All Forum Posts by: Adrienne Bryson

1) Once you get a property under contract I would suggest taking your contract to an investor-friendly title attorney/company and having them start a title search immediately. It usually takes a few days but could take a week or more and time is of the essence so the sooner you start, the better. It could cost a couple hundred bucks but you can just roll that cost into your assignment fee or put it as a separate buyer-paid cost on your assignment contract (which you should also file with your title attorney/company as soon as you get it signed).

Definitely have a contingency in your Purchase and Sale Agreement with the seller based on a clean and marketable title. The title search will reveal any liens, delinquent taxes, etc that could kill your deal. It will also reveal if the person trying to sell is not the legal owner of the property.

2) As for earnest money, there are four ways I see this commonly handled.

- Don't put down any. Some sellers are fine with this, especially if you can guarantee close within a week.

- Put down an insignificant amount. I've heard of $50 or $10 or even $1. Some places require some exchange of money to validate the contract. Some wholesalers just throw down $500 when signing the PSA to let the seller know they're serious.

- Put down an earnest money deposit then recoup it at assignment. For example total sale price to buyer $75k including your $5k assignment fee, so $70k to seller. You put down $1k EMD to the seller when signing PSA, get $6k from buyer as assignment fee with $1k deposit, buyer pays you $5k and the seller $69k at close.

- Offer earnest money but not at same time as signing PSA. Structure the contract so your EMD is paid "after approval by partner/assigns/[whatever]". So $0 paid when signing PSA with seller. Assign to buyer for $6k with $1k deposit. Then pay $1k EMD to seller. Or have buyer also put up EMD when paying assignment deposit. This means no money out of your pocket.

For everybody's protection it's a good idea to have the EMD in escrow with your title attorney/company rather than paid directly to seller.

3) You shouldn't have to deal with realtors as a wholesaler, unless you're trying to wholesale properties that are already listed on the MLS.

4) Contractors and inspectors are really the buyer's responsibility. Most buyers already have people they work with regularly that will check out potential properties for them. You could see about having one of your own to help estimate rehab costs, but it isn't strictly necessary.

Hope this helps, sorry for such a long post!

Emotional Support Animals are protected like Service Animals. IIRC you are not allowed to charge pet fees but you are allowed to charge the tenant for any damage caused by the animal. In my state you are also able to deny if allowing the animal would be an "undue burden" but I'm not sure what that would mean exactly.

You are also entitled to require "demonstration of need". This would be a letter from a physician or therapist explaining that the prospective tenant has a medical need for the animal.

There is *no such thing* as a license, certificate, or registration for ESAs or SAs. These are things shady websites sell most often to people who just want to take their regular pets in the store and on planes with them.

(Not a lawyer, just a lady with a service dog.)

Hello BP! I'm hoping to pick you guys' brains. This would be my first real foray into both renting and flipping.

Background: Husband and I currently have a home. I'm working with a seller right now that I originally planned to wholesale but am now thinking of keeping for myself via seller financing.

The plan: Seller's house has an ARV around $190k. Agreed to sell for $90k. I think needs about $35k in rehab. It's well-maintained but just hasn't been updated since the 70s. I am considering giving seller a decent amount (like $30k maybe?) at closing then doing monthly payments for 3 years with a balloon at the end. The plan is to do some of the bigger renovations immediately, then move into and do a live-in flip situation. Then once we move, to rent our current house. At the end of the 3 years sell one or both houses pay the balloon and move on to the next opportunity with a good chunk of capital.

Does this sound like a smart plan? What if the housing market shifts significantly towards the end of the 3 years and we aren't able to sell? The idea behind the live-in flip is to take advantage of the tax benefits (and to be able to turn our current house into an income producing property). But would it be more sensible to stay in our current house and just flip this other one quick?

Is there anything about this plan that seems crazy or not feasible?

Thanks in advance!

You could check out propstream. I'm not entirely sure if you can sort by gender, but you can filter by zip code, ownership length, whether owned free and clear, and by divorce (and if I remember correctly, by date of divorce). I suppose you could manually sort through them looking for names that sound female if nothing else.

They have a free trial period you can play with to see if it produces the right kind of data for you. Might be worth a try.

Very late comment... But it's unfortunate nobody participated in this post. I know it would be a great help to many newbies. There are lots of explanations of what to do and even how to do it, but for someone who has never done something before having an example to look at really helps pull the information together.

I am completely clueless when it comes to valuing raw land!  What factors do I need to consider?  How do I evaluate, for example, a wooded lot in a residential area?

What is the actual problem?  Can't find leads?  Can't turn calls into meetings?  Can't close potential deals?  Where specifically are you struggling?

If you are planning to assign the contract you will not actually be buying the property.  You will sign the contract with the seller, then assign the contract to the buyer.  The buyer will be the one going to closing.  You don't deal with closing costs.

If instead you prefer to do a double close, you would be going to closing and buying the property, then reselling to a buyer.  In that case you would have to most likely at least pay costs for the first closing (your purchase), then have the end buyer cover that closing.

Either way, who pays closing costs is all up to how the contract is written.  Most of the time either the seller and buyer split closing costs or the buyer covers them all.  It's really up to you when you draft the agreement.  A big incentive for my sellers is that there is NO cost to them so I have all my contracts written that buyer pays all closing costs.

What specifically do you need clarification on?

Read the Guide on Wholesaling, and the many Blogs on Wholesaling, then check out the Podcasts which have info on wholesaling specifically as well as great discussions of general real estate knowledge.  You will also benefit from browsing through the Wholesaling Forums.  You can find answers there to questions you didn't even know to ask!

Welcome to BP and good luck!