what path you want to take will be much more beneficial. Keep reading, learning and go to REI clubs. Also, many members here who have blogs have some amazing information on them which give you a simple breakdown. A couple to reference who have awesome information is J. Scott and Danny Johnson, but there are tons of other people to check out their sites.

Oh, and you can find Sean Terry's Fip2Freedom podcasts online for free. You are on your way to greatness.

Randy F. And that about sums it up.

Alvin GrierI did the same thing as you. Luckily it only took 4 cold calls to agents until I felt comfortable with one who I met with and got them coffee. I didn't get too deep into business at first, but spent time getting to know them, their pain points and what could help them grow their business. So far they have been pretty accomodating and there really wasn't much expectation for me to do anyting in return.

Perhaps your conversations with the agents could be tweaked, or you just need to reach out to more agents until you find one who is hungry and ready to help.