Inman

How one wholesale investor found an alternative to rehabbing

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There are a lot of different ways to make money in real estate investing. There’s wholesaling, flipping, rentals, lending and lease options. It’s important to be focused on only one of these as your core business.  

Yes, you want to be creative and to capitalize on different opportunities when they are presented, but make sure your main focus is on one key strategy when investing in real estate.

Jason Balin’s guest for this interview is Terry Royce, who has a very impressive wholesaling business in the Baltimore area. He has a few rentals and does some flips here and there, but he does about 50 wholesales a year.  

Royce works with a lot of investors. He has a strong presence on social media and goes to many REIA and meetup groups.  

Although he is known for wholesaling, he really understands how to coach and work with other investors and create value for them.

He knows that when he helps other investors, there is a greater chance they will buy a deal from him or he could help them sell a deal or create a partnership with them.

There are a lot of opportunities that could come from helping a struggling investor.

Royce got started at the top of the market in 2007. He looks back at his first wholesale deal as pure luck — it was in Baltimore City, and he made $18,000.

The best part about that deal working out the way it did is that it showed him there was good money and opportunity in real estate investing, which really motivated him.

He told Balin he wouldn’t have gotten into investing if he hadn’t made a good profit on that first deal.

Royce knows what he likes to do; he is excellent at wholesaling and structuring deals.

He doesn’t enjoy rehabbing. He has a business partner who manages and does the construction on all their rehabs, along with three employees, whom he calls property inspectors.  

They look at properties, go to auctions on his behalf and run leads. He has no interest in being on the front lines and micromanaging contractors everyday.

Royce sees his business growing easily because with wholesaling you don’t run the risk of not getting the property sold as some rehabbers face.  

He’s looking to do more and more wholesale deals, and he has a lot of consistent buyers. He understands how to have a good relationship with these buyers so that he is able to sell multiple properties to them.

Chris Haddon is an entrepreneur based in Washington, D.C., a partner at Hard Money Bankers and a co-founder of REI360.net.

Email Chris Haddon