All Forum Posts by: Joshua Martin

@Michael Braatz Good to see you on here. Keep in mind the acronym TUMMI: Taxes, Utilities, Maintenance, Management, Insurance (you'll have to roll CapEx into maintenance should you only use these categories). That also doesn't factor in debt service, obviously.

Honestly, for the Milwaukee market, you can do better. That's your cashflow without management? So subtract another $150 (even if you self manage it, it should cash flow without your doing that). For 3 Bd units that sounds reasonable for West Allis. (Are they 3 BD?) Vacancy I always run at 8.3% (one month, assuming you might have to paint and find new tenants for turnover). And maintenance sounds a bit high unless you're buying a real junker which needs lots of fixes, in which case the price is too high. 

PM me if you like, and I could kick you a lead on someone looking to sell a duplex in West Allis with much better numbers.

Best,

JTM

Alright gang, I feel like I owe you an update:

So, postcard mailers: 1,000 sent, 9 calls, .9% response rate, two remove from list calls, and the others were several rough properties, almost all inner city. I toured three or four, sent an offer on one, and made verbal offers on two others. No bites, but worth following up on.

Probates: sent about 120, one call, turned into a listing set to close Nov. 30th. Not bad.

To be honest though, my goal for wholesaling was to turn $3,500 into $10k and then buy my first investment property, and last week I came into some unexpected cash (in the form of a 10k loan from my aunt for two years at 0% interest). This puts me in a different category and has shifted my short term goals. Now I think I have the property I'm going to buy (from the city with a homebuyer forgivable loan), and I'm jumping through the city's hoops trying to put the pieces in place and have it under contract in about 3 weeks (because there's some necessary delays).

So I'm not sure whether to hold the cash and put it towards this investment (although, incredibly, because of the city assistance it looks like I'll have to use a very small amount of cash for the purchase and rehab), or whether to keep mailing because I've read time and time again there's no point in mailing for two months. Currently looking for a cash partner for marketing costs who I may have just found today.

Either way, I'll continue to mail probates though, because the calls I get are good leads, I just have to figure out how to work them because they don't work for wholesaling (there's too many investors trying to buy them directly for flips or holds or what have you).

Given where the calls have been from as well, I'm also torn about changing it up and applying what I've learned for when I'm the actual cash buyer. For instance, I know where I want to buy SFRs in Milwaukee, what I want to pay, how many beds I need, and what the margins need to be, etc., shotgun marketing to the county has given me 0 leads that meet this criteria, but this might be one of the big lessons in all of this.

In any case, I'll keep you guys posted whichever way it rolls, and I don't want to give people the impression that marketing doesn't work because I may not follow through on these mailers, I'm sure it does with consistency, but I'm working several angles, can't market them all, and need to hone in on which strategies are most effective.

But in any case, my one listing has almost covered the cost of the last few months mailers, and I've learned a ton just by getting in the game and taking action, so from any angle, it's not a loss.

Best,

JTM

Beige envelope, standard yellow letter, first class postage, hand written and addressed in red ink inside, blue ink outside. Don't have exact cost break down. They were driving for dollars leads...

Hey Dominic Augustine ! Welcome to BP. If you're looking to network, look to the Milwaukee REIA which meets a few times a month, or even better the bigger pockets style Brew City Meetup that actually meets this Saturday at 9 am at Stone Creek Coffee on 5th or 6th street downtown. Best of luck, reach out if you need anything in the Mil. JTM

dirtcheapsigns was pretty good on pricing, though I don't remember the cost now. I got a bunch of them, only problem I have is getting them out on a consistent basis while I'm a one man shop, but if that's all you're doing, should be fine.

Best of luck,

JTM

Good tips from the other guys. Driving for dollars, and then looking up the records on the tax assessor's site is the best way to find potentially distressed properties, but if you want to send more mail you'll use a list vendor like listsource (I like using them, but there are others). 

And, to just chime in with the same sentiment, hand writing letters will get old VERY FAST. I did it for about a month, with almost no return on my yellow letters. 1 call for a few hundred, and she was just curious.

I'm printing about 70 a week for a specific type of lead, and even that is getting old. Need to close a deal so I can outsource that immediately.

Best of luck,

JTM

I'd second @Jeremy Pakalka on that.

Well, you can of course use zillow, because many FSBOs list there and only there, or you can use a service that will also pull their info. For the most part, that service seems worthless to me. I've probably called 15 today from a list an agent at my office gave me (I'm working the realtor angle with ears open for a deal), and 90% of the addresses I searched were also on zillow. 

The best ones I think will be the sign in the yard, and it means one of two things: 1) they're too cheap to pay anything to market and sell a property; or 2) they literally have no money to even post to zillow.

Still, I called on a commercial property yesterday dude is asking 150k and he's stuck on that, terribly unmotivated, and it's probably worth 55k... 

So, needles in a massive haystack.

Best of luck,

JTM

@Johnny Kang Hey! You saw that thread! Cool.

I was waiting to update after I know my numbers for this month (of which I've been keeping better track), but no wholesale deals, yet. I did, however, turn one probate lead into a listing, and have an accepted offer on that. So pretty close to making my first dollars in the real estate business, the first of many ;)

Response rates have been pretty good, just lots of lame leads.

But they say, it's all in the follow up, so they're in the pipeline now.

Best,

JTM

I think that's about right, assuming your including the cost of the lead in that too. Are you?

Looks to me that no matter who your vendor is you'll pay about a buck for a letter type mail piece. That's why I've still only been sending postcards...

Best,

JTM

Thanks so much guys!

@Curt Davis What were you mailing? What list, I mean.

@Account Closed That's the same printer I have! I started with some cheapo Samsung which was quickly overheating and squealing, but that's about the rate I'm getting: 15 at a time. A really great printer, but I still wish there was something that could do more volume yet still made for the home. I'm mailing professional style letters with a nice font and such, probate leads, with a nice cotton (or something like that) envelope. I also find that sometimes it mangle my envelopes. 

Anyways, as Curt said, all part of the grind.

Happy investing guys!

Best,

JTM