All Forum Posts by: Brian P.

Chris One more thing, never use the word wholesaler except with other investors. 

Chris

I don't know if I If I gave you an answer, things are a little crazy around my place for the last 6 weeks. My general answer to them is I make my living by investing and by helping people solve problems that want help in getting them solved

Don

Always and I mean always talk to the neighbors, half the time they will provide a clue that leads to the owner, also ask about what time the mailman delivers and ask him for any info he might have.

I used to love getting that question, it always gave me the chance to have a little fun. Why don't you get a real Job? Like what? Well like me, maybe a whatever. O.K., so your telling me you have a real job, are you the boss? Well I have a boss. Oh so to have a real job I have to please some overseer who takes orders from someone else. Tell me if I had this real job what would I have to do to get a 20% raise in income next year? If things are going well for the company you might get a raise, the most I ever got was 3%. So your telling me this job doesn't even keep up with inflation.

You know next week the wife and I are going to wherever for a few days, why don't you and your wife join us? Oh, I can't do that my vacation isn't until whenever. So getting this real job means I can't go some where with my wife and family whenever I want? So far this real job is starting to sound as if your a slave and your overseer keeps you under tight control. Oh,It's not that bad, The paycheck is there every month and there are good benefits. So your telling me as long as the company isn't bought by someone else who has a slave that does the same job you do or they don't outsource your function, or the company doesn't go bankrupt and use you pension money to give the CEO a big bonus, your set for life.

There are a ton of restrictions on real jobs, I was a executive for a fortune 500 company out of college and giving them 70 to 90 hours a week which is really giving them two employees for the price of one, I decided to get a life versus a real job. One Friday I walked into the office of the vice-president I reported to and told him I was going to lunch, he said you don't have to tell me when your going to lunch, I said I know, but I thought I should today, and he said why? I said because I'm not coming back.

As for college it did give me the most important thing in my life, my wife of 55 years, not much else, as a matter of fact I think a college degree such as a BA Should be obtained without the requirement of a bunch of unnecessary courses and obtained in 3 years not an income generating 4.

No matter what state your in you don't give up your right to invest in real estate in exchange for a license. As a matter of fact a broker whose license you work under only has the legal to restrict the the activities that require a license but that doesn't mean he has to keep you in his office.

Just a few quick comments. Yes there is no such thing as a Realtors license and when I was an active Realtor I quit using the term because it had no real value, it had become a generic term like Kleenex, which is used by most people for any brand of tissue. I used my real estate broker status instead. I sometimes used a member of NAR on letterhead but that was it.

Now about the complaint about having to tell someone your licensed, that is a good thing even though I was not required to do that under California law. It was only required by the Realtors code of ethics if you were a member, not state law. I found this to be a good thing, a seller was happy to hear you were familiar with state laws and all the legal paperwork, and many connections in the title and lending communities to help things go as smooth as possible, and I had a state agency to answer to in many cases unlike all those  no good unlicensed investors, And before some investor has a cow, lighten up, I was an investor for ten years before I added a real estate license to my tool belt. 60 years investing and 50 years licensed.

Get real, saying investors have dropped the concept of driving for dollars, not the real investors I know. Just like me they have discovered it is a good habit to acquire. You don't need to set aside time and drive a certain area, you just do it all the time, it should be a part of your daily routine, If your going down a street anyway why not keep your eyes open and drive for dollars at the same time. You will be stunned at the amount of money you have ignored in a year in the past. 

I am still trying to stay in the retirement mode and devote my time to the care of my wife but when I am out in the car it is a tough habit to break when I see something that might be a deal and I want to hit the brakes and check it out.

The guy learned to play the I am a cash buyer game but hasn't learned that the game has rules too. I would tell him he has 24 hours to cancel the contract in writing or you are going to file a complaint with the district attorneys office for fraud and them file a lawsuit for fraud by misrepresentation. He said he was a cash buyer, not he was going to find a cash buyer and assign it, and where I come from that meets the misrepresentation guide lines. I am a cash buyer means just that, he is not, nor able to be a cash buyer unless he can obtain the cash and have it under his person control in a timely manner, the asignnee is the cash buyer not him, and I doubt any judge would rule in his favor, his statement was intentional and misleading.

, I have tried to retire since the first of the year but recently one of these wholesale jerks showed up and the seller, who met me during a hospital stay, gave me a call asking if I could just sit in and listen to what an investor who was going to make an offer on his home is offering and to give him my opinion. The investor, really a wholesaler, shows up and I am introduced as a friend that stopped by. This guy couldn't give a straight answer if his life depended on it. I stayed silent until he said he was a cash buyer and so the deal wouldn't be delayed or killed by some banker. So I said, so you personally have all the cash at the present time? He said yes.  Me, that's great, where is it right now? He said what do you mean? I said where is it now, right at this moment, under your mattress, in a bank account, if you have it it has to be somewhere, where is that somewhere. His answer, it will be there when we need it. 

Well I said it seems to be that your really a wholesaler planning to assign the contract to a real cash buyer is that right? He said no, I have a partner who has the cash. I said great, then you are both going to be on title together, right?  Yes he said. I the turned to my friend and said you guys can come up with a price but don't sign a contract until his partner is here to sign it too and all of you have agreed to the proper terms and conditions that should be in this type of contract to protect all of you. Wholesaler quickly says I'm not interested in this property any more, I'm going to pass on it.

My friends wife later said now we have lost the buyer. No I said the real buyer is the guy he was going to assign the deal to, we will just find him.  They wanted a very fast sale for very personal reasons, and they came over to my place the next day, and a day on the phones resulted in a cash buyer at a fair price. Closed in 3 days. We placed a sold sign on the property just in case the wolf drove by just to bug him, if he had learned to be honest and fair and ethical in his dealings, that property would have been another good, and quick deal for him. Money in the bank. But the sellers were able to leave the money with more money by not doing business with the "pickpocket".

In one area that I did a lot of wholesaling in during the late seventies, and early eighties, the wholesalers had sort of a MLS, and greedy, or unethical guys were given the label "pickpockets" and not allowed to play with us. Investors soon learned if they did business with the pickpockets, the calls from the "MLS" seemed to dry up and they had to find their own deals, and they wanted to spend their time doing deals not finding them. The pickpocket had to learn how to do the deals themselves, or change his marketing location.

Frank 

To answer that I would end up writing a book but for a starter begin with learning to use your city, county, and state records plus learn how to use the neighbors, they know more then they think.

Derek gets the grand prize. The investor I mentioned wasn't the only one whose returned mail led me to deals. The harder they are to find the better or someone would have found them before me, but most quit looking very quickly, I have had a few that had no idea they even owned property and were about to lose it at the upcoming property tax sale.