As I’ve said in the past my first purchase will be a 3-4 fam that will be owner occ. In the meantime I want to make some cash but time is tight. I leave home to go to work at 8am, get home from work at 10/11pm. Currently working 2 jobs and spending 2.5+ hours a day in the car commuting. Only day I have fully off is Saturday so time is tight. Birddogging sounds like a good way to get some extra cash but my schedule makes it really hard to do things like sit at home on weeknights calling people or returning phone calls. I guess due to that traditional birddogging is out unless I can find a way to get a little in on the weekend without eating up my whole day off. I was thinking though is there a market for simply finding vacant homes? Do you think I’d be able to get investors in the area to pay me for each one I give them or maybe pay me to find them and hang signs on the door, etc? In my area they are harder to find than in places like Detroit where forclosures and extreme financial hardship are common. Maybe there is some sort of premium in finding them? What do you think? How could I market my services and what the heck could I charge? Besides an REI club meeting locally how would I track down investors, calling bandit signs? Any other ways?
I can tell you what I have been doing:
When I see a vacant house, I write the owner a letter. I have a standard letter so it takes not time to write. I call the tax accessor from work and locate the owner. It takes no time. Everytime I go to WAWA or any other store I take a different way so I cover more ground just running errands. I am going to my local REI club tonight to set up my network or buyers
Finding them and sending letters can certainly be done in off hours. I am just worried about when they call in regards to my letter and it takes me a few days to get back to them, wouldn’t be professional on my part for them to have to wait a few days for me to have time to call. That’s where I worry about doing things like letter writing.
rich,
i’m not sure if investors would pay you to find vacant houses. i guess that’s up to you to find those willing to pay. my guess would be they would give you a finders fee or a percentage if they completed a deal from a vacant you found.
i guess this is where you become creative in marketing your service to other investors and selling yourself. as far as how much to charge…i guess this comes down to “how much is your time worth”. i sometimes take the roll that im doing stuff the hard knocks way (not getting paid) but am setting the path for my future.
also, you should continue your education (obviously). 2.5 hours in the car? well i’d suggest listening to audiobooks…as many as you can get your hands on, instead of music.
ryan
If your pressed for time start by shopping for some buyers via ads, signs, calling Cash for house people. Find 2 or 3 strong buyers and then call some people who are already wholesaling homes. Tell them you have some great buyers and ask them if they would be willing to pay a fee to you if you turn over one of your buyers and they decide to purchase a house. Also ask if they would be willing to continue paying that fee for each house that your buyer purchases. I have some wholesalers that I have sent buyers to and they have agreed to pay me a 4% referall fee for every home that my buyer purchases. This technique actually allow you to make money without doing anything, with any risk.
Eric Medemar
Do you not have e cell phone? There is a way to get anything done if you put your mind to it. This is a tiny little hump to over come.
I can’t get a lot of calls at work and most of my commute home is in the middle of nowhere, 80%+ I have no cell service. If I had service I’d have tons of time to make calls.
Why do you work so much?
Work = money… :
The absolute worst time to start a business is when you need the money. It sounds like from the amount of time you spend working that what you should do is get control of your life first. You need to find a job that pays the most that you can and adjust your lifestyle to live on what it pays. Then after your life is stabilized you should start your real estate business. I say that because when you have a real estate business you will have large sums of money in your hands that does not belong to you. You will have 10 people giving you $1000 each for rent every month. That $10,000 is not yours. Easily $8000 of it could be mortgages or set aside for repairs or taxes, etc. If you are that in need of cash, you will be tempted to spend it.
Those infomercials that come on in the middle of the night to prey on people that need the money are placed there because they know that people that are desperate will see them and call. I try to motivate people that have a good life to invest in real estate all the time. That is why I am not the next Carlton Sheets. I know that moving from a position of desperation does not generate a great possibility of success. But a stable person going into real estate increases that chance greatly. The problem is that what stands in the way of a great life is a good life. When I try to convince a guy that makes $100,000 per year and plays golf every afternoon that he should spend some of that free time buying trash homes and fixing them up and picking up tenants, they can’t move that way. That is why Carlton Sheets and his kind market to people who should just get their lives straight instead of starting multi million dollar companies. My advice to you is to work on stabilizing your life first.
I don’t really “need” the money but I have a lot of debt that I am working to pay off asap. At this point I am paying down my debt and waiting until that is farther paid down to start investing. At this point my focus is to find some creative ways to make some extra cash and learn a little more about the biz. I’m not starting a business because I need the money, looking to slowly get started with small tasks while I build the capital and pay down my debt that I need to get my first multi.
I amassed some cc debt that needs to be paid off before I start in RE, the part time job goes almost entirely to that.
I am giving up a p/t gig for 16.50 an hour and am dropping my engineering major because [b]I know that I am going to make it in REI. [/b]LOL- Good thinking. Everyone who buys one REI book KNOWS they are going to make it. Most people are very determined to "make it" until they hit the first few pot holes in the road, at which point they change their mind.
The concept of being rich is very appealing to just about everyone. Most people try different things their whole life to get rich; some buy lottery tickets every week, some start half-baked businesses every month, some push their kids to be the next Michael Jordan, then others buy those stupid infomercial courses. Everyone thinks that they have the stuff to be wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. The fact of the matter is that statistically, you will not be rich, you won’t even be close to getting rich. Learning about REI is not the ticket to wealth, a strong desire to be rich is a dime-a-dozen.
You can make some decent money by doing a few deals. You can’t be truly wealthy until you do something different. It will take 10 lifetimes to get rich by renting out SFH’s for $100 a month cash flow. That game has been played, some people won, most people lost. The SFH rehab game have been played by everyone who owns a hammer thanks to TV shows and books, some people won, most people lost. With all the new courses, books, TV shows, lending programs, etc. it appears the barrier to entry into REI is easy to cross. Unfortunately the barrier to entry of becoming a real deal- full time investor is so far out of most peoples reach that they can’t even see it.
Give yourself another option if REI doesn’t pan out the way most people dream it will. Don’t be the idiot who sells his house, punches his boss in the face when he quits his job, and “invests” his lifes savings into something they have no business doing.
Rich,
Have you thought about being a Gigalo for some extra cash?
Focus people, think outside the box. What can I do that can easily be done in off-hours time periods? Maybe hanging bandit signs for out of state investors in hot neighboorhoods?
You still have the problem of being able to call them back. I think you should be thinking of making the time to make the money.
Your thinking minimum wage here Rich. Hanging up signs is something for a kid to do on a bike.
-On your off day, go to some REI club somewhere, meet everyone in the room, and ask them their investment criterias. Where a ridiculous t-shirt that says “I’m A Wholesaler.”
-Go find 1 property to fit someones criteria immediately after the meeting ends.
-Spend every waking moment trying to locate and negotiate with the owner. (Some of your family members may have to die as far as your bosses are concerned.)
-Get that damn property under contract by any means necessary and assign it to an investor even if it means calling them at midnight. They will wake up for money, guaranteed.
-If returning calls is a problem, have them email you.
-Make 3-5-10+ thousand in 1 week, pay off your credit cards and quit your stupid part time job!
-No more thinking, just stumble your way around until you make some money. Forget about looking professional and working around a very tight schedule- JUST DO IT!
Emailing the wholesalers can definitely work. As you can see sitting on a computer is what I do 8+ hrs a day at my fulltime job. I have plenty of time to email people or do online things. Phone is hard though. Heck I was thinking just now about setting up a website and having all my material point prospective sellers to the site. The downside I see right off is that not everyone is computer saavy and I would miss some business that way. I’m thinking along the lines of having a basic questionaire on the website to gather the basic info and then calling back or emailing. If I could start off with a website and get a few deals done I could certainly get out of the p/t job and have a lot more time to contact people.
I might definitely be able to make some calls from my part-time job now that I think about it, I was mostly thinking I really can’t call from my f/t job. Thinking about it more I realize the average joe is home during the evening and would need to be contacted then when I’m at my part time job.
I really need to get myself down to my local REI meeting. There is one in CT that is pretty big I think. They just had a big annual convention but I didn’t see the signs posted until a few weeks after it happened.
here is something that would be said to me from another investor (from another board).
“no excuses. you need to set your priorities straight. if you can’t make time, you don’t want it bad enough.”
i’ve pretty much cut most forms of entertainment out of my life during the week, just to make time for REI.
i’m not trying to be harsh on you with the above post, but it does have some truth to it. if you want it? you’ll find a way…whatever it is. i myself am trying to make this happen in the worst way…good luck ;]
ryan
Rich,
you will most likely have to be available to answer your phone when it rings, in response to an ad, sign, or however you are going to market. I will tell you that MOST people will not leave you a message. I say this becasue most people that really need to sell you their property are in some kind of predicament, and it takes so much courage for them to just place the call in the 1st place, that leaving a message and building up the courage to now answer THEIR phone when you call is not sitting well with them. not all are in financial str8ts, some may be investors with vacant houses to get rid of, some may be inheritances, etc. most will NOT be though. of course it all depends on how, when and where you market.
in regards to the WWW, you are correct that some folks are not computer savvy. some don’t have www access…yes that is correct! in this day and age some can’t afford a PC and/or www service. some in financial str8ts have gotten their www access disconnected, so finding a way to do that is a challenge for them. some folks are reluctant to type any personal info into a form on the WWW. it’s just a fact right now.
i will tell you that i mail postcards to my prospects. that is it. no ads, no signs, no flyers…just post cards. when my cel rings, i answer it 99% of the time. yes it comes into the bathroom with me, TMI I know but what the hey :o ;D. i have missed a few calls in some instances. some have called back, as i can see via the caller ID. some have left msgs, and when I do call them back, most do not answer or return calls. the way i see it from my experience is that u have ONE chance to talk to them and that is thier initial phone call.
BTW i have my www address on all of my biz cards and post cards i mail. i RARELY get anyone filling out the form on my site. just my experience. hope this all helps!
Interesting, thanks for the info.