All Forum Posts by: Calvin Rankin

@Andrew Holmes

@Dylan Vargas @John King I'm sorry for the long delay in replying. Some urgent matters came up that I had to take care of but I'm back in the saddle again. :-) Thank you all for the advice. I'm getting comfortable with the idea that being up front with everyone about what I'm doing is that best and easiest policy. That fits my personality type as well since I'm not one to shy away from things. Thanks!

Reading through the forums I came across a post by a new wholesaler in Maryland. She had sent out yellow letters and gotten a response from a realtor who was representing the homeowner and she wanted advice on how to proceed. One of the people responding pointed out that she should be sure she knew wholesale laws for her state before speaking with a realtor. He stated that If her intent was to make an "offer to buy your house for cash" and the truth was that she planned to wholesale it off to someone else, the realtor might catch this, and if illegal, might be inclined to turn her in to the local agency that controls. Is  this something that I should be concerned about in California? Where would be a good start to become educated on the laws regarding wholesaling in California?

Hi everyone. I'm sorry for the long delay in replying. There was an emergency that came up that took some time to resolve. I'm happy to say that I was able to take @Jennifer Ramsey 's advice and connect with a local title company that was willing to give me access to the website that they use to identify properties and the owners. In exchange I've agreed to work deals through them which I am happy to do. Tomorrow I begin my first yellow letter campaign based on the information that I was able to obtain. I'm pretty happy to be moving forward,

@Jennifer Ramsey @ Samuel Pawlitzki @Kyle J. Thank you very much. Your information is very helpful and very insightful. The information that I had was according to people who had their businesses in other states. I had assumed that since they each had students across the country then their blanket statements covered California as well. I guess not. Thanks so much!

@Manolo D. I understand your point. When I first started researching real estate investing I was surprised to learn that this information wasn't protected. It makes investing easier but its still surprising. 😊

This week I took a leap and jumped into starting my business as a wholesaling newbie. I had an exciting time driving for dollars and was able to locate almost 200 distressed properties with 3 of them being vacant. Everything I have read and listened to said the next step was to determine if there were absentee owners for the properties. Everyone said that this was simple to do by going to the tax assessor's website for the county you live in and finding the address to where the tax bill was sent. It was very easy to get to the assessor's site for Los Angeles County where I lived and very simple to look up the property information. However, the property information did not include the address for the tax bill. When I called the assessor's office the lady I spoke to said that the site didn't include this information because it was confidential, but she could give me the information for any particular address over the phone. I asked why could I get the information from her over the phone if it was confidential but I couldn't get it over the website. She said that was just the way the site was designed. 

I can't keep calling this lady for tax address information, especially if I've got close to 200 properties to look at. Is there an easier way to get this information? Any investors doing deals in Los Angeles County, do you have any tips?

Btw, I'm starting with driving for dollars because I don't have the funding to consistently do a mailing campaign so any help that can be provided would be greatly appreciated.