All Forum Posts by: Russell Ponce

"The leads are weak? You're weak!" Haha great movie, just don't ask him what his name is...

To the OP, I think certainly there is never any reason to argue with anyone, we all have our own way of diffusing a situation. Pretty easy I think to disarm someone by just agreeing with them and listening. My guess is once you got past the initial barrier you two had a real nice talk, whether or not you two were a good fit for business. Quite frankly, most of the time I suggest they try listing their house first. 

Listen to podcast #37

Lots of info on here to research. I think the prevailing wisdom is the less info you put in your message the more calls you will receive and more of them will be tire kickers. If you're really good on the phone this may be your best approach. 

If your message has a little more copy it probably will generate less calls but they may be pre-screened, i.e, they know they are calling an investor who won't be interested in paying retail. 

The idea of less/more copy goes hand in hand with the message being general/specific. Hope that helps a little but I'm not the authority here, I would suggest to scour the forum for posts by Michael Quarles, Jerry Puckett, and the topic of direct mail in general 

There are a variety of ways but Listsource is a great option. It's inexpensive and you have total control over the criteria. 

I don't have experience in any of those markets. I would never say you couldn't flip properties in those markets BUT if it were me I'd look for some lower priced areas. I was researching a new market the other day and with Google and Craigslist found a ton of investor activity, I took that as a good sign. 

There's been a lot of discussion here on the forum about wholesaling being illegal in Ohio. There's a long thread on it if you want to search for it.

Listen to podcast 37, it may help to understand what Nathan is saying. To me, theoretically, wholesaling makes the most sense when you're looking for deals to flip or hold yourself and your deal flow becomes so good that you can pass off, or "wholesale" some of them to other investors. I stole that POV btw but it makes the most sense to me.

There's a lot of gray area involved, and the line between wholesaling and brokering can get blurred. If you only want to find people who want to sell their houses in your market then you might consider just getting your license and selling houses retail. 

The issue to me is the intent, i.e., I position myself, as a wholesaler, as someone who is looking to buy houses when I have no intention of closing on them myself. The justification is that I'm providing a service to the market place and everyone is getting what they want. The real problem for the wholesaler is that the seller doesn't know what wholesaling is so that can be tricky how you handle that. The issue isn't honesty, the issue is relevancy, I'm trying to get the seller what they want, what do they care for a dissertation on wholesaling. 

The problem I have with people who get too high and mighty against wholesalers is this: Yeah, when a wholesaler gets an agreement signed he or she needs to go find a buyer (this seems to bugger the heck out of some people). However, when most investors or even homebuyers sign an agreement they themselves have to go find financing. Now they might have great financing in place and feel very confident they will be able to close, but a wholesaler may have a great buyer and feel every bit as confident. Yes, there are some differences but anyways that's how I see it, a wholesaler may be taking all his skin out of the game at closing but he's also passing off most of the profit potential.

This post is way to long, so to wrap it up I'll say that while I have zero interest in judging what other people are doing, the issue of intent is something that I'm taking very seriously in my practices and actually caused me to quit all real estate activities while I took some time to reposition myself in this industry.

That's a huge topic. Obviously we want to avoid this situation, it's unfair to the seller.  Get to know a good buyer or two, they could help with making ballpark estimates and offers relevant to your market. You will have a contingency in your contract that will allow you to back out of the deal legally, but if you make conservative offers you'll only need to use it for a legitimate surprise, e.g., a cracked foundation. I had a situation where it took the county inspector awhile to get to the property and when he finally did we got the worst of news, so we had to renegotiate but I could have cancelled the agreement legally. 

My unprofessional advice would be to have the sellers' interests at heart but protect yourself legally. 

I would agree that podcasts are a terrific resource. There are good ones on here and as the poster above mentioned Sean Terry as well as Joe McCall have podcasts that are more geared towards wholesaling in general. Joe McCall has a free course on wholesaling on his site that I remember getting some value from as well, Fast Track I think it was called. Also, Todd Tobak did an epic podcast series with his brother, Tom Krol, that I think you can find at No Limits Podcast, something like that. 

FYI I just read a post somewhere recently that a member from PA commenting that they are getting pretty strict in your state so obviously you want to speak with the appropriate people. 

I have seen some books on wholesaling but haven't read them. My instincts tell me that they are watered down information produced to sell higher priced programs. Of course this industry is a land mine for upsells so protect yourself at all times. 

Good luck! 

A title agent told me that I could write in "et al" and anyone could close, i.e., John Doe et al. I've never heard that before and I've never tried it.