Ways to Get Unstuck

Great advice! Thanks for all of your suggestions. The more knowledge we have, the more confident we are as investors.

Thanks again!!

Thank you for the post Dallin. I agree with everything you said. However, I overly agree with point number 1 in your post. Matt Larson has said, "There are no problems in real estate investing that more buyers and more offers won't fix." I agree with this. If you have a property under contract and nobody on your limited buyers list wants the property then you need to expand your list.

If you are having trouble getting a property under contract then make more offers. Eventually you will find an owner that is sufficiently motivated to accept your offer.

So...following Matt Larson's advice get more buyers and make more offers.

And...following Dallin's mentors advice, "There is ALWAYS a way."

Get out there and get to work!!!

I really like that you stressed fact #3 in that the properties do not always have to be at 50% for buy and hold landlords who will rent. Maybe time for me to focus on attaining these buyers.

First, thanks to Brandon and Femailceo for your comments. Brandon, that's a great statement from Matt Larsen, glad you provided it here.
For everyone, kind of takes away the excuses, doesn't it.
I tried a little experiment today. I randomly selected 8 U.S. locations on Craigslist (I seriously pulled up the list, closed my eyes, and clicked on a state, then did the same with an area). I then, in the search area in the upper left clicked housing, and entered the term We Buy Houses.
None of the searches that I did produced less than a dozen hits on ads. I'm sure that some of them are other wholesalers, and others are not--they are cash buyers. Either one would be worth adding to your cash buyers list for marketing properties.
Each time took me less than two minutes from beginning of search to having actual contact information for a potential person to add to my cash buyer's list.
There are many ways to find potential cash buyers, but after this little random experiment, I have less belief in a person who says that they cannot find any cash buyers. Search your area or nearby ones using phrases like We Buy Houses, We Buy Ugly Houses, Cash for Real Estate, etc., then be prepared to make the contact. Remember that we are not trying to force someone into doing what they do not want to do. These are busy people, who have precious little time to locate the next property for their business, and if we structure a deal that works for them, it is more like we are offering a steak to a hungry wolf. Do the searches, make the calls, build the list, simple as that.

Okay, so maybe I left you hanging a little bit in the last post. What do you say when you get on the phone with these people? How about this nice little script that leads into the Wholesale Buyers Questions List:

(Initiating the Conversation):
“Hi, my name is _______________, I’m calling in response to your ad that I found on __________________, indicating that you are an active Real Estate Investor. Am I speaking with the right person?

Great! We are also investors, and I’m sure your business keeps you very busy. I am calling because I think that one of our services may be helpful to you. Do you have a couple of minutes for me to explain?”

(Explanation of what we do as wholesalers):
“We provide a service for a select group of cash buyer investors called “Properties to Order.” What I mean by that is, that if you will provide us with a list of what you are looking for, then we will go looking for ONLY properties that meet your specifications. We will pre-negotiate the deal, and put the property under contract according to your criteria, and that is what we will bring back to you. We will NOT waste your time or ours bringing you random properties that you will probably say No to. We will only bring you properties that you will want to say Yes to. Would you be interested in this?

(Proceed to Wholesale Buyers Questions List)

I started investing doing sandwich lease options, followed closely by adding wholesaling. Both of these techniques can be applied without using outside funding/financing.
But somewhere along the line, something miraculous occurred. As I was working to find properties for cash buyers, it occurred to me that I didn't have a list of cash buyers, I had a MONEY TREE! I had (and have today) a list of people who have enough money in their bank accounts to buy a property, or frequently, enough to buy several properties without even flinching. I realized that these people are potential private lenders, potential partners, potential substitutes for a bank. My efforts in bringing them properties that made them money were the due diligence for me to prove myself valuable to these people, and once they trusted me, I've found that they are very willing to consider any project I bring to them, and often accept my guidance on what is best for them to do.
Money relationships are not built in a day, whether they are relationships with a mortgage broker, private or hard money lender, or your local banker. Start building them now, and continue building them. You can never have too many money relationships. Take a millionaire to lunch and find out how they make decisions regarding their investments--it's good learning, and they will teach you how to tailor a deal to their liking.
If you're stuck because you need money right away, for a hard money fix and flip, etc., it's time to go shopping for loans. Three places to go: www.betterhardmoney.com (Promo Code: Success93) is a search tool to find hard money and other lenders, and a substantial number of their hard money lenders will lend on value rather than purchase price. Another source, www.scotsmanguide.com, under View Postings, has thousands of posts by mortgage brokers trying to find loans for their clients. You can search according to the loan type (hard money, refinance, etc.) and only open the posts that are similar to yours and where there have been one or more replies by actual lenders saying they can do that type of deal. And finally, www.reiclub.com, under investor resources, has a respectable list of hard money lenders.
As I said, we need to be building these money relationships, starting now, whether you have a deal on the table or not. Deals tend to flow to people who are prepared for them. And remember, there is a money tree out there, but it won't grow unless you water it. Build and cultivate money relationships just like you search for properties--CONSTANTLY!

always great info from you Dallin !! thanks !!!
Jay

First, Jay, thank you for your positive words, you really are a superstar on this site, and we all appreciate everything that you share.

For this post, I'd like to begin by sharing a line from an old song: "The only thing in my way is me." I'd like to ask you to be brutally, nakedly honest with yourself as I share five comments that tend to circulate in the subconscious of struggling investors:

1) Real Estate Investing is hard
2) I can't do this, I'm a failure
3) People don't want to do business with me
4) I'll never make any real money
5) This program probably won't work.

If any of these, or a thousand other negative thoughts are controlling your mind, there is nothing in the outer world that is stronger than what is going on in your inner world. It's time to replace the negative with positives. Meditation, visualization, affirmations, vision boards, spiritual practices, etc. can all help to replace the negative with the positive, and help to develop an abundance mentality. Life coaching as provided with the program can also assist with this.
Our minds and attitudes need to be fine-tuned to success and positiveness regularly. The mind is like a television screen, and we hold the remote to change the channel whenever the programming is NOT what we want to see. No one and nothing outside ourselves can prevent us from making a decision as to what is in our mind. No one can MAKE you sad, angry, unhappy, fearful, etc. We DECIDE to be sad, angry, unhappy, fearful, etc., and we can DECIDE NOT TO BE sad, angry, unhappy, fearful, etc., at any time--and the change can be instantaneous.
If you do not believe me, I challenge you to sit down and think about being sick for the next 30 minutes. No one will do this because they know that they have power over their mind and their mind has power over their body, and they will end up sick! Well, if that is true, and we all know that it is, the opposite is true as well. Decide to be happy, successful, productive, generous, kind, etc., and put that on your mind's television screen. Do it immediately, live in the positive, not the negative. Your results will begin to change when you do this, and you will become unstuck from your mind's past programming to become the successful and happy person that you want to be.

Very good!
Dallin you have a way of explaining things that people can understand and you are straight to the point! I respect that!

Aaron

First, thank you very much for your kind words Aaron, as well as your diligence as an investor.

Let me share with you two statements that are incorrect, and can be real killers to your real estate success.
1) The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
2) You can't do that here.

Believing these statements or similar ones has been the demise of many real estate careers.
In starting as an investor, I was taught that it is possible to become a real estate millionaire in 1 square mile of real estate. Now that may need adjustment in very rural areas, but there are no bad markets to be an investor.
In order to be a bad market for real estate investment, there would need to be:
1) NO properties being Sold
2) NO unemployment
3) NO divorce
4) NO financial problems
5) NO illnesses or death
6) NO job transfers
7) NO breakdown or wearing out of fixtures, appliances, roofs, etc.
NO weather complications like rain, snow, tornadoes, hurricanes, hot sun, humidity, etc.

Does your area meet all of the above criteria? If not, then you live in a good market for investors.

Every seller has a problem--they need to sell a property. The bigger their problem is, the more they need you. Your job as a real estate investor is to help solve people's problems and get paid really well for doing so.

Another related misconception comes from the statement: "I can't find any deals!" Well, there are no deals to find. Deals are made, not found. Don't look for deals, look for problems, and create solutions.

Once again, I refer people to my post called "51 Ways to Find Properties." If you expect to just use an agent to find properties for you, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. The average successful business uses at least 25 different methods to find customers/clients. We need to use multiple methods of finding properties. Add new methods of finding properties until you have enough to keep you very busy in analyzing and making offers. Then find ways to streamline your business so that you can analyze more properties and make more offers. Keep streamlining until you are producing the number of deals that you need to support your business.

Making your area into a productive market for you involves getting to know your marketplace, developing enough marketing methods, and analyzing and making enough offers on properties to support the monetary needs of your business.

This whole stream of posts is designed to bust the myths and misconceptions and negative programming that we allow to prevent us from being successful. If, at any time, reading this series of posts feels like a slap in the face, you probably needed it. And to prove I'm really serious about that, I'm going to conclude by saying: "Get off your lazy assets, quit blaming anyone or anything else, and go be successful!"

ABSOLUTELY !!!!!!! WELL SAID !! my hope is that many read your post above and realize that what you wrote is what may have been stopping them from really stepping into what is so possible for them .when i first started getting advice from you and others as a coach i had no idea about the potential i had inside of me.We not only learn everything here we need about real estate but most importantly what we r capable of achieving.We can have all the knowledge needed but not know how to use it.It's like having the fastest car in the race but not knowing how to drive it until someone says shift gears and actually shows you how to do it but your scared to push in the clutch and slip it into the next highest gear.WHEN you overcome whats between your ears .....then you FEEL the jerk of the power you had all this time and never used and begin to pull away from the pack !!!!
re read Dallins post above and start grabbing the shifter and SLAMMING IT INTO GEAR !!!! WEEEE GOwne bye bye !!

I, like so many others, have thought pocket listings would be a good thing to connect with due to less competition, etc. This is interesting to read because it shows them in a totally different light!

Jbtoggs, I always enjoy reading your comments, and your encouragement to this community. It seems that you are very determined with your ongoing success and have experienced a lot of growth over time. That resonates with me, I've really relied on the relationships and counsel of others to help me along the way. Thank you for adding new dimensions to this forum.
007, hope you don't mind me calling you that. Thanks for pointing out pocket listings, they are among the many methods of finding properties that should be pursued.
I'd like to just riff a little more on something that Jbtoggs said about recognizing the potential we have inside us. If each of us could wake up each morning with the idea that we could go out and help resolve just one problem for someone this week, and proceed diligently to look for that opportunity, we would end up with 52 deals in the year, 52 really big paychecks, and 52 individuals or families helped, just on the seller side alone--not including the buyer's side. If that's too small a number, then try resolving one problem per day, or two per week or whatever works for you.
Our personal potential is not realized all at once. It becomes stronger through our willingness to stretch ourselves and step outside the box. Note that once we step outside our box, we are in a bigger box that we will need to step outside as well, and so on, and so on.
Growth of personal power and potential is a wonderful part of life that never becomes old.

THX COACH

SLAMMING IT INTO GEAR !!!! WEEEE GOwne bye bye !!

jay you are so funny !!!!!!!!!!!!

ref post 11 above

All some have are excuses and more excuses, to me its like getting old who has time for it, when we are busy doing what we enjoy and continue learning new and better ways to improve our lives and help others life is really fun and interesting, that's what we do in Realestate and in so many areas of our lives.We can make excuses or just get on with and succeed, thanks Dallin , cant learn to swim if we don't get in the water!!!!!!!!, there isnt a dry dock to swimming!!!!! we have to get in and get wet,since we were born we have been taking steps, first to walk then to talk, them start school and it wasn't long before we finished school and then onto other things, this will be natural if we just do it and apply all we have here to tap into , its not like starting out with nothing we have something we just need to work and do it, get over the fear or what ever, much success, Jim

This is very timely and just what I needed. There is so much content in this thread and I have taken some notes and bookmarked it. I will have to come back to it many times for review and to keep me on track. It is really is all about how we see things and how we think about our actions and presentations. The scripting is extremely helpful and the basic steps outlined. I could say much more but just want you to know I appreciate all who contributed to this thread.

Awesome thread here! As Dean has taught us, we have to do the 7 Deep Level to find out Real WHY; when we get there, nothing will stop us from reaching our goals!

thanks for all your input on this site!

I agree Val your "why and goals" are very important, BUT from time to time it can change and that's ok because life throws us a curve ball now and then and we have to rethink things.

Best wishes to all DGers

Aaron