All Forum Posts by: Randy Johnston

@Neal Collins, Another option, if you can't fill all units with corporate, would be to rent any vacant units as vacation rentals . . . that is if you are in a decent location to Downtown.

@Quynh Larimer Welcome to BP, you'll find plenty of resources on this site that should help you with overcome your analysis paralysis. @Linval T. presented you with a list of great articles to get you started.

Good luck with your broker's license.

@Meena Balaji Those three cities are good for investment properties since you have two major employers in the area, Intel and Nike. You'll find your best deals in Aloha due to Aloha HS being a low rated school. But what I like about Aloha are pockets of wonderful neighborhoods and people are moving in and updating the homes, which will eventually increase the values.

Give me a call and let's talk.

@Meena Balaji Welcome to BP.

Do you have a specific style of SFR that is of interest to you? There are some nice properties on the West Side (not close in) that may meet your criteria. West Beaverton/Aloha has some nice properties (both detached and attached) on the market that may be of interest to you, and they are close enough to the Intel campuses that you can expect traffic from their employees. If you don't mind owning a condo, you can get some good deals, but just remember that you'll have an HOA fee on top of everything else.

Feel free to contact me if you'd like more information.

Lamont, if the only thing you gleamed from the post by @Bill Gulley is his phrase "you need to learn how to sharpen a pencil," then you really missed out a lot of good advice.

The theme of responses on this thread appears to be; 1-your offers are too low and listing agents aren't interested in wasting their clients' time by asking them to respond. 2-earnest money of $100 will get you nowhere . . . if you don't have "skin in the game," a seller will not consider you a serious buyer. Seasoned listing agents understand that your $100 emd means that you are probably making multiple offers hoping for a hit. 3-spend more time getting to know your target neighborhood, to make reasonable offers requires research on your end. 4-dump your mentor . . . he/she is doing you no favors by suggesting that you waste your time, and your Realtor's) throwing out offers all over the place, when it can be put to better use finding off-market deals, networking with other investors, and learning the tools of your business.

@Chris Weston @Dyra Reese

Welcome to BP, you've come to the right place for pretty much anything relating to real estate. You may want to look into Northwest REIA, they hold a monthly meeting in the Salem area.

Good luck.

@Brian Knier Welcome to BP, you find plenty of resources on this site to satisfy your curiosity. I would also suggest that you look into our local real estate investment groups, both Northwest REIA (http://www.northwestreia.com/) and Rarebird (http://myrarebird.com/) hold monthly meetings attended by many investors.

@Aaron Langeliers Welcome to BP. Northwest REIA has been mentioned, and there is another popular real estate investor group called Rarebird. They have monthly meetings at the Lucky Lab in Multnomah Village. Their website is http://myrarebird.com/.

@Dave Lee, I have to agree with @Steven J., 1500 postcards is way too much when you're just starting out. I would concentrate on a smaller area and send postcards once a month to the same prospects, one mailing is not going to produce the results you may be expecting. When people make the decision to sell their property, they will pay attention to the most recent mailing that they've received, with multiple mailings, you stand a better chance of being "top of mind" when the time comes.

I might also wait until after the holidays, people are getting so much junk mail at this time of year that your postcards will probably just end up in the trash without much of a look (not many homeowners are looking to sell their homes at the end of December).

Continue Driving for Dollars as that will give you a good idea of the neighborhoods in which you are interested.

Good luck in you new venture.

@Greg Pagh Welcome to BP. I'm 58 and have been seriously investing for the past 3 years.

Now that you've found BP, you may want to check our the local real estate investor groups, both Northwest REIA and Rarebird hold monthly meetings and are attended by many investors.

Good Luck