Real Estate Investor · Fayetteville, NC · Member since 2008 · 27 posts · 3 votes
hey guys, been reading and lurking for a little while.
My question is and i did search, is it possible to wholesale while out of country on a deployment. I have internet and some limited phone access. Remember I'm 9 hrs ahead of central time.
I've heard people say that they have students do it all the time. One guy said he had someone in australia even doing it. I thought a Assignment might be possible, but a double close, I mean i think the logistics wouldn't work.
How do I do this? I refuse to sit on the bench while I'm deployed! I thought i would try this. I'm looking for people all over to get my lists organized.
And as far as going to the property, how will that work. Obviously it won't so i wouldn't know what repairs are needed and what not. Basically I could do the following.
Find a seller
find a house
then find the buyer
I could do a little due-diligence, but no walk around.
could someone walk me through this, what we call barney style, or like dumbed down step by step.
Hey Nick,
First off, I just wanted to say thank you for your service, I was in Iraq in 05, is that where your deployed?
Anyways, I'm fairly new at this, but I've talked to people that wholesale from a distance, for the contracts usually they use a fax machine. I'm guessing you don't have access to that, but another thought I just had and I don't know if this can still be set up now that your already there, but you could sign a limited power of attorney and have someone you trust sign the documents for you. Make sure it's limited though so that person doen't stab you in the back and take everything you own, I had friends that had it happen when I was there.
Another option, I've never used one so I don't know exactly how it works, but I believe by using a land trust and you being the beneficiary, you could have your lawyer be the trustee and then he/she can, sign the documents for you. Not sure on this one, do some research before you use either idea as I've never used them.
Lastly for "seeing" the property, I've talked to some people who never see in person the properties they are going to buy, they pay someone, in your case could be just a friend, to walk through the properties and take lots of digital pictures and basically inspect it for you, then they can email the picks and you can do what you can to verify there information.
If you don't want to pay someone you can have the seller take the pics and you can ask them what they would fix in the property if they werent going to sell it. This obviously is riskier since the seller can and will lie, but if you assume this and put an inspection period in the contract, your buyers are going to inspect the property anyways so they will let you know if your estimates are way off. Nobody has perfect estimates anyways, if your even close you should be ok.
Just my thoughts, curious to see what other people say.
Again take these ideas with a grain of salt since I'm fairly new and haven't done any of these things myself.
good luck
Lance
This is my second time over here to Iraq. I was here in Sep 05' for about 5 months when i was infantry, now I'm over here till sep' of this year. so 2nd time over here. Might not be the last, but we'll see how investing goes to decided if I'll stay in. My wife is comming in as a jag lawyer, and just begging her to get into REI so i can have someone right at home to do deals.
anyways, I'm going to check tomorrow when people get back to see if I have fax capabilities, but I do know that I have scan abilities so I could try the faxing where you do it over the internet, gotta figure that one out.
I have a contractor and a real estate agent that I trust and have worked a few deals with, so im guess I could have probly both them check it out, and throw em some money. Now the hard part to see if the attourney at my agents building can do a double close. I would think that to be impossible unless i sign everything before the buyer and seller show up.
If I get the houses from banks, I will most likely need proof of funds which may be a snag. I'm going to contact some hard money guys on here about that.
I was thinking about hiring a virtual temp that I've found out about, she could do everything from taking the calls to making sure the documents are all set up.
My wife is already lined up with a general POA, and also has a special to do all my real estate transactions. I just sold a rehab with her doing that a week ago. I know that for some reason the banks are being stupid about her having access to our mortgages for some reason, even with specific POAs
I also am planning to put up an add on craigs list or in the newspaper to get someone to put up all the signs around town. see if that works out
Another thing I plan on trying is putting up ads around where I'm at. A bounch of people just got here from Ft. Bragg where I'm stationed and with deployments sometimes you don't have time to get out of your house or sell it or what not, so I'm going to try to pull some leads from that.
A huge benefit of that is I can get them out of having to pay a mortgage on a house that is just sitting for like a year, or possibly pull up some short sales if they run into problems like marital ( happens every day here) where they just want the house gone, or fall behind b/c their wife or girlfriend split town while they are here.
Twatson that is a great idea - BuyandTry could conceivably work with numerous REI in a bunch of different states, if he knows other soldiers who live and have real estate problems in various states. For instance, I know there are alot of guys stationed there from my area in Minneapolis. Split the assignment fee, or bird dog the leads. He could identify the sellers there in Iraq, get them on board with how best to sell their house, the email investors with the deals. The investors on this end could either find the buyer, or help coordinate with his buyer, for a fee. It would make his buyers list alot bigger, and we could all achieve bigger pockets! Feel free to consider me one of your Minnesota investor contacts. Thanks, Mike
well i do have a very unique market as I'm at Ft.Bragg which is the biggest post in the united states. I KNOW my target farm group like the back of my hand and know how they think and buy, I'm only 22, so trust me i hear and see how they think. The problem with wholesaling is that I dont know know if they would want to do the rehab work or not, b/c I don't particularly like doing rehabs.
I am spreading the word though, but most are just happy to rent for the time that they are stationed there and then be able to pick up and go. The rental market is pretty good down here, but competitive. The army give me almost 10k a year tax free for housing, and I try to beat this in everyone i knows head that that is free equity to put into a house!!! They then can get back or rent out.
something you gotta watch though is doing business with them b/c if something goes wrong, I can get screwed badly which I don't like.
I'm having trouble building my lists of buyers and sellers. I'm working on it and i know it doesn't happen over night, but I'm chipping away at it. It's hard to build contacts without being there, and my realitor that i work with doesn't really understand the concept of wholesaling. So on to the next one. Any suggestions on building my list?