All Forum Posts by: James Green

@James McCormick write him off. Don't deal with him again. The least he should of done, was to call you as things started to change. You shouldn't of had to call him, to find out your deal went south. He should of made the call. I always try to stay pro-active. I had an investor burn me & I took him off of my buyer's list. Several months later, he's blowing my phone & email up for a deal. He'll get one from me, when bananas grow on coconut trees.

@Joshua D., @Keith N., @Dan Redd as someone that currently wholesales I would constantly tell "newbies" that wholesaling is not the easiest way to get into real estate, nor do I suggest it, & I wholesale. All this no-money needed is misleading.

All these 15K+ wholesaling courses that the hotel Gurus sell (btw they actually don't show up), is to teach the uninitiated how to "wholesale" properties off the MLS. These hotel guys never teach about how to find off-market properties. I get properties sent to me all the time from wholesalers that want to sell me these MLS properties. I get these emails because of my online marketing & my "we buy houses" website. Whenever I do a simple google search on the address, I see that it is on the MLS pending, because the wholesaler has it under contract. Then to make things worse, they tack on 10K on top of the LIST price and think it's a deal. When I look into the listing I find these common descriptions - "needs work", "sold-as", "DOM 90+ days", "seller is motivated". Unfortunately I just spilled the secret to what is taught at these courses & what you get when you pay (I did) 15K+ to one of those hotel gurus selling wholesaling courses. Then of course they promise you support (a person on the phone reading a script), contacts with "nationwide lenders", a bus trip to the local HD/Lowes, ..blah, blah, blah. All of this to justify the price of the course.

Wholesaling takes the following to succeed:

• Knowing the difference between a motivated seller & someone that wants to sell their property. To many new wholesalers I see get properties under contract of sellers that simply want to sell their property, not need to.  These are the guys/gals that end up tying up properties and have "contractors" come through a sellers house, etc. @Steve Vaughan
• Gaining the knowledge and having the desire to find and/or market for off-market leads
• Understanding the math/the numbers of investment properties in your market, ie) understanding your MAO, rehab costs, ARVs
• Ability to negotiate or a desire to learn
• Ability to talk to strangers on the phone or a desire to learn
• Not having a greedy/needy mentality. I've run across "wholesalers" that need at least $5k on a deal. In other words they could make $3K , but won't do the deal b/c need $5k. They don't have a volume mind-set. @Andrew Syrios smh
• Cultivating a buyer's list. It's not hard and you don't need to buy some special access to some list of so-called buyers
• Thick skin
• Determination to constantly learn different aspects of Real Estate. Ex) I started learning about multi-families, now I've wholesaled plenty of them.

@Mitchell Pollard, you don't need a POF, unless the owner thinks YOU are buying the property. As a wholesaler I don't pretend I'm buying their property, I let them know "my investors" are buying the property & I'm just here to possibly agree to a contract.

If you can put the property under contract, take tons & tons of photos & market the contract.

@Erica M Chambers, as @Will Barnard stated it depends on a lot, but especially your negotiation skills and your market. I wholesale in a market where you can get 100K ASSIGNMENT FEES.  I stress assignment & not doing a double close, in other words the buyer knows what I put the property under contract for and she/he knows the fee they are paying & doing it gladly because it is a DEAL for them. I myself haven't done a 100K deal, but I'm working on a deal know where IF it closes I will reap 50K+. The deal has been dragging on for 2 mos, so I'm praying it closes within the next 2 weeks. I have done a 1K deal, it was my second deal ever.

@Olabisi Adebayo,there are dozens in the area. Just go to meetup.com & type in real estate investing Maryland. There is literally 4-5 a week in the DMV area. There is one this Sat. It is great, called the Real Deal Meetup in the Baltimore area. No sales pitch, just straight up learning.

@Voghens Larrieux, I agree with @Gabriel Amedee - "I think the most underused tool on BP is the search bar. So much value I've found using this tool I'm puzzled as why it isn't used more often." This site has a TON of info on how to get started. They also have free/low cost books on the subject.

@Anssi Viljanen The wholesaler has signed a Purchase contract with the seller via the selling agent. Just like you would a regular retail house purchase. The wholesaler is then going to find a buyer to assign the contract to.

Here's a scenario:

I (wholesaler) would sign a purchase agreement contract with Agent A, whom represents Seller A. The listing price is 750K, I negotiate my purchase price to 530K. I can get it at $530K, because everyone involved knows the house is a dump, needs major rehab, has been sitting on the market for awhile, and now Seller A has become very motivated by now. Now that I have the house under contract, it now should be showing up "PENDING" in the MLS. I now have 30-45 days (whatever my agreement states) to find a buyer (he used myhousedeals.com), which I will assign the contract to for 550K.

Now in real life ifI would of actually placed this house under contract, I would of never listed the exact address of this house anywhere in a public forum. I would of said "Great rehab with TON$ of EQUITY - 3000 block of Main St."  Now, I have buyers calling me, about the property instead of a listing agent. I also can determine if I'm talking to a real buyer, because I'm going to ask for their POF, before I give them the exact address. In addition, depending on the situation I might submit the offer through one of my realtors instead of going straight to the listing agent.

As you see, when the property is on the MLS, anybody could go straight to the listing agent and put in a backup offer, start asking questions, let the agent know I'm shopping the listing, whatever...

The wholesaler didn't do anything illegal, but it wasn't the wisest of decisions. BTW, if the numbers work for you pull the trigger.

I myself only list off-market properties I have under contract on myhousedeals.com.

@Olabisi Adebayo welcome. Have you started networking at any of dozens of real estate meetups in the DC-Balt metro area?

@Andrew McManamon, why would you use the foreclosure finder to find motivated sellers? There is no motivated seller in the equation when a property has been foreclosed on. A REO/Foreclosure is sold by a bank & they are NOT motivated in the way an actual individual is.

Now an actual individual that is actually going through the foreclosure process is motivated, but that is entirely a different beast to tackle to wholesale, you have to know the foreclosure timetables, mortgage payoffs, possible liens, also any particular laws that may apply in your state with buying pre-foreclosure properties. In some states, an investor CAN"T buy a pre-foreclosure property that is owned by an individual, they can buy one owned by an entity such as an LLC.

There are plenty of articles on here about finding motivated sellers in the wholesaling forums.

@Donovon Rogers good deal! B-more is my neck of the woods, if you need any help.