All Forum Posts by: Robert Laird

Amanda,

Way to take the plunge! There are so many different things you could do with that opportunity I would recommend reading as much as you can and meeting with a bunch of different people to get their two cents. It is amazing how many ideas or possibilities present themselves that you may not have ever thought of that someone would think is second nature because of their experiences. 

Since your local I would also recommend coming to the meeting we are trying to put on here in Portland soon. It is a great opportunity to network and find out what works for other people in the area. Follow along here and hopefully we will have a time and place set soon: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/29...

Hope to see you around!

This is great! I am glad there is some interest out there! 

How does Mid-Late April sound to everyone? Maybe a Tuesday to avoid RareBird meetings? I am partial to the east side, but if people have objections or a good recommendation to meet on the west side, I am always open to try out a new place. 

I don't know if @Jessica S. still has the friend with the meeting space on Alberta, but I personally enjoyed that meet up the most so far just because it was so easy to hear everyone and no one had to talk over the noise of a busy restaurant. 

@Brad F., thoughts?

I am always open to ideas and am excited we are planning a spring meet-up!

Of course! I will definitely let you know if I will need help organizing. 

Hopefully there will be enough interest/turn out to have a very informative meeting!

Hello all you beautiful BiggerPockets members!

After discussing the subject of a meet-up with some new BiggerPockets members I realized it has been a while since we have done one of these. Reconnecting with @Brad F. today made me realize just how long it has been since the last one. 

I wanted to make this post to see what kind of interest there is to have a Spring meeting and to have a collaborative discussion on when and where we would like to put it on this time. 

If you are interested in attending a Portland Oregon meeting just reply to this thread or shoot me a private message. As long as there is enough people interested, I am sure we can have a fun event planned here soon. 

Thanks for everyone's feedback and happy investing!

Rob

I would say the #1 piece of advice I give to people starting out is: Make sure you figure out your lead source/flow before anything else. Before building your buyers list or structuring your purchase and sales agreement, you need to figure out where you are going to get your deals from. How are you going to get in contact with motivated sellers and what type of property are you looking for. 

Once you have some leads coming in and you know what your looking for, you can then start to structure offers and build your buyers list. There is no need to put the cart before the horse.

Hope this helps and I cant wait to see what other things people post here!

What is your goal? To find people to finance deals you have under contract? People to finance your start-up marketing costs? People who can find you foreclosure deals? As someone starting out, I would try to make things as simple as possible. People who get into this sometimes tend to make things more complicated then they need to be

Thanks for the shout out @Account Closed! I was actually just explaining the exact same thing to a different beginner wholesaler from BiggerPockets. It is very admirable to start your wholesaling business from the ground up because you will be able to learn first hand all the mistakes you can make when it comes to wholesaling. If you would like to speed up the learning process, you can shadow a successful wholesaler to try and avoid some common missteps. 

 But, keep in mind to the second part of what Dani said, "I can't imagine why anyone would train someone to compete with them."  No one is going to tell you all the wholesaling "secrets" or tips learned from experience unless you are going to be able to reciprocate in some way. If your goal is to start your own wholesaling business, that is great! But investors are not going to help unless you can't perform on a contract and need to assign it.

@David C.

"Trying to buy something not listed in a timely matter seems like a cap shoot."

Did you mean that finding a property that is not listed is a crap shoot? Because do not get me wrong, looking on the MLS or Redfin makes it easy and fun to look at properties, but it is really hard to find what many investors would consider a "deal". Don't have me mistaken, I did not say it NEVER happens, just look at @Tarl Yarber, it is just rare. 

I personally buy 99% of my properties not on the market because the MLS and Redfin is so picked through. Everyone above has had great advice. Now you just need to pick a neighborhood to specialize in then employ a marketing strategy to get leads of properties that are off-market. This is one way to buying something that is not listed and it isn't a crap shoot. People do it all the time.

Well, those who know about the Urban Growth Boundary and who went to RareBird's meeting on Portland development would say SW Portland and Sherwood has the largest growth potential. This is due to the way the UGB has been drawn and future development potential pre-planned by the city of Portland. 

If you talk to investors here in Portland, many of them have specific neighborhoods in mind that they think will be the next hot spot. However, I think the most important lesson is that Portland as a whole is growing tremendously. As long as you find a property that fits your numbers, over time the property should appreciate due to the current market. The way Portland is right now, finding a place that will rent for $1,250/mo or more will not be hard to find. I have some friends trying to find a place to rent for less than $1,250 and they can not even live in Gresham....

I might recommend looking into large single family homes that you can turn into multi-units. We purchased a single family home off N Ivy here in Portland and it has 3 separate units. Being down the street from the convention center and 2 blocks from a new seasons, puts rent at $4,500 for the whole house and we purchased it at $375,000. I hear lots of people say there are no deals out there and that they can not find anything feasible in the Portland OR market. It is my personal opinion these people are not looking hard enough.

@Sergiu Ionita it sure has been! So much snow up there it has been hard to go to work!