All Forum Posts by: Chris Feltus

Waste of time and money. Their sole intention is to sell you the "next" level of "training" with high pressure back of the room sales.

If you are wholesaling and marketing to home owners directly you will more than likely not be competing with hedge funds.

A contract is a bundle of rights, that's all it is. When you assign the contract, you literally assign all of your rights to the original contract to the new buyer. You couldn't even exercise the option period anymore if you wanted to once assigned (another reason I have the nonrefundable deposit wired to me). Thus, there is really no point to set an option period until the date of closing, 7-9 days is pretty typical for me for an option. This allows you to market and show the property if needed. If after your 7-9 day option you no buyers for it, notify the seller and let them know unless they are willing to come down in price your are going to have to exercise your option and terminate the contract. If it didn't move in that time frame you either A) don't have a deal or B) don't have the correct buyers for it. You need to limit your liability contractually to protect yourself. In the TREC 1-4 paragraph 15 part b it talks about remediation for the seller in the event of default (specific performance). You can strike through this whole line, both you and the seller initial next to it, and now the only remedy the seller has if your contract can't close for one reason or another is your earnest money. I would recommend putting some down, I wouldn't leave it at $0. The more you do this you will find contracts sometimes won't close on their closing date anyways, title issues will creep up, heirship affidavits with heirs that can be hard to track down, wiring issues on the buyers side with funding (hard money lenders) etc. Thats why your main protection is to limit your liability contractually as I stated.

You are over thinking this way too much. I have made more than $15,000 on an assignment, if the end numbers work on their end, it shouldn't matter if you are making $5,000 or $25,000 on the contract. On the assignment of contract I don't list what my fee is, I just put the final sum total as the purchase price for the contract including my fee.

Have them deposit a nonrefundable deposit wired directly to your bank account as well, when the check clears you know you will have a much more solid buyer. If someone is going to back out their going to back out, not much you can do about it whether they have closed 1 deal or 1,000. But if they put down $3,000 non refundable with you, you should have a solid buyer, and if they back out that money is yours to keep. Ive never had it happen, but personally if it happened to me I would take that money and give it to the seller and see if they would give me some more time on the contract. If the buyer is hesitant wire the deposit to you personally, let them know what can happen if they don't. What happens if the seller decides not to sign the documents at closing and changes their mind, and decides to not sign the RELEASE OF EARNEST MONEY FORM? If they had deposited the non refundable deposit with the title company, their deposit is going to float around in escrow limbo now. I of course provide outs for the buyer with deposits as well for instance if title cannot be conveyed as clear.

I don't "negotiate" with end buyers. My price is my price, if there is no demand for the house I lower my price simple as that.

Transactional funding is typically provided by hard money lenders.

@Drey Taylor There are two types of double closings. "Wet" and "dry", you are trying to do a dry double closing in which you are attempting to use the end investors money to fund the purchase to double close. Wet uses a short term transactional money which will cost you money (several points). Most title companies will not do a "dry" double closing like you are attempting to do, you will need transactional funding.

My question for you is why do you need to double close? I never double close on my contracts, I always assign them. Its a much simpler process, there is no transactional funding charge, and most investors prefer to have an assignment anyways.

If you are attempting to hide your assignment fee from you need to request that your escrow officer split the HUD1. Meaning the HUD1 gets split into two sides, and the seller and buyer will only see their side of the transaction. If you choose to split the HUD1 your fee will show up on the buyers side, but not on the sellers side.

@James Mudd Its roughly $2,500 to $3,000 annually after everything is said and done to maintain an active license. In addition their are additional fees such as errors and omissions that occur on a per transaction basis.

Mass direct mail campaign to targeted lead sources.

Hey @Jessica Gourdine rather than retype everything, here are a few threads that you may find useful. For questions on mailing frequency, what to say etc. I would recommend reading my response in this thread http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/93/topics/102404-trying-new-marketing-routes

On determining ARV, check out my blog post here: http://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/4218/blog_posts/29887-how-to-determine-arv

Equity is important because it allows the seller the ability to sell at a discount. You will likely need both equity and motivation for a given property to lend itself to a wholesale deal. If the seller is motivated, but there is no equity, there is not much you can do.

Buyer pays closing costs typically, you are assigning your contract. A contract is literally nothing more than a bundle of rights, you are assigning your rights in the contract to someone else. Unless you choose to double close, but I wouldn't worry about that in the beginning.

In regards as to what to say on the phone, I don't use scripts or anything of that nature. I am friendly and have a conversation with them, I don't interrogate them, try to beat them up on a price or sound like a robot reading line by line off some sheet. But I generally ask for property details, (the appraisal districts in my area are often incorrect on the # beds/baths etc). Ask them what the story is with the house, then sit back and listen. They will often reveal what their motivating factor(s) are lack thereof are. Once you have done several appointments and taken a decent amount of calls you will be able to figure out if the property has any potential fairly quickly.

Postcards can be long just like yellow letters it depends on your preference really. For instance a post card can be brief and to the point or it can be longer if you want a custom message and variable data. Personally I prefer short and to the point messages. I send the same message every time, the key is repeat mailings.

Furthermore the 70% "rule" is a guideline not a hard and fast rule. The all in % investors will buy it will vary and is hyper specific to your market and where your subject property is located and the exit strategy for the subject property. Here in TX landlords are commonly buying at 75-80%, in CA people are buying at 85%, thats at a national market level. Being hyper specific I could show you precise subdivisions in my area where the % number will vary. What, you need to get to know your market. Part of being able to do that is networking with buyers and looking at enough houses plus MLS access. This will come with time and persistence.

I would encourage you to know as much as you can before proceeding with wholesaling as there are many moving pieces. But you dont need to know absolutely everything. You can leverage others experience and expertise to help you on your journey by posting here on BP and gaining people on your team that will help you. For instance an escrow officer that is familiar with contract assignments. I still don't know all nuances of the title/escrow process, and the truth is I don't want to know all of it, I leverage my escrow officers experience.

Hope that helps

There was a lengthy thread discussing the program found here http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/92/topics/76443-lifestyles-unlimited-of-texas

I highly suggest you do your due diligence before spending any money on mentoring.

Private money is built on relationships and networking, not a data set. Even if you were able to generate all of the private money lenders in your area its based upon your experience and portfolio that determines if they will lend or not. Personally, I would never spend that sort of money for such a program.

If your looking for private money the best way to go about doing this is:

• Attend local REIA and find people that have money to invest
• Get to know said people
• Show them your breadth of experience, what you do, what your strengths are.
• Have a portfolio that showcases your latest properties
• Showcase a current deal, how its structured, and how it can protect their interest and generate a profite if they decide to help fund
• Demonstrate your past experience by showing past projects where other people successfully made money by investing in your deals
• You might even find a private lending partner here on BP, keep your eyes open

Yes I do it all the time. No issues.