All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Greene

@Jasmine Williams - as @Jack Bobeck said, there is no such thing as a successful part-time real estate agent with another job. Ask yourself this: do you want to put the biggest transaction of your life into the hands of someone who has another "real" job? The answer is always no and even your friends and sphere of influence will neglect to choose you because part-time in the field is part-time in the brain. Would you hire a part-time plumber for the same price as someone who does it all day, every day? No.

The problem is that you are spending money on marketing and possibly leads and you don't even the time to put into the career. Too many people get into real estate as an agent because they think it works part-time because you don't have to be in an office or comply with office attendance, etc. since you are an independent contractor, but that is false and how the industry makes most of its money.

I would choose in or out. When you choose in and go in and hold yourself accountable, you really can't fail if you first exhaust your sphere as a full-time agent. You can't expect part-time success at anything.

@Bill Zahller - I like ListSource, but you have to spend some time to perfect your list on there. Once you do, it is very solid, but I don't think any of the sources will work for 50-100 unit buildings. This is a niche market that is much harder to dissect online than through word of mouth and looking for absentee commercial owners.

@AK Fowler - you won't get anything of value working with agents at this stage, without a proven close record. You should be targeting absentee owners who own more than two properties in the same town. You will find that they often have several properties and the longer they have owned them, the more options they might be looking for to liquidate. My off-market mailers to lists like this have generated several off-market options with investors looking to wrap up their investing career.

Most 4+ unit buildings that hit the active market will be priced way higher than you want to pay. The difference with these lists above that I talked about is that your "deal" won't be as dramatic because you are buying from other investors. The dream scenario to acquire a large complex is through probate where several people now share in the ownership of a complex and none want to run it. I hope this helps.

If you are buying at Sheriff's Sales in New Jersey, you will need the full amount in cash to close and at least 10% in the form of a cashier's check at the time you win the bid. You have no chance at all to do anything in Hudson County at auction with 20k cash. Any other private auctions in Hudson will still be cash friendly even if mortgages are allowed and will likely not have what you are looking for.

The real question is what are you trying to do with the 20k. Use it as a downpayment to buy what? A hold property where your cash flow is positive? Why Hudson? It is completely on hire with investors and buyers.

The Miracle Morning - Hal Elrod

The Conversion Code - Chris Smith

The 7 Levels of Communication - Michael Maher

The One Thing - Gary Keller

The Slight Edge - Jeff Olson

@Yoni R. - make friends with a great title company and see if they can cut you an en masse deal to run some title searches and background info for you each week. You would have to cut it down to the TOP prospects to make it worth both of your time. The lure for the title company is that if it goes to an on-market transaction at some point, the title will already be complete and an attorney may be inclined to use that title co.

@Jason K Green - if you are just getting licensed in California, I would not worry about figuring out how to sell in Mexico as the process will be completely different and a very large uptick for you. Also, if it's a nice beachfront property it is likely that people will want to buy from the best agent in the area, not a new agent from California. To serve your relative the best, find the best listing agent in that area of Mexico, and refer the listing out to him and take a 25% referral fee.

@Yoni R. - if you think investors in Miami only buy on the MLS, I have to say you are behind the curve. The courthouse auctions are busting at the seams in most major cities and the deals are getting worse and worse (in my area) because inexperienced investors are pushing the prices up and making bad deals. I do think you can find deals there, but what I am saying is that your best bet is to find an untapped neighborhood near you and start mailing them consistently.

To win at foreclosure auction you have to have the back data on the property (history, amount owned, liens), know if someone is living there (tenant or owner), estimate the interior upkeep from the look of the exterior (no easy task) and knock the doors of the next door neighbors and the three across the street to get a gauge on what they know about the homeowner (not always well received, but you are trying to help them by turning a foreclosure into a flip).

I hope this helps.

@Daniel Gonzalez - I have a referral for you in Hudson Co, but there are some good tips to finding an investor-friendly agent in this blog I wrote on BP - https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/10015/64777-5-...

@Jaago Viitkin - any time you are looking to sell a property, when you are a licensed agent, and not looking to cut your broker in, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, you are thinking the wrong way. As said above, most IC agreements will have this spelled out and they usually allow you to sell your personal residence only for free and only if you have been at the brokerage more than a year.

When you are an investor & agent, these things should be spelled out in detail with your office so there are no misunderstandings in the future. If you are listing your own property and have not done a lot of flips in your area, this may not be in your best interest as buyer's agents will think you have too much of a stake in the outcome and could be prone to hyping it up too much.

Your brokerage will take a cut on anything they can so you need to go through these scenarios to see what they expect:

1. you buy on your own off-market 

2. you wholesale a deal from buying on your own and send it someone else (this area is very murky for brokerages)

3. you buy a property on market, but for yourself

4. you sell any property on or off-market (they are getting a cut)