All Forum Posts by: Lucas Machado

@Nicholas Weckstein Hard money lending is difficult in your situation - most HML require a sizable down payment. Interest is also high if there are delays.

Of course, a great deal trumps all problems.  Rather than looking at hard money, consider lining up a money partner, learn their investing criteria, and bring them a deal accordingly.  If it's a good deal, the investor will want to be involved.  I work with several hungry young real estate investors who don't have the funding/experience on their own, but if the deal is right, we work together.  Perhaps you may find a hard money lender who will cover 100% of purchase/rehab/closing costs - but they will really need to be confident in you and the deal.

@Account Closed The Miracle Morning : ) 

@Adam Soyak I recently listed at the end of December 2016. I made that decision for a couple reasons: (1) we used a HML so the interest is substantial - so moving it sooner rather than later helped the bottom-line; (2) there had been high appreciation in the last 2 months, so my sense was it would sell immediately for a high price - which it is about to do.

I would also consider the school issue - is it a very family oriented neighborhood?  If so, perhaps waiting till Spring makes a lot of sense.

@Jacob Eddy I'm not realtor, but a GOOD realtor, when taking on your property, will do marketing, perhaps arrange showings, e-mail you to update, set-up lockbox, use their marketing network, etc.  I certainly understand a realtor requesting an exclusivity period - why would the agent put effort into marketing your property if you are just going to go off on your own to sell to another person?  

You and your realtor are, at least to my mind, working as a team.  Not: let me enter an agreement with my realtor, then make massive efforts on my own to cut the agent out of the commission.

You can learn a lot from a well informed realtor.  I recently listed a large rehab project with a realtor.  She did an amazing job: kept us informed the whole way and managed it from A - Z.  I learned a considerable amount about various financing options, appraisal.

@Steve Orlov You want list properties on the MLS? The painfully obvious solution: go get your license. I suppose it varies state to state, but my general understanding is that you will need to disclose your license on your marketing. However, I don't think that's necessarily a negative: you would just have to phrase it as a positive. Even functioning as an investor, a license can extend a level of trust that you are an upstanding real estate community member. Additionally, you will have the regular duties that an agent has to their client: presenting best offers, etc.

There are plenty of realtors that have their own investments.  These are not mutually exclusive.

@Brett Elia I'm not sure there is "best way" to find good fix-and-flips on the MLS, and each market varies I'm sure.

When the property is first listed, there is a huge influx of initial offers. If you want to try to get in at this stage, you can set up a system of auto-alerts through the MLS and then analyze the property immediately and submit an offer via e-mail to the agent. Make sure to attach your proof of funds and bar-approved contract. Of course, you will be competing with many offers, many of whom are unethical wholesalers (or other investors who are not serious but want to lock-up a contract, have a look around, with the intention to request reduction) who have no intention to buy the property. They submit an offer, get it under contract, and gamble trying to sell it to someone else. In many if not most cases, they back out wasting everyone's time and energy.

This brings you to phase 2 - after the initial offer flow.  Perhaps this is 2-4 weeks after the listing.  At this point, there is less attention on the property.  The initial sea of wholesalers / not serious investors have backed out.  This creates an opportunity for you to swoop in with your offer.  This is the window where I prefer to make an offer.  Most likely, you're offer will be rejected and you need to keep following up repeatedly until the no becomes a yes.  How often that happens - very infrequently - but your consistency in the process overtime gives you the best chance to obtain the contract.

Whether you are offering initially or waiting for a few weeks, you need a system for following-up with the offers.  Perhaps it's an excel spreadsheet, with the property, your last offer, the agent name/contact information, and scheduling your next time to check-in on the property.

@Keenan Freker Set forth a plan about how you will find your deal. If it's just one property, MLS, an investor friendly agent, or a wholesaler would be a good place to pick up one or two properties to begin. If you're looking for more much more than a few, consider online and direct-mail advertising (as well as the other avenues just mentioned). Finding deals can be the hardest part in some markets.

@Pratik P.  I always recommend this to newbies.  Do the InvestorCarrot trial for a month, and keep the service for a couple months.  Learn what a lead generation feels like and the features you need - InvestorCarrot will show you the basics.  After a little use, you will get the hang of what your site needs to do to convert.  At that point, you can keep it or build a new site with the understanding of what the site needs to have.  If you just try to go build a custom site out the gate, I suspect it will not work out well.

However, don't mix up two concepts: (1) SEO rank, and (2) conversion rate.  SEO rank is where you appear in the search rankings, page 1, etc.  Conversion rate is how often people who come to your site actually fill in the form or call you.  A huge portion of your SEO rank is based on factors that are off-site.  Conversion rate is completely dependent on in-site factors.  So, InvestorCarrot isn't going to be a fast track to SEO rank (though certainly, responsive coding and a blog are features you need).  The bigger advantage of InvestorCarrot is that the site is designed for conversion.

@Jason Haynes What are you seeking to outsource?  SEO rank is driven by a fast-moving mobile compatible site, backlinks, social signals, updating your site with fresh content, and host of other factors.  You can learn everything you need to know on moz.com. Keep in mind Google's algorithm is never completely revealed.

The only piece that you need to hire out, if you are not tech savy, is building the site.  Everything else you can do on your own, it just takes time and energy.

South Florida (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach County) is extremely hot market in terms of buying any property.  Even mediocre rentals we have rehabbed/flipped have sold in days for often more than we anticipated.  I wouldn't target down here as a place for well priced deals.