All Forum Posts by: Peter Mckernan

Call the offices for PMs in the area or agents. See if they do an open house for a weekend day and get apps in for you. Tell them you will either pay them for their time there, $50-$100, and schedule all showings on that one day. The next option is to say you will pay them a little less but comp them repping a tenant on app and at lease out. 

Risk verse gain, or in this case time verse waste of time. Calculate your time to go through this process as @Randall Alan said in his reply. This seems like a very small issue to be hassled over, and it would be like stepping over a dollar to pickup a dime. 

I would not have a GC give you a scope or advise on what to fix and what to not fix. I just heard this quote in a book, "The Second in Command." "The CEO is the homeowner and the COO is the GC." Basically the homeowner (or rehabber) tells what the vision is to the GC and the GC makes it happen. Not the other way around.

You need to have the vision and it should not be in an inspection report. This is something you do by looking at places in the area remodeled etc. 

My suggestion is that you do the cold calling first, that will give you the alignment on how these cold callers are asking the questions for your market, how they are waiting for the response, what they are responding to between seller and what that seller says. This is all about tonality, positioning of the conversation, and overall communication for your market. These cold callers could be a VA overseas or someone in New York and you are calling people in Green Bay. My experience is that you need to know what to be saying, doing and responding to the leads so that when that cold caller comes to you about an objection you know what to do and say.

If this is your first deal, no... If this is your 50th deal it is not bad if you know how to manage it and handle the management of the property or have a great PM to do that. 

I would fire the current PM company and find a new one, even if you have to be scrappy and do the PM stuff until you get a good one. I believe that if you have to track down a company to take your money or business, they should not be the company to use. 

There is a smaller market for 4-5 units, so you will have more of the ability to negotiate in this market for a good price. You need to search along side your agent, and if there is a deal that comes up and fits your criteria and can fit in the box might be a great move for you and not someone else. That happens all the time, someone might not be looking at it as the same angle as you are looking at it. 

You need to look at it two ways, passive and active.. Your passive investments can be your active work too. For example, like syndications, they use building a portfolio by buying stuff that is a deal and getting paid out at the close of escrow and get a return on that deal as well (passive and active). 

The other option for you is to partner, buy properties with multiple partners less money in, and you do not have all the control, but that gives you the ability to scale faster. 

The next option, keep buying rentals but get a side hustle to increase your cash on hand to buy more and more deals on your own.. That side hustle can even be in real estate, flips as an example and use that active cash along with your savings from the W2 to buy another rental.

Great points.. There are some deals out there, even on the MLS, that have been available for the past couple of years. The inventory in OC now is 3942 active homes highest level since 2022 (credit: Steve Thomas). There are some things to be said about that, we have had about 6200-6800 houses listed in OC.

So, that means there is a lot of movement on the list price and do not take that list price at what it is showing if you are looking for a deal. Go in and negotiate and get your price you are comfortable with and get some closing costs back too.. That money that is not spent on closing costs comes in handy for repairs etc.  

I have not used VAs for sourcing deals, but I know a good number of people who do, and they typically like VAs from North Africa due to the consistent follow-up and ability to be more question-oriented.. These guys I know are out of Florida and have been using their VAs for a year or so and love the production they get out of the VAs