Category: Wholesaling

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Wholesaling

Collaborative Goldmines: 5 Real Estate Facebook Pages/Groups Wholesalers in Detroit Should Join

A Wholesaler and a homeowner agreeing on a deal

Do you feel stuck with your knowledge of real estate wholesaling? Are you having a hard time finding good deals? Perhaps you don’t feel like books and podcasts are giving you enough inside information?

If you answered “yes” to any of those questions—then you’ve come to the right place. 

Sometimes, conventional tools aren’t enough to keep you informed or find the best deals. Sometimes, the only way you can learn what you need to know is through unconventional methods. 

For instance, social media provides a ton of information for you to grow as a wholesaler. With over 2.85 billion active users on Facebook, there are thousands of groups on the platform that bring wholesalers together, so everybody can learn and discover insights that only the locals know.

If you’re a real estate wholesaler in the City of Detroit, MI, here are some of the best Facebook groups you can join to expand your knowledge and grow as a successful investor in this day and age.

Facebook Groups, Your Portal to Expert Real Estate Wholesaling

With a user base that rivals large countries, it’s not hard to find wholesalers you can learn from. The site hosts an array of groups that talk about any topic under the sun—including the niche investment route called real estate wholesaling. 

If you want to find local deals or ask for advice in navigating the Detroit market, these are the groups you should join to expand your network:

1. Metro Detroit Real Estate Investors Group – 12.7k Members

The Metro Detroit Real Estate Investors Group is just what it says—a group for real estate investors in the Metro Detroit area. The group was created as an extension of the monthly meet-up its members continue to have.

By joining the group, you open yourself to a community that knows the local wholesaling scene in the entire Metro Detroit area. You can reach out to them about local inspectors that offer great prices, where the best neighborhoods are for wholesaling, or even get connected to interested buyers.

And don’t worry, the group members are friendly and welcoming to newcomers. They even encourage people to share their wholesaling accomplishments. Generally, the group is a friendly place where wholesalers from all walks of life and level of experience are welcome to participate.

The only requirement for joining is for you to be a resident or have connections to the Metro Detroit area. So, what are you waiting for? Join the Metro Detroit Real Estate Investors Group! 

How To Join:

Since this is a private group, you do have to do a few steps, but thankfully they’re quite easy. Simply answer the membership questions and agree to follow the rules. Then you’ll be approved within a few days.

2. Michigan Wholesale Real Estate – 35.4k Members

Are you looking for some off-market deals in the City of Detroit? Then the Michigan Wholesale Real Estate Facebook group is the goldmine of your dreams.

This group works more like a buy and sell group. Members will post property they have for sale and look for willing wholesalers or motivated buyers. They usually post off-market deals that you won’t find on the multiple listing service (MLS) or Zillow. That means it’ll expand your pool of options, giving you access to deals that you otherwise won’t even get to know. 

If browsing online and driving around town proves to be unsuccessful, join Michigan Wholesale Real Estate to get insider information and grab some off-market deals.

How To Join:

This one is a public group, so you can simply click join and you’re in! 

3. Wholesale Real Estate Investor Network – 26.3k Members

If you’re looking to network and build your buyers list, then consider joining the Wholesale Real Estate Investor Network, where you can do all that and more. While it’s focused on the Detroit area, that doesn’t stop you from learning from experienced wholesalers from different areas

The main goal of this group is to help its members find success in real estate investing, primarily through hosting off-market deals. For example, the latest posts on the group are offers for properties ready for assignment contracts. Scroll a bit more and you’ll find other posts from buyers looking for potential properties to buy, too.

If you’re ever in need of a new assignment contract or you’re looking for a potential buyer, a visit to the Wholesale Real Estate Investor Network might be the ticket you need. 

How To Join:

This one is also a public group, so you can just click join and that’s it. 

4. Real Estate Wholesale Investors Hub – 21.9k Members

In case you ever need some advice or want the latest wholesaling tips, you should join the Real Estate Wholesale Investors Hub. While the group doesn’t focus on the Metro Detroit area, you can join this group to expand your knowledge beyond your local area. 

Many of the posts consist of people asking for and offering advice to members. That means it’s a great place for new wholesalers who want to learn about wholesaling and start networking. So, you’ll never find yourself at a loss when it comes to wholesaling.

If you’re even in need of extra wholesaling advice, visit Real Estate Wholesale Investors Hub and you’ll find tons of advice.

How To Join:

Yet again, this one is a public group, so you can click join and you’re all set.

5. Renegade Detroit Investment Real Estate Club – 3.2k Members

Lastly, if you ever wanted to join a group of like-minded real estate hot-shots, well the Renegade Detroit Investment Real Estate Club (RDI) is the perfect place. The group hosts monthly meetings where members can network with one another. Together, they share stories and give each other helpful real estate investment tips for wholesaling in the Detroit area. 

If you’re a fan of podcasts, you’ll feel at home at the RDI. The group’s founder, Jeremy Burgess, is a local podcast host. And hey, if you ever have any interesting anecdotes about wholesaling—who knows, you might be the next guest on the RDI podcast! 

How To Join:

This one is a page, so you don’t need to join it as a group. Instead, just “like” the page and you’re ready to go. Soon, you’ll get the latest scoop on all things about real estate wholesaling. 

Improve Your Wholesale Deals Through Facebook

It can be a challenge to learn about real estate wholesaling through conventional means. Books and podcasts inevitably become outdated over time. Not to mention most of them aren’t specific to the City of Detroit—which means you won’t get much insider information.

But through Facebook groups, you can find prime off-market leads in the City of Detroit, get access to information that only the locals know, learn from others who’ve already experienced the worst, and talk with successful wholesalers for the best advice. 

Join the groups we’ve listed above and start to get answers to all your burning questions!

Do you have other Facebook groups to recommend? Leave a comment below so others can join as well!

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Wholesaling

Paperwork Made Easy: The Important Details Every Real Estate Wholesaler Should Look For

The buyer, seller, and wholesaler hashing out a contract.
Photo by Pexels

When conducting wholesale deals, contract negotiations become an everyday occurrence in your life. This means that if you aren’t knowledgeable about the requirements and details of wholesale contracts—you can end up losing a deal.

You have to be exceptionally familiar with contracts to be a successful wholesaler, which is why we’re writing this article to dive deep into the key paperwork you’ll need. Nail these on the head, and you can navigate through the world of real estate wholesaling with ease.

What is A Buy and Sell Contract? 

Otherwise known as a purchase agreement, this is the contract you enter with the seller of the property. It acts as a legally binding agreement and outlines the terms of the offer between a buyer and seller in real estate transactions. 

Your job as the wholesaler is to act as a middleman and find a willing investor to buy the property. That means to need to know how this is the contract permits them to purchase the home. Once you find a buyer, this contract transfers from you—the wholesaler—to the buyer. 

The content of the buy and sell contract should have the following: 

  • The date of the agreement 
  • The name of the seller/individuals listed on the property’s title
  • The buyer’s name
  • Property address 
  • The earnest money deposit. 
  • The total purchase price of the property
  • Financing 
  • Closing date and transfer of title 
  • Escrow and closing fees 
    • The buyer can be assigned to pay the fees
    • Or it can be the seller 
    • Or they can pay equally 
    • Or they can pay their respective escrow and closing fees
  • Signatures of you and the sellers
  • Date of signature

This list isn’t exhaustive, but these are the most relevant things you should pay attention to in buy and sell contracts. As long as you have these covered, you should be good to go.

Note that your buyer will also thoroughly examine the agreement before getting into the deal with you. As such, it’s best that you know your way around these contracts well enough to answer their questions and successfully close the sale.

What Is A Seller’s Disclosure? 

The State of Michigan requires a seller to complete and sign this disclosure to accompany any and all purchase transactions. It’s meant to protect a buyer from seller misrepresentation about the condition of a residential property.

Since most sellers aren’t aware of this form, you’ll want to keep a copy with your buy-sell contracts. Do NOT ever complete the form though, for a seller—legally they must complete it.

The next one to know is an assignment agreement. 

What is An Assignment Agreement? 

An assignment agreement is a real estate contract that transfers your rights and responsibilities listed in the purchase agreement to your investor—the new buyer. Often, this can also be referred to as an “Assignment of Real Estate Purchase and Sale” agreement.

After signing this contract, the buyer will take over the purchase agreement, and you’ll be awarded an assignment fee. Only you and the buyer will receive copies of an assignment agreement since the seller is not involved in completing an assignment contract.

An assignment contract needs to contain the following: 

  • The agreed-upon assignment fee
  • The assignor’s name 
  • The assignee’s name
  • The date of agreement on the purchase contract
  • The names on the purchase agreement
  • Location of the property 
  • Closing date 
  • Assignee to pay the security deposit in escrow 
  • Signatures of you and the buyer 
  • Date of signature

Once the assignment contract has been signed and fulfilled, the investor will then take over the purchase agreement. After that, the buyer closes on the property and you’ll be awarded your assignment fee.

Wholesaling Contracts Made Easy 

There’s a lot of paperwork that comes with wholesaling in the real estate business. If you get in over your head and gloss over every other contract you get into, you can end up losing your wholesale deals—or worse—alienating your potential buyers. 

If you ask us, it’s just not a risk worth taking if you want to grow your wholesaling business.

With our help, you’ll have a good idea of how the contracts you’ll be dealing with regularly are done. If you need more help with wholesaling paperwork, feel free to reach out to us!

Have any questions about wholesaling contracts? Let us know in the comments below!

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Wholesaling

Is Wholesaling Real Estate for You? 5 Questions to Ask Yourself

Man standing in front of a house

Wholesaling appeals to newbies in real estate because you don’t need any personal finances of your own to get started. It’s also possible to close a deal in as little as 30-45 days—giving many the impression it’s a quick and easy way to make money.

But that doesn’t paint the full picture.

While it may sound easy, many aspiring real estate investors end up quitting when the reality of wholesaling really dawns on them. Although the idea of finding a motivated seller and connecting one to a serious buyer sounds simple, it’s easier said than done. There’s so much more to it than that.

You aren’t just going to find a buyer and seller walking down the street. Wholesalers need to have good people skills because real estate is a social profession by nature. What’s more, unlike other real estate ventures, wholesaling is very time-sensitive. As a wholesaler, you have to be up-to-date with current real estate market trends, build a network, determine what’s a good deal, negotiate the deal, and so on.

So, before you go into the wholesale business and start investing yourself, you have to make sure it’s right for you. Let’s take a look at how you can figure that out by answering 5 questions.

5 Questions to Determine If Wholesaling is for You

Wholesaling is often seen as more beginner-friendly than other real estate investment strategies. Of course, it still comes without its own unique difficulties. Ask yourself the following questions to get a clearer idea if you’ll enjoy wholesaling, or if you might be better off trying something else.

  1. Do you have a big enough network to find deals?

Wholesaling takes a lot of work, doesn’t have a regular income, and deals in progress don’t always close. To make it easier, you need to regularly build your network. As a beginner, you might not have enough connections to sustain yourself and find deals, making it far more difficult than someone with experience and connections.

But it’s not all bad. For those who power through and successfully grow their network, wholesaling can be a very rewarding career. With familiarity in the real estate market, a grown network, and a good grasp of the wholesaling process, it gets easier as wholesalers become more seasoned.

2. Are you willing to put in the work to close deals?

In wholesaling, to find success, you have to actively work for it.
Closing deals takes a lot of effort. From finding a motivated seller to an actual buyer and everything in between—it all needs to be accomplished under time pressure. Wholesaling can therefore be very demanding, especially when the market isn’t hot.

Another thing you need to take note of is that income in wholesaling isn’t consistent. You earn only if you close deals. However, it’s also important to note that your income isn’t fixed. If you close more deals, you earn more, but if you don’t close any, you won’t make any money, either.

If you’re going to pursue wholesaling, you’ve got to be ready for all the mental and physical work it entails—and for the income to be less consistent than other real estate investments.

3. Do you have the necessary people skills?

Closing deals relies heavily on your ability to be persuasive to sellers and buyers. Remember, they’re also making major financial decisions, and they’re not likely to do business with someone they don’t feel comfortable with.

In wholesaling, you need to be persuasive, but also trustworthy, so you can show that you have their best interests in mind. If you have good people skills, you have a better chance of convincing sellers and buyers to do business with you. And more importantly, increase your chances of closing more deals.

4. Are you up to date with the real estate market?

Wholesaling isn’t just a matter of finding any random property and convincing sellers and buyers to make a transaction. Wholesaling also entails that you do your homework.

You need to know the market values of different properties and what kind of properties buyers are looking for. Research and staying up to date with the current market trends are crucial. When you’re looking for wholesale properties, you should also always consider the buyer and make sure you are finding properties that they’re actually interested in.

5. Can you properly assess and make financial computations for properties?

Wholesaling relies on a lot of math. You’ll have to determine the right selling and buying price, the expected repair costs, profit margins, and so on. Getting the right figures is important to make sure that everything is done fairly. That way when any questions on the pricing come up, you can justify these with numbers and the correct figures.

Make Sure Wholesaling Works for You

If you want to excel in your career, you have to like your work and it has to be right for you. As Steve Jobs—American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple—once said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

If after asking yourself the questions you mostly answered yes, then congratulations! You’ve got what it takes to pursue wholesale real estate. But if after asking yourself the questions, you mostly answered no, then you may want to re-evaluate your plans. 

Is there anything more about getting into wholesaling you want us to discuss? Let us know in the comments below!

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Wholesaling

Whole-Tailing vs. Wholesaling: Which One Should You Do?

Signing a contract for a wholesale deal
Photo by Romain Dancre

To get the most profits from the real estate business, you need to decide what kind of transaction and type of property best fits your resources and goals. After all, the most successful real estate investors don’t limit themselves to just one strategy. 

Now, wholesaling is a great way to get your feet wet in the real estate market. But, after dipping your toes in with wholesaling, you might also be curious to try other adjacent methods to the investment strategy—whole-tailing being one of them.

While wholesaling involves buying a contract from a house owner and finding an interested third party to purchase the home, whole-tailing is a hybrid of wholesaling and house-flipping. In a nutshell, a whole-tailer will purchase a distressed property, make quick and easy renovations to improve the value, then put it up on the market themselves. 

While a house flipper makes the finishing touches to an entire property, a whole-tailer only addresses the issues that are the most obvious, have a high impact on the price, and are easy to address. Then, they try to sell the property to a buyer willing to fix up the rest of the house themselves. 

Whole-tailing isn’t all that different from wholesaling. 

So, which type of real estate investment strategy should you focus on? 

Here, we’ll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the two strategies for you to decide which type of method is more appropriate for your means. 

What is Wholesaling, exactly? 

Let’s start by refreshing our minds with how real estate wholesaling works. Wholesaling is a short-term real estate transaction where the investor looks to make a profit with very little capital investment. Here’s how that typically goes: 

  1. The first step of a wholesale deal is to find a good deal on a property with a motivated seller. You’ll then execute a purchase and sell agreement with the seller, who is usually the homeowner.
  2. During the execution of the contract, both parties will agree on an earnest money clause. This clause allows you to deposit a sum that serves as your collateral for finding a buyer. If you can’t find a buyer within the allotted time, you will lose your earnest money. 
  3. The next step is for you to find a willing buyer for the property. Once you’ve found a willing buyer, the both of you will enter an assignment where the buyer will take over your role in the purchase and sell contract. 
  4. Lastly, the buyer will pay the agreed-upon value for the property and your assignment fee—also known as your wholesale fee or wholesale profit.

Here’s an example to illustrate what a wholesale deal looks like. 

You find a homeowner willing to sell his property for $55 thousand, so you enter into a purchase and sell agreement with him. You then find a buyer willing to purchase the house for slightly higher at $65 thousand. Once you find a willing buyer, you’ll enter a signed agreement with them and they’ll assume your position on the purchase. 

Finally, you’ll close the deal with the buyer and homeowner, where the buyer will pay $55 thousand to the seller and $10 thousand to you for your assignment fee.

Advantages of Wholesaling 

Now that we know what the process of wholesaling entails, let’s discuss some of the advantages that wholesaling provides. This will help you see the most important benefits that you’ll get with this method: 

  • It’s the most pain-free way to get into real estate investment. You can learn the basics of the real estate market without much risk. 
  • You’ll earn profits in a short amount of time. The wholesale process is relatively quick in comparison to other real estate transactions such as house-flipping or whole-tailing, taking between a week to a month before you can pocket your profits.
  • You’ll have high rewards with low risks. You don’t need a large amount of capital. In fact, you sometimes don’t spend anything when conducting a wholesale transaction. That said, most experts agree that you can see profits of around 5-10% of a property’s value.   

Disadvantages of Wholesaling

Wholesaling comes with a lot of advantages, but that doesn’t mean it’s a guaranteed prospect. Let’s take a look at some of the disadvantages inherent to wholesaling.

  • Wholesaling tends to have a negative stigma. Because wholesaling is the gateway to becoming a part of the real estate business, it often attracts inexperienced people looking for quick and easy profits. Inexperienced wholesalers can commit mistakes such as overestimating a property’s ARV or underestimating the estimated repair costs (ERC).  
  • Wholesalers face trouble if they can’t find a buyer. If you can’t find a buyer within the allotted time you and the seller agreed on, you will lose your earnest money deposit. 

What is Whole-tailing, Then?

As mentioned before, whole-tailing is an in-between of wholesaling and house flipping. 

In a whole-tail deal, you’ll still buy a distressed property from a motivated seller. Unlike wholesaling though, you won’t be finding another buyer to purchase the property. Instead, like a flip, you will be renovating the property then will try to sell it yourself. Unlike flipping a house though, whole-tailing involves making minimal repairs to get the house sold as soon as possible. 

Those minimal repairs are done to address the most visible and unattractive problems that negatively impact the value. Once you’ve made the repairs to make the property mortgage eligible, you can start searching for the perfect buyer. 

Your dream buyers are usually homeowners willing to fix it up themselves. However, you can also sell it to a new house flipper as well for them to finish the project. 

Now, right off the bat, it’s clear whole-tailing requires more time and effort to generate good profits. You need to do a thorough examination of the property to determine which issues need to be addressed. Remember: You aren’t fixing everything, just the most important things. 

This is not a skill that many people have—which is why wholesaling is more common.

All that aside, if you have the expertise, whole-tailing a property can be a more profitable option than wholesaling. Instead of just earning an assignment fee, you’ll be earning the entire amount of the property. If you’re confident that you can:

  1. Afford to buy the distressed property
  2. Perform quick repairs on the house
  3. Put it up for sale and entice potential buyers

Then, whole-tailing can potentially be a lucrative venture for you.

Depending on the state of the property and the amount of money you’re willing to invest in a property, whole-tailing might be a more profitable option. 

Advantages of Whole-Tailing

Whole-tailing is considered a riskier investment than wholesaling. You’re risking more than earnest money when dealing with a whole-tail. But, that doesn’t mean that whole-tailing is a worse option than wholesaling. In fact, it comes with some benefits like:

  • Wider buyer pool than wholesaling. When conducting a whole-tail, both regular buyers and investors are both be interested in your property. This is in contrast to wholesales, where investors are your primary market. 
  • Higher potential profits over wholesale. When whole-tailing, you have higher profit margins than a wholesaler. In a wholesale, you’re looking at around 5-10% of a property’s value in profit. If you can whole-tail a property, you can see far more than that. For example, a property is up for sale for $50,000. If you wholesale the property, you’re looking at a profit of around $2500-$5000. But in a whole-tail you can potentially make more than that. Here’s a simple breakdown:
    • Property bought at $50,000
    • Repair costs of wiring and plumbing: $8000
    • ARV: $80,000
    • Estimated holding costs: $1000
    • Estimated resale fee: $4800
    • Total costs: $63,800
    • Gross profit for a whole-tail: $16,200       

Disadvantages of Whole-Tailing

Now, let’s take a look at some of the disadvantages of whole-tailing. You might earn more from whole-tailing than wholesaling, but it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows:

  • Riskier than wholesaling. In a whole-tail transaction, if you’re unsuccessful in selling the property, you’re looking to lose all the money you invested in the project. 
  • Whole-tailing requires more capital than wholesale. You also need to consider the purchase price and the repair costs when conducting a whole-tail investment, compared to a wholesale deal where you can make profits without any capital. 
  • Holding costs. You will have to deal with property holding costs if you plan to make it a whole-tail investment. When whole-tailing a property you’ll need to deal with the expenses that come with having a property. This means dealing with any utility fees or homeowner association fees. 

Wholesale or Whole-tail? Both Sound the Same But Are Very Different

If you are new to the real estate business, wholesaling can be a good introduction. It is a low-risk, high-reward deal that can get your toes wet in the real estate market. You can learn the ins and outs of the business in a relatively low-risk situation. 

But if you have the adequate know-how to conduct a whole-tail transaction, it might be the better option for you. You can earn greater profits in a whole-tail deal, making it a more attractive choice if you have the knowledge and the means.

At the end of the day, the best option depends on how well-versed you are in real estate—and how much money you’re willing to invest to earn a profit. Be clear on that before you get started, and you’ll have the highest chance of succeeding in your real estate investment venture.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments section below! 

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Wholesaling

Top 6 Ways to Increase Real Estate Wholesaling Leads and Grow Your Buyers List

Consistent lead generation is paramount to your success in the real estate wholesaling business. Finding a seller begins the wholesale process while finding a buyer closes the deal. 

However, generating valuable leads does not come easy. 

Even when you already have a long list of leads, you’ll still have to trim it down to the quality ones. After all, you don’t want to have just any leads—you want to garner high-quality leads to close more deals. And this can only be achieved by mastering the methods for consistent lead generation.

In this article, we’re going to tackle some real estate lead generation ideas so you can keep growing your buyer’ list. By having consistent growth in your buyers’ list, you can be confident that you’ll keep closing wholesale deals—and keep your income stream flowing. 

6 Ways to Generate More Leads

Generating leads in wholesale real estate requires diligence. That said, even a wholesaler’s time and effort are an investment. To ensure that your work pays off, you’ll have to work smart—not hard. 

For example, if your current method isn’t giving you the desired results, you need to try different lead generation strategies. Remember what Albert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” 

And you don’t want to fall into that frustrating trap.

So, consider using these wholesale lead generation strategies to fill up your list, so you can spend time closing more deals.

1. Multiple Listing Service (MLS)

The Multiple Listing Service is an exclusive online database for licensed real estate agents, featuring properties available and sold on the market. What’s great about this is that it can automatically send leads to your inbox, among many other perks. More importantly, this real estate lead generation strategy is completely free—as long as you find access to it. 

Another benefit of this is that it can also connect you to other real estate investors in the market. As you grow your buyer’s list, you can also grow your business network.

Still, using MLS requires some dedication to be effective. Since a lot of agents use this strategy, posts can easily get lost among thousands. You’ll also need to go through many real estate leads until you find quality ones. 

So, yes, MLS comes with a few challenges. But, it’s comprehensive, affordable, and convenient—making it a terrific real estate lead generation method. 

2. Leverage Networking

Connecting with other real estate investors and helping each other out can keep you consistently closing deals. Now, some wholesalers are looking for sellers while others are looking for buyers. But by pooling together your resources, you can establish a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Nevertheless, this setup requires you to split profits. You’ll earn a bit less, which means you need more leads to compensate. This strategy is still great for growing your buyers’ list, as well as your network, so the pros outweigh the cons.

Apart from the real estate community, you can also look at your personal network. You never know which one of your friends or family members is looking to invest in. A quick post on social media sites or asking around might seal you some great—unexpected—deals. 

In other words, think out of the box and use your current network to generate wholesaling leads.

3. Cold Calling

This method is a popular one, as it kills two birds with one stone. By cold calling, you use your existing leads to generate new ones. 

The idea behind this is that people with similar interests usually gather together. Similar to how there is a network of wholesalers, there is also a network of buyers. So, take advantage of your current connections to see if they know others who are interested in your deals, even if they aren’t interested themselves.

Once you’ve identified some prospects, give them a quick call. Then, keep all of these individuals in mind and remember to follow up whenever you have something to offer. You can then continuously assess which ones are willing to make a deal, giving you very high-quality leads more willing to make a deal with you.

4. Drive for Dollars

Driving for dollars is a tried and tested strategy for real estate lead generation. There are many leads out there in the world—and sometimes all it takes is a quick drive around town to spot the right signs, literally. Yes, your car’s mileage will increase, but so will your buyer’s list.

Many real estate investors are also renters. In other words, you might find a house with “for rent” signs and contact details. 

Once you see these potential clients, give them a call to ask if they’re investors looking for properties. Investors are always looking for the next opportunity, so you might just get lucky and land on a willing prospect. And even if the person is an agent, that still works, because they might be looking for properties on the market as well.

5. Real Estate Agents

If there’s anyone that’s knowledgeable about the local real estate market, it’s the real estate agents. 

If you’re considering doing future investments in a certain area, a real estate agent can help you start. Real estate agents can be very helpful in building your buyers list and growing your own network. When you’re investing in a new area, they can help you close your first few deals by linking you to local sellers, investors, and properties in the local market.

Once you gain a grasp of the local market, you can start doing deals on your own. Alternatively, if you establish a good business relationship, you can even consider becoming long-term business partners. Real estate agents won’t only help you grow your buyers’ list, but they can help you land consistent deals.

6. Bandit Signs

Bandit signs are poster-sized signs with a short, direct message and contact details. You usually see a dozen of these signs near a property, often in high-traffic areas like local markets, shopping malls, and busy streets. It’s a common practice in real estate since it’s an effective form of real estate marketing. 

After all, leads can come from all sorts of places. And this method is a great way for you to cover multiple areas and expand your reach. Also, it’s usually quite affordable to put up bandit signs making this a more cost-effective way to strategically grow a buyer’s list.

Conclusion

Real estate wholesaling takes time, effort, and commitment. As a wholesaler, you have to strategize, think ahead, and be ready to face challenges head-on. Yes, generating wholesale leads does take a lot of work. But if you do it right, all that hard work pays off. The more leads you generate, the higher your chances of closing deals. 

With these strategies at your disposal, you’re now ready to generate consistent leads to propel your real estate wholesaling journey to the next level.

Got tips of your own or stories to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Image courtesy of RODNAE Productions

Categories
Wholesaling

Build Dual Income Streams by Wholesaling and Renting Real Estate

Most real estate wholesalers only focus on only one thing: Connecting sellers with buyers. So, they build a buyers’ list of flippers and buy-and-hold investors every day, manually turning the wheel and generating a consistent flow of income by sealing deals as often as possible.

However, while being the middleman is lucrative, it can also be very labor-intensive.

You’re constantly on the lookout, hunting for opportunities to get a house under contract at a workable price. Then you’re always trying to find buyers to sell it immediately after purchasing. As a result, you buy low, sell high, and repeat—because stopping means no income.

Eventually, you get to a point where you’re sealing more deals than you expected. You feel like you’re all maxed out, working 60 to 80 hours a week. You say to yourself, “I made it! I’ll just keep doing this to make more money.” 

And that’s what you’ll do forever.

Is it really worth the time you’re spending on it? Personally, we think there’s another, smarter way to use your time and money. In this article, we’ll show you how to harness the money-making power of wholesaling real estate plus renting out properties to build a two-layer strategy within your portfolio. That way, you can generate both active AND passive income.

Wholesaling Real Estate is Short-Term Money – So, it’s a JOB

Wholesaling makes money at high volumes. But the biggest downfall with wholesaling properties is that there is a limit to your earning capability (i.e. the number of deals you can physically close each month) because it’s very hard to scale.

The reality is this: Wholesaling doesn’t build up wealth. It relies on your constant hustling it to earn a living. When you stop working, your income stops.

Let’s illustrate this point by going over your daily schedule as a wholesaler:

  1. You wake up early to make phone calls and reach potential sellers and buyers before they go to work.
  2. You continue those calls until lunchtime, because you want to catch them when they’re on break.
  3. Then you crawl from courthouses to probates, scan divorce and bankruptcy rooms, do direct mailings, and drive around target neighborhoods to seek good deals.
  4. You also stay in touch with sellers, agents, and buyers with follow-up calls, emails, or physical mailing lists.
  5. You input all of this information in your tracking sheets and databases and continue tomorrow.

You’re doing the grind, trying to build a pipeline. Eventually, you’ll realize that there’s a ceiling to your earning capability because, at the end of the day, you’re trading time for money.

For example, you can’t physically do 500 calls a day to increase getting good deals. And while you probably feel ecstatic with learning how to improve your margins from one sale to another, you’ll eventually realize that $6,500 a month… just isn’t enough.

If you want to do something bigger but with less effort, you need something more scalable. You have to expand to other real estate investment strategies to gain more wealth.

Wholesaling Real Estate to Support Long-Term Wealth

Wholesaling is lucrative—especially when you use it as a feeder to a larger, wealth-building business.

Here’s the idea: Try to combine the active income you get from wholesaling with other investments that can give you passive income. That way, you’ll earn money in the long haul—not just that month.

Let’s see how this idea works. 

Imagine if you buy one house for every seven that you wholesale. You turn that house into a rental and start earning monthly income from rent. The result? You’ll earn dollars that will help you pay an annuity forever. You’ll create a ripple effect, growing your portfolio with two strong streams of income—wholesaling fees and rental income. 

Wholesaling vs. Rental Properties

By setting goals like the example above, you stand to gain advantages from both investment strategies. You can make quick money from wholesaling deals, channel a portion of your profits into rental investments, and achieve long-term financial freedom that’s not dependent on you working 9-5 as a wholesaler.

Wholesaling Real Estate + Rental Properties = Lucrative Portfolio

Make the most out of your time and money. You don’t have to stick to one real estate investment strategy. Instead, you can connect them to build wealth in your portfolio and surpass your previous income goals.

To wrap it all up, continue with your wholesaling plans, but set new goals for the long haul. You’ll find that it’s much more fulfilling to build a business that looks to the future. Treat wholesaling as a part of your overall investment strategy—instead of just a side hustle.

What is your goal in wholesaling real estate? What’s keeping you from scaling your investments?5

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Wholesaling

How to Virtually Wholesale Real Estate

Like everything else, the real estate industry has drastically changed during the pandemic. The combination of people trying to avoid foreclosures and digital transformation allowing every real estate investor to tap markets nationwide has resulted in the rise of virtual real estate wholesaling—a trend that is likely to continue post-pandemic.

In fact, the National Association of REALTORS® said 51% of home buyers today found their home online—more than they do through real estate agents! This means there are many people out there who are willing to buy and sell homes online. Therefore, the virtual wholesaling process is an opportunity for you to take advantage of the digital transformation happening in the real estate industry.

Are you interested in becoming a virtual wholesaler? Here’s what you need to know.

The Benefits of Virtual Real Estate Wholesaling

Virtual real estate wholesaling follows the same idea as traditional wholesaling, except your involvement is completely done through digital means. Using digital technologies such as emails, digital signatures, and online databases, you can close wholesale real estate deals without showing up in person. 

Here are the three biggest benefits of this arrangement:

  • Expand to Multiple Markets: You can venture into multiple new markets without increasing your costs, making your wholesaling business scalable. Operate in the hottest markets, grow your buyers list, and even use digital marketing strategies to expand your business.
  • Save Precious Time: It takes weeks to visit all the properties you want to wholesale. With virtual wholesaling, however, you can check out multiple locations in a day. Chat with motivated sellers and make blind offers in varied investment areas easily.
  • Build a Virtual Team: You can build a virtual network to operate your wholesaling business online. Bring in real estate agents, virtual assistants, contractors, and vendors to help you analyze and close deals in all the markets you want to sell in.

All of these real estate investing benefits sound great, but can you really operate without physical appearance? Let’s take a look.

The Steps to Virtual Real Estate Wholesaling

Here are the points in the home buying process when physical presence is typically required:

  • Scouting areas with real estate agents
  • Negotiating with motivated sellers
  • Inspecting and conducting due diligence
  • Estimating the repairs
  • Signing documents

Your goal is to turn these points into digital processes. How? 

  • Use Websites to Find Profitable Areas: Use Mashvisor’s heat map for analysis. As they say, in the real estate industry, it’s all about location, location, location. You won’t need to meet with real estate agents when you can do initial research yourself.
  • Use Websites to Connect with Sellers: Instead of elbowing your way through the MLS, Mashboard provides homeowner data for you to contact the potential seller. Through this tool, you can get their property address, email address, and phone number to start negotiating.
  • Use Virtual Walkthroughs: Browse through Zillow and you’ll see properties that offer virtual tours. If the property you’re eyeing is there, book a digital tour to simulate a walkthrough and check the property out. If the property doesn’t have a virtual tour, you can tap your virtual wholesaling team to conduct due diligence.
  • Conduct Real Estate Analysis: Once you find a good deal, conduct real estate investing analysis to ensure that the after repair value (ARV) and estimated repair cost (ERC) is favorable to market prices. Run comps for the ARV through Zillow or Redfin, and use online calculators by Home Advisor or Kukun to get the ERC.
  • Use Digital Apps to Sign Documents: Got yourself a wholesale deal to close? Download Docusign and DotLoop to sign the real estate contract electronically, send it through email, and get the property under contract without any physical contact. 

Lastly, collect your wholesaling fee either by including it as a line item on the settlement statement, or having the buyer send you a check. Either way, you can do this without meeting anybody in person.

Conclusion

Becoming a virtual wholesaler allows you to tap into lucrative markets with tremendous flexibility and agility. As our world evolves into a highly digitized system, virtual wholesaling is your opportunity to take advantage of digital transformation and get ahead of your competitors—expanding your wholesaling business in all possible locations.

Any other tips or tools for virtual real estate wholesalers?

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Wholesaling

3 Ways to Run Comps for Wholesale Deals

New investors are attracted to real estate wholesaling because it’s an investment strategy that doesn’t need a large amount of upfront capital. Moreover, wholesaling real estate helps newbies become more familiar with the industry and gain valuable negotiation skills.

So, if you’re one of those aspiring beginners, you’re in luck. This article will teach you an essential skill that every successful wholesaler perfects: running comps to price your wholesale deals correctly.

What are Real Estate Comps?

Comparable sales, or “comps”, refer to recently sold houses similar to the property you’re interested in wholesaling. They are similar in terms of:

  • Neighborhood or location
  • Property size (square footage)
  • Property condition and age
  • Property type (e.g., single-house home)
  • Property features (e.g., a garage, swimming pool, and number of rooms)

Real estate comps can either be calculated manually or with online tools, as we’ll discuss later on.

Why is Running Comps Important?

To understand the importance of running comps, we have to review a typical wholesaling process:

  1. A homeowner decides to sell their distressed home to avoid foreclosure.
  2. They approach a wholesaler (or the wholesaler approaches them), and the two of them decide to put the house under contract. The value the wholesaler typically pays is 60-70% of ARV (after repair value), minus the estimated repair costs (ERC)..
  3. After agreeing on the terms, the wholesaler finds an eager buyer to sell the contract at a higher price—that is, at or nearer to market value.
  4. The buyer checks out the house, runs the numbers, and sees that it’s a good deal. They will then  agree to purchase the property, and the wholesaler will assign the purchase contract to them.

The homeowner is glad to have sold their house; the buyer is thrilled to have acquired a profitable fixer-upper project. And, of course, the wholesaler is satisfied to have facilitated the transaction, since they pocket the difference as profit.

So, where do running comps come in?

Running comps is part of determining the ARV or the market value of a fully renovated home. This is important because it helps you price the property correctly.

If the price tag you put on a contract is incorrect, one of these two situations will likely happen: 

  • If you price it too high, it won’t attract or convince any buyers.
  • If you price it too low, it won’t give you the margin needed for a significant profit.

Instead, you need to figure out the ideal selling price for you to find motivated buyers and earn a decent wholesaling profit. With this goal in mind, let’s get into the details of how you can run comps yourself.

3 Ways to Run Comps for Wholesale Deals

We’ll show you three simple ways on how you can pull up comps on the internet. Then, once you’ve done your research, our advice is for you to drive by the comps to verify their details.

Method #1: Using the MLS

A multiple listing service (MLS) is an information database established by cooperating local real estate brokers to provide data on properties for sale. Only licensed real estate agents and brokers that pay a membership fee can access an MLS. That said, if you know somebody who can access one for you (or you’re a licensed individual yourself), it’ll offer you the most comprehensive list of properties in a specific area.

Here’s how you can use an MLS to run comps:

  1. Select your property type.
  2. Enter the address of the property you’re wholesaling.
  3. Define your radius. You can start with 0.5 miles and adjust according to property density (e.g., if there are too many properties within half a mile, narrow down the coverage).
  4. Change the “sold” parameter to sold within six months.
  5. Input the size range of your property (the parameter can be 300 square feet above and below the property you’re wholesaling).
  6. Plug in the city and zip code of the property. You don’t want to consider the properties in another city or state, even if they’re within the radius you’ve selected.
  7. Tap the “count” button, and the comps will show up.
  8. Pull up the map to see if any comps are near a feature or school, as they will likely jack up the ARV—even if they’re only a street away from your property.
  9. Assess the property condition and features of the comps, singling out the ones most similar to your home. Make sure to look around the neighborhood using Google Street View to match its location to yours.

Once you’ve narrowed it down to a couple of comps, you can send the results to yourself via email. 

Method #2: Using Real Estate Websites

If you can’t access the MLS, the next best thing is to use real estate websites. They may not be as exhaustive as an MLS, but they can certainly help in pulling up comps.

Start with these three websites:

  • Zillow: Plug in your property’s address, filter the results to recently sold in six months, find the location of where your property would be on Zillow’s map, and use the same criteria as the ones listed in the MLS process to find your comps.
  • Redfin: You can also pull comps on Redfin based on recently sold houses. They use the data that real estate agents use to estimate the “lowest published error rate” in the market. And, unlike other appraisal estimators, Redfin Estimate considers all the homes on the MLS for an accurate property market value.
  • Homesnap: Yet another option is the Homesnap app, which provides the ARV of the properties listed on their platform. The number they give is usually a mid-price between the highest and lowest value. Homesnap also gives additional information like school ratings, average days on the market, and market scores.

These are just three of the many real estate websites you can run comps in. Others include Trulia, Realtor.com, Property Shark, and RealQuest. It’s best to run comps on more than one of them, so your ARV is based on various properties listed on each website.

Method #3: Manual Calculation

Lastly, if you prefer to run comps yourself, here are the steps for you to do so:

  1. Look at the properties within 0.25 to 0.5 miles from the home you’re looking to wholesale.
  2. Find at least three comps of similar property size, type, and age. The more comps you find, the more accurate the results would be.
  3. Single out the homes that have sold in the last three to six months. The idea is to determine the average purchase price under current market conditions.
  4. With the comps you’ve identified, calculate their average price per square foot.
  5. Multiply the number by the square footage of your wholesaling property. Now you have your estimated ARV or fair market value.

Running comps manually does take more brainpower, but it’s always helpful to keep these steps in mind, even if you’re planning to run comps with online tools.

Conclusion

And there you have it! You now know how to run comps for a wholesaling deal. You can use any or a combination of these methods to identify the ideal price for a specific home—even if you’re not so familiar with the local area’s property values.

By knowing how to pull up comps three different ways, you can adapt to any situation whether the home is in a remote location, volatile market, or has the most unique of features. You’re now equipped to analyze and correctly price any wholesaling deals you come across for a successful investment.

We’ve also done another article on how to get started with wholesaling real estate, should you want to educate yourself further on the foundational pillars of the trade.

Do you have any other ways to run comps? Share with us below!

Image courtesy of Ron Lach

Categories
Wholesaling

How to Dominate Wholesaling Houses in Your Area

Wholesaling
How to dominate wholesaling in your area

While you might be tempted to cover areas beyond your local real estate scene, it’s possible that you’re already sitting on a wholesaling goldmine—and you just didn’t know it!

Here are the signs of a market that’s ripe for a booming wholesaling business:

  • Overwhelming amount of cash purchases
  • Abnormally fast sales
  • Houses getting multiple offers
  • Escalation clauses (to avoid getting outbid)

If your local area has all these factors, you’re in a great place to become a wholesaler.

Read along to find out the two-prong strategy that will help you dominate your local real estate market and build a successful wholesaling empire—right where you live.

Search-Optimize Your Wholesaling Business

Aside from doing offline marketing, there is also a world of possibilities online. Not only are geographic boundaries removed, but the internet also enables you to effectively target and reach your audiences with SEO (search engine optimization) tools.

Check out these online marketing platforms for real estate wholesaling:

  • Wholesaling websites
  • MLS (Multiple Listing Service)
  • Online forums and auctions sites

All of these efforts hinge on the fact that we do practically everything online nowadays. Your customers are more likely than ever to search online for new properties.

Your goal is to be visible and easily accessible via an online search. This is where keyword research comes in. By knowing what keywords to target, you can also maximize your reach on search engines, gain valuable traffic, and generate qualified leads.

Do a simple test to see how your business currently ranks in search engines:

  1. Search “real estate wholesaler [location]” on Google.
  2. Look at the top results.

Does your name or business appear? Where do you rank versus your competitors? Who shows up before you do?

Well, you need to beat them.

Optimize your searchability by choosing keywords that your buyers will search for, then incorporate them in your blog posts, listings, and website.

Here are some keywords you can consider:

  • local real estate wholesalers
  • house wholesalers near me
  • local cash buyers in [area]
  • local house sellers in [city]

For in-depth SEO strategies and more information on how keywords work, you should also check out Reibar’s article on keywords that real estate investors should be targeting.

To boost your online presence further, you can also pay to get increased visibility in highly competitive markets. Paid advertising involves platforms such as Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.

Network to Outshine Your Competitors

Given the wholesaling potential of your area, you might be competing with a lot of other investors. It’s definitely not bad for business, but marketing will be a challenge.

In our article on the best places to find wholesaling deals[1] , we mentioned a couple of offline marketing methods such as:

  • Driving for Dollars
  • Bandit signs
  • Direct mail campaigns
  • Networking
  • Newspapers

All of these methods are effective in finding wholesaling deals, but networking is the most important strategy when trying to dominate a market.

The good thing is that all competitive areas have an REIA or two in the community – Metro Detroit definitely does.

REIAs are a great place to start making your presence known—the goal is to establish your wholesaling business to outshine other wholesalers and be the go-to property supplier for the local area. REIAs give you access to a whole group of people for:

  • Building an active cash buyers list
  • Developing strong and reliable connections
  • Boasting your overflowing housing inventory

You can also team up with Bird Dogs or acquisitions managers who are interested in the local market. The more properties they bring you, the more inventory you have to sell to cash buyers.

Conclusion

The key to dominating your local wholesaling market is good marketing—both on-ground and online. By networking closely with the community and optimizing your online presence, you’ll set yourself up for long-term success wholesaling in any competitive space. Ultimately, you want to establish yourself as an expert—and building your credibility with a great online presence and consistent quality service is how you do this.

To succeed even in these uncertain times, go through our wholesaling trends and insights that have surfaced during the pandemic. Get a good grasp of the present and future of wholesaling real estate to dominate the business in your local area—and beyond.

Need help in beating your local competition? Get in touch with us! Our team is more than willing to help.

Image courtesy of Andrea Piacquadio

Categories
Wholesaling

Which Type of Real Estate is Best?

The answer is, you can wholesale anything that has buyers!

That’s what makes things tricky.

There is a multitude of real estate property types you can potentially wholesale. But which one should you focus on? Which are more suited for the wholesaling technique?

Consider that the ultimate goal in a real estate wholesaling business is to generate profit by locating distressed properties that are owned by motivated sellers, putting their houses under contract, then assigning the contracts to buyers who want them. You don’t renovate or take ownership of the property. Instead, you find good deals, estimate repair costs and ARV, and collect a wholesaler fee when buyers sign purchase contracts.

Two crucial things here: the potential profit you can make from the properties, and the speed it takes to match them with buyers. The whole process should take only 30-45 days because the faster you close deals, the more successful you’ll be.

But which type of real estate should you focus on?

Single-Family Houses

SFHs are plentiful in all states. A quick search of US housing statistics shows that 60.3% of housing structures in the country are SFHs (1-unit, detached). This makes them familiar to most, including wholesalers, and the obvious preference of most buyers.

You can find plenty of distressed SFHs under market value. In places like the City of Detroit, which was hit hard by the housing crisis and has lots of blighted areas, foreclosure-related sales are common.

Here, you can scoop up distressed SFHs with minimal capital, but do people want to buy them? Especially in blighted neighborhoods? It’s all about location, location, location, so no matter how good some deals are, they’re probably not suited to wholesaling. You want to find sweet spot houses that are both affordable and marketable. Cheap, tear-down houses in undesirable neighborhoods are not marketable.

With single-family homes, you can typically seal 5-10 deals per month, each of them giving you $5,000-$10,000 in profit. This makes them the bread and butter of the wholesaling business. They’re easy to find and easy to earn from.

Mobile Homes

While mobile homes aren’t the most popular, there are wholesalers who swear by them.

Mobile homes are the third most popular (7.6%) housing structure in the US. Most of them are in the southern states: Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama.

There will always be a market for a cost-efficient living, so it is possible to find buyers for mobile home wholesale contracts. You’ll experience less competition, a stable demand, and get your name is known in the market fast (the community of mobile homeowners is often close-knit).

In terms of margins, mobile homes are low. You’ll earn around $500-$2,000 as an assignment fee for most deals you find. (Though it’s not unheard of to make $30,000 in high-demand areas, those come rarely!) In general, it’s going to take at least 6 mobile home deals to equate to 1 SFH deal.

In terms of volume, there are fewer mobile homes than SFHs across the country, too. So it depends on how much leg work you’re prepared to do, and which properties are in higher demand in your area/the people on your buyers’ list.

Apartment Buildings (and Multi-family Homes)

Most beginners are intimidated by wholesaling multifamily properties, due to their size and difference in buyer criteria (versus the usual SFHs). Instead of basing the value on ARV, apartment buildings and MFHs depend on the net operating income (NOI) or cash flow that it will produce.

Apartment buildings range in units sizes from studio to 4-bedroom, and in building sizes from a few floors to dozens of stories. In general, they are most in-demand in metropolitan areas. Because of this, apartments are not as preferred in smaller towns as in big cities. Keep this in mind, as apartments that attract fewer tenants will have a smaller buyer base, taking more time and marketing costs to seal deals.

Larger properties and buildings also take a lot of time to analyze. You will spend more time on these deals than you will with smaller properties. This means you’ll have lower volumes, so will need to make more profit from a smaller number of deals, most likely.

Nevertheless, MFHs are still in demand today, due to how much income they can provide on a monthly basis. There is also ease of managing them and higher ROI per unit compared to SFHs.

Wholesaling one building can bring in five to seven figures per deal, making the higher time investment on your part potentially worthwhile. Higher prices, bigger profits! Just make sure you’re prepared to put in the legwork and find the right location to wholesale apartment buildings or MFHs.

Commercial Properties

Wholesaling commercial real estate includes office buildings, retail malls, warehouses, or buildings with mixed usage. You’ll be sealing deals with investors who are looking to make money from overhauling and repositioning the building to attract businesses or tenants, focusing on NOI instead of ARV (just like with MFHs).

The pros of wholesaling commercial properties are bigger profit margins, less competition, and easier financing.

Their values are usually in the millions of dollars, therefore, the assignment fee you’ll make will also be high. Most real estate agents are also more comfortable with residential properties, so there isn’t much competition in the field, allowing you to negotiate with investors.

The range you can earn from commercial properties is wide (a small office will vary greatly from a retail mall). But with the right connections and buyer’s criteria, most of them are also easily sourced. In fact, some have experienced a larger pool of distressed commercial properties out there than residential ones (if you count construction REO properties).

Vacant Land and Lots

Empty lands can be wholesaled, too. Parking lots, infill lots, demolished buildings, acreage, and lots that are great for building new structures are fairly easy to wholesale. Given their variety, buyers for land wholesale deals will also come in all shapes and sizes.

If there is a market for new construction in an area, there will be a demand for buildable lots. Some home investors, for example, are constantly on the lookout for new lots to build on. Wholesaling empty land that meets their criteria is as straightforward as it sounds. These potential markets can be found by searching for areas that have sold newly-built structures recently. Chances are, those are the areas where houses are being (and will continue to be) built. That’s where you should look to wholesale vacant lots.

Flipping vacant lots can mean a teardown (usually done where the land is more valuable than the house) or a cleanup. Once you turn the land around, selling it can be fast – if it’s in a desirable area. The margins are smaller than with SFHs, however, unless you’re dealing in larger, more expensive plots of land.

Each property type has its pros and cons–and this list does not cover it all. At the end of the day, it boils down to what you want, how many deals you want to do, and how much you want to make off each deal.

If you’re looking for straightforward wholesaling, go for SFHs.

For beginners, start by understanding your market and building your buyer list. You can do this by joining local real estate investor clubs. It’s easier to find properties that match buyers’ criteria than getting stuck with properties that nobody is interested in, so make sure you research the level of demand in your area for each property type before getting started.

What are your preferred property types to wholesale? What are you curious to wholesale next?

the best thing a wholesaler can do is find a class C property in a Class B area. Second best option: find one very close to a B area.

Image courtesy of Rodney

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