Husband and father to a 4 month old baby. I started investing about a year and a half ago. Ended up with a loss of $700 for 2017 but the first half of 2018 we will gross over $125,000 with a goal of $250k for the year.
Kyle started out in real estate investing just like most investors do. He was unhappy at his desk job and wanted a way to achieve financial freedom. There were some learning curves he had to overcome, though. When he and his wife got married they used the money from the condo she sold to buy their first house to flip. Unfortunately Kyle ended up losing money in that investment.
One of the biggest learning moments in that first house was figuring out how to manage contractors the right way. Kyle found that the contractors weren’t showing up to the property frequently, they were taking other jobs while still working for him, and were spending too much money on supplies from hardware stores. “That was a learning experience,” Kyle says, “Now I check in with my contractors every day to make sure everything is going smoothly.”
Luckily for Kyle he had another property already being worked on by the time the first house was sold. This property went smoother, getting him a decent profit. “You have to stumble a few times before you get the hang of it,” Kyle admits. That’s so true. Starting your own real estate investing business is a learning experience.
Once the first two properties were done with Kyle started getting in the groove with his business. As far as marketing goes, Kyle has been doing direct mail and managing leads on his website. He has his phone number on the postcards he sends with a call to action to text him if they’re interested. “I haven’t gotten too many texts,” Kyle admits, “but a lot of people go to my website from the postcard.”
A mixture of direct mail marketing and having a websites for people to go to has been working really well for Kyle. “I think it’s from people not wanting to make a call, but feeling a lot more comfortable filling out a form online,” he tells. To be honest, that’s what we’ve found works best too. There are so many motivated sellers who get nervous about talking to someone asking to buy their house. The detachment of filling out a form online is more comforting for them.
So what made Kyle get into real estate investing? Well, the condo his wife sold when they got married gave the couple roughly $20k. Initially Kyle wasn’t planning on getting into real estate investing. In fact, it all started with a Google search for what to do to invest the money. “I knew I didn’t want to spend it or just put it in retirement,” he says, “Honestly I just Googled ’ways to invest’ or something like that and real estate kept coming up.”
Kyle knew he didn’t want to build a renting portfolio. “Flipping was more appealing to me. I didn’t like how long you have to commit to renting,” Kyle says, “I didn’t start with Rich Dad Poor Dad or anything. I just searched in Google and did research there.”
It just goes to show important it is to appear online. If you want to get in contact with Kyle you can reach him on his website or email him at kburnett@ibuyhouses513.com.
