All Forum Posts by: James E.

@Josh Robbins You can usually have a good "guesstimate" after you go see the house. If you're going to a listed property with your real estate agent, any good agent will know basic ranges for how much things cost (new kitchen would be between x - y, new bathroom runs about $x etc..). You can also read Jay Scott's "book on estimating rehab costs," go to the free home depot seminars, and literally just google stuff, cold call contractors to see what their range might be etc..... plenty of ways in this day in age to find any information you're looking for. 

If the "guesstimate" numbers are in the right ballpark for the deal to make sense, once you have it under contract with an inspection contingency, I think it's worth the $300 bucks to have a home inspector come in and let you know if there are any structural issues you might not have seen and do a thorough analysis of the property. 

Once you've done your own analysis and supplemented it with the home inspection, add a comfortable contingency (20% or so) to the total cost and run the numbers, see if you can negotiate the seller lower based on what you found during home inspection, and if the deal no longer makes sense you can just walk away. 

Hope that makes sense, but it's worked out well for me so far (both places I've closed on and places I've walked away from). 

@Josh Robbins you could always start off with a SFH "hybrid" approach... buy a foreclosure or something out of REO, fix it up, rent it for a year or two and save the cash flow, then sell or re-fi once it's back to market value (maybe even above it the market has appreciated). This is the approach I've taken with my first two rentals as I try to build up enough capital to get into the apartment building game, and it's working great so far. You learn how to be a landlord on a smaller scale than jumping right in to multi families.

The other option I could see working for you is finding deals with sellers who are willing to carry back a note - not something I've done (yet) but seems to work for a number of people. 

Thanks @Tim Herndon ! Appreciate the note. 

To answer your questions:

1. Thought about post cards and went with yellow letters primarily because I wanted Jerry Puckett's advice and coaching, and figured why try to reinvent the wheel on a process that was working for tons of other people, so just ponied up the cash and started following his lead. 

2. Website over squeeze page... what's your thinking on the main advantages / disadvantages of one over the other?

3. Yes, the google doc CRM / call trackers are a bit of a manual integration at this point, but I will definitely think about upgrading to a more sophisticated platform once I have the volume to justify it. 

What type of investing do you focus on primarily, and do you have any other advice / tips / things to avoid for someone starting out in the wholesaling game?

*in Boxford

@Justin Silverio makes sense... do you do a lot of stuff in Essex county? Trying to remember back to your BP podcast but seem to remember you doing some work up in Andover and that area (I grew up with Boxford so know Andover / NA pretty well and surprised to hear there are "flippable" properties over there). 

@Robbie Reutzel great call, I've read both and found them really helpful. I'm sure they will be even more helpful as reference material once everything starts getting more "real" and I'm actually talking with sellers and viewing their properties. And yes, I think the best part about finding motivated sellers and getting off-market deals is all of the options it affords you once you have a contract locked up. 

@Justin SilverioThanks for the note - I actually met your colleague Will at a Black Diamond event a couple of months ago, he mentioned you guys do some wholesaling as well? Would love to connect at some point to get a better sense of your buying criteria (do you pretty much follow the 70% rule for flips?) and also any tips / lessons learned from your wholesaling efforts. 

Hey everyone,

I've been a buy and hold investor with 2 rental units for just over a year now, and am expanding to wholesaling in order to build up capital / additional sources of income. 

 I just received my first batch of yellow letters from Jerry Puckett (feels like Christmas!) and will be starting my first marketing campaign this week. Targeting high equity / absentee owners in Beverly, Salem, Peabody, and Danvers (all towns in north east Massachusetts). 

Some things I have done to prepare:

- Set up google voice number

- Start building a webpage

- Contact Jerry and read through the supporting documents he provided (call scripts, lead trackers etc..)

- Listened to 102 total BP podcasts (slowly working my way through them all)

- Read UBG to wholesaling and several other forum threads / blog posts (Jerry / Michael Quarles are favorite two resources so far)

Things I still need to do:

- Send out first batch of letters

- Finish website

- As deals come in, find ways to automate / streamline lead sourcing and tracking

- Improve ability to estimate rehab costs (my two rental properties were bought out of REO and cash flow nicely but needed <$5k of rehab each, so have not experience a major reno yet)

- Practice call script, objection handling etc.. to be better prepared for speaking with potential sellers

I would greatly appreciate any insights from the seasoned vets out there. If anyone has any advice for me, specifically on additions to the list above and around MA regulations / challenges that make the wholesaling process different here than the process outlined in most of the BP forums / podcasts, please let me know!

Thanks in advance and I'll be sure to post updates as things progress.

Hi everyone - just wanted to say thanks again for the feedback and provide a quick update....

Closed in early May, and finished rehab under budget in 3 weeks, and got rented out at $1,600 / month for a June 1st start. Had a lot of interest in the unit, 50% of which were "normal" prospects, 50% of which were "unqualified" (read: utter lunatics).

Definitely will look to put more systems in place for tenant qualifying next time around...

Next step is to get a fresh paint job on the exterior (aluminum siding), and hopefully will get a good appraisal when I go to re-fi in a month or two (estimating 170 - 180k ARV).

Thank you all again for the comments / guidance!

James

randomly saw Homeunion.com today and was wondering if anyone here has used the site and if so, what has your experience been?

@Mike Hurney haha yep! Bentley st is by Salem Commons right? How has the Salem market been treating you so far? First property there but I grew up on the North Shore so pretty familiar with the area.