All Forum Posts by: Stephen Morales

The biggest thing you would have to think about is the tax implications. As an individual I believe you would have to register and get an ITIN to file a 1040-NR. Not 100% sure and this is not tax advice or legal advice.

 Hi @Abraham Shamosh,

I know I'm late to the party but I've done a lot of traditional RE and wholesaling for pretty much a decade. 

Definitely take the general info that gurus have to gain a general understanding of the business. The best thing you can do though is network with others in the industry, much like you are doing here. 

Wholesaling is 100% feasible, some say the success rate is 1%, I would say to where  the success rate is more like 10% if you're looking to replace your job and make a little extra than before.

It is 100% achievable but it is HARD. I would advise having AT LEAST 3 months of capital reserves before you get into the business. Any money you make off your first deal you need to reinvest into your marketing and systems. You will be working 70-80 hours a week when you first start out but you have to if you want to be truly successful. 

I see a lot of people that want to quit their job to do real estate but they don't realize that you end up taking a pay cut at first and have to work twice as hard for a long time before you start getting the real freedom that you're looking for. 

But...you cannot tell me that if you pulled a target list of 10,000 properties and you called on a triple line dialer 8-10 hours a day 6 days a week for a month that you will not see results. My point is that it is very hard to fail if you really commit and put serious effort into your success. 

If you need any help you can always reach out. Good luck!

Hey Ashley,

I'm going to go with margins on this one. 

Ask yourself, if values where the same but margins were different. Would you rather have 3 properties operating at 5% margins or one property operating at a 15% margin. 

Hey Jonathan, 

I'm applaud you for taking this route. I do suggest that individuals with no capital that want to get into the space can sometimes work for firms such as Networth or New Western that will work with you on a commission basis or sometimes even a modest salary with a commission. 

Now to actually answer your question about negotiations. 

It's all about building rapport with the Seller. When I first get a Seller's interest in selling their home it's more so you're on the phone doing some fact finding to determine price but once you get to the home to walk it that's where you really start asking questions. 

I start asking about stuff that they had done, I notice sports themes in the house and will ask about that or their hobbies if I see items that relate to specific ones, compliment design choices, ask about their thoughts on the market, what their plans are after they sell, do they need help with moving, how the neighborhood has evolved etc. 

A perfect example of this is I recently did a deal where the gentleman grew up in this house, his parents built the house and it was the first one on the block. We talked about the history of the area, the schools he went to and how much things have changed for him over the last decades. I noticed he was a table top collector and loved collecting train sets so we talked for a long time about that. He was a collector/hoarder as he admits and so I asked him where he planned to move. Turns out he had a huge property in another town about an 1hr of where he currently lived. It was his dream to retire and reopen all of the toys he collected over the years and put them on full display. He was also had a career in the energy sector as an engineer so I asked him a bunch about that as well. 

He had higher offers and people calling him every day. He went with us for a couple of reasons. 

One, even though his memory was fuzzy I built a relationship with him. He remembered ME. He had a landline with no caller ID, but when he heard my voice he would exclaim my name as if he heard from an old friend. 

Two, I went over the cost of acquisitions on our end including costs to fix it up and the two day ordeal of moving all of his stuff for him into his new home. He also had TWO 50x10 trailers full of his collectable items. Once he realized how expensive everything would be for us and went line by line explaining our cost and how much we were looking to make. He accepted our lower offer. 

People will negotiate with people they like and when the numbers make sense. 

Hi @David Martoyan

I have tried every single method there is over the last decade and cold calling stands out as the most cost effective and consistent way for us to generate deals with networking at a close second.

To answer your second question about dispositions I'm gonna have to go back to the first answer. We built an amazing cash buyers lists from reaching out to portfolio owners in our markets and by networking we have built strong ongoing relationships with those we meet. It gets to a point where you will literally have several buyers for every neighborhood and property type you can think of. 

What methods have you been testing? I would definitely stay away from jumping from one strategy to the next. Just find one that works for your you and double down on it. Shiny object syndrome is a growth killer for any business. 

Hi @Frank Perera, 

I would go ahead and attend some local meet ups and REIA events in your area. You can also join FB groups that are for your target market and reach out to cash buyers on there.

There area also list building sites where you can target cash buyers. Let me know if you need help with this.

Hi @Pablo Kursón López

Congrats on getting started! 

So both of these seem like good areas to work. I would ask which market are more investors actively buying and doing flips in and go with that market. 

Personally I like option 2 as it seems like a great area to negotiate favorable offers as the value of that area has not been realized yet and you can assign your deals to up and coming investors in that area. Probably less competition too.

I'm with you on this as well, As a REA and REI myself, I would just work directly with the listing agent and negotiate their price and total commission. When I was in PE doing CRE multifamily we would would sign an NDA and ask to have comms opened directly with the Seller so we can effectively have our questions answered and not have miscommunications of any kind.