Seth Williams’ Success Story

As a part of our exclusive Real Estate Investor Success Stories series, we spotlight inspiring stories of the most successful real estate investors in the industry!

In today’s issue, we’re going to highlight the fascinating story of a highly successful real estate investor in Michigan — Mr. Seth Williams.

Seth is a long-time real estate investor , creator of a popular Land Investing Masterclass course, and the Founder of REtipster, a real estate investing education website providing a wealth of information to empower every investor’s real estate journey.

Seth’s impressive achievements:

• closes up to 5 deals per month
• earns up to $500k of annual net profit
• is proficient in real estate wholesaling, flipping, and long-term rentals
• has been in business for more than 10 years

Read Seth’s success story below to learn how he got to where he is today. We hope Seth’s story inspires you and serves as a stepping stone for your own real estate investing career.

I wanted more autonomy and freedom to work on projects I found exciting and made significantly more money than any W2 job could provide.

In the beginning, I had no idea how to find motivated sellers with deals that were guaranteed to make money. I was looking where everybody else was looking (including the people willing to overpay).

I needed a way to find an endless supply of motivated sellers who were happy to sell their unwanted property at a huge discount. Once I figured this out, everything got much easier.

What helped you to overcome those challenges?

When I discovered how to obtain lists of very specific property owners who owned the types of properties I wanted to buy, along with some indicators that they may be motivated to sell and willing to accept a deeply discounted offer on their property.

This information was GOLD because it enabled me to find people with problems I could solve while making a lot of money in the process.

What was the most stressful challenge you had to overcome during your career?

When I decided to focus on land investing, my first year was stressful from a time-management standpoint.

At the time, I had very few systems in place, and I wasted a lot of time before I knew how to automate things and get certain tasks done in minutes rather than hours.

If I hadn’t figured out how to be more efficient, I almost certainly would have burned out and given up before I found lasting success as an investor.

I love being able to plan my week and work on things I find fun. It’s also great not having to answer to a boss or work on pointless projects that feel like a waste of time.

Even when I have a difficult day in my business, it’s still invigorating and rewarding because I know I’m working for myself, and I got to choose my own path instead of taking orders from someone who doesn’t necessarily have my best interests at heart.

It’s also a lot of fun to see how much money can be made as an entrepreneur.

Before I found success in real estate, I had many limiting beliefs about what a person should be able to make and what kind of lifestyle is “good enough.”

Working for myself and seeing the financial rewards has blown the lid off everything I thought I knew about personal finance.

Life is so much more vibrant and exciting than I used to think it could be, and it’s been an amazing journey so far.

Historically, real estate investor direct mail marketing has been very effective but somewhat expensive (especially in a more competitive market, or if mistakes are made along the way).

I’m exploring alternatives like real estate investor text messages marketing and cold calling, among other things, and not surprisingly, each marketing medium has its tradeoffs.

Find more suggestions of the best real estate investor lead generation software reviewed by Real Estate Bees.

— Kimberly Anderson, Senior Creative Editor at Real Estate Bees

The most important ones are:

• DataTree (generating marketing lists and doing property research)
• Direct Skip (skip tracing software for real estate investors)
• OpenPhone (business phone numbers)
• Loom (video emails)
• PandaDoc (e-signatures)
• Zillow/Craigslist/Facebook (listing and selling properties)
• Zillow/LandSearch/LandWatch/Redfin (market research)

There are many more that have been helpful to me. You can find a full list of them here.

Find more suggestions of the best real estate investment software reviewed by Real Estate Bees.

— Kimberly Anderson, Senior Creative Editor at Real Estate Bees

What software tools did you try using in your investing business but found them not useful?

I’ve tried a few different real estate investor CRM systems that were too complicated to figure out.

If a piece of software requires over a day to be trained and establish a basic understanding of how to use it, I think there’s a fundamental problem with that software.

As a dialer for real estate investors, for my business phone numbers, I used to use RingCentral, and it was fine, but the user interface was a bit confusing, and whenever I needed help (which wasn’t often), their customer support left a lot to be desired.

I switched to OpenPhone because it’s less expensive and easier to understand, and I haven’t looked back.

I also use a few free websites to list and sell properties (Zillow, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace).

I find all of them to be a bit quirky and annoying in various ways, but it’s still worth the hassle to use them because they give me exposure to some BIG, highly relevant audiences without charging me anything.

When you send out thousands of low offers to buy land directly from private owners, you will inevitably receive a lot of funny responses. I’ve seen a lot of creative ways for people to say “no.”

There was also the time when I accidentally bought the wrong property and I didn’t figure it out until after I owned it.

After closing on the purchase, I showed up at the wrong parcel of land and started taking pictures of it for my property listing.

The property owner (who also owned the house next door) came out and asked what I was doing, and I told him I was taking pictures of my land to sell it.

After a brief and very awkward conversation, it dawned on me that I was in the wrong place, and the property I had purchased was somewhere else.

Luckily, I had only paid $152 for the property, so it was more embarrassing than expensive.

Whatever you’re doing, educate yourself enough to get 70% sure of what you’re doing, and then get started.

Don’t wait until you’re 100% confident in what you’re doing because if you’re like me, you’ll never get there.

Start moving and make mistakes because that’s the fastest and most effective way to learn.

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