All Forum Posts by: John Horner

I would definitely take advantage of this!

It doesn't need to be an investment, you can get 500 or so for $9 from vistaprint.com

First wholesale took me about 3 months to do.  My wife and I wrote 500 yellow letters by hand and I created a cheap website on Wix and started a Google Adwords campaign to drive traffic to it.  I got a lead on a campus property that came through the website.

Made about 100 mistakes along the way.  Here are a few: Advertised and took buyer there before I had it in contract, filled out the contract wrong, used a contract I found online, tried doing a double closing with no transactional funding, never got the rent or security credits from the sellers, mis-matched the buy and sell contracts so I got stuck in the middle paying $1300 for the title insurance.  Sometime ignorance is the best way to get things done.  I didn't know I couldn't do those things.

Ended up with a check from the title company for $8,700 and I couldn't have been happier!  My wife went out to dinner that night and celebrated knowing this was the beginning of something great!  About 10 months later I have closed 13 deals and 3 more in contract while still working a full-time job.  I just started my first fix and flip with a partner and excited for what the future holds?

First of all, way to get out there and take action!  Glad to hear you have LEADS coming!  Which brings me to my next point:  This is a LEAD, not a DEAL.  Many newbies hope and wish that every lead that comes in is a potential deal (I was the EXACT same way).  The truth is only 1 out of every 20 or 30 leads turns into a deal.

This guy wants tax value for his properties, and you need to pay 65% minus repairs, let's say 55% of tax value, so what makes you think you can get him there?  With 8 or 9 properties, he'd be looking at maybe a $100k hit by accepting your offer (totally guessing at the price range you are in).

In answer to your question, I would ask in 5 different ways if he is willing to lower his price.  If he still says no, tell him you don't think it's a good fit and move on to the next lead.  One of the mistake that new wholesalers make is spending time meeting sellers and visiting properties before they vet the owners.  To most owners who say they are willing to negotiate, they mean 5-10% max, not 45%.

@Chris Kim , you may not be able to control the outcome of your marketing, but you can control your attitude, which frankly sucks right now.  You think the successful wholesalers here on BP got to where they are today by complaining and feeling bad for themselves.  You better get used to failure in a hurry because you are going to see a lot more where that came from.  Earlier this year after I had about 4-5 deals under my belt I sent out a 3,000 pc mailer to a specific target, I got 1 call back.  Close to $2,000 down the drain.  Do you think I quit, felt bad for myself, got on BP and used profanity to emphasize how upset I was?  Ummmm no.  I used the frustration to fuel the fire.  I got out there and kept sending mail and 2 months later was up to 4 deals per month.

I think most will do double closings if you have the funds.  Finding a company to do a dry double closing would be difficult. Valmer Title in Grove City does assignments and double closings.

Welcome to a great city!  

What areas are you looking and price range, I could surely point you in the right direction!

Glad you've made the decision to be successful, but that's the easy part and where 99.9% of people stop.  The hard part is taking action.  Look at every uncomfortable situation as an opportunity to move forward.  The more uncomfortable you are, the more progress you are making!

I want to address a few things.  You said you want to have $1 mil in the bank, but you also mention gaining that through cash flow.  Cash flow doesn't make you rich short term, neither does appreciation, they both take time.  There would be very few ways to accumulate that much money in that short amount of time, but you can certainly get started.  Without money I would suggest using Craigslist because it's free, look for anyone interested in selling their house seller financing, maybe using some sweat equity to add equity and moving on from there.

I agree with @Joel Owens 100% about crawling before you walk.  You mentioned large multifamily, syndication and real estate development, which are all rather advanced real estate investing techniques.  You would typically need to have quite a few deals under your belt before you attract the right people for these types of structures.

Good luck and keep asking good questions.  You have the drive, now turn that into action!

@Account Closed this statement was IMHO.

I said there were stories on BP that people have shared, I didn't say I had proof.