Now that the push for real estate matchmaking software has ended again for now… There is more to being a real estate matchmaker other than getting a buyer and seller and putting them together. I
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Well it’s been 209 days since my last post this one will be short the next one won’t be nor will it be in 209 more days! I guarantee it won’t even be another 209 hours before the nex
Read More So it has been awhile, but every time I had a post I wanted to write the flavor of the month would come out with an email that all of his large list of friends would send you also that was close to th
Read More I know several people have asked me about doing deals in other markets what’s my best tip? This is a good tip for doing deals in your own market also though… There is an old saying that
Read More So I’m just gonna say something real quick like… Be careful what you ask for you just might get it is a powerful old ass saying… I’m gonna have start digitally bitch slapping p
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So as a way to give back to the readers the first 3 comments at the very least will be turned into a blog so if you have questions you want answered here is the place to ask them. If I can’t answer it I am sure I can get somebody who can to do a guest blog. They don’t have to be contained to wholesaling either. This is a real estate investing blog after all not just about wholesaling.
BIGGEST WEEK EVER!
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This week has been the most views in the history of this blog, and it also had the #1 #2 and #4 most viewed posts. I was also #2 on subject2.com for the week which gets way more views than any of my posts here.Originally this was much longer, but now thanks to disappearing posts here’s the important parts. This one is aimed towards “Almost” investors who are even doing enough to get categorized as struggling. (Yes subliminal link placement it is well worth the click!)
Number 1
You have to stop studying investing for years before you do anything. Educating yourself is important yes, but if you aren’t taking action you are wasting your time. You might as well spend your time translating your memoirs to Sanskrit, because it pays the same absolutely nothing!
Number 2
Get over your fears of the phone! Some good investors I know even have a problem with picking up the phone and calling important people. The worst that can happen on the phone is that they hang up. Ooh wow nobody is gonna die from that not even if it’s a call to 911, because they have to call right back it’s the law!
Number 3
Why are you afraid to ask questions? You don’t want to say something stupid? Guess what if you don’t ask you will do something stupid or worse nothing! If you are seeking advice from the right people they won’t even call you stupid to your face, because they have been there before.
Number 4
Stop spending money to optimize a business you don’t even really have. I know a guy who I am fairly close to who bought the product of this 3 week old decade. Problem with that is he’s done about 5 deals in 2 years. The paperless office is nice, but I’ve done that for free since about week two in wholesaling. Try finding some deals to pay for things before you buy every latest greatest product.
Number 5
You don’t make any offers on anything, because you don’t want to offer too high. This is why we put out clauses and expiration dates on contracts. Some would say it’s for legal protection, I call it mistake insurance. If you don’t make an offer you aren’t gonna make a dime end of story. If you have people calling you to say hey come buy my house for x-amount, with your formula already figured in for you then everyone I know will let you have a guest blog on their site, and buy your book! Although I had something like this happen once the guy sucked at math.
Bonus
When you finally get to a place that you can help someone out do it! It’s not all about competition I have learned different things about wholesaling, rehabbing, REO’s, apartments and rentals,subject2 , and short sales just from talking to successful investors who weren’t selfish trying to bleed the turnip dry. Pay it forward and it will come back to you.
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So I was doing some more thinking about things new wholesalers and other real estate investors struggle with and some general knowledge/out of the box tips to help them out.
1. The Fear of No
It happens to different people at different times for various reasons, they just develop a fear of the word no. You definitely need to get over it. If you don’t you will end up buying to high and selling too low, it’s a potential career ending fear. What is my outside of the box suggestion. Go to craigslist or wherever you find houses for sale and find something that is way over priced and offer one percent of the asking price. I know in your mind you think it’s ridiculous, but so is asking 50 thousand dollars more than your house is worth! It will make it easier for you to hear the word no though.
2. Deal Analysis Paralysis
If you are just getting started why are you looking at a deal for hours on end? You don’t even know what you are looking at! Stop the number lock trap most people go off of a formula they either seen or learned from somebody else. It takes 10 minutes maybe to pull decent comps most places. 5 minutes to get find out your list of repairs. Another 5 maybe to look up cost for a rough yet close estimate. Thus impose a 30 minute time limit to calculate your offer price and either make a phone call/email the seller, or move on from the deal if you are miles apart still.
3. Thinking No Means No
On a date yes this is still true, in real estate investing however that’s not always the case. Don’t completely junk a lead because they don’t want to sell. They could want a better offer or could change their mind and be open to selling. As long as you don’t hear go f— yourself there is still a chance.
4. I Have No Buyers List I Can’t Get Contracts Yet
Let’s just say a man comes up to you and asks if you want to be on a list for timeshares on Mars for 49.50 you aren’t gonna sign up because you know he doesn’t have any. So his list is stupid right? So is a buyers list with no properties your list is worthless if you have nothing to sell them! If you get them on your list and take 8 months to come back with a deal they won’t remember you. If you have something the first time you talk to them they will take you more seriously.
5. I Don’t Know What To Say
Okay what you do and say in between getting property info and making your offer usually gets forgotten! With sellers they care about cash, and you care about getting the house. Thats really why you even met this person. If you don’t know what to say, but know what to ask then don’t say anything. Just ask your questions, make your offer and be done. With buyers it’s the same thing except they have your cash.
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Wow it’s been quite the day interacting with people. People are violating not only the rules of smart investing, but the laws of common sense! So here are some quick free tips to reverse the cranial anal impaction syndrome going around.
1. If you are a wholesaler don’t advertise properties you don’t have under contract. How can a prospective buyer take you seriously if you can’t give out the address? Oh yeah they can’t! If you don’t know anything about your property and go to sell it even at a dirt cheap price you can still be left with a pocket full of lint. Stop worrying about getting cut out of the deal and at least let your cash buyers pull some comps, and at least have a clue of a repairs list.
2. When selling a house with owner financing 30 thousand down and 30 thousand next month is not, has not , nor will ever note the word ever be considered owner financing! It’s a 60 thousand dollar house if someone can afford 30k this month and 30k the next they likely don’t want your house!
3. Don’t advertise houses if you possibly already know someone interested. How hard would it have been to ask around your instead of wasting a few peoples time working out details to buy your house. If you are just gonna be oh well I will let my coworker try it for a while then I will call back if it doesn’t work out. If you have doubts just give it to the pro’s.
4. Buy a camera! If you use a computer to place an ad you should I don’t know maybe have the ability to put a picture with your house. You supposedly have 4-8 houses you own take 60 bucks and, go buy a camera and take a d*mn picture! You telling me what it looks like does me no good. You will conveniently forget something vital to me that is no big deal to you. I have eyes let me see something before you waste both of ours time.
5. Stop advertising properties that you don’t have to build your buyers list! I call because you contacted me or I seen an ad you placed advertising all of these great properties and then you don’t answer. When you finally call back it’s to ask if you can add me to your list, because you don’t have anything left you sold it all in 5 minutes which is why you couldn’t answer. I don’t know who’s idea that was, but I have an overhand right waiting on him!
Bonus. Here is a free ad for Mr. D-bag to place instead of lying!
I come across undervalued properties from time to time if you are interested in me contacting you when I get them click here or email or call or whatever to be added to my list.
It’s the same thing with out the lying. If you lose your credibility or reputation in this business you are on the fast track out of it, or to bankruptcy! Stay far away from things that common sense would say are deceitful or just plain ignorant. Go get a real property under contract and sell it, buy it, rent it or however you want to do it. Lying to people isn’t gonna make you one cent, but will lose you a lot of money in the end.
On a side note I’ve decided to start climbing the short sale mountain so stay tuned for that. Also if you want to read some great blogs here is my list of suggestions.
1. http://subject2.com/ Nick Johnson knows his stuff and gives away great info.
2. http://subject2.com/ Nick video blogs in his underwear
3. http://subject2.com/ Because he really is that good!
4. http://www.goodfaithinvesting.com/Shae is a great friend, person, blogger, and investor
5. http://www.escapingthe9to5.com/Maren Kate is someone I was recently pointed in the direction of by Nick (because he is a genius) She has great content and interviews plus she takes a very nice picture as a bonus.
6. http://www.justinmcclelland.com/ he is a younger guy and like myself he is also a martial artist, but he has a lot more fun with his blogs than I do and gives away good info.
7. http://www.strugglinginvestor.com/ He has a lot a great content on his site and he is always working on improving it.
8. http://www.gogladiatormedia.net/ for pure entertainment, value, and just being great people the Painter family are definitely worth checking out!
9.http://www.nextlevelblogger.com/ Christian Russell might be the king of great blog content if it wasn’t for Nick , but seriously he has the best content out there to help anyone up their blog game!
There are plenty more out there to read just watch my tweets and you will find them!
Follow me http://twitter.com/GregHarris66720 and then interact!
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Direct mail marketing for leads is a highly debated subject in real estate investing you have one side that stands by the good old postcard and the newer school of thought swearing by yellow letters. Last year I attempted direct mail because my “genius” mentor said that you have to do it no questions asked it’s a must! I did it and ended up not liking the idea of spending that much time and money for a 6 percent response rate and a whopping 15 percent of those even being a remote possibility of a deal.
At the end of the year though I ended up talking to a few fellow investors that swore by the idea of direct mail, and this week I gave it another shot. However I have done an experiment to find which way is the best and gets the most responses. I sent 250 postcard, 250 yellow letters, and 250 of my outside of the box idea. The results were not what I expected in the slightest bit. I used 3 different phone numbers just so I could track which mailing they are responding to. The numbers so far as follows .
Postcards- with 14 call backs or 5.6 percent response
Yellow letters- with 43 call backs or 17.2 percent response
My idea- with 155 call backs or 62 percent response rate
Sometimes it pays off to think for yourself and not just do what everyone else is! If you have an idea think it through, and ask others opinion of the idea to see if they have any cons to it that you can’t answer or overlooked yourself. After all that if it still makes sense the only thing left to do is TAKE A RISK! The only smart way to take a risk is to make sure it’s calculated!
My idea is based on scientific lessons learned through those boring psychology classes I had to sit through a few years ago. If you want to know what it is all you have to do is ask! Wholesaling and investing are rocket science, but you don’t have to do the same things as everyone else.
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So this one will be completely off the format. I have worked on a deal for almost 3 weeks had a great first and follow-up call with the seller and then we reached a sticking point. I wasn’t sure exactly what the hold up was on getting it under contract, but had an idea since he had said he would talk it over with his wife almost 2 weeks ago. It turns out that she indeed was the sticking point.
They are planning a move from Joplin, MO to Las Vegas they’ve been married for twenty-two years and this was the first and only house that they have bought together. Normally if I reach a stalling period with a seller for two weeks or so I just move on and let the situation work itself out, I have enough other deals going on to not have to worry about what’s going on with one. This deal though is special for a multitude of reasons one it has at least 60k in equity, and two it helps out a friend of mine who is looking for a house exactly like this one.
So what we end up with is a husband who is pleased as punch that he’s getting almost exactly wanted out of the house, and a wife who is having second thoughts. This is will be a problem if you don’t know what you are doing. When you find yourself dealing with a couple please the woman! Whether you are buying or selling a deal will go south ninety-six times out of a hundred if the woman is not happy with the situation, for those other four keep a divorce lawyer’s business card handy because the man is gonna need it!
What I ended up doing was having him put her on the phone and had her list her concerns, wrote them down as she was talking and took care of them one by one. I even have them lined up as a buyer ninety days or so after they move because she enjoys owning their own home. So whether they stay in Vegas or return to Joplin they are calling me first!
Remember no matter who has the money the woman is in equal control of the situation, if she gets overlooked your deal is D.O.A. Treat her right and its smooth sailing as long as your title situation is good lol.
Sometime next week I will video a few lead calls with a seller and possibly even a buyer. Wholesaling is great if you put some effort into just like any other investment strategy you may choose.
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It’s been a few days since the last blog so I figured we’ll do another one. This time I will point out some things that seem to get overlooked in the real estate business especially by wholesalers.
The opponent
Leads-
Lead generation is not a one sided or even two sided part of the process. A lot of the investors or “potential” investors I talk to seem to grasp the concept of buy low and sell higher is how we make our money. A good portion however put great effort into their marketing, but have unbalanced marketing strategies and ideals that prevent them from making larger overall profits.
Problem 1-
They focus too much on having a massive buyers list. Their are people out there who like to brag about their buyers list of 20,000 people which is great don’t get me wrong, but they have spent all of their time on getting buyers and have no properties. At the end of the day only one buyer can buy your property, which leaves you with nothing for or from the other 19,999 buyers on your list. They all also only have one type of buyer on their list everyone wants cash buyers but if they are all investors buying at whatever percentage your “magical formula” tells you they will buy at you are missing a lot of money. If you have some retail buyers on your list or a buyers agent in your network REO’s and short sales actually become worth the time and effort you have to put into them. Also those houses where you are a few thousand dollars apart on with a seller can become an option for you.
In order to get some balance into your system, after you have a few buyers who want to buy more than one property a year up your efforts on marketing for sellers. The more buyers you have should also mean that you are targeting more sellers not more buyers!
Problem 2-
They target 500 sellers a month and don’t really consider if they have buyers in place. You can not repeat can not send out 400 pieces of direct mail and make 100 REO offers and have no buyers in place. The balancing act works both ways here people. If your mailing campaign is decent and get a 6 percent response and half of those come back as being good deals do you have the buyers in place to close on 12 properties? What about the REO’s if you have a 10 percent success ratio on your hundred offers, suddenly you have 22 properties now to close on. Wait though you’ve spent all of your time getting sellers and not buyers… oops. Now I firmly believe it’s easier to find a buyer for a great deal than it is to find deal itself, but you are delusional if you think that is gonna hold true if only have 6 people who you are for sure can close for you. So before we do our mass mailings make sure you are ready to buy or sell massive amounts of properties!
Training Camp
A goal or priority even for everyone is to make sure our business systems are in balance. No piece of your business should out grow any other part. Lead generation is important yes, but so is having balance within your marketing. One flat tire keeps the vehicle from moving!
Post Match Thoughts
To be successful you absolutely need to recognize the weaknesses in your game, if something is already a strength don’t focus on it entirely! If you can bench press 500 pounds and only squat 220 you are not a complete athlete. The same premises hold true in business. Maintain your strengths and build up your weaknesses. Feel free to leave comments and I appreciate the re-tweets.
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This is my first blog here and I have decided to take 2 concepts I understand and put them together. I know fighting I’ve done it since I was 4 years old and I know wholesaling. Taking these two thought processes and combining them into one has worked for me so hopefully it will help out some of the people out there struggling!
The Opponent
One of the glaring problems I see as a member of various networking sites and forums is that a lot of “Wholesalers” have no clue what they are doing! All of them seem to have a grasp on the concept find x-seller put the house under y-contract and sell their position to z-buyer. My 6 year old understands find a house put it under contract and sell it to someone else, big deal. Everyone also markets themselves as CASH buyers that can close quickly, this right here is where the issue comes in. Deal analysis is great and an important part of the process, but the fact remains that if there is no CASH to close then no one gets any CASH in the end from your contract! For some reason the idea that if they market around being able to do certain things then weirdly enough a seller will expect you to to do it!
Training Camp
Now that we have identified the opponent you need to train to win the fight against it. Learn about all aspects of getting the CASH you need to close the deal. The first and best way to do this is by having a great buyers list. Now if you are here reading this blog you have probably already seen lot’s of ways to build your list elsewhere. From the bandit signs, going to R.E.I.A. meetings, marketing on www.craigslist.org, and on down the line do these things!
You should also educate yourself on private investor money it’s another great fairly expensive way to make sure you get your deals done. Patrick Riddle of www.mustknowinvesting.com has a very effective free program for doing just this go check it out. There are also a fair number of investing groups that can be found by just doing a simple web search.
Establishing lines of business credit is also an important aspect of any business. If you don’t have any money at your disposal this is probably your best bet starting out. Everyone loves the idea of getting into wholesaling because it’s all about no money down and no money out of pocket investing, but to do this business effectively there is some overhead for things that you need CASH or credit to purchase especially if your intentions are to do this full time. You will need access to a few hundred dollars at the very least to buy a course or get a mentor, get materials for bandit signs, envelopes, stamps, and paper to do mailings, business cards , starting websites, and all of the other little expenses that add up to get your business off the ground.
Finally there is the probably most misunderstood CASH option available Hard Money it’s a great choice when you don’t have CASH of your own or really have time to secure private funding. With hard money you can not only close on your deals, but you can also get your CASH up front. Which will allow you to hold your property put a little money into it on clean up and CASH out for top dollar! That’s why we are all in this business to put CASH in our pockets. You can locate hard money lenders/ or mortgage brokers via online search you should find some and network with them. It’s a little more pricey than some of your other options, but it is also one of the fastest! There is a great opportunity coming up on February 25th in Las Vegas thanks to www.pitbullseminars.com . If you can make it I suggest you get there for the learning experience and networking opportunity.
The K.O. and Post Match Thoughts
Get your research done on all of these things and go knockout some deals! As a closing thought don’t make this business too complicated or over simplify it either. Subscribe to the blog or check out my website for more learning materials www.humblegladiatorinvestments.com. Leave your comments and questions I will gladly answer.
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