All Forum Posts by: Scott Anthony

So, being from Texarkana, I am wondering what is a "Texarkana Contract"?

I just found that vistaprint.com does custom post it notes, you can upload your logo, and put whatever text you want.

@Hal Cranmer

Ive never heard of using Post-It notes before. What do you do with them? Stick them anywhere around town?

I'm having ideas flashing through my head as im Typing this. Interesting.

As far as text, I dont see why "We Buy Houses" and your phone # wouldn't work......

Wow, you have lots of questions, and I don't think I can answer them all effectively. Bigger Pockets has lots of great articles, podcasts, and forums where you can go and read up on many of the things you mention.

The first step in any new adventure should be education. Learn as much as you can, first, then execute.

in general, it can be better to use someone else's money to do deals with, instead of your own. But that depends on you, and what your plans are, how much $ you have, and your tolerance for risk, and so on.

Any good banker can get a loan together for you on a good deal. They will put the closing fees, and possible rehab costs into the one loan, as long as it makes sense for the bank. Some times doing an interest only loan like this will keep your initial payments low, while you complete the rehab, but then they will want to be paid off at the final closing with your retail buyer. Hard money loans can work for this too.

My advice: hang around here on BP, and look around a bit. then you can start looking at possible deals, start putting together a team of professionals that you will work with you (banker, hard money lender?, contractor, lawyer, cpa, etc...). Then do it.

Good luck, and I hope that helps a little.

Another possibility is to create Manager managed LLC, and both of you be 50% managers. Have the LLC take the title. Any banker is going to require you to personally guarantee a business loan like that anyway, so the title shouldnt be an issue. If it is, find another banker.

Keep in mind also that when you are creating a business entity, you are required to put a business purpose, and what I found out before I Incorporated, was that you can state your business purpose as "Any lawful purpose" or "Real Estate Investing, and any other lawful purpose".

That way you can conduct any business you want through your entity and nobody can come at you later and say why are you selling baseball cards on ebay when your business purpose is Real Estate..... just sayin....

Also, my 2 cents.... creating a corporation might be more work, but can afford you some serious tax advantages. Hold properties in your LLC, but have a corporation that owns that LLC.

Keep in mind that if you are buying from a person, there does not need to be any Earnest Money involved, at all. My first deal I lost out the EMD, because I couldnt get my buyer to sign. $250 gone. I thought I had to have an EMD to make a valid contract. Not so, at least here in Texas. So my next few deals, I write in $0.00 for earnest money, and havent had a seller balk at all....

In addition to doing a double close, which incurs 2 sets of closing fees, you can do an "Assignment of Contract" for your assignment fee. You essentially sell the end-buyer your existing valid contract with the seller.

Write the contract with the seller, as if you were actually buying it. You can use an inspection contingency, or you can do an option to buy, and put that right in the contract. The time frame can be whatever is agreeable to both you and your seller.

When you have an investor, or other end-buyer, lined up, you sign an Assignment of Contract contract with the investor, which will disclose your assignment fee, and the total purchase price, it also says that they will be obligated to fulfill all the terms of the original contract.

Take both forms to the Title company, do 1 closing, where your seller closes directly with your end-buyer, you step out of the deal, and the Title company disburses all the funds, including your assignment fee, directly.

This is what I generally prefer to do, though I have to do my closings with a title company that isnt local, since my local ones don't know how to do an assinment of contract. I would use the double closing strategy if there was more money for me on the table, and I didn't want everybody to know exactly how much i was making in the deal. Then it might be worth the additional closing costs.

Good luck.

I agree with "Get as much as you can, while still providing a good deal to the buyer". I usually get 5k, but im in a much smaller market. If the deal can tolerate it, I go higher than that.

I added up your posted monthly expenses, and, including your debt service, you are looking at $2952.50 per month. I assume from your post the 3 units each rent for $1000, and you are going to be living in one of them? So you will only be collecting $2000 in rent per month from the other 2 units. Looks like you will also be paying $1000 per month to be living there. is that worth it?

If it has been listed for sale for 2 years, and its still available, that generally means something is wrong. If it was a good deal, it would have sold long ago. Negotiate for a WAY better price, or ask the seller to finance for more favorable terms....