First Deal In 47 Days Made $9,000 Profit

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Kevin: I’m Ken Rochester, Washington, DC. Well, like most people I was going through the internet, surfing the internet, looking at various real estate sties and I was looking for some additional education opportunities on investment properties, just investment real estate in general. And Joe kept coming up well search engine optimized, so I just keep seeing his name coming up and thought I’d do a little homework and started watching his videos you YouTube and going to his blog and it was something that really interested me. So that’s how it started.

Kevin: I was looking at the testimonials from other people and he’s been working with people all over the country. They were telling their various success stories and how well they did and how they’ve vastly expanded their real estate investment opportunities and you know, you do get a good sense of what Joe’s all about on those videos and he did seem not only very reputable but very honest and, you know, so I took a chance and it was well worth it.

Kevin: I was fortunate. I did a deal pretty quickly. I got my first signed lease option agreement memo the 17th of that same month. And it was an owner who had not had very good luck in leasing his properties. He was not doing checks on his tenants. In fact the last tenant he had before we did the transaction to get a tenant in there who would exercise a purchase option eventually, that tenant before that had to be evicted. But to answer your question, I got the memo signed on the 17th of that month and then thirty days after that we got the deal done where they signed the lease and I got my lease option fee of $9,000.

Kevin: Well, this one took a little longer only because the owner of the property, he’s a minister in a church and he was doing some missionary work in Guyana. And so he was out of the country for a while. That required me to field a lot more calls then maybe I would normally have to, but that’s not a problem. That was fine. But I probably worked, I don’t know, maybe ten hours a week or so. It wasn’t a tremendous amount of time. It wasn’t that long at all.

Kevin: Well, thus far this is the one. I’ve got two lease option agreements memos out now. Both of the owners are doing some rehab to their houses. They’re not ready to put it on the market right yet. That will probably happen next week, and I’ve got two more that I probably will be getting next week as well so I anticipate having four homes but to date this is the only one that I’ve closed, but, you know, seeings how I started in October, you know, I’m very happy with the results so far and I’m learning something new each and every day. I’m getting a lot more comfortable with the dialog that I engage with with people on the phone. So I anticipate you know, that things are going to start to ramp up really quickly here.

Kevin: This one here was $9,000. Because I’m in the Washington, DC, area, that home values are a little bit higher than they are in a lot of places in the country. So I’m trying to target between $5,000 and $9,000 and Joe said on this last one I did I should have asked more, but since it was my first deal I was more interested in just consummating and getting it done. So, you know, as I get more confident I’ll be more confident in asking for more money for a lease option fee.

Kevin: I feel I will be. Like I said, this, so far, is my only one, but I’m getting, what I am getting is, I’m getting a lot of face-to-faces with owners and I’m getting them to sign the lease option agreement memos fairly easily. So, what’s nice about it is, it’s a one-page document. It’s a real simple – it’s a nonthreatening agreement and as Joe has taught us, you go over the agreement, you you know, you just basically read out, you know, the more salient parts and the one that I think is, the one that, the part that tracks is the most is that they can get out after ninety days and if they find their own tenant, you know, the offer basically becomes null and void. So, it’s very, it’s very owner friendly but they would much, I gather, they’d much rather prefer that they work through me because it’s just a lot easier for them.

Kevin: Well, I would like to eventually do this full time and I’m trying to figure out, you know, how long that would take and I think, I’d like to target maybe within twelve months. You know, I hope that’s realistic and I think it can be. But within that time frame I would like to be doing that and obviously expanding into other things other than just lease options. I’d like to be doing you know, subject tos and you know, buying properties for my own portfolio, maybe doing some rehabbing, things along those lines. But I just want to get comfortable with what I’m doing right now and stick with the rent method for now. But I want to expand my horizons on that as well.

Kevin: Well, it’s helped you know, to get an additional check aside from what I’m doing full time, it’s obviously very helpful. Pretty much you know, looking forward to increasing that. It’s something that’s exciting. It’s something I look forward to. I like the idea of being my own boss and you know, having, it gives you latitude to do other things, in the way that you want to do it in. So, it’s been good and I’m looking forward to, like I said, just having some additional income.

Kevin: One of the things aside from the monetary benefits of it, it’s creative. To be able to talk to people and ask them, you know, what are you looking achieve, and then you give them a particular option. And that might not be what they want to do. So then you step back and you think about, okay, let’s take a different avenue here. Have you considered this option? Maybe we do a subject to? And just using the various options that Joe teaches it makes it fun. It’s creative. It’s a way you know, to keep you on your toes and while making some good money.

Kevin: Yes I have. I started with the Automarketer when I signed up with the mentorship program. I made sure I did that. And there’s a learning curve on that. I’m not the most technologically adept person so I take small bites of the apple but I’m getting more comfortable with it. And Joe’s, the Automarketer is becoming more streamlined and lot more intuitive and I need thing to be intuitive when it comes to technology, but it’s, as Joe had said, when you do this on a regular basis, when you you know, utilize it and you put in your search criteria, there have been days that I’ve been inundated with phone calls and texts and you just have to find the time to answer them. So I’ve never been lacking for prospects to call. It’s a really great system.

Kevin: Well, yeah, on the Automarketer you put in your search criteria and Joe has recommended you want to start with minimum of homes that have two bedrooms. You check to make sure, you want to put in the criteria to make sure that there’s a phone call, these people, a number that you can call these folks back on. Obviously if the geographic parameters where you want to work. And I’m in the DC area, that also includes northern Virginia, suburban Maryland as well as DC proper. And I search, I do a one-week search within Craigslist and I get up on an average, I get anywhere to eighty to almost two hundred fifty leads every week. And that’s a tremendous amount. It’s a lot. As Joe had said, and you find this out, it can be overwhelming. Sometimes some of those folks slip through the cracks. You just don’t get back to them quick enough, but that’s okay. You try to avoid that, but that’s a good problem to have.

Kevin: Well, whether you hear it from Joe or anybody, you do, the common denominator seems that you should have a mentor. Somebody who is experienced, somebody who’s doing what you would like to get into and can answer questions for you. There’s a relatively steep learning curve, but Joe is extremely patient and he’s obviously very well-versed in everything that he does. I guess the most important thing I would recommend, the biggest take away would be get a mentor. Get somebody who can hold your hand and walk you through the various processes.

Kevin: The only thing I would mention, and it’s basic human nature, sometimes I schedule these calls to happen on a Monday morning. And sometimes you’ve got to get yourself motivated to call people. Generally, people are pretty nice on the phone. You’ll get a few that are put out that you’re calling them, you know, about something other than renting their property. But you also meet some great people. And that’s the other thing that I’d like to add. I have met some really great people in this process. Homeowners, people that will, if they want to talk to you about selling their home or, you know, various ways to ease their pain, but I’ve been on numerous appointments where you’re talking to these people as friends. It’s amazing. And for that alone, that makes it fun. And that’s what motivates me to pick up that phone Monday morning and start making my calls to people, or, I do it in the evening after people have gotten home from work. Sometimes that’s a better time to reach them. But you’ve just got to, and once you get that first call under your belt, then things start to flow. But again, you can’t operate in the fear of somebody you know, being upset with you when you call them. Generally, that’s not the case. Most people will talk to you and even if they’re not interested they’re nice to you about it. That’s the way I look at it.