All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

@Ray Lai I don't know if it was intended to be a scam, but my experience is that it doesn't offer me anything but a much harder time looking for properties than just going to the sites directly. I think there is room for automation, but this program wasn't a fit for me. 

House hack. This is overly simplified, but here is the gist. Find an ugly three bedroom house for cheap for sale by HUD, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Get great ARV numbers/comps etc from an agent who knows the investment/flip business. Many don't. Make offer during the owner-occupant period. You can get properties a lot cheaper as an owner-occupant, before investors bid up the price. Get a government-backed first-time homebuyers mortgage. Live in the home for two years and learn the hard way about fixing it up. Hire help where needed but learn how to do anything you can. Rent out rooms to cover the mortgage if you feel like it. Sell after two years of living there as your primary residence, completely tax-free. Roll all of that money into your next purchase and do it again and again until you have enough capital to live elsewhere and fix up a different property. You can only use the tax provision once every five years, though. I house-hacked three times until I had enough to buy a home and an investment property. Not quick or easy, but it worked and I enjoyed it.

Thanks for the advice that all makes sense. I knew I was just dizzy with the potential and couldn't  I think straight, especially about the short sale issue. Im just at the beginning- I don't know what the condition of the house is, what the payoff is, or about other liens. No equity is worst case scenario but I wanted to see if there was something I could do if that were the case. I will go ahead and get her under contract, conditioned on those title issues. If the title work and payoff comes back making payoff of the mortgage a deal breaker, I don't see a viable option for me to do anything other than keep my eye on it to hit the market. Thanks again for the advice. 

I am glad to have helped!

Hello - I have come across a seller who likely is probably about break-even in their mortgage due to non-payment for three years. The lender has still not foreclosed. The seller is willing to give me the deed for pennies on the dollar. They have no intention of paying the mortgage, no interest in curing or saving the house, no interest in listing and selling on the MLS- they just want to be done with the bank's harassment and the entire situation. They have moved out of state. They understand that they would still be liable on the mortgage, but are hoping that I would be able to deal with the bank. What I am curious to know is if anyone has navigated the short-sale process with a seller, and would it be in any way possible to do it with the Deed having already changed hands? Do not blow this off as a thoughtless question - sometimes I think that sounds completely ridiculous, then other times I think maybe there is an angle. I imagine that I could have a contract with them to sell me the house if the short sale amount is approved, but a contract is a lot less appealing than a deed. Then I think maybe I could do some quick repairs to the home, and sell it for more than the amount owed, and pay off the prior owner's mortgage at closing... All assuming that the bank doesn't foreclosure in the interim?? Fishing for ideas here, while getting the info for title and the numbers together- I have not even seen the inside of the home yet. I am just at the beginning but as it is new territory for me, I need advice. Just as an FYI I would be paying max $9,500 for the property which has an ARV of $360-380K, save for the encumbrances of mortgage, and I'm sure, taxes- hence my eagerness to try and figure out how I might be able to swing this. Thanks for any input.

When I did an internet search, I did come across a lot of negative reviews for their service of connecting investors with lenders, but nothing for this particular product. 

Hello - I wanted to share my experience with the Connected Investors Deal Dog software (web-based). This software claims to scour the internet finding deals for you, in a fraction of the time it would take for you to look for them yourself.

Now, I didn't expect this software to perform any magic, but I was curious if it would bring me a nice, neat compilation of off-market properties in the areas I am interested in. If it did, and saved me even a few hours of searching the web, I would say that it was worth the $97.00 a month. However, I do not find that to be the case. I also thought that maybe it would look through many sites that I had not heard of,  I could learn some new sites to search for properties- but that was not the case for me either.

First, regarding the sites that are searched: I have only had the software a few days, but the only sites that have shown up for me with a property in my area are: Craigslist, Hudhomestore.com, Hubzu.com, Auction.com, Forsalebyowner.com, and the site that sells the software. To me, all of these (maybe with the exception of the site that sells the software) are well-known places to look for a property. Therefore, the hope of learning about a new spot to search for off-market properties was a bust. This is not to mention that properties on HUDhomestore are on the market...

Second, and even more problematic, is that the software  seems to just pull anything and everything off of Craigslist for the named area - with no culling whatsoever. There are rentals, retail homes, and homes in areas outside of the searched area that are just posted on the searched area's Craigslist. Within the software there is no way (that I saw) to narrow results - meaning that you have to click each to see the result on a new tab in it's original posting location. This is extremely time-consuming - much moreso than just going to Craigslist and doing a search- where you can narrow results easily, and everything is within one tab. 

For those reasons, I am cancelling my subscription (there are no refunds, that is very clear in the terms) and eating the $97. I figured it was worth a shot if it could possibly save me any time - but it was a no-go for me.

Just wanted to share in case anyone else was thinking of trying it out. 

There are many pros, but two cons that seem most prominent in my mind of the bat: 1) getting a license doesn't make you an expert out of the gate, even with MLS - an experienced real estate agent can guide you into an emerging market that you might not know about vs. an obvious, saturated market, for example, or explain why a comp only .2 miles away is actually no good for your prospective purchase, among other things 2) if any litigation were to arise in your r.e. business, having a license will almost undoubtedly mean you are held to a higher standard, probably with respect to any aspect of the deal.