I been investing since 2009 and I consider myself successful in the biz. I work alone exceot for my mentor who advise me from time to time. I am making enough money but the biz has become stale as most of the times get tired of the same routine. I work from home and sometimes wish I had a small group of guys to get rich together. The problem is that I don’t have anyone of my friends that interested in real estate (hard to believe). I would have to bring in at least 2 guys who share the same passion in this biz. Is hard trusting people and I dob;t want to make the mistake of getting in the wrong partnerships.
Do you guys prefer to work alone or do you have a small team? Do you have fun doing it as a team? Would like to know how you guys make this fun?
in my opinion its very hard to do a real estate business alone. for a small level real estate business 2 to 3 peoples are enough to carry out their routine activities.in a team you get new ideas, better communication and find urself less stuck up in one place.
I’m new to wholesaling and I’m trying to start my own investor business. I need a team but dont know anyone who wants too. I havent got started in my business because I really need a mentor that I can follow to see how paper work is done. I need a title company, real estate agent and more. Any advice for me?
I know what your talking about. Its like I wake up, talk, eat, drink, and sleep real estate. Not the money, but the business. I can talk for hours and generate millions of ideas.
As you stated, it’s hard to find someone with the same passion and goals as you.
I use a team, but they are more like employees than friends getting rich with me. I believe it is important to be associated with like minded individuals when doing a business like this. I talk about us living in bazarro world al the time because the things we see as normal everybody else just looks at us like the Victor talking machine dog. That is my main reason for belonging to real estate investor’s clubs. I find that most of the people there are just looky loos but every now and then you find a person the is actually doing something and although most of them are pretty weird folks ( lots of canned food in their basement) there are some really neat people. I have party at my home about once a year and invite fellow investors. We just have a good time and compare notes around the pool. I bought a house and during the rehab I realized that the house next door was being rehabbed also. I talked to the investors that were doing the rehab and they are people that I keep in contact with and we talk regularly.
It is important to have someone that helps you stay the course. You may not want to tangle your business up with them but it is important to have someone from our world to talk to.
I would like to second Nancy’s post. I would love to have a mentor, but I don’t want to sound desparate or seem vulnerable and consequently open myself to the posibility of being taken adavantage of by an “experienced” investor.
Nancy, this is going to sound insensitive, bordering on mean, but I’m going to give you a dose of authentic mentoring right now. One reason I can think of that you’re not finding any help, is because anyone you approach at this point thinks you’re either not serious, or worse, a waste of time. Why?
You’ve got the cart before the horse; building a team, before you even know what you’re doing. You’re evidently not interested, or prepared to do the least amount of spade work here by first learning what you can from a book, seminar or course (as far as you’ve indicated). As a result, you cannot explain with confidence what you’re attempting to accomplish so that you can successfully find ‘help’ accomplishing it.
Go buy a used wholesaling course from Ron LeGrand on Ebay. That will give you specific, informative advice on ‘everything wholesale.’ Forget the team thing for now. Nobody worth his salt, is honestly interested in babysitting, you or, anyone starting from scratch, without being offered something. There’s no free lunch. Otherwise, what value do you bring to the table? What are you going to offer to attract any help? What’s in it for the team? :banghead
LateThanNever, what kinds of things do you think a mentor would take advantage of you doing? I’m at a loss here.
What would make you appear desperate or vulnerable? It sounds like you’ve got some issues that no real estate mentor is going to solve, especially if you’re fearful of getting skunked somehow. :anon
I know what your looking for and I had the experience your looking for. A group of 7 friends that invested and socialized, one was my older brother but the rest were friends we met early on. You just have to find one and keep adding.
We grew to 12 couples that would get the baby sitters on Wednesday nights and go to a favorite dinner and dance to a live band place. Trust was great in an emergency we could go around and get what money the others had and just give an IOU. The guys would meet on Wednesday also for lunch to share info, sometimes we would partner up on a deal but most of the time we operated basically separately but input and help on any deal was always there.
My wife has always hated real estate investing all the time I known her but if I had left this group I would have been meeting a divorce lawyer. Now we are dying off and know when we meet at the funeral services that we really had something special.
You are a business owner, its yours. The real question is, Do you need a prtner or new friends? I have a real tough time when my wife isn’t really interested in the house I may have bought or the remodel that was just completed and no she does not want to go look at 6 homes with me today. Sounds like you need new freinds. Hate to say this but some of the realtors I use have become good freinds and they have the same schedule I do so we get to fish/ski together too. I did help turn one of my freinds into a real estate investor tho…I really think he just became envious( kept paying cash for new Harleys and Ford trucks) Not bragging but that was a real motivator for him.
I feel your pain !
When I started teaching my daughter to snowboard I purchased two sets of equipment for her, why Dad she asked?
Well Sweetie as much fun as it is to board with Dear Old Dad it’s going to be way more fun when you can bring a friend.
Enjoy,
Darin
We all need a team and Pals to play with! Mortgage pros, hard money people, Title co, Lawyer, Realtors to name some
If you want a ton a great free info on wholesaling, download the Flip2Freedom podcast by Sean Terry on iTunes. That is where I learned basically everything I know today. There is absolutely no need to buy anything. He has about 75 free podcasts there. He also has a free eBook on his website at flip2freedom.com.
Anyone else that is looking to build a team of investors, this is how I built one without risking any money:
I’ve been hiring interns (I’ve hired 17 to this date) to help me out in my real estate wholesaling business. They sort through all of my calls, put up my bandit signs, post my craigslist ads, etc.)? I used to go at it non-stop for 12-16 hours a day. When the amount of calls and emails started piling up for my business, I decided to hire some interns and have them do all the day to day tasks and teach them how to run their own wholesaling business. Hiring interns has freed up a lot of my time and allowed me to focus on the most important things.
The reason I hire interns instead of VAs is because VAs can be a big waste of time and money. The great thing about interns is, the worst that could happen is that you get a bad intern (I’ve had quite a few.) But in that case, just hire another one (or a couple more.) There’s no limit to how many you can work with and you don’t need to pay them unless they make money (in which case you both make money.) I just pay them on a commission base (20-50% of the profits of the deals that come through them).
I have a recently been helping other people hire their own interns by giving them all the files and resources that I use to hire and manage my interns (job descriptions, interview script, email templates, list of tasks, etc.) I’d be more than willing to share any and all these files with you or anyone else that desires them.
Do you guys prefer to work alone or do you have a small team? Do you have fun doing it as a team? Would like to know how you guys make this fun?
[/quote]
Whether to go it alone or with others is a personal preference thing, AND how much money you want to make. A few years ago after years of investing I was at a networking meeting, met a couple of guys who heard about me there and desperately wanted to work with me. After some thought over a week or so I decided to try partnering. For many reasons, it didn’t work. Here is my advice to you. First, do what you’re doing…meaning make money on your own. Then, determine what profits you make without partners. Then, if you decide that you will add partners, only do so if they bring value to the table financially. If you make 250,000 say on your own, then you add partners, shouldn’t you realistically make more? Look at partners like you would any investment…only buy into it if you are getting a return. Now, that I said that, I think the big thing with you has more to do with what you said…you’re getting bored of the routine. Kinda interesting comment. Question is why? If you love this business, you’re not gonna get bored. Rather than beat you to death with that though, I’d consider adding interns (this is what I do). They are eager to learn, will do work for free and take a lot of those menial tasks that don’t make you money. And in exchange, they get to learn the business hands on from you for free. When I first started as a rookie years ago I read all the books and courses I could get my hands on. Book-wise I felt very ready, but didn’t have the confidence to talking to sellers and buyers etc. I met up with a local mentor who was working on finding a tenant/buyer for a L/O deal. Long story short as a rookie that’s what I needed to take me to the next level. The mentor made out good too as he didn’t have to field calls and could focus on more business. Handling those “live” calls without the pressure of having to had sign the deal gave me the ability to break the deal into bite sized pieces which was much much more digestable. I’ve been on a nice uptick ever since.
Dukefan I sent you a private message , I really like what you do…
Chunkoftheearth… I also really like your comments and just want to respond to what you “mentioned about loving the business” . If i am honest withmyself I am not sure I “love” the business, I would say I “like” it instead. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that exciting and some times I feel better. The truth is that I may have some issues from my past that keep me from going 100%. I read a lot of motivational stuff that pushes me to fo forward.
The truth is that for the most part of my life I lived a very deprived life because of past circumstances in my life. When I learned about real estate, it gave me a vision of a much better life if I became someone important. I actually was one of those lucky few (and hardwork) that actually became successful and now my mind sometime goes like “is that all that there is”? Is kind of hard tom explain it but I had more drive when I was not making money then now that I am.
One of the things that I missed out on life was having enough friends ( I was shy most of my life) and perhaps is why I would like to do this with a group. To have fun and have some good friendships come out of it. I just hope that this the only missing from my drive to become more successful. I know I sound like I have issues but I work at it everyday…
Well anyways sorry if I went of topic but just wanted to get that out of there as it was brought up. Thank again to all.
I Know where you are coming from because I felt the same way but I don’t think is a good idea to do a partnership because you want to have company and have fun. I do suggest you go to al least 1 networking group a week. It could be the local REIA’s, Chamber of Commerce ect… that way you connect with people that can help your business and at the same time grow your business.
I hear what you’re saying martini. I agree that you shouldn’t partner with someone just for the sake of friendship. Only partner with money. Get filthy rich and have a martini! LOL. I’d also suggest picking up “From Rags To Riches” authored by Russ Whitney. Early in the first chapter of that book he chronicles his early days of investing. He had a bad childhood, and basically started investing in real estate for the same reason you did. He however mentions in that book that he uses those experiences and that pain to drive him to succeed. The way he describes it was such an easy to understand rationale. Further, in that same book in the early chapters he describes a trait that ALL successful people have…LOVING WHAT THEY DO! He points out people like Bill Cosby still doing comedy when at his age he doesn’t have to, and he lists off a bunch of industry leaders in the same light. Anyway, a great book in my opinion to read for you.
I like to do it as a team. You get more work done this way. You don’t have to hire others however, other investors your city would love to work with you. Some will some won’t, its ok :biggrin someone is waiting.
chunkoftheearth
thanks I will look into picking up that book .
Delondon - So you partner with other investors how? I have done so with wholesale deals but that’s not what I am looking for as far as creating a company…
I am sure you guys had heard of CT Homes from Flip This House . I actually like how they do business while having fun. That’s kind of what I would want as a real estate investing team/company. I am thinking about paying for some of their material just to see how they run their business as well as the marketing aspect of it. Thanks !
The best way to partner up on deals (in my opinion) is to split the deals 50-50. I’ll give you a scenario. Say you come across a good deals from a motivated seller but you can’t find a buyer that will buy the property. You can either let the deal go (and get NOTHING from the deal) or you could ask some other wholesaler if they know a buyer that is willing to buy the property. If they come in with a buyer that closes on the property, you and the other wholesaler split the profits 50-50. Even though you are giving up half your profits, its a lot better that having nothing. I know people that do this almost exclusively and make boatloads of money from it.
It also works the other way around. If you have a ton of buyer on your list and you know another wholesaler that can’t find a buyer for their deal, you bring in a buyer and split the profits. Its a win-win for everyone.