All Forum Posts by: Brandon Foken

@Adam Hofmann that's how you take action! Wish more people on this site would follow your lead and start getting out there, talking to sellers and getting the lay of the land.

On the San Rafael property: what is the seller's motivation? Are they getting close to retiring and want to cash out? Are they tired of dealing with tenants? In talking with about a 100 sellers I've come to find out that if there is no impetus for change then more than likely they won't change their situation. Look for pain points in their current situation. I also would recommend to setup face-to-face meetings with every single person who calls in. In my (limited) experience, those who do not want to meet you are not motivated enough to sell their property. It's a quick way to sort out those who are ready to make a move and those who aren't.

Finally - who did you hire to do the handwriting of letters? I just hired a few folks off of Taskrabbit to do 500 letters a piece. One person is finishing up this weekend and never wants to do this task again. The other quit after 150 letters. Trying to find some responsible people that I can go to time after time to do the work.

@J. Martin I'm looking to get a few bids on a house that we are getting under contract this weekend in Oakland. Would the guy you mentioned previously be good for a larger-scale job? If so, can you please message me his contact info? Thanks so much.

I have a question regarding entity (LLC) formation between two partners when one of the partners is an active real estate agent.

To give you some back story, myself and my partner split all marketing costs 50/50. On the back-end, we split all profits 50/50. Obviously, we want to make sure that we are on the up-and-up so I'm wondering what sort of "triggers" there are that would require us to disclose that he is a licensed real estate agent.

For marketing, we use our investment name (not the brokerage name) and only my name is attached to marketing pieces. If people ask, I let them know my partner is an agent, but it is not mentioned in our mail piece.

The real question, for us, is when buying a house under a LLC for either flipping or wholesaling purposes do we need to disclose that he is an agent, and if so, do they need to sign an agency disclosure agreement? If his role is just splitting costs with me and nothing else, does a disclosure need to take place? Any advice or general knowledge about this matter is much appreciated.

Looking forward to the meetup! I just got a property under contract in Oakland and posted it on the BP Marketplace. Check it out right here. Let me know if you are interested.

I am looking to sell a duplex in Oakland that I have under contract. The cross streets are C St. & 101st Ave in Oakland, CA. This is a great deal with excellent cap rates for the Bay Area. Asking Price is $165,000.

Pictures can be found here.. The first unit is pictures 1 - 8. The other unit is the remainder of the pictures in the album.

From the pictures, you should be able to tell that it needs work. The front unit is 1/1 and is vacant. The back unit is a 2/1 that is occupied - a rentback for 2 or 3 weeks may be required. There is a 2-car detached garage. Electrical is wired for two separate units but water is not.

If you are interested in viewing the property, we are targeting a walkthrough for interested parties on Monday, Feb. 10th. We are limiting access to those parties who are serious and have the ability to close by 2/28/2014. If you have any further questions, please email me and I'll get back to you ASAP. Thank you.

Nice, Luis, I took that class around this time last year.

I guess I should have been more succinct in my first post. Is it worth it, as a wholesaler, to get professionals to come out and do a pest inspection, foundation inspection, general property inspection, etc.? Or will the end buyer want to do this with their "own" people? Trying to figure out if I should do this or if it would be a waste of money. Any help is greatly appreciated.

@Sharad M. thanks for jumping in. We were only $4k off on price, so that won't do it for us, but I like your thinking.

To clarify about inspections/disclosures. Are you saying that if we hired a pest inspection, you wouldn't use that information because it came from an unknown source? Or do you mean that you wouldn't trust a wholesaler's word about a house whom you've never done business with? I certaintly don't want to shell out a couple hundred bucks for insepctions if they'll be tossed in the trash.

Howdy BP Nation,

Today is a great day because a seller I've been working with for 3 months, called me up this morning and said she's ready to finally sell her duplex to me. Signing the contract tomorrow afternoon. Even better? We came in less than another buyer, but she wanted to go with us because she liked us (go rapport building!). If you are interested in looking at the pics, here you go.

If you clicked on the pics, you will see that the property is in pretty rough shape. Our exit strategy is wholesaling. With this in mind, would you normally get inspections/disclosures for the end buyers? Or do you advertise it "as-is"?

(Sorry in advance for beating a dead horse) Additionally, I've seen a lot of threads, comments and discussions about how to bring up the fact you need to bring in end-buyers to take a look at the property. I'm not really into straight lying to someone. Would you be upfront and say that either you or an investor you know will close on it? How to introduce the buyer when they do a walk-through? Are they contractors or an investor associate? Any potential pushbacks from the seller that I should be immediately aware of?

As an FYI, I got the name of title company from another investor I've met a few times and already got back the property profile. They didn't want to run prelim until I had the signed contract in hand.

Thanks in advance for the help.

@J. Martin I plan on making it out there for the first time, so count me in.

In State / Out of State?

In state - Bay Area even better.

Strategy?
Fix and flips & Wholesaling.

Type of properties?
SFHs mainly, but will look at duplexes and 4plexes.

Looking for?
Houses to purchase.

Can offer / knowledgeable about?
Still looking for that first deal, but I've had quite a bit of experience with different forms of marketing, both direct mail and online. Realtor contacts if needed as well.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, @Sharon Vornholt

The parameters for my list were: owned over 12 years, at least 40% equity in their house with at least $60k in equity, specific zip codes I wanted to target, absentee owned and no trusts. For us in the Bay, we also include a minimum house value of $200k, anything less and you are more than likely in a war zone. I basically crowd-sourced a bunch of criteria for my list from BP.

I do mail to in-state owners, but that is because I don't want to omit people in LA, San Diego or Sacramento. Interestingly enough, I had a caller say he was tired of dealing with his property and driving out there when he had issues and it was only 45 miles away because in the Bay that can take 2 hours to get to on a bad day.

Would you change anything about our critiera/parameters?