All Forum Posts by: Teren Cooley

@Mary K. Thanks for the reply and congrats on the two rentals. Sent you a colleague request and would love to discuss more with you

@Mattias Clymer cool thanks for the info. I’m not too far from there, maybe I can make it to a meeting in the future. Where do you guys meet?

Hello all, I've been working at RE investing for about a year and a half now and have executed 3 pretty solid deals (the third closes tomorrow) and have learned a ton.  I've done most of this on my own via online research and trial and error, with a little bit of help from an investor friend.  Looking back now, I'm glad I did it that way, but I definitely could've been more efficient and probably done twice as many deals if I'd put more effort into networking and working together with other investors.  

So that's basically the reason for this post. I'd very much like to start developing relationships with other investors, both online and off. I'm getting ready to join the local REIA and take advantage of meetups. I'm not asking for a mentor or anything like that, I think I have a lot to bring to the table. I've already got another purchase I'm working on and also have what I think is a very good quality mailing list that I'm getting ready to send out. I think my main strength right now is deal finding (putting together good mailers and negotiation) while I'm still very green when it comes to execution and marketing.

Anyways, if you are a VA investor on a comparable experience level, feel free to contact me. I may consider a partner on my current project but definitely on future deals. I'm expecting a few potential opportunities from my next mailing and probably won't be able to bankroll them all myself. I'm also interested in connecting with any money lenders and skip tracers out there. Cheers!

I've got kind of a strange situation, but maybe someone out there will have some experience.  I'm looking to purchase a property at the moment.  The owner on deed is deceased and all the information I have on them is their first and last name, both of which are very common names.  The reason I think I can buy it is because the only child of that person, who lived on the property, but never properly took ownership, willed it to his friend and caretaker after his death.  The friend is who I'm in negotiations with.  They have all the relevant information and documentation on the person who lived there, but zero info about the parent.  I've spoken to a real estate attorney about this and its a fairly cut and dry process, but the one thing holding me up is that I need to produce a death certificate on the original deed holder.  There are literally no family members to contact and the Dept. of vital records needs at last a year of death.  I've gone to the Library of Virginia and spent hours searching obituaries and databases and still can't find anything.  I feel like since I have a lot of the information on the son, there should be some way to connect the dots back to the parent, but I'm out of ideas on how to get there.  I've also spoken to a private investigator and they weren't much help either.  The next thing I may try is one of the online people finder sites, but a lot of them seem unreliable.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

@J Scott Sorry for the (extremely) delayed follow up.  Everything went very well with the property and I was able to pull off my first major deal.  I ended up closing for 27K after buying it for 7, including closing costs and taxes.  There were a few snags and learning experiences along the way, but in the end I was able to get it done within about a 6 week span.  It was a great deal to get my business off the ground and I have since bought another property, which looks to yield another similar profit (hopefully I can cut the timeline down a little on this one).  I also have another property that I'm working on figuring out how to purchase.  Because of the profit I made on the initial deal, I'm now able to work on a couple different things at once without being held back too much by spending power.  My next goal is to figure out how to scale efficiently.  I plan to do this by forming some relationships with other investors and possibly money lenders to create the ability to work on more deals at once, while on the other hand increasing my direct mailings to find more deals.  Thanks to everyone for all the support and great advice.  I will be more active on BP going forward and look forward to forming working relationships with some of you. Cheers!

P.S. - Any Richmond, VA investors feel free to message me if you'd like to discuss working on anything together in the future.

@Ashraf Spahi Perfect, thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for

@Caleb Heimsoth I’ve done plenty of research in the area. Like I said, I was only looking for vacant lots which I have experience with. I just happened to stumble upon this deal which has a house on it. That’s the part I don’t have much experience with. However, even if the land were vacant, it would have been a deal at the price I paid and I still would’ve bought it. That’s how I know it’s a profitable deal. The house being there is just gravy on top and seems to be a great opportunity to cut my teeth and grow as an investor. If I would’ve waited and done weeks of research, I would’ve lost this deal. Finally, the investment cost for me on this deal is negligible, so the risk is minimal. If you wanna privately message I’ll give you more specifics if you’re interested in taking a look and giving your opinion.

@J Scott I’m not sure my asking price will be a great deal. But the price I would need to sell it for to profit would be a phenomenal deal for the buyer. Obviously I want to sell it for the highest possible price, so I guess the best course is to find arv and repair costs, price it accordingly and be willing to negotiate to find a buyer quickly

@Victor S. Gotcha, so basically I’m torn between investing some more time and money to determine repair costs and sell for a larger profit, or try to find a buyer to try to find a buyer to take it “as is” for a decent discount. Thanks for the input!

@J Scott you’re probably right about the drive by appraisal. It is pretty in-depth though. If you’re willing, I can send it to you to take a look at and give me your opinion. If anything maybe I can contract the guy to come out and do another more thorough appraisal