All Forum Posts by: William Brown

Hi @Chance Waddle,

What type of wholesale closing are you looking to do? Assignment of contract? Double closings? Feel free to shoot me a DM and I might be able to give you some pointers.

Came across an absentee owner/abandoned 2 bed 1 bath a couple weeks ago. Did our research, then had a showing today.

I am not exaggerating when I say this property is a sh*t box. .25 acre corner lot....thats about all it has going for it. The property needs a full kitchen, full bath, and cosmetic work wherever you look. The owner asked the agent to list it near market price. I'm estimating $100k+ in repairs. the ARV is ~$300k and they are asking 250. They will definitely need to come down but I need to find out how much. What are some accurate methods to determine the repair costs? Right now we are doing basic research on the internet for ballpark numbers for the kitchen and bath, but I think the next step would be to get a contractor to walk the property with us.

Found a super distressed property in Winchester, VA going door to door with my business partner. House is in terrible condition. Walked down another house and spoke to neighbors, saying that the owner does not live there anymore and is looking to sell it. Foundation problems, I believe its going to be a full rehab/possible tear down. We went to the courthouse and printed out a copy of the owners information. We have his name and other address as well as the assessed value of the property in question. There is serious meat on the bone here for an investor and we are looking to wholesale.

What have you all found to be the most effective means of tracking down an absentee owner's contact info? We tried whitepages, as well as a couple other free services but have not had much luck. Any advice/tips are appreciated. Thanks!

@Michael Quarles Absolutely. I don't think he meant it out of disrespect but credit should always be given where it is due. You provide a tremendous amount of value to others on this forum, and to me personally. Podcast #77 was the first podcast I listened to and it got me hooked on them a couple months ago. I am about 180 podcasts in and still can not think of one that stands out more or has provided more value than yours. (Probably because I have gone back and listened to it 4-5 times) But also getting started at 18 y/o, your story about laying the foundation and writing a bad check is something I keep thinking back too and will never forget.

Thank you for your influence in my career and life and to others as well.

@Ray Lai Thank you for the valuable insight. Its funny, I actually found the exact same list of questions from Michael Quarles on here and have them both printed out and on a google docs we look at when we call. Sadly, because we are using whitepages.com the numbers are out of service 40% of the time and the wrong person 50% of the time. 10% of the time we get their voicemail, and have drafted a script and read that. We have yet to go through that list of questions with a possibly motivated seller, hence why we pulled the trigger on bandit signs--so at least we have someone with interest calling us.

Thanks!

@Michael Julian way to find the diplomatic and easiest solution. I wish you luck in the future and hopefully she doesn't sneak in a hamster next. :)

On a shoestring budget and thought whitepages.com $20 for 200 searches was a gold mine. The info, people and contact numbers and emails were anything but.

What have you all found best to use to track down an owner once you have found the address?

@Ray Lai thank you for your thoughts on the matter. I had never seriously considered getting my license, as I saw that as something I would do down the line. However, your insight might have inspired me to get it sooner. It is the age old debate in the forums and podcasts about the pros and cons, and really the pros do outweigh the cons. This Fall Im moving to Williamsburg to attend the College of William and Mary and having my license would not only prove valuable on the practical side but also on the credibility and trust side.

While we understand that lead generation is a straight numbers game, 50 houses is more than enough to fill our plates right now. The problem just is that we aren't getting explicit "no"s from people, its that we cant reach the right people. So we don't need (as of right now) to quadruple our list size if we haven't gotten the skip tracing down. Essentially we are just focusing on the 50 until we can put a yes or no in the box next to the address.

We have done a bit of research into the area with bandit signs and found nothing explicitly saying they are illegal, so thats a go for us. If they get taken down we will obviously not put them up in the same area. Its not bulletproof, but we are also using google voice as a buffer to make our number less traceable.

Thank you again for your valuable insight, I definitely am thinking a little different about the license now and will go and do some research now.

Taking massive action and was about to pull the trigger on 100 bandit signs from banditsigns.com for $1.49 each. Until they wanted another $250 for shipping.

 I found signsonthecheap.com and had a similar 1.49 price point per and 100 ships for $50 4-5 days. I recommend buying the stakes separate from the site because if you try to combo them they charge you $2.99 per wire stake. Found 100 stakes for $115 shipped online from supercheapsigns.com. Am headed to Home Depot right now to see if I can get a better price. 

My partner @Oliver Wolcott and I have just started wholesaling in Winchester, VA. Why did we pick wholesaling? It seems to be the only logical path for two starters who have little money. Assigning a contract for a fee and not putting any down? Sounds good.

However, as the 8-12 hour days of work go by, we find that we more than make up for the lack of money we put into marketing and selling efforts with our time.  Let me explain and can possibly add value/perspective for some others starting out here.

Instead of spending $500-1000 on lists and direct mail, we took action and drove for dollars for about 6 hours. We compiled ~50 addresses of maintenance - deferred houses and run down properties. We plugged them all into a google sheets account on the cloud we both have access to, then moved on to the next step.

Because we are just getting started taking action, we don't have any rock solid connections with local agents yet. (That's one of our top priorities right now however is connecting with them). So we purchased a whitepages.com subscription for $20 a month for 200 searches. We are reverse searching the addresses and finding contact information for the current and previous owner, and plugging all that into our excel type sheet. Then we go on realtor.com/zillow,etc and find the Bed/Bath, sq.ft, lot size, year built, and plug that in as well. Then once we have that basic information, the fun begins.

Then my partner and I sit down and go down the list, cold calling and emailing the multiple possible contacts whitepages spit out for each house. One issue is that whitepages keeps inactive phone numbers and emails in their records, so at least half of our calls never ring and a decent amount of emails get bounced back. I can't complain for this strategy, because the $0.10 it costs for each whitepages search, and the gas it took to drive and find these addresses, means our property acquisition cost is very low. (That is, if we don't value our time. Which we do, but we are counting it as every call we make and every house we research is another chance to learn more.)

So that is the dilemma, and until we find a better method for such a low cost as well, then we will keep trudging through the "Number you called is no longer in service"s and the "I don't know what property that is you are talking about but it ain't mine"s until we hit gold.

We are also going to purchase ~50 bandit signs to place around winchester in hopes that we get some calls with interest in selling their house, as opposed to trying to shoot fish in a barrel blindfolded as we are right now.

Thank you for reading, hopefully this perspective provided some value to some who are also considering the cheapest way of getting into REI, and if you have any tips or tricks I'm all ears.