All Forum Posts by: Renee Ren

@Cameron Strong Tell the owner you need to see the interior of the property or get the owner’s permission to contact the tenants. Most cases they’ll allow you to enter the property. It is ok to wholesale the property with tenants if a deal is good enough. Just need to disclose to the end buyer. Put it under contract that you are going to assign it to another party. You can say that is your business partner who will buy the property. If you don’t want seller to find out you are going to wholesale the property then you do a double closing.

@Anthony Vangilder I think buying turnkey properties is a good way to get started in out of state investing. We are both in California. It is difficult for people to invest and get cash flow in CA. I’m thinking about investing out of state properties recently. It is critical to find good resource such as a turnkey provider. If you know where to invest, ask for referrals don’t just find a turnkey provider online. Also do your due diligence and talk to local agents and property managers. My husband is a real estate attorney. He usually recommended real estate investor to go investing in Memphis, TN or Indianapolis, IN.

@Sammy Lyon Congrats Sammy. You are awesome. I’m in Orange County. Had a couple of rentals in LA. Also did some flipping deals but it didn’t go very well. Since properties in LA and OC are super expensive and do not cash flow, I’m also thinking about out of state investing. Pls share with us your strategies such as where/what state/area are you investing, how do you find a reliable local realtor/property manager and do you buy turnkey or flips. Look forward to hearing more about your experience.

@Jordan Futch Los Angeles and Orange County do not cash flow unless you pay 50% of down payment. I have a condo in diamond bar. Had to put down 60% to get $200/m cash flow. The good part is property appreciates over the years. Right now the market is hot and affordability is low.

@Meir Greenblatt Sorry for your loss. There are a lot of scammer out there said they are private lenders. Some of them offered 100% of purchase price with 30 year fixed mortgage and low interest rate. Then they asked for a couple of thousand loan fee upfront. Well, if it is too good to be true then it may be a scam. I’ll suggest to handle all the money through escrow. Never ever ever send any amount directly to there person out of escrow. Private lender shouldn’t charge any loan fees. They are not institutional lenders.

@Henry M. If the number is tight you let the wholesaler know what number you like to purchase the property. Instead of negotiating the wholesaling fee you can ask him to go back negotiate with seller and do a price reduction. You can always pass the deal if the number doesn’t work.

@Henry M. As long as your number works why do you care how much money they made. Sometimes you’ll find out their assignment fee if it is an assignment. Some wholesalers don’t want seller and buyer to find out how much they make so they’ll do a double closing. As a buyer you won’t know their assignment fee. But if you can make 30k on this deal do you care whether the wholesaler makes 10k or 20k.

Hi Frank, thanks for your comment. I live in Orange County California. The average housing price in my market is at least 500k-600k. Very easy to go up to 700k-1m. Hard money lender usually lends 80-85% of purchase price. If I have to save up 200k to do the deal I probably won’t be able to do any deals in the next 5 or 10 years.  I have a partner. She doesn’t have any money either so raising private money is always an issue for us. Also in today’s market, even if we do have 100% funding, we’ll have to give up almost all the profit to lenders. We ended up getting low or none profit so we are not actively looking for fixers right now. 

I’m currently considering out of state properties with purchase price around 100k. How is your market. 

@Frank Patalano Hard to find deals in my market. Numbers are always tight. Hard to find private money. I know a good hard money lender but need private money to close the deal.

@Jesse Smith Your situation is not unique. I have an agent friend who lives in a luxury market. She is super nice. A lot of her friends came to her for real estate advise but they ended up hiring another agent who dominates the market. She is frustrated too. My suggestion is to find other clients. A lot of agents were told to start with your warm market, however it doesn’t always work well. Your friends or relatives know you are new so they won’t try you until you have some experience. The other concern is they want to separate business from relationship. They are concerned if something goes wrong during the transaction your friendship will be jeopardized as well. Sometime it is much easier to work with strangers. I started with cold market because I don’t have any warm market to work on. Frustration is normal in this business but don’t give up or let it impact your emotion too long. Find more leads/clients and work with people who want to work with you. Also next time be smart and don’t just give away your time and advise to friends if you know they are not going to hire you.