Realty411 Magazine Featuring Brad Sumrok | Page 95

#TheConnector by Brandon Richards A April 4th, 2017. I closed on my first rehab. wesome, right? Well, let’s rewind time a bit. December 19th, 2015, I drove to Dallas with my two beautiful daughters, a trailer full of personal belongings, $0 in the bank, and a vision. I came to Texas, got my real estate license and went to work. I had high hopes, just as any new real estate agent does. I was going to just step into an industry in a city I’ve never done business in, and crush it! Wrong. In fact, I didn’t close much of anything for quite some time. I was doing ev- erything right. I had the website, the CRM, office time, cold-calling figured out, and I was sending out postcards! Reality quickly set in: Being a REALTOR ® isn’t easy! While I tried to make a footprint as a REAL- TOR ® , I got more and more interested in rehabbing and flipping houses. Around that time, I heard about a strategy called wholesaling. The “get-rich-quick” in real estate method, right? The “no experience, no money” method to getting rich! I was hooked. I bought all the right books, I listened to countless hours of podcasts, and I just about googled every- thing related to Wholesaling. Alright, so I under- stand the concept now. But, I was asking myself these questions: “How do I set it up?” “How do I find the leads?” “Where do I find the investors to buy it from me?” The simplest answers to all of these questions fell within my network of people I had stitched together over time. By this time, it was June 2016. I was go- ing to every single real estate networking meetup and weekend guru event I could find that was free. I listened and took notes, a lot of notes. I was on a mission. At one of the events I attended, the speaker (who had provided an incredible amount of content up until that point) said to the audience, “Nine out of 10 of you won’t take ACTION.” This was fuel to my fire and all the motivation I needed to continue on my mission. I was dead set on not being one of those nine. I went home, bought a domain, paid the extra $15 for the web- site builder, put in a lead capture form, and went to work. Now I was official. I added my website link to all of my mailers to pre-foreclosures and probates, as well as in my Facebook posts. Facebook? Yes, Facebook works. In fact, my first and largest wholesale came from a Facebook post! So, now I have the know-how, the website, and I have letters going out. For a few months, I JV’d on a couple wholesales until I landed my first direct to seller lead. I owe a lot of my fine-tuning and knowledge to “The Corey’s” in my office at the time. They walked me through my first couple and answered all of my (many) questions. Fast forward to January 2017 when I got a lead off of Facebook (yep, Facebook again) from a seller who is behind on payments. She paid cash for her house when it was new back in 2006. I ended up contracting the house the same day that the phone call came in. Principle balance was $38K and ink’d it at $63K so that the owner could walk away with a sizeable check to put her life back together. After a couple of phone calls, I had an investor out the next day to take a look and he wanted the property at $105K. My investor buyer gave me the assignment agreement he wanted to use and went on to com- plete title and close. I had just seen the biggest payday I had ever had and I was able to get a seller > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Realty411Guide.com PAGE 95 • 2017 reWEALTHmag.com