Centralcalinvestor's Journal

I've been studying on average about 4 hours a day. That's in addition to my 8-10 hour workday. It's hard to get to sleep because my mind is running at 100 miles an hour.

So far in the past few days I have:
- Responded to a few messages sent to me on the site by other members. Thanks guys for contacting me. I look forward to staying in touch with you.
- Contacted a Real Estate Agent. She said she works with investors all the time but when I told her what I wanted to do she was dumbfounded. Lol! That made my day! On to the next one I guess.
- Looked online for a Real Estate club in the Fresno, Ca area to contact. I found a number that I'll call tomorrow in the middle of the day. It's 1 in the morning. Probably not the best idea to call now.
- Purchased Rehabvaluator and Rentalvaluator. Shout out to investor42 for posting a link at the bottom of his posts. I checked it out, downloaded the lite version and was impressed. I'm a financial guy and love spreadsheets so this is a fun little toy for me! This should give me an edge in presenting my deals to my buyers, as I know that it is important to show my buyers exactly what's in it for them. And I think this program does a good job of it.
- Studied everyday consistently for about 4 hours.
- Researched bandit signs. Found a cool idea on YouTube where this one guy found a way to nail up bandit signs about 14 ft high so no one could just walk up and tear them down. They would need to bring a ladder. Haha!
- I called the City Code Enforcement office and asked if it is legal to put up "Yard Sale" signs on telephone poles. Shhh, they don't know yet. They said no it was not legal and I could be cited. Obviously, I'm not going to take no for an answer so I need to do some more research on how to get around this. Which reminds me, I need to set up my untraceable phone number. I'll put that on my list of things to do.
- In the process of researching business cards and flyers. I printed my own business cards on my printer, but they don't look professional enough in my opinion. I want the flashy colored ones.
- Riding my bike around town looking at properties and just getting to know property values in my farming area. Man, those boarded up houses look beautiful! Is it legal to post flyers on them?

Hi Adam
Well your not really on the CC but close. I'm in Lompoc and I think that is about as central as you can get..lol I see you are taking action which is great. PM me if I can help or you have a question. I have two students up in fresno and I will be coming up that way soon .NOW GO GET SOME

Today I tried calling a local REI club, but did not get an answer and wasn't able to leave a message. I'll try again tomorrow. I also emailed a real estate attorney's office in to see if they work with investors and are familiar with documents and contracts related to wholesale assignments. I've also been studying for a few hours and reading/posting comments on this site.

Nice to see Dean online today providing words of inspiration to others.

Put buyers on the top of your list is something that I have learned! Best wishes!!

Hi Tammy,

Question for you. What's the best way to get started finding my buyers? I've heard something about ghost ads to start building your buyers list. Do you have any advice on this? I was thinking about creating a mock analysis of a fictional property on Craigslist and presenting it in a way that shows potential buyers exactly what is in it for them - ROI, Annualized ROI based on a 3-6 month rehab period plus time to close, cash flow (if they buy and hold), cap rates, etc. I can show them estimates of rehab costs + holding costs, and provide pictures too. I would also provide them rental rates and other market specific details. My only concern is losing credibility if they were to want to buy the property and I didn't actually have it locked under contract. Do I just tell them that it is already taken and I'll let them know once I find another one? Or do I tell them that my ad was just a sample analysis of what I would be presenting to them once I find a property that fits their specifications. I'm all for finding the buyers first. Makes total sense. You're input would be much appreciated.

We can read and study and we should but unless we take "action" and "get out there in the real world of investing" we wont gain any thing and thats what it is going to take to make it really happen, wishing you all well, Jim

Finally found a mentor! DG member KEB64. Looking forward to starting soon! Also looking forward to connecting with some of KEB64's other students that happen to be in my area. Feeling so excited and blessed right now.

A totally fabulous session!! I learned a lot, met some great people,very knowledgable speakers, outstanding service in the food department. We were g duringifted with inspirational books penned by Dean and we got our pictures taken with Dean himself! I am SO glad I attended! We even enjoyed a disc jockey during the breaks.
Great planning in all aspects.

Hi Adam,

How's everything going / any updates to your journal? I'm based in CA too (although also invest in the Vermont area where I'm originally from).

- Tom

Hi Tom,

Things are going forward but slowly. I haven't been active on this site much lately because I have been busy on my mentor's private site. I've been pretty active on there though.

A few days ago I put together a PowerPoint presentation for a Realtor I will be meeting with soon. And the other day I drove around town looking at houses. I found a few that I'm looking into. Sent out a yellow letter to the owners of one. Still need to look up the owners on the others.

I've been working overtime at work almost everyday (not by choice) so it doesn't leave me much time each day to work on real estate. I'm also in the middle of a refi on my house and the amount of information that they need is annoying, but it will be over shortly and will be worth it.

I really need to get my buyers list going but I don't know any other way than putting up a ghost ad on Craigslist. I'm not sure I want to do a ghost ad though. I want to be honest about what I do. But at the same time I want to have buyers ready to go when I have a deal. Any suggestions on how to build a buyers list? I know there's tons of info on this site about it. Just haven't had time to find it yet.

Adam

Hello, Adam!

Here's a link from the "Real Estate Forums" archive:
http://www.deangraziosi.com/real-estate-forums/marketing-buyers-and-sell...

Scroll through the Forums...there's a plethora of info. about finding buyers to fill your bucket! And sellers, too.

There are many other free classified ad sites aside from craigslist.
~Keep on rolling!

Hey Adam,

Personally I'm not into wholesaling, so can't offer much on building a buyers list. I believe Liberty Kat's post above has a lot of good info. For me, I looked into wholesaling but find it much like a different job, much like a car sales job where you get paid a commission in the end if you sell the car. You put a lot of work in, and if and only if everything comes together do you get paid in the end.

I had much better success starting out by finding owner finance deals or lease option deals with little money down. Then you're truly "investing" in real estate. You own the property, rent it out, and the rent pays down your mortgage each month. You get tax breaks up front. If a maintenance phone call comes in once per month, make a call to a plumber or handyman to fix it. To me, much easier and rewarding than wholesaling. Again, that's my preference and opinion.

If you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask. I've been in the real estate game for about 11 years now.

Good luck!!

- Tom

With wholesaling you DO WORK both sides of the fence...YOU are the middleman!
(Monkey-in-the-middle, so to speak). LOL
The liaison go-between with a seller and a buyer.

It's work. Hard work. You need to wear all the hats in your wholesaler biz.
Passive income, it is not.

Today I ordered some bandit signs and went to Home Depot to get some tools to hang em up high on poles.

Got home and went to Craigslist. Found a buyer and called him up. He's looking for a very specific type of property which he needs within about a month for his 1031 exchange. He's eager to find something quick. I'll be looking for him. Contacted a Realtor to help me out.

I also posted an ad on Craiglist looking for more buyers.

I went to your link in post #13 and found all kinds of ideas. I'm trying out Craiglist and will choose some of the other ones in those posts.

Adam just do not let things stop you from taking action, do not get side tracked and stay on top of things all the time.

Shawn

Adam I just wanted to stop by and say how glad I am that you are a student and that you started a journal to keep track of your dealings. Keep it up...

Wow. I haven't been on here in a while. Been busy elsewhere.

Moving slowly but surely. Overtime at work really slows my progress. But I intend on moving forward.

Gave a presentation to a Realtor about 2 weeks ago and not only was he willing to work with me, but he is really excited about it. He's already out there looking for me.

Called up another buyer today. He works with a group of investors and looks promising. I made sure to get all the details on what they are looking for.

Looking forward to this weekend. keb64 is coming out to my town in the Fresno/Visalia area to do some training with me. Should be fun.

Im here in burbank, ca. Buyers: MANY have been through craigslist.

This is exactly what i use on craigslist:

Title: $14000 / 3br - 1000ft² - I am practically giving this property away (Burbank, CA)

body:

3 bed /1.5 bath

Needs work.

Great Area/ Market.

Calling all Investors.

Email: denni@honeyvestrealestate.com

or

Call: 818-288-3239

OR...

Title: $199500 / 3br - 1508ft² - REO Handyman Special needs TLC (Santa Clarita)

Body: This is a REO property. The owner had a lot of debt and his property definitely needs some TLC.

A contractor can make a huge amount of money on this deal!!!

REO bought for all cash. Needs work. Wholesale deal.

Cash offers or Hard money only!!! No financing.

Please leave me an email for more details regarding this property and many others in the LA county area.

------

I am still working on it. but ASK for CASH SOLDS in the last 90 days from a Realtor. (Tip from '30 days to real estate cash') And if you have AAA( triple A) you can get free CITY MAPS! its cool! they have EVERY CITY. Just gotta go to their location.

Another is REI clubs! Just pin point who looks like a real buyer and Ask what they are looking. Everyones Nice and approachable.

------
I realized that finding buyers is a little more easier. Mainly because if you have a sweet deal, you WILL find a buyer! You'll spend 1-5 days doing everything you can to find that buyer!

..... Me. Im working on finding amazing deals! Still on my 1st too! =D Im doing the same thing as you and put bandit signs on telephone polls with the 2 tools learned from that one guy on youtube. haha. its been more effective personally. AND more cost efficient.
BANDIT SIGNS, working with a realtor doing the 25:1, and craigslist ads are my top 3 at the moment.

Wish you the best of luck! Experience is the greatest teacher. =D

Hey Denni,

First off, I read your bio. Good job! I know it's a big thing on this site for other investors to see your bio so that they get to know who you are. Congrats on starting out so young! I wish I started out that young. I'm 32 and I know that's still kind of young, but sometimes I feel like an old man already. haha. So, you're in Burbank? That's cool. I usually head up there once a year to go to a taping of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Kind of becoming a yearly tradition with my friend and I.

I like your Craigslist posts. I've put up other posts and got some buyers but I haven't posted any like yours yet. I was a little hesitant to post ghost ads, but I'm going to start doing it anyway. If it works it works.

I'm working on the properties sold for cash from the MLS with my Realtor as we speak. Another technique I'll try eventually is to get a list of all the doctors and lawyers offices in my surrounding area and send them all letters so I can further build up my buyers list.

Hey, so I'm curious on how your 25:1 is going if you don't mind me asking? My Realtor and I are gearing up on that within the next week or so. How many offers have you put out? How's your Realtor working with you?

-Adam

So I just finished up two days of live training with my mentor keb64 and his partner. They were amazing! I'm convinced that having a mentor or mentors is an absolute MUST in this game. I've been driving for dollars on my own. But when we drove some of the same routes that I've been through, I quickly realized that there was so much I missed. It is an eye opening experience for sure. Opportunity is everywhere!

We put up 9 bandit signs. I'll be putting more up on my own soon. I also have 17 yellow letters to write. (Working on it this evening and they are going out tomorrow!)

Keith (keb64) is the man. And he is a great guy too. If you haven't seen his 2012 Send Me Away video, find it and check it out. His 2013 Send Me Away video is even better. I'm sure it will be up on this site somewhere when it becomes available. His journal is an interesting read as well.

All I can say is, if you don't have a mentor and you want to get to that next level of knowledge, then success, you need to get one!

Now, I've got some yellow letters to write.

Adam it was my honor to have opened your eyes to what is in your area. I was moved to read what you wrote above and I will do what it takes on my end to make sure that you have the future you want as long as you do your part. I was shocked by how fast you posted something about the training you just finish sunday...It shows that you are ready to move on what you have learned and I can't wait to see what you get done...NOW GO GET SOME...

Thanks Keith. It was fun. Looking forward to the next training.

I think I'm on track here. The only thing I haven't done really is #3 because I haven't found a club in my area yet. But I have more than I can handle right now anyway so I'm good. Haha.

Hey Adam, I have yet to be successful in the 25:1 strategy. I just sent in 25 last week. We started using Letters of Intent because my agent thought it would be a easier and better process. I agreed. Haven't got any responses yet.... In Cali, Dean says its about 50:1 Now, So keep that in mind.

And yeah the craigslist ghost ad was from Carol Stinson, that what she uses and used to build her massive buyers list.
Just put your email if you don't want to talk on the phone. EMAIL IS THE BEST WAY TO COMMUNICATE! Your response would look something like: "Thank you for your response, but that property is now sold. If you are interested in deals like these, i would love to get your criteria and send you anything that matches what your looking for." (Something along these lines). Get email, phone number, and his criteria and you're good to go!

AND YES! JAY LENO IS SO FUNNY! thats cool that you guys go as a tradition!

Congrats on all your success thus far!

A MENTOR is EVERYTHING! I still have not been mentored yet, but i know i will! They say, 'When the student is ready, the teacher will appear'. So I'm doing everything i can to be ready!

Yesterday I pulled up Foreclosureradar.com and looked up some Pre-Foreclosures. Then I went and took a look at them. All of them were in great areas and were in better condition than I expected. After that I put up some more bandit signs.

Today, I contacted a great lady from Fidelity Title Company. She has 20 years experience, has worked with investors before, and seems to understand what I want to do. She's familiar with "creative" transactions. Just got set up with the company's search portal so I can look up vacant property owners.

Went to the post office during lunch and mailed off a batch of yellow letters for the pre-foreclosures I looked at yesterday.

Ordered a batch of some shiny new business cards from Vista Print.

Now, I'm going to research contracts, as I feel this is one of my weak points at this time. I have a meeting with my Realtor this weekend to talk strategy and go over contracts.

Adam,

As Keith shared in his response, it was our honor to have spent the weekend with you showing you opportunities.

You are on fire now and seeing your post of looking up properties, sending your yellow letters, getting your title company relationship going - makes us even prouder to have helped you move into fast action since the weekend!

You are unstoppable and YOU are doing this...awesome job!

Committed to You Multiplying Your Business,

Roberta