The Time is Right for Seller Financing

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Food for thought: The credit crunch means that fewer people now qualify for mortgages. Mortgage money is how homes are purchased. Fewer mortages available means a lot of buyers are now out of the market.

At the very least this means longer market times for sellers, but it can also mean lowering the price. In fact, price is what most buyers, sellers, and especially real estate agents focus on most. Price is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

They used to call this business "Creative Real Estate Investing"...and what that usually means is solving problems. Creative financing strategies are the heart of creative investing and that typically means finding ways to finance properties without institutional financing.

In business in general you have to ask yourself: What's the most important problem your business solves for the prospective customer?

In case you don't know it- you're in sales, and your customers are sellers when you're buying property.

To know the most important problem your business solves for your prospective sellers, you have to ask yourself what every seller wants? They all want the same thing: A full price cash offer closing this afternoon. They also all know on some level that they aren't getting all of it. Since just about every seller is completely unfamiliar with real estate, and their agent isn't really offering them any advice save lowering the sale price and having lots of open houses with pies baking in the oven (not a terrible idea in and of itself- just not helpful by itself in this market) it's up to YOU to help.

What kind of response to you think you could get if you ran a simple ad that read:

Sell Your House As-Is for a Fair Price on the Date of Your Choice?

(This by the way is a classic headline used by dozens of investors- Google it) and yet in my paper today...you don't see it.

What kind of a response could you get if you said:

[b]Full Market Price for Your House-- Guaranteed.[b]

When they call, you could explain how they could carry back a seller second for you, right? (Well, it might be better if you put that differently. You might want to say what one guru says: Not only can I pay $X for your house, but I can show you how we can set up a hassle-free stream of income for you for the next 10 years (or 5, or 3 years-- but why not go for 10?)

I'm about to find out because I'm ramping up my foreclosure buying again. The advantage for a lot of us that are still in the game- is that a whole bunch of investors are out of it now.

The market cool-down means it's time to get back to basics, time to sharpen the skills again, and get hot!