All Forum Posts by: Tarl Yarber

What?! You mean to say that you are willing to take a "risk" by leveraging money?  No one in real estate ever does that!

Stay focused Jack, and do what your gut says on these things (considering you are also taking the advice from those you value in the business, and using what you have learned in your REI studies). Leveraging any money is risky for those who do not know what they are doing, but a great tool and way of life to those of us who do. Good luck on your endeavor, and let us know what you decide to do!

Agreed!  Leverage that money! Its surprising how a grown adult is willing to take their own risks with their own finances like that...

 I know youre looking for a simple straight number. But i dont want to give you mis guided information. To only finish a basement with framing, insulation,sheetrock, paint, flooring, electrical, lighting and heat, is not too much. We did not only do those things though, we also added a bath, all new plumbing, washer dryer closet, updated electrical panel AND moved it 15 feet (not easy), removed old addition, new Windows and cut in a new slider, new WH closet and new furnace, etc. So if i had to remove all of that id say i paid only 7k, add the rest in and numbers change a lot. Plus pricing here is very different than where you are.

Everyone's focus is different in this business. And some of us have had a tremendous amount of success with late lists. These are people that have missed one or two payments, and in many states the banks have not even issued a Notice of Default yet (NOD, in my state it can take over a year).

Depending on your area, here is what I would do: research the areas you want to market in (im assuming for wholesaling), find the area that may have the most motivated sellers with homes that are most likely needing rehab in some way to add value (1985 homes and older), contact a reliable list broker, buy a list of 60,90,120 day LATE mortgage payment (this is different then default, NOD, NTS) this typically is .16 to .22 cents a lead, buy 1000, to save money get lined white ruler paper, hand write a note that you want to say to the mailers on a piece of copy paper using the lines of the ruler paper as a guide, then meticulously photo copy that note on the printer using the ruler paper as the printer paper so that you have 1000 nice lined paper print outs of your note that look like real hand written notes (do not hurry on this part, make sure it looks good, since this is your one chance at the mailing with that limited budget), then buy 1000 yellow greeting card sized envelopes from envelopes.com (canary yellow 4x5 ish), buy 1000 real stamps, HAND WRITE the first name of the late payment person on the top line of the letters, HAND write the mailing address on the envelopes, put a real stamp on it, then mail them off in batches of 250 a week if you are by your self or 500 if you have a partner (calls will come in and overload you).

Get a way to track every call, return EVERY call even if its missed, go on all appointments, learn a ton, make something happen.

This worked for me to get started once I had a budget.  You can also look up people on the list in areas you like and door knock them as well to save cash if they don't reply to your mailer.

Hope this helps, if you did this right on budget then it should only cost you about .75 cents a letter to mail including stamps and the list.  If you get like me, you hire someone to handwrite all the envelopes at .25 cents each so you don't have to.  With $2000, you can mail them twice this way.

You can also do one of the mail websites out there, but this way works best on a budget.

Thanks Scott! I think we got lucky on this one, sometimes that happens when you work a lot a this business. I fully agree with those areas you mentioned, we had a great one in Wallingford last year that maybe ill post here. Then again we have another one in Wallingford that we are closing on soon as well. 600k purchase, $1.2mil ARV, 180k in rehab though.

Those are good questions Tim. The best way I can answer the buy side is to know your market.  I know that on the surface $217 in that neighborhood on the buy side is too high, but that is only counting the finished sqft, add the 720sqft we finished from the basement and you have a much much better deal here.  Unlike CA, we have a lot of basements up here.

And as for partners, I am always adding more partners depending on what they bring to the table.  Sometimes is a one time partnership for a specific property, others are more lasting, but they all bring something to help out all of us in the business.

Excellent point Garth.  We had A LOT of the neighbors thanking us and coming by regularly.

Hey Stephen.  I am still figuring out the best way to go about doing that.  I will attempt right here for you though. Problem im having is I don't want to overload the forum thread with huge photos...I have a ton of photos...maybe if you PM me I can send a drop box link or something too.

Hey Lawrence, just PM me if you want to chat.  I always am looking for more properties, like many others here in this area...