All Forum Posts by: Michael Lerch

Zillow zestimate is crap. The recently solds on Zillow will give you a decent idea to comp the property so long as you're doing apples to apples for type of house, beds, baths, sqft, etc... I always do this first and then if I've got a good deal I ask a realtor friend to confirm my numbers. 

@Tim VandenToorn could give you a good answer on this.

Hey there, I'm looking for outside perspective from other REIA or REI club organizers out there.

I've been running an REI Club in my town for a while. Almost to 400 members and I'm looking to take the next step. Currently all we do is a 2 hour session from 6pm to 8pm at a buffalo wild wings party room that is mostly networking and some meetups we have a 20-30 minute presentation on something REI related from a local investor or service professional.

We currently DO NOT charge for membership or at the door. It's completely free and we run on donations being chipped in via Meetup.com

I want to offer more content, more value, and keep growing this group. Without getting into local REI politics there is already a REIA group in town with paying members, but are more rental focused and our group is more everything else fix/flip, wholesaling, creative deals focused.

I would like to start charging memberships for more value such as national speakers, workshops, round table groups, and a lot more that I don't want to go into on here. 

Have you ever been in a similar situation like this and what did you do? How did you decide how much to charge for membership?  Any other advice you could give me?

Thanks!

Hey Michael, 

Welcome to BP! There's plenty of other investors around the grand rapids area. GR is a hotbed for rentals and decent for flips. 

If you're interested we have a meetup group for investors from beginners to the seasoned pros every month. www.meetup.com/westmichiganreiclub and the meetups are no charge. We have it at a Buffalo Wild Wings so they do like it when we buy food there :)

There's also @Brandon Krieg who is the other wholesaling and flipping rockstar in the area. Be sure to add him as a connection on BP as well. 

If so, visit my investor website and opt in to my buyers list. I'll give you a call and see how we can work together in the future. I also place any deals that I don't immediately have a buyer for on my page here.   

http://www.grandrapidscheapinvestmentproperties.co...

@JL Hut

Hi and welcome! That's awesome you've been doing real estate that long. I'm already starting to experience some of those side effects ;)

I mostly wholesale and do lease options around the GR area. I have family just outside of greenville too so I'm familiar with the area. 

Hope to see you around!

@Tim VandenToorn @Flavio Zanetti

 I laughed when he asked you to refer a reputable management company. Guess it's his lucky day, huh? 

Tim's management company is one of the best (if not THE best) in Grand Rapids. They have a high standard for the properties they manage and they don't like to get junk properties to offer their clients... ask me how I know, he's even turned down some of my lower end wholesale deals haha. But it just speaks to their integrity as a business. I also know his dad (Russ) who works the business together with Tim and he's REALLY smart when it comes to rentals and serves on the local REIA board. Russ always says not to work with anyone until you get a couple referrals first so I'm happy to throw mine out there.

Stuck with your marketing? Getting started with wholesaling? Thinking of getting a website, but don't know how to make a good one that will be perfect for PPC and SEO / Organic leads? No problem. You need a PLAN to get there! 

The 90 Day Inbound Marketing Action Plan!

There's also a video that explains more about it with great inbound marketing tips! These guys do investor websites for a living, and I've been very pleased with my results.  

Again, if you lack structure and need something to break it down step by step for what you should focus on each week go check it out, take some notes from the video, and see how you can apply it to your business. It's no strings attached. You don't have to buy anything to get this and see the great tips in the video.

Check it out now!  

Quick disclaimer, yes, I use this site and have been using their templates to drive all my website traffic and they have great tools to help you build out your website SEO even further. With that said, It's at least worth a watch to apply these techniques and words of SEO wisdom to your own websites, right? 

Check out the Investor Carrot 2015 SEO Webinar and see how to kick butt and drive leads to your website in 2015!

Investor Carrot 2015 SEO Webinar <--- on demand. Watch whenever you get time. It's worth it :)

not sure Baxter will ever catch up unless everything around it becomes like wealthy street. Only investors there are tax deed and 9 out 10 times they're out of state and don't know they just bought something in the worst part of grand rapids. Logan is iffy like you said, but with you being there to keep an eye on things I think it'll be alright. 

I also know the listing agent. She's awesome.