All Forum Posts by: Ashley Hightower

@Trey Crusey REI is just very disorganized. It's a great concept but that whole "all in one for only $50" just is horribly implemented. They are like " a jack of all trades but a master of none". If you have no budget and just getting started, it has the essentials. But if you are more experienced it in no way is a replacement of any of those services. The website is horrible, so many spelling and grammatical errors that you can't fix unless you know how to code. You can customize some stuff on the website, but its meant to not be changed. REI reply altogether is not user friendly at all. All their campaigns auto send texts, but you can't pause a campaign... There is absolutely no way to organize your prospects or leads except with "tags" but they even specifically say you shouldn't be tagging people with more than 1-2 tags. There is no way to go see who didn't respond when they are done being sent text messages so that you can re-market to them or cold call them. A ton of bugs that needed to be worked out. The automation aspect was cool, but as carriers are getting stricter it's going to be harder to have good delivery rates. Honestly it doesn't even save you too much money since all their stuff is through Twilio and so many other platforms use twilio. Plus there is no integration with CRM's. Absolutely impossibly to be organized with them. I think they think they are a CRM too, which I don't see that at all. But we would have to manually enter everything in to podio. The ONLY thing we liked is that their app was better than a lot of the other apps that we had tried. Lead Sherpa is my favorite so far, but they are moving to where they will be through Twilio as well which I don't like.

@Steve Morris

we did not get it for free, that one costs $100 and we used that as a starting point. We had an actual attorney look over the contract and make a few changes for us. There are so many free one page contracts online and I definitely would not use one of those. Ours is over 4 pages and pretty extensive. I was simply trying to offer a starting place for someone who may just be getting started. Most wholesalers starting out can't afford to pay an attorney $300 an hour to get an assignment contract. If you want to pay the $100 you can check it out yourself, but this one is by far the best assignment contract that I have seen online. Again, we did have an attorney make a few changes to it but as is it would do. I'd rather have her start here than some "wholesale guru" on Youtube who has a one page contract you can "get for free for a limited time by entering your e-mail here and buying my software".

@Steve Morris I do disclose our intentions. But in order for it to be a net listings, I have to actually have a signed buyer's rep agreement establishing a client relationship and fiduciary duty. I never represent anyone nor am I even the one who meets with the customer. My husband is a legitimate investor who chooses to either wholesale or the keep the property for himself. He always discloses if he is going to be assigning it, but that's not always the case. But we don't have to disclose how much we are assigning it for. Texas does have a law that states if a licensed agent takes place in wholesaling they are required to disclose they only have equitable interested when marketing the property (which we do). The net listing laws in Texas only apply if I am representing that person and plan to actually advertise their property for sale. The Texas law does specifically separate the two. I even met with my broker and made sure that I was not misinterpreting those laws. But I never even speak with the client because I do not want the fact that I am a Realtor to sway the seller's decision on if our offer is acceptable or not. Again, we always want to stay above the board but those are the current laws in Texas on the matter, and I spoke with multiple brokers about it. As thing's change it might turn out that it is automatically classified as a net listing, which we will then have to adapt our business to those new rules.

@Marci Mayes we got our assignment contract here https://sellfy.com/propelio/p/...

@Guy Gimenez Haha yea, I know there are a million hypothetical's out there. We always strive to stay up to date and make sure we are doing business on the up and up. So I appreciate your insight on that because I had not heard of the DTPA applying yet so I am glad that I came across that. We already take extra precautions since I am part owner of the company and I am a Realtor. There aren't too many rules about that, but I know that just like you said people won't side with the savvy buyer over the owner who believes they were taken advantage of! Will definitely do extra stuff like that in writing movign forward so that we can avoid potential issues.

Hey everyone,

So my husband and I have been doing SMS marketing for a few months now and we just recently tried Launch Control and I have a love/hate relationship with it. It’s a great concept, but poor execution in our experience. So does anyone have any other platforms they recommend? I’m hesitant to do Lead Sherpa because I don’t want to make a 3 month commitment and then find out they have all these same issues. 

Specifically our issues with Launch Control are we constantly have bugs. I have gotten on chat support like every day since we got it because something is not working right. It’s been different things each time. But they do not offer call whisper, so we have no clue who is calling us back when we get phone calls and it takes a while for us to look up who is calling. They also do not have any notifications, so we risk missing out on leads. And when we put a person on “DNC” the system will still automatically text their second and third numbers. So we have had people tell us “don’t ever contact me again” ans then 24 hours later we text their wife or kids the same message from the same number. Which just looks bad and there’s not a way to fix that. 

We also tried REI reply (using Twilio) and we liked it alright but we had our own issues with them that had no fixes as well because it's such a new system. We are looking into Roor. Any other systems that you have tried and liked or disliked?

@Steve Morris I'm an agent in Texas and I disclose certain things. My husband is the one who actually handles acquisitions, and we always disclose that I am a licensed agent and a member-owner of the company purchasing the property. But I try to stay away from directly soliciting anyone. My husband always tells people that he intends to have some other investors look at it and may have one of them end up buying it or doing a JV with one of them. We don't say that it will 100% be wholesaled, but that's true of our intentions. We could buy it or JV it if we wanted to but most cases it we prefer to assign it. We do disclose that there is a new buyer, but we do not disclose what they are paying for the property. I don't know what disclosures are required by a realtor, because I'm not representing anyone. But I always disclose I'm licensed. What additional disclosures are required in your state?

@Guy Gimenez Ohhh okay that makes more sense. But as long as we can prove that we have the cash to purchase it if we wanted then we should be good? For example we just dispo’d a deal in Ft Worth that some roof damage and foundation damage ended up being SOOOOO much more than our GC had originally anticipated. So we were barely able to get it assigned and we wouldn’t have personally bought it since even our numbers were way off. So if we ended up cancelling in that scenario we would have been okay as long as we were able to show proof that we had the funds to close? Even if our intention was to wholesale it? 

@Guy Gimenez Yeah, I'm sure. I was just speaking on my experience with our title company. So far we have only used this one title company. But I have heard that some will want additional things. Is it really considered DTPA is you assign your contract? I know there are wholesalers out there who definitely do shady stuff, and we always make sure that we do business on the up and up. But I hadn't heard of DTPA applying to assigning a contract though. My thought process on it is that you are not lying or breaking the contract. I didn't think having your company as the "buyer" would automatically be considered deceptive. Because who's to say that I didn't or couldn't have decided to purchase it myself and then later decide that I wanted to assign it instead. Because we do not put "and/or assigns" in our TREC contract and I was curious if that would automatically be considered deceptive then? And I'm curious if it is considered Deceptive exactly how it would considered that. Not saying you are wrong, I am just curious since we are newer to the business as well.

@Guy Gimenez I think it just depends on the title company. I 100% agree that you need to be upfront about your intentions. But I have never made the sellers sign a separate agreement acknowledging it. I just inform them that’s what the option period and earnest money would be for. And I’ve always used the same escrow officers. She’s awesome and I’ve never had an issue with them assigning it. All they have ever needed from me is the TREC contract and our assignment contract. Our assignment contract is 4 pages though and is very specific and straightforward so that may also be why they don’t have trouble with it. But you do have to find a really good title company because every one is a little different and some don’t have as much experience with investors and wholesalers so some may need a bunch of additional documents. My advice is BEFORE you ever get a contract, talk to your title company and ask them what all they would need from you and when in order to do an assignment. The time frame is also important because some they may need a week after you give them the assignment contract before they can close. So always be aware of that and ask them for time frames before you sign contracts so you can have that planned out.