All Forum Posts by: John Knisely

@John Puma definitely cost prohibitive for services such as Matterport, but wow do they make for some cool tours. I definitely have been interested in adding this to my arsenal of marketing techniques, right now I am just working with exterior drone videos and interior stills.

The thing I do wonder about virtual tours, is if everyone can see the houses from the comfort of their own home, the human interaction in real estate gets severely limited. Good for agents who don't want to drive to show 50 houses to picky buyers, bad for agents who close based on in-person interaction.

@Jennifer Marshall, it definitely helps if you have investments of your own and have "been there". One thing that surprised me when I initially got my license was how most of the top performing agents in my office didn't also invest. Investors are definitely going to be drawn to someone that understands that cashflow is far more than a rent-mortgage equation too, so education from places like BP is great.

Network is huge as an investor friendly agent. If there are any mentors you can link up with at your company then that would be a good start. Also, attend as many possible local REIA meetings to network and develop relationships with the investors in your area. Find out what they need more of in their business and how you can offer that or help them find it. If this is a second job for you, it can be tiring to work an 8 hour day then go right to another few hours of networking events, but it is very important to establish these relationships and nurture them from day 1.

Hey @John Sabia, I'm going to message you a property that seems to fit your criteria that I remember seeing on Loopnet recently.

Hey @Justin Seng, welcome! Nice to see a fellow Delco resident on here. I certainly wouldn't say that 3-4 months of occupancy could make up for the remainder as fully vacant in this area. I have toyed around with the idea of turning my studio in the heart of Media into an Airbnb. Could make a good rental for people coming for the nightlife/festivals and looking to stay outside of Philly. I would aim in Delco to be less of a vacation rental and more of a "not a hotel" type of travel option. Some people want to live more like the locals and in the character filled towns of this area a shorter term rental can accomplish that. Also can look to fill the void of medium term corporate travelers not looking for a lease commitment but travelling for more that a week or weekend.

If you are looking for a Delaware/Chester county team that is investor friendly...I think I know a few people who can help! Shoot me a message and we can chat about it. Right now I'd say about 70% of my team's business is in Delco and almost all of our rentals (~25) are in Delco.

Are you looking for a zero involvement solution? If not, I'd consider finding a WordPress theme and customizing it to your brand and business. I am currently working on choosing one for my team, looking at themes on Themeforest. So far I am leaning towards Houzez, but have not committed to it so I can't speak about it past that. If you are even relatively tech savvy it's not too big of a process.

Some sellers might not trust real estate agents due to previous run-in with less than stellar agents. Could be the difference between someone wanting to work with you and sell their property to you vs not. This is strictly a perception thing in my opinion, not a legal issue.

Also generally speaking the code of ethics for licensees makes things like wholesaling a bit of a gray area in terms of who all gets a piece of the pie (broker's comission split and other distribution of earnings)

Hey @Brett Greer welcome to Biggerpockets. Lots of great investors in the Philly area and good networking events that I'd highly recommend. DIG (Diversified Investors Group) is a great one to start with. There are many others, I suggest checking out Meetup.com to find some that interest you. Hope to see you around! Feel free to shoot me a message to chat.

Ian, these sites are a good start, Zillow can be a bit challenging (but also good in certain regards) because it allows unlicensed folks to post FSBOs and rentals. Personally I used Redfin the most when I am not logged into the MLS, I like the interface the best.

For on market properties and really searching for specific criteria, I definitely suggest talking to an agent and having them set up an MLS search for you. You can get into some VERY specific criteria which will help you identify when something meeting your exact criteria is listed, and you can couple that with hand drawn map boundaries to include and exclude specific areas (would be good to do this to search for areas that support a car free lifestyle). I have set up some pretty specific searches for clients based on areas they want to buy/invest, age and type of homes, features, price, days on market, even types of utility service and such (gas, oil, electric), etc. Endless search fields that can't all be accessed on the public sites. This can be setup to email you immediately when listed, daily, certain days and times so you can control what and when you are being emailed. Any real estate agent has the ability to do this on our MLS , some are better than others setting it up and at understanding what criteria is worth searching for. I'd be happy to show you what I mean, shoot me a message if you want to.

I admire the devotion to a car free lifestyle. I try to get as close as possible to that but very tough as a Realtor to not have a car. Also, as a self-managing investor, those 10 trips a day to Home Depot when starting out may get very frustrating without a car haha! Not saying it can't be done, you can hire out all maintenance if you buy at the right price for sure.

@Joel Owens come on man, you're a smart guy...you know that "can't touch until forever" is not true at all. You can borrow against it, conversion ladder, withdraw and take a penalty etc. The vilification of tax-advantaged savings accounts in the real estate world is overkill. They are absolutely useful and while real estate is more controllable, the tax benefits, company matching and utilization options of 401ks, IRAs, HSAs etc make a very strong case for them in conjunction with RE investing.