How do I find wholesalers? - Posted by beck4353

Posted by Del-Ohio on January 09, 2004 at 21:12:59:

Are we getting good deals? Decent ones, I will give you a few exaples and you decide, some people do better some not as good.

Our target is a minimum of 20,000 profit per property if it is under 100,000 purchase and rehab costs. For a $200,000 property we want at least 40,000.

We made less on a couple lower valued properties that needed only minor repairs.

Example 1. Minor rehab to a mobile home with city lot , purchased for 15,000 + 3,000 in rehab, sold for 29,000.

Example 2. A modular located beside our six-plex, bought for 51,000 spend about 1,000-1,5000 in paint for the deck and some mulch, sold it for 65,000. Signed a contract on it the first day in the paper.

These are the only two we made less than 20,000, but they needed minor repairs and were rather inexpensive to start with.

The first building that we purchased was a five-plex, four residential and one barber in a small town. One unit was vacant and one was under eviction, we paid 55,000 spend about 10,000 upgrading it right away. We spend another 5,000 over the past year as we replaced tenants. The tenants pay their own utilities except water and sewer.

Gross Rents per month 425+395+365+295+85 = $1,565 Morgtage payments = $411 month.
We financed 100% of purchase price, plus 10,000 of repairs for 20 years. We were going to sell this one after renovations, but as we looked at the cash flow and then had it appraised, we decided this is a keeper, we will use the equity for down payments on other properties.

The largest project to date, also purchased through mls, is a 15 unit apartment complex with 12,500 square feet of retail space on the first floor. The building was empty when we bought it, after renovations it appraised for just a little less than twice the purchase/renovation price.

There is no “typicial” deal for us. We have purchased a Jehovah Witness church, an old historic house, an old hotel that we are renovating for commercial retail and apartments, a few single family houses that needed a lot of rehab, a few multi units (1-duplex, 1 fiveplex, 1 sixplex) a log cabin etc. we look for distressed sellers/properties or properties where we can increase their value.

If we like the properties we crunch the numbers and decide what we want to pay then we make offers that work for us.

The person writing the most offers buying th most properties is a quote I got from Robert Shemin. It may not always hold true, but you will ONLY buy properties if you make offers.

In the beginning we got one house for every 10-15 offers, today its more like one out of three. The more offers you make the more you learn, the better you get at making offers that get accepted.

My Viewpoint

Del-Ohio

How do I find wholesalers? - Posted by beck4353

Posted by beck4353 on January 09, 2004 at 08:32:04:

I am trying to by my first investment property to rehab. The problem is, I have a pretty good job that takes a lot of my days up, so finding the property is the hardest aspect.

I resigned myself to buy from a wholesaler and let him make a fek $K as long as I can still make a decent profit myself.

The question is, how do I go about finding these people? Call “We buy houses” ads in the paper?

I live in Detroit, MI.

Thanks

Re: How do I find wholesalers? - Posted by Del-Ohio

Posted by Del-Ohio on January 09, 2004 at 18:30:48:

This is not a method to find wholesalers, if you have difficulty finding wholesalers, maybe a method of finding properties would be helpful.

When we started our real estate venture, I would pick up a copy of the “Homes for Sale” magazine at the local realtors office, take it to a coffee shop, o0rder a drink and circle all the ads that had some evidence of distress in the ad or in the photo.

I would then pick three or four of the most promising ones, call the Realtor and have him pull the information and sold comps.

I would then do a drive by of the property and if I was still interested I would drive by the comps. I did this for all the houses. Then I called the realtor back and set up an appoinmtment to tour the properties. I would take a few minutes and decide how much I was willing to pay. After looking at all the properties I knew how much I was wiling to pay for each one, I would write an offer on one (later multiple offers at the same time) give the seller 48 hours to respond, if they did not accept or have a decent counter I would offer on the next one, this way you are writing an offer every two days.

It is a method that worked very well for us and allowed us to buy houses at the prices we needed, we have been able to buy all the houses that we can handle without any advertising or marketing.

Remember the person who writes the most offers buys the most properties.

My Viewpoint

Del-Ohio

Re: How do I find wholesalers? - Posted by craig

Posted by craig on January 09, 2004 at 10:14:40:

I’m in the same boat as you, getting ready for my first rehab. My best advice by far, is to join a local real estate investors club, you will make contacts with lots of wholsalers, contractors, brokers and attorneys. I recently joined one in my area, and after going to only 2 meetings I already have a list of ten good wholesalers.

Re: How do I find wholesalers? - Posted by beck4353

Posted by beck4353 on January 09, 2004 at 19:31:39:

That’s very interesting. I like the method you described.

I do have one question though. You say that the person who writes the most offers buys the most properties, but let me ask, were/are you getting properties for a good deal? Approx what range of ARV were you buying these houses for?

Thanks

Re: How do I find wholesalers? - Posted by Merez (IA)

Posted by Merez (IA) on January 09, 2004 at 11:38:52:

Good advice, but, what do you do if there is no investment club locally? Or even within a 2 hour drive? (That’s my situation and I’m not really liking it)

However, I do believe that there are other ways to do it. Networking with those people you see at the sheriff’s sale and the ones that have placed ads in the paper is helpful. Or you could put an ad in the paper for bird dogs or use your imagination for other ways to find people that will bring the property to you.