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All Forum Posts by: Michael G.

Michael G. has started 37 posts and replied 340 times.

Post: Wholesaling help and answer

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

Congrats Steve! Nice to see a check with a recent date on it! Did you collect your fee as an agent or was it an assignment fee?

Post: loan mod or short sale?

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

She's behind on payments.

Her loan is with Litton. She says they denied her last loan modification.

She wants to sell but I thnk she said she re-applied dor a loan mod. I suggested she do a short sale.

She's unsure if she can do a short sale if she re-applied for another loan mod.

She said something about the house having to be listed for 90 days before she can do a short sale?

Should I just get the authorization to release information form from her and talk to Litton first to see what the story is and what they are willing to do?

Post: Results of 1st visit to Courthouse for Probate Leads

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

@skye - Ive learned to look for a) the ones that dont look like husband and wife where the survivor is still living at the property and make sure none of the admistrators are living at the property. b) To look instantly for the ones that have real estate listed as assets c) The ones that don't have a lot of people listed as heirs.

Not sure why the office worker is saying that the probate records dont have property in them yet. Maybe your county is different but in my county the person filing for the letters of administration has to list if there are real property assets in the estate to specify what the value of the estate is. In my county that sheet is called the "petition for administration". That one form tells me a lot of information. Who the executor is probably going to be and their address, Co-executors, date of death, domicle of deceased (usually the property that the deceased owned but not always), heirs. Once you get that document and it may be called something else at your office, u can quickly determine if there is even property there, where that property is in case you wanted to do a drive by. I always google the properties im interested in first to make sure they arent listed. I've gotten all hot about a property and when I drive it there is a Realtor sign in the yard already! I know you dont need to waste your high priced gas doing that. :roll:

Check my post in this thread on 1/03/2011 that talks a little about how I work through the process.

Post: The Dovetail Method

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

I was looking at the dovetail method to close short sales. The distinct advantage is that it allows one to avoid the dredded issue of holding title for 90 days before reselling. Yes it uses a trust. Nothing new right? The twist is that the dovetail method hides the transfer of real property because what gets transferred in the trust is "personal property" not real property. Some real slick s*&t!! I was impressed. I forget the intricacies of the type of trust they used and how the peice of real estate became personal property but it sounded cool to me so I asked my attorney if he would sign off on it. He said NO.. he didnt like it and when he asked his underwriting attorney, the underwriting attorney said its BS and it would not work in NY. Me being the ever diligent seeker of more information and clarification reached out to John Grant from SREC. He is the person who ran the Dovetail method webinar. He said he had 2 people in NYC who used Dovetail and 1 in Albany. He said he would get them to contact me. Never heard a thing. I emailed John (more than once) asking him to put me in touch with someone, anyone in NY who has SUCCESSFULLY closed deals using Dovetail. I wanted to basically have their attorney explain to my attorney why it would work in NY..what thenuances are..which title companies in NY are on board with it and which are not. You know let the attorneys do what they do. Anyway the last email to John Grantt was 4/1....he went all radio silent on me. Havent heard from him since. The program is freakin $5K! You know I want to know someone who has done a deal or 2 before I shell out that kind of money. I'm not saying its another high priced, super slick, superbly marketed, REI gimmick...I'm just saying...

Post: Short sales require 60 day period between title closings in NY State?

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

Sorry for the late response. We set up an S- corp. It was more cost effective than an LLC because in NY we have to pay publishing fees and they run high. The buyer was not hard to convince. In fact, most of the buyers I talked to seemed to be open to the idea. They don't mind a newly formed corporation. Some objected to buying with a already established corporation because they dont want to inherit any debt or liabilities that corp may have. The arrangement my cash buyer and I have is that I collect a finite fee for every property I bring the corpration. All other profit belongs to him. This is for every deal. You can see there is lots of buyer incentive there if the deal is right. The buyer that Ive partnered with said he would buy both of the houses I have in my pipeline so he seems like a player. Time will tell.

Post: Rehabbing and Hold

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

I've seen 4 units advertised for $93K in Columbia. Not a lot of money by NY standards. How much is your acquisition cost. How much are your repairs? Have you thought of raising private money to fund the acquisition and repair costs? Private money is note hard money nor is it institutional money. Its regular people who have money socked away in a MM account or some low interest account getting horrible returns. The model for acquiring rentals is not that difficult. Acquire at a huge discount. Add value by doing repairs. Your rents should ALWAYS cover your expenses with money left over afterward. This is referred to as positive cashflow. What are your expenses you ask?
Use this memonic PITIMUMV.

Principle
Interest
Taxes
Insurance
Maintenance
Utilities
Management
Vacancies

You have to know your numbers or you will end up on the wrong side of this deal in a hurry. Getting private money is great because you wont have to use any of your own cash or at least not alot of it. The return on investment has to be worth while for the people who are lending you the money. Ther are alot of people that have money sitting aroung making 3 % and you could be offering them 6% or 7% for a few years until you can cash them out. They will love you and come back looking for more deals for you to put their money into.

Post: Found Vacant......Now What?

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

Ahh yes..the land of vacant houses...I love it! OK. So you need to determine if they belong to the lender or the owner. When I find a vacant house I call the tax assesor to see who the owner is and if there are back taxes owed. The tax receivers office in my town will tell me if the taxes are being paid or not. Usually its still owned by the current mortgage holder but occasionally it belongs to the bank. If it belongs to the owner, then you have to track the owner down and see if they are willing to sell. Email me and I'll tell you how I do that. Most of the vacant houses I found (99%) are candidates for short sales. Once you contact the owner and determine if there is a deal there you need to get their authorization to talk to the bank. That done using an authorization to release information(ATRI) form. Usually has their name, loan number, address of the vacant property and ss #. If its a deal you need to get the property listed with a realtor. Make sure the realtor know the area and understands short sales or it could be a very challenging experience. I forgot to ask if you saw a lockbox on the front door because if you did that usually means the bank or another investor already has the property. If not, good. Hopefully the owner will have a set of keys so you can get inside and determine repair costs. Its important to get the repair cost and the asking price right because when you go to your buyers with that number, if its off you wont be doing any deals. Sometimes if I'm not sure how to estimate value I invie the buyers to come i and take a look and let them tell me what they think it will cost to repair. Thats a good segue to the fact that you are going to need buyers and lots of them. Your realtor should be able to run a report that shows all houses that sold for cash in that town in the last 12 months. l usually cross reference the address of the properties in that report with the deeds at the county court houses so you can see who the buyers were and what their addresses are. Send them a mailing with your vacant house address and tell them to contact you about getting in to see it. Be prepared when your buyers start calling you to answer their questions. How much can you discount it? What repairs does it need? How did you find it? How do you get paid? Is it your property? It gets more interesting because these days there are seasoning issues. Typically you cant sell it for 90 days from the day you purchase it. You have to have a proper exit strategy in place when that arises. Do you have a team in place? Your basic team for a wholesaler is realtor(run you comps and determine value), attorney (preferably one that know and understand short sales and REI), Rehab investors. You may also need a home inspector that can come in and validate your repairs...on paper...and add a value to those repairs. The bank and the BPO person will probably be more on your side if you have a repair list that shows cost of repairs by a licensed professional. Theres more but if you can get halfway through what I just mentioned then you are in an excellent position to get some deals done. I might have left out some things but that my friend is the basic framework of a vacant house deal. :lol:

Post: Real Estate Guru Emails: How Many Do You Get?

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

I get my fair share but mostly because I opted - in. What's interesting is that I opt-in for 1 particular REI system or product and the GURU tends to use that email for ALL of the products they offer. I'm pretty sure they share my e-mail address with their GURU friends because I miracously get an email for some product that I know I didnt opt-in for.

Post: Marketing Letters - What works best? Magnets? Flower seeds? Bulky Items?

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

I'm 2 seconds from becoming a realtor. I notice different realtors use different marketing to get prospects attention. Some use postcards. Some send magnets, pens, keychains or some bulky item with their Broker name and contact infor I guess to keep them top of mind with the customer. One realtor sent me flower seeds a few weeks back with a catchy phrase like "Its time to Spring into action!" I ran across a property in an estate that I would like to market to. Could be a $900K listing. Should I just keep sending the executor letters stating the benefits of listing with us? Should I offer to take him to dinner? Let me know your thoughts.

Post: Short sales require 60 day period between title closings in NY State?

Michael G.Posted
  • Wholesaler
  • Bay Shore, NY
  • Posts 359
  • Votes 199

Still waiting on approvals from the bank. Already switched the contract around to make the buyer a corporation. I will take title in the corporations name. My cash buyer and I are partners in the corp so no seasoning issues. You never got back to me on the Hempstead deal or the Brentwood deal. Are those still on the table?