All Forum Posts by: Mark Scarola

***Update***

I apologize for the delay. I've been working on trying to put something together for the next meeting. I don't want to call everyone together if we don't have a genuine agenda because I respect everyone's time and want this to be a group that provides value.

That being said, there will be no September meeting. We will definitely have our next meeting in October. Although the date is not yet set (because I'm still working on a location), it looks like it will probably be later in the month.

BTW.... for anyone concerned about missing out on the notification of the next meeting, look for the grey "Manage Keyword Alerts" button on the right and create a keyword alert for "Central Jersey Meeting". You should then receive an automated email when the next meeting details have been posted.

Take your free time to learn what you can. Learn about some of the different niches and which ones appeal to you the most, both in terms of interest as well as what you feel would work best given your situation (baseball and travelling). Don't jump in too quickly or try to do too much at once, and save your money so that you'll have something to work with when you're ready and feel more educated. You don't need to fund every deal by yourself with cash, but you will need something to contribute in one way or another.

Hi Bryan and welcome to the site. 

Since you're travelling from city to city throughout the season, I would encourage you to try to find a way to use that to your advantage. You'll have exposure and an opportunity to check out a variety of cities, some which will likely be hot markets and others that will likely be lousy. 

There are ways to invest that do not require you to be local and you can always develop a team of trustworthy people to work with. You might not be able to be physically on site, but that doesn't mean that you can't analyse deals, make phone calls, solve problems, etc. from wherever you might be.

Wow, thanks @Sean M. for that. I understand of course that the answer will always be "it depends" and that the location of your investors and other factors will play a role. I guess my thought was if you had an equal number of investors in each country, would the rules of one or the other be so dramatically different that you'd be swayed to say "Well, obviously Canada/US would make my life simpler." And you did answer that in saying that the rules are close enough in each country to not be a deciding factor. That's really all I was getting at. Thanks again!

Hi Taylor,

Welcome to the site. I'm the organizer of a group that meets in Monmouth County. We're still a new group and not very big, but you're certainly welcome to join us for our next meeting. The specifics haven't yet been posted (hopefully next week they will be). I would suggest adding the keyword alert "Central Jersey" so that you'll see it when it gets posted.

I'm in the same boat right now-- not ready to start a fund, but would love to work towards creating one in the future.

@Sean M.- I'm not sure how familiar you are with US law, but I wonder if you have any thoughts about how the two countries are different. In other words, are there major legal differences between US and Canadian funds or are they fairly similar? If you had the opportunity to create your own fund tomorrow- what country would you choose?

I'm curious as to how others got started in the paper business. In my case I began buying notes with money that had been saved and previously invested elsewhere. 

What was your source of start up capital? Did you use savings, a self-directed IRA, get a loan, find business partners with cash but no time, PPM investors......?

@Justin Fraser, 

I've been out of town for the past week and just got back. Right now I'm catching up on a few things, and working on the content for our next meeting. I hope to have some specifics available within a week.

Hi @Barbara Grant and welcome to the site. I'm a bit further south than you but it's always nice to meet some other NJ people. Most of those on this site are from North Jersey, but we have been developing a small group of Central Jersey folks. We even have a group that we recently started, which you would certainly be welcome to attend if you had an interest in doing so. 

@Tanya Jackson-Brown,

I'd be surprised if you got someone here willing to go into too much detail without you're asking a more specific question. Note investing is simply another niche or form of real estate investing. It involves buying the note (i.e. the mortgage loan) at a discount and trying to profit from that discount. Instead of focusing on the physical property your focus is the loan, which upon purchase may or may not be performing (meaning the homeowner may or may not be making payments). As with any other type of investment there's a whole lot more to learn if you're truly interested.