All Forum Posts by: Lydia R.

 Im not familiar with Jamil other than knowing he is one of the wholesale gurus floating out there. Ive been wholesaling for almost 8 years and I can assure you I didnt have the money to close on any of the deals i did for at least the first 2-3 years. And most investors buying properties dont just have the cash sitting in their bank accounts. They get hard money loans. So dont let that comment derail you from your course. One thing Ive noticed about the gurus is that once they get mainstream their messaging changes. When they are new they are all about being gritty and hustling and thinking outside the box. But once they start making those high 6 and 7 figures from guru-ing they have to be more PC. They have to say the 'right' things by which I mean the things that sound good and will not cause a backlash against them. Maintaining their 7 figure incomes now depends on being appealing to the masses. So take what they say with a box of salt and maybe take the advice of people you can actually talk to who are actually making money wholesaling. Just my opinion. Dont get off track. Stick with your original plan. 

 You are in Texas, use the TREC single family 1-4. Thats the only contract I use. I know it seems long and intimidating but I promise you its much easier to fill out than you think. Most of whats in there wont apply to your transaction because you arent getting a bank loan and dont have an agent. Remember, the purchase agreement is what you use to secure the property and the assignment of contract is what you use to convey your equitable interest to the end buyer. Chicago Title is a great title company and extremely investor friendly. 

 I think the big issue with acquiring motivated leads is the lack of motivated sellers. I dont think a more proficient caller is going to convince or convert a non motivated seller into becoming motivated. 

However, there is certainly a need for qualified cold callers. The problems Ive encountered are pretty universal across every company Ive hired. I want a single, dedicated person who works my account full time which by default means they cannot also work full time on anyone elses account. But that is counterproductive for the company. Every VA company I have fired has done one of the following non forgivable acts

1. Promised me a dedicated VA that would make calls for me 8 hours a day. And then I find out they are only making calls for me 2-3 days a week and calling for other investors on those other days.

2. Their English is not good and the clients have difficulty understanding them

3. They dont collect the required information I need 

4. They completely fabricate call details to make it seem as though Im getting hot leads every day but when I would make follow up calls to these leads no one ever answered or if someone answered they had no interest in selling and informed me they had said the same to my cold caller. 

5. They become unreliable

I think you have a great idea. I think the difficulty is the execution and the employee retention. Investors want to pay as little as possible to get cold callers making calls for them. Thats a tough order for a company that has to make enough money to pay its employees and also make a profit. I applaud you for seeing this need in the market and wanting to fill it. Unfortunately I think its easier said than done. BUT if you open this call center with these highly trained and knowledgeable VAs please call me because I would definitely be a customer! 

Quote from @Becca Pariser:

I'm using Propstream to search off-market failed listings. I've set my status to "Fail" but I'm curious why for so many of these, the Days on Market is less than 10 - some are 1? Does that mean someone else scooped them up? Or did they really only go on the market for 1 day?

 Great observations! First of all, I always check an additional source when I run into something funky on Propstream. There are lots of instances where a property will get listed for a short amount of time and then get pulled for some reason. Maybe the seller got cold feet about selling, maybe the seller decided to make some improvements to the property, maybe they decided to list at a different time. It could be anything. Double check the listing on Realtor.com or Zillow. But if you are looking for motivated seller leads, a failed listing that had been on the market a long time and didnt sell has a better chance of being motivated to sell at a discount. The market has done the hard work for you and taught them their house isnt worth as much as they thought. 

 Listen Im going to give you the honest, but unpopular opinion. Real estate mentorship has become the next drop shipping. There are many people looking for the next make money overnight 'thing' and somehow real estate education became the next golden goose. If you cannot find a single review that should tell you everything you need to know. These people spend all their time marketing for new students and trying to convince you that they have all the answers. Wholesaling is a super basic, simple process. You find distressed sellers, you negotiate with them, you put their property under contract and then you sell that contract to an investor for more money. Please dont let anyone convince you they have some secret sauce magic because the truth is, if they were making millions of dollars in real estate they would not be chasing after mentor students. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Oprah, Beyonce etc dont have mentorship programs because they make money doing what they do. These guys get rich selling you the idea they can teach you how to do something that you can learn to do for yourself. 

I got started in real estate almost 8 years ago and I started with wholesaling. I still do some wholesaling mixed in with my other strategies. I figured it out. I made some mistakes, sure. But I learned more than anyone would ever have been able to teach me. I promise you that you can do this and you dont need some over priced mentorship to be successful. If you are honest with yourself the reason you came here and made this post in the first place is because you dont actually trust these folks. If you did you wouldve signed up. The fact that you didnt tells you everything you need to know. 

If you need help or guidance or to just get some questions answered feel free to reach out to me. I am more than happy to help! 

 It varies everywhere but I think 6 months is a safe place to start. Obviously try to get as long as possible. If you can get the property at a cheap enough price then you should be able to get buyer willing to close quicker because they are getting such a good deal. 

 Im not an attorney so I can't give you legal advice. I can only give you my opinion so please take that with a grain of salt and consult a legal professional when necessary. The person you called probably gets a lot of solicitation calls. It seems like everybody is getting dozens of them these days. Personally I think you are fine as long as you dont call this person again. Its interesting that he asked you for your name and address. I dont give anyone my home address. I dont give most people my office address either because these days people are crazy. Maybe next time give your contact info but not your address. 

My opinion has always been that investors calling to inquire about purchasing a property are not in violation of the DNC because its meant to protect people from being solicited to make purchases. We are essentially calling people and offering them money. But there isnt any case law to support my position. In my business we call everyone and anyone who asks not to be contacted again gets put on our internal do not call list and we never contact them again. 

For now, keep your fingers crossed but keep making calls. 

 With land there isnt much you can ask the seller that you cant find out on your own. Maybe ask about utilities and zoning. It would be helpful to know if there are any construction projects in the pipeline that might increase the value of the land in the future. 

As the wholesaler an agent cannot represent you because you are neither a buyer nor a seller in the transaction. Most brokerages do not allow agents to represent both the buyer and the seller anymore because its a pretty huge conflict of interest. How can you equally serve a seller who wants to get the highest price and a buyer who wants the biggest discount? 

 Everyone values their time differently. It's possible that this person has a very high marketing spend and very low conversion so they need to get 35K out of each deal in order to make it worthwhile. Personally that sounds like someone whose business is not actually working the way its supposed to if 35K deals are what it takes to be profitable. 

As a newbie your minimum wholesale fee is going to be different from someone who is more experienced and is spending more money on marketing and VA's and other expenses. One of the biggest causes of failure for newbie wholesalers is comparing themselves to what everyone else is doing. What other people are doing doesnt matter, just focus on whats in front of you and keep taking steps forward. When I was new a $500 deal was just as great as a $5,000 deal. Do what makes sense for you. Dont worry about anyone else.