All Forum Posts by: James Hutson

Greetings fellow real estate addicts!

I am a Realtor and investment broker (I understand investing and nearly half of my clients are investors).  I hail from Goldens Realty in Cary, NC.  

Like many of you, I have ambitious goals to become a full time investor. For me, the goal is to have a mix of multi-family, single-family and eventually start a real estate syndication company. One of the more immediate goals, was to organize and start the first ever, BiggerPockets monthly meet-up for this area.  I reached out to Joshua Dork and Brandon Turner regarding this and they gave me their blessing. Needless to say, I was excited!

Our inaugural meet will be Wednesday January 14th, 2015. It will be monthly until we grow some more and people can't get enough of it. At this point, we will switch to a bi-weekly meet for a while and maybe eventually have it weekly.

Everyone is welcome to come, regardless of what your career is and how much (or little) experience you have. Apart from buying a sandwich or coffee for yourself, there are no fees...period. We also want to avoid pitching of products or services. Now, members doing business with each other is inevitable and obviously very profitable...its just we don't want people coming in and trying to 'inorganically' sell.  

The only agenda we are looking to develop, is one where we can have planned discussions on decided topics. For example, if you have ample experience with buying foreclosures, you could run the discussion and educate those who are not as familiar with the process.  

My goal is to keep this a 'better than thou'-free meet.  No investor hierarchy. Just learning, networking, mentorship, and inevitably, partnerships.

I'm looking forward to meeting with those who have already 'RSVP'd' to the meet and all you others who are just now reading this. 

Our Facebook page for this meet is: 

https://www.facebook.com/biggerpocketsraleigh?ref=...

Hop on over, like the page, join the discussion and let me know if you can make it so I can try to figure out a table plan.

Happy investing to you all!

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I can be reached by:

Email: [email protected]

Cell: (919) 337-7765

Alright everyone!

Well our first meet-up is set for Wednesday, January 14th 2015 @ the Panera Bread in Cary (1065 Darrington Dr, Cary, NC 27513.)

It will be from 12-1pm (or run until we decide to call it quits).

Looking forward to meeting you all. Expect a PM message as well with this same information and a link to our official BP Facebook page.  

Finally, I will have a Pro membership soon and thus will be able to create a page for us on the 'Events' forum. This will give us more exposure to the local investor community as well as act as our primary point of contact on BP. 

Happy investing!

Hey there everyone!

Well, I have set up our Facebook page for the meet.  Please feel free to offer advice or suggestions for improvements or changes to it.  I'm a 'feedback is king' kinda guy, so let me know. 

Join, like and get involved by posting on the page. If you have problems posting, let me know. 

https://www.facebook.com/biggerpocketsraleigh

Hey everyone!

We obviously have some seriously substantial interest in this. Awesome!  I have begun to structure a Facebook 'business' page for our meet-up and will link you all to it once it is finished.  Joshua Dorkin and Brandon Turner have given me the 'nod'. And Brandon has offered to provide advice if needed. 

Also, I'd like to introduce @Michael Sherwood  He is currently heading up and organizing the Buffalo, NY BiggerPockets Meet-up.  Next summer he will hopefully be moving down here and also joining us at our meet-up.  I'm looking forward to having another sophisticated investor nearby to learn from and work with :)

I was thinking we begin our first meet-up midway through January on Wednesday the 14th. From then on, let's meet on the third Wednesday of each month (if for some reason many of you cannot meet this day, we can set up a better one that suits more of our schedules). 

@Dawn Brenengen  Thanks for the feedback! 

I'd love some more feedback from everyone on when during the day works best and if everyone is ok with the meet up location initially being a cafe in Cary or Raleigh.

If you'd like to contact me more quickly, shoot me a text or call and introduce yourself. I'd love to put voices to your names! Cell: (919) 337-7765  

Email: [email protected]

Stay warm everyone and have an absolutely wonderful and safe Turkey Day with your family and friends! 

Kindly,

James

Hey everyone!

Firstly, it looks like we have enough interest to make this thing work (though even if only two people are there, I consider that a success).  After all, it takes two to tango and two to form a partnership. 

So as I mentioned, I would like to initially have a monthly meet up and make sure it's a consistent day of the week.  I haven't yet decided which day in January will be the first.  

Secondly, how about some feedback:

(1) A favorite (initial) location you'd like to meet which will suit up to perhaps 10-15 people.  Wi-fi access is always a plus. I'm thinking of Panera or some place where they aren't waiting to seat the next table and kick us out like a regular restaurant. 

(2) Which day of the week works best and a time of day. Give me your two best days and I'll try to find a day that fits most of our busy schedules. I realize some of you may have children/family time, two jobs or work later into the evening.  

Again, this is going to be a casual meet up. We can meet for an hour or three, its entirely up to everyone and nothing is set in stone (we can even move the meet day if enough agree). Getting to know each other is a good start. I'm sure that down the road we will be throwing business at each other via referrals and such and even partnering up together to play real life Monopoly!  :P

Finally, A Facebook page will be in the works soon and perhaps a LinkedIn afterwards.  I don't utilize twitter, so if one of you are Twitter-savvy, let's talk and you can kick that off.

Happy investing, everyone!

Perhaps it is time to hear from investment-specialized brokers/Realtors. I hear Brandon ask the question "Do you think it is important to get a real estate brokers license?" to a large number of the guests on the show.  I've also heard guests say "Where are the agents that understand investing and can work well with investors?!".  Well, where are they? 

Seems as though investment-savvy brokers are as rare of a commodity as an excellent, reliable GC.  It isn't so much that they understand how investors buy/sell and behave. Rather, their value lies in their ability to find those diamond in the rough investment properties that when flipped, will net the investor a profit in the high 5, to low 6 figures. Then the broker repeats this over and over again for the investor(s). 

Each party wins. The broker gets the deal-flow volume from their investor client (as well as great references to other investor friends of their client) and the investor gets highly profitable investment properties without having to scour hundreds of properties themselves and deal with the typical residential agent. It isn't just an ideal partnership, it's a marriage. 

Great feedback so far!

Anyone interested in seeing this started in the near future, please let me know and I will 'Connect' with you here on BP and exchange PM or emails if that's easier to keep you updated on a timeline for this meetup to happen. 

Open to suggestions. Maybe if it works out the first time and there is enough interest for a weekly or bi-weekly meet-up, then we can establish this. This is a HOT area right now and Raleigh is constantly ranking high on the top desired cities to live in throughout the U.S. each year. We should harness this to our advantage NOW! 

I'll reach out to Josh and Brandon and see what they think and see if they can provide some marketing assistance by posting our meet up on a list of 'official' BP meet ups around the country.

James H.

Hi everyone!

I'm doing some preliminary research for a property manage roll I will be transferring into over the next year.  Some of the initial work has been to develop how I will screen tenants. 

I remember one of the shows on the podcast had a guest who mentioned the 'book-sized' application form for new tenants and how he would go through it with the potentials and weed out the red flags. He also said that anyone could visit his companies website and view it there. I believe he also skimmed over tenant training, but I realize so have many other guests. If it helps I believe it was between show 40 and 65, though that doesn't narrow it down too much. 

I was hoping to read his over and get a feel for how to structure my own. I have read through a few other rental applications provided here on BP and they have been quite useful.

Thanks a million!

James H.

@Andrew S.   I will work on gathering some more feedback and try and figure out a time that may work for most of us. Starting with just a few people is probably ideal.  Let me know what works best for you: day/time of day. Maybe we can get it to gain some traction and build momentum. 

@Dawn Brenengen  Sounds good! Working on it.

@Bryan H.  Glad to hear it's low with sales pitches and that the speakers are solid. 

Hi all,

I was hoping to get some feedback on the local TREIA and other REIAs in the Triangle Area.  Also, I was looking to see if there are others in this area that would be interested in forming/attending a BiggerPocket's meetup here.  If there is a BP meeting here let me know, I may have overlooked it. Otherwise, I would like to start one.

The small team of specialized Realtors I belong to are currently growing into an investor-friendly position since each of us plans to soon begin the challenging transition into full time investors. We were hoping to provide a means for BiggerPockets members in the area to link up in person with ease, build their contacts, learn from each other and ideally, do business together.  

Remember, despite most investors having large contact lists, a lot of them do business with and receive financing from only a handful of those people, namely, other investors.