All Forum Posts by: Alex Gunnerson

Should you ask if the seller is interested in seller financing? 

It doesn't hurt to try. There are a lot of moving parts with seller financing but in short there are 3 main components

1. Price

2. Interest rate

3. Down payment

It is our job to find out what is most important to the seller and try to satisfy that by modifying the other 2 terms to make the deal work for you. If the seller wants x price that is a little higher than you would like to pay, you could make it work by setting a favorable interest rate and down payment. 

What is the typical down payment? 

I've seen plenty of SF deals with 0% down, others with 20% or more, but from what I have seen many buyers start to lose interest if they are having to put in more than 10% down. 

I like this. Short, simple, yet it seems like it checks most of the boxes. Thanks for sharing @Maria Checchin

@Jeffrey Hunter I have been in KC for a while so I naturally had some biases about the safety of certain areas. I am not exactly sure where my bias came from for this particular area but I was probably assuming that since the area had lower priced homes, the area must be unsafe, which obviously isn't always true.

@Jeffrey Hunter I would have told my previous self to be less selective with the areas that I am looking for deals in. I'm not downplaying the importance of finding a good area, but when I started I was too quick to assume an area didn't fit my criteria because I made assumptions about that area that weren't true. 

My first property ended up being in an area I wasn't considering because I THOUGHT the neighborhood was unsafe but that wasn't true. That property is now cash-flowing nearly $500/mo, I have great tenants and I paid much less for the property than I would have in other areas. 

@Matthew Taylor I setup my tenants on apartments.com (formerly Cozy). This allows you to setup automatic payments to be pulled from your tenants accounts / savings accounts. I haven't had any issues and the setup is pretty straight forward.

@Trent Reeve this is a great use case for ChatGPT. In about 2 minutes this is what I did:

Entered this prompt into chatGPT:
"Pretend to be the host of a short term rental. Send a welcome email to a guest that will be staying at your property soon. "

Output that was generated:
Dear [Guest Name],

Welcome to your upcoming stay at our short-term rental property! We are thrilled that you have chosen to stay with us and look forward to making your experience a memorable one.

Just a few important details about your stay:

• Check-in time is at 4pm on [Check-in Date]
• Check-out time is at 10am on [Check-out Date]
• A unique access code for the property will be sent to you 24 hours before your arrival.
• We have provided fresh linens and towels for your use during your stay. Additional sets can be found in the linen closet.
• Please be aware that parties or events are not allowed in the property.
• Our contact information is provided for any assistance you may need during your stay.

We hope you have a wonderful time and please let us know if there's anything else we can do to make your stay more comfortable.

Best, [Your Name]

------------------------------

Obviously you'd want to customize to your needs, and you might even respond to that prompt with "are there any other details that should be included in this email" if you want some more ideas.  I'm not suggesting that you use ChatGPT verbatim, but it can be awesome for sparking ideas or giving you a starting point. Best of luck to whatever you decide!

@Wesley B Williams creative finance is one of my main strategies for 2023. Hoping to get my first creative finance deal within the next few months.

Hey Jordan, you can typically find property tax information on Zillow / Redfin etc. if you are using these sites just make sure you aren’t using their estimated taxes they provide which just provides an estimate based on rate. You typically have to scroll a little further for the exact amounts which will be broken out by year.

You should be able to find this info on your local county assessor website as well. A quick search took me here for chicago https://www.cookcountyproperty...

@George Red awesome idea, count me in!

Episode 554 with Cody Davis is up there for me. While describing how he has been able to buy so many properties via seller finance, Cody emphasized the importance of building relationships with the potential sellers. 

"People don’t like being sold, instead of selling the idea of seller financing, focus on being relatable and selling yourself"

 This approach helped Cody stand out from the crowd of people calling about the property who are just trying to buy the property and couldn't care less about the seller's story.