All Forum Posts by: Brett Tousley

@Patrick Britton  I was really hoping you would get a bunch of positive responses to your request by now.

As a fellow broker, I run across deals often that would work for me but not necessarily work for a non broker investor using hard money.  

I'm hoping you find some options as I was planning on posting a similar request today myself.

For me, I report agents income via turbotax each year and issue the agent a 1099.  This is also automatically reported to the IRS.

Congrats on a great purchase and thank you for sharing!

Is your $850.00 number just piti or does it include cap ex, vacancy and repairs?

$1400.00 seems like pretty good rent for that size of home but I have no idea what is normal in your market.  Are you renting to multiple tenants by the room or does a house that size normally rent in that range?

I really need to find a bank like you have found, that is a sweet setup you have going there!

I look forward to following your progress @Omar Merced!  After watching a couple of youtube videos of "The Shea Show" I'm hoping your experience goes smoother than that guys day to day life in Detroit.  WOW!

 Ryland, I wish I had known about you and bigger pockets when I worked in the Puget Sound region.  I'd have shut my brokerage down and worked for you just for the experience.

There are some real interesting responses in this thread, that's one of the things I really like about BP.

To some extent, the real estate business model is broken and has been for a long time.  Commission rates are based upon high failure rates, speculation that the home will really sell / the buyer will really buy and high competition from other agents.  You see there's always a rather large percentage of agents that are just getting into real estate and a similar percentage that are on their way out.  The bar to entry into real estate sales is far too low in my opinion.

Add in high broker splits that the average agent must pay, business and marketing expenses, licensing, taxes, continuing education expenses and the often overlooked by FSBO types, errors and omissions insurance and it can be tough to make a living.

And then there are the clients, those noble home buyers and sellers that find it quite acceptable to lie to all parties when money is involved.  There are a lot of crooks in real estate but it's usually not the agents.  despite public perception, most agents I've run across in my career are ethical, fair and hard working.  Yes there are scumbag agents out there that need to be weeded out but the majority of the crooks are the general public.

I tell my wife all the time I could make a great living selling homes for $1,000.00 a piece IF all buyers and sellers were honest.  But they aren't and never will be.  My job is safe as I see it.

This is the basic business model of Redfin.  They operate in higher end markets in a parasitic fashion to traditional real estate agents.  If the traditional agents weren't getting the lion's share of properties listed at their customary rate for the region, Redfin couldn't afford to discount/kickback their commission.  

This kickback is their marketing budget.  It allows them to answer the phone rather than chase clients like the rest of the industry does.

They also smartly put some of the drudgery of real estate onto the backs of their clients by offering technology that allows them to search the mls on their own and request showings of homes online.  Because they offer the kickback, some buyers and sellers are willing to do some of the work an agent normally would do.  

They will never take over the industry, but it looks as though they've found a niche they can work in.  That's more than the vast majority of discount real estate brokerage operations can claim.

It used to happen to me often on Craigslist when I worked in the Seattle area.  I'm a Realtor and post my listings on Craigslist as well as various other sites on the web.  What I've seen most often is they will use my pictures and descriptions of the homes for sale and post them as for rent at very low prices.

One even went so far as to look up my client's name (homeowner's) and open a new yahoo email account using their name. 

As an example, if my home owner was "john smith" the Nigerian scammer would snag "johnsmith at yahoo.com"

The scam was that "john smith" was currently working as a missionary in Nigeria.  If the victim would send them a deposit, first and last, they could rent the home and the good doctor "john smith" would mail them the key.

I would get calls often from hopeful renters who had googled the address and found me as the listing agent.  

I even got one call from a livid client that thought I was sub leasing her home while I had it listed.

 I've been doing this a long while, an investor that has $500,000 liquid to invest will always Trump someone looking for no or low down in my book. Even if they choose to purchase creatively. You may be the lighting strike that pulls it off time after time but I've seen many underfunded creative types fall by the wayside and never buy a thing.  It's a business decision for me.

 I agree wholeheartedly as an investor Gino but speaking only as a broker, a client with $500,000 to work with is more valuable to me than a client looking to make it happen with creative financing.  The 500k client has the means to move on most any opportunity they desire.  The creative investor is looking for a more rare or specialized deal.  In short, the 500k investor means less work for me and greater opportunity for reward than the creative investor.  Either one would get my attention asap but if I had to produce something for both parties at the same time...  the 500k investor would receive their info first.