All Forum Posts by: Blaine Alger

@Amy Martini

I would suggest not mentioning it at all and just say that your realtor is just your "partner" on the deal. I feel like if you were to try to explain the situation to the potential seller, it would just complicate the transaction and deter the seller. Of course, there will come a time during the process in which it might come up and at that time you can take the time to explain the situation to the seller, but hopefully you have already built up enough rapport with the seller and the deal is already approaching the finish line, so it won't be an issue. 

When it comes to paying your realtor, just figure out an arrangement that will work best for the both of you and keep the seller out of the equation.

Keeping it as simple as possible is the best way to go. 

@Isaiah Moore

I definitely agree with @Jonathan Greene about adding  more of a personal touch to help distinguish yourself from other investors. But I don't think you necessarily have to shift away from the handwritten format.

I believe that the hand written letter continues to add to that personal touch and gets the point across that you are an actual person and not some big company. The local angle can give you that edge against other buyers, especially when you are dealing with high equity owners who might be older and a little weary of some company coming in wanting to buy their house.

One down side to consider is, hand writing all of your letters will be time consuming, but there are ways to get around that. I would check out ball point marketing and true ink marketing, which are companies that provide hand written letters that are written by robots. 

"No money down " investing seems very attractive to a lot of investors who are first getting started, but its not always very realistic.

Don't get me wrong, it can be a great investing strategy and there are many BP members who pull it off flawlessly. However, these investors have experience and knowledge in their market and most importantly are NOT using the "no money" approach because they can't afford to put down  money for a traditional down payment. They are using the strategy to scale their business and use leverage to maximize their returns.

I would suggest avoid the "no money" strategy until you get a couple deals under your belt and are more familiar with the processes. As some other people have mentioned, no equity brings alot more risk into the equation, which is bad news for a first time investor.   

@Bogdan Kosilov

Congrats on taking the leap in to real estate. 

I would suggest you look in to going the owner financing route. This will allow you to avoid the W2 issue and get yourself into a cash flowing investment. 

However, it will take more leg work on your part. You will need to find an off market deal and then pitch a owner finance offer that will appeal to the seller. Even if they are opposed to the idea at first, it seems you have enough of a down payment to make them feel more comfortable. Great thing about owner financing, is that it gives you a alot of power to play around with terms( down payment, interest rate, maturity, etc) With all of the options available, you can find something that will work for you and the seller. 

What was the name of the service you used?

@May Emery

What type of parameters do yall use in order beat out other investors?

From my understanding, a lot of this  data is available to the public. It might be a little hard for the average joe to obtain it, but if they want to, they can figure  it out.

My point being, is I don't see how one can gain a competitive advantage because most investors are going after the same type of list/categories (absentee, senior with equity, vacant, etc).

@May Emery

I have pulled list before but I am not exactly familiar with a list broker.

About how much does it cost to have them pull a list for you?

I am more interested in platforms that allow you to pull up owner information on the spot if you see a property of interest while you are driving around.

@Dave Spooner

I got nothing against direct mail, just prefer the immediate response of a call.

What do use to get the contact info for your system that is similar to mine?

I am curious to see what everyone uses in order to get the contact information of property owners.

In my experience, I have used the online version of White Pages to do a reverse address search on the mailing address listed. This would pull up a list of names associated with the address and then you would just scroll through until you found the name you were looking for. Once you found the owner, it would list 5-10 numbers related to that name. Some might be relatives, others might be non-operational and then eventually you hit the jackpot.  It is not the most efficient but more times than not, you end up getting in contact with the intended party. 

The only problem is that in the past couple years, they have changed up their subscriptions and now only allow a certain number of "look-ups" a month. You use to be able to pay $20/month and have unlimited access to the data base, but now you only get 100 look ups each month. If you want more, you have to upgrade your subscription but you still only get certain number of people you can look up. This significantly reduces my out put and I would love to find an alternative. 

Let me know what you got for me BiggerPockets!

-BA

Thanks for the input Jason. I was not aware that some lenders would take in account  education as experience.

I have been looking to purchase a property for a couple years now but, I always get hold up at the financing stage. I was just curious if the same rules would apply for a refinance.