All Forum Posts by: Sam Wilson

@Eugene Thurston - make it as personal as possible.  If you have great handwriting, write the a short note on personal stationery.  You need to separate yourself from all the other investors sending her standard letters.  Include any honest details that you can:  want to invest for the future of my family,  for my kids' college education, etc.    (even include a picture of yourself!).

In other words, try to connect with her first as a person who has lost someone special and then as someone who'd like to buy her home.

(ps. I all of our years of buying houses for cash we rarely had luck with buying inherited property that had been neglected.  There always seemed to be way more baggage and issues than we were expecting or they were wanting to deal with)

@Jason Malabute - Why aren't you contacting the owners of the properties instead? Yes, it takes time/money to skip trace the owners of the LLC, but it can be done! I did it for years when looking for parking lots to purchase. There are paid services out there but I never found their results to be as useful as doing it on my own.

Otherwise, if you want to go directly to the tenants, why not do something simple like putting door hangers on each unit?

@Eric McArthur - Have you looked into companies like Investor Carrot?  They have website templates for companies like yours.  You can modify them (to an extent) to fit your needs and branding and then you don't have to take the time designing or maintaining your own site.  We used them for years - even though my wife has developed dozens of wordpress sites.  The numbers and funnels they have just made more sense for us.

They also have great customer service.

@Account Closed - if I ever make it back to VA, I'll be sure to hit you up for that beer/coffee! Same for you if you are ever in the Memphis area.

@Jason Rhodewalt - Those are great questions.  The plants will be near a small town called Stanton, TN (pop. 452) and will bring about 6,000 jobs (according to what the newspapers are telling us).   I haven't heard about what type of rollout of employment is to be expected, but obviously with such rural areas we will see a  increase in developments in the county and increase in demand of higher-end homes along hwy 79 towards Memphis.

@Dimple Gajra -  

Are you wanting to do turnkey or on your own? If turnkey, there are many great, reputable companies who will happily answer your questions. You can also research them in the forums. If you are going out on your own, I highly recommend finding a couple of investment-knowledgeable real estate investors who can help you navigate the Memphis market and better answer your questions.

Then come visit as soon as you can so you can see the neighborhoods for yourself.

The Memphis market has been great for rentals for us and others, but the same can be said of many cities our size/growth.  

@Account Closed - I'm in Tennessee and am definitely not a lawyer, but I have sat through 100s of foreclosure auctions and purchased many.  I would bet that there is something in the substitute trustee contract that does not allow them or their associates to bid on properties.  I've never seen it done and it would definitely be a conflict of interest since usually they are the only ones to know the true bank opening bid (most opening bids are lower than what the bank is owed).  

Hope that helps.

@Antonios Kranidis - I totally understand how you feel, but I think you should stick it out.

  I decided to get my degree at 35 after owning several successful businesses just because it had been on my "should do this" list.  I can't say that I got much out of it, but it is credential and that is important to many people.  I chose finance because I love numbers and wanted to do more of the business/finance side of multifamily.  With a degree like engineering, you will have an added expertise in real estate that will serve you well.

My suggestions to you are to make the most of this time you have left in school.  Continue to network with other investors and learn all you can about real estate.

Also find out if there are ways you can accelerate your degree.  Most advisors aren't creative enough or motivated enough to help you with this, but it can be done.  I was able to graduate in 5 consecutive semesters with a 3.8 GPA because of a combination of taking as many credits as possible, CLEPing out of most of my gen ed requirements and using the "experiential learning" credits that my university offered to be able to skip all electives.

Let me know if you want to know any more details of how I did that.  Saved us thousands in tuition and my sanity by getting done quickly!

@Michael Asuncion - Great job!  Was this your plan when you purchased the home or did you decide to keep it as a rental when you moved?

@Aaron Maxwell - are you looking for all off-market properties or just pre-foreclosure auction properties?

All properties going to be auctioned must be listed in the paper three times (or at least in Tennessee this is the case) so you can teach a VA to research this. This is what we did for years. You can also have them research the local foreclosure attorneys websites; many of them have their own listings.

Not sure what your market looks like but we quit buying foreclosures several years ago because the auction prices became too high.  Also we never had any luck purchasing a home in pre-foreclosure prior to auction.