All Forum Posts by: Matt B.

I have keyword notifications set to go to my email which I like, but they are also continually going off in the Android app. How can I disable them in the app? I don't want them buzzing me continuously. 

I actually would agree with you Ken that there truly is plenty of bad information and if you don't know, it would be impossible to disseminate it. I just didn't want to come out and say it. I am already ruffling enough feathers, though that has never been my intent.

J Scott, forgive me because I don't want to argue, but I just believe our views are different. I will agree it doesn't have to come by way of a paid seminar, book or course. I'll agree that one could potentially go a lifetime and make tons of money and never have a problem with using only free information.

But for some small portion of us, if we are engaging in complex deals where potential millions are at stake, utilizing investors and having to follow securities law or maybe offering some sort of seller finance in this day and age, we probably want the best information money can buy. We probably don't want something we heard for free on the internet (or for that matter even paid for at a bad seminar.)

This probably applies only to me, but I would prefer not to lose money, be sued or go to jail. Again, I am not against free information, I just personally don't believe it is enough. And I am okay if I am the only one here that believes that.

@J Scott

I am in no way against things being free and I have acknowledged that(many times over.) There is a ton of great information available for free, especially here. But there are several posts in this topic alone by people saying "you never need to pay for anything, it's all available right here for free."

I have also admitted that there are quite a few hucksters charging for bad information. But there could potentially be more bad information here (for free), in between all the good information. You have to sift the chaff from the wheat.

My point is still the same, you cannot possibly learn "all" you need to know for free. It is going to cost someone, something. And, that there is nothing wrong with paying for information, especially information you intend to use to make a profit or to grow bigger pockets.

Funny, I started this post over a year ago and still haven't been to one of Ken's workshops. Should put it on this years bucket list.

My point is still this; why do a bunch of capitalistic real estate investors, on a site aptly named Bigger Pockets, think you can (and should) get everything you need to know for free? 

Don't get me wrong, this is a great site, with a ton of great information by some very knowledgeable people. But to say you can get everything you need to know, right here for free, is to put it nicely, slightly naive. 

And some people are still implying it, a year later.

We have an investor friendly park in Wichita. If you would like to discuss some things you could message me.

Much success.

Quickbooks Online is essentially a stripped down version of Quickbooks Pro desktop. If you just have one company and a few properties the Online version may be okay for you, but if you have quite a few properties, tenants, companies, etc. the Online version can't compete with the Pro version. 

You can accept payments with the Pro version, also. FWIW, we have several hundred tenants, but less than 5% would like to pay online or by credit card. Is it worth having? Maybe, but not a necessity and we probably wouldn't bother if we had less than 50 tenants. 

We keep waiting and hoping that Intuit would make the two similar, but they just have not done it yet.

Much success.

Quickbooks does seem to lack that feature. But it's not worth getting another program just to do that. There is no better accounting software.

If you do not need to know your principal reduction every month, you can just do one journal entry at the end of the year to reconcile the mortgage account. We've been doing it that way for about 15 years or so with several dozen properties.

Much success.

I got one maybe close to ten years ago. Been sitting on the shelf awhile. It is a very good resource on commercial real estate, written for someone that already has some investing experience. I don't particularly think it is written for anyone just getting into this, though. 

Much success.

Yes, you need to follow your security regulations. There are a few exemptions that you can follow to solicit investors such as Reg A, Scor, some intrastate offerings and the new 506 c offering created under JOBS. They all have certain rules to follow.

I agree the cheapest method is the yellow postcard and we do use them for certain things, but personally I wouldn't use them to attract investors. If you do the postcard route for investors at least use glossy stock with a decent logo and perhaps a picture faded into it. Nothing cartoonish. Still, even with a good list, 99% of them will probably end up in the trash. Scrubbing the list is a good idea, I just would rather not give a cheap impression doing it. 

Perception is key in raising capital. There is nothing wrong with being frugal, just don't look like you are.

We use the mail merge feature in Microsoft Publisher. If you don't have Publisher there is one in Word also. Our letterhead just happens to be in Publisher. At the end of the letter add a font that looks like cursive for your signature in blue ink. We use a 2x4 address label on the envelope with our logo and return address in the top left corner and the address of the person your mailing to on the bottom, in a larger cursive type font, again blue ink. First class postage.

That's the easy part. The hard part is content of your mailer. Despite what you may hear, you cannot generally solicit to investors whom you got off of a mailing list. You can introduce them to your company, what you do, invite them to a pitch free, informational seminar and so on to establish a relationship with them. Just don't make an actual offering of an investment. that comes later in the process.

Much success.