All Forum Posts by: Chris Cliff

Hello all!

Over the years I've had a few rentals, and flipped a few houses.  I'm not completely inexperienced, but I'm feeling like it as I'm back at square one right now with no properties.

Home base is Lynnwood, a few minutes north of Seattle (unless traffic is bad then it is a lot of minutes).  

My target is to start picking up smaller multifamily properties 8-12 units but I'm going to need to do some faster deals along the way to help fund that goal.  Unless someone just wants to hand me a pile of cash to go invest.  I'm always up for that!  

Hopefully that qualifies for an intro, if you are the area or wanting to invest up in the Seattle market, give me a shout and say hi!

In my experience, for all categories, Craigslist is a big of a sewage treatment pond to fish in. That being said, good things do occasionally swim through it just due to the sheer volume of traffic.

I will go with Charles on being able to see what people are wanting to network for. That would be nice, along with a last login date.

I have made offers on moldy houses before, the worst of which would have taken $40k to be fully remediated and have a certificate of cleanliness.

A little mold can be pulled out and cleaned up, but when the whole house is moldy, I want pros in and a certificate from a 3rd party saying it is clean.

The last thing I want is the new owners to talk to the neighbors and find out what was growing in their 'new home' before they bought it. That is just a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Only have used them once when a client had purchased their flooring. No real complaints other than it had enough formaldehyde in it to choke me. Seriously, that lovely odor just rolled out when I started unwrapping the boxes. I am guessing it all comes in from Asia and is probably about as un-green as it gets.

This is something we are jumping in on here in Washington State. Biggest hurdle I am seeing is that it looks like we are limited to three deals a year without getting a dealers license. Dammit!

If anyone else is up here in Washington, give me a shout. I would love to network and discuss business!

I will agree it is mostly ego and that 90% of all real estate agents are paid way more than they are worth. Seems like it is the career to go to if you flunk out of being a server.

As for the education they get, I have been there and done that and the basic real estate licensing classes don't teach you half of what you really need to know. They don't teach you anything about running a real business, working with clients, returning phone calls, or being a good real estate agent.

As for them learning to be real estate investors, I think most are not qualified to tie their shoes, let alone decide if a property is a money maker.

Probably going to tick people off with this post, but it is the way I feel. I am married to great agent and I have come close to knocking a few heads together when she has dealing with moron agents.

My favorite pair are:

"What repairs and maintenance do think need to be done to the house?"

"What do you estimate it will cost to get those done?"

Gives me an idea of what is going on with their property, and gets them thinking that their property might not be as 'perfect' as they are dreaming it is.

Wow... Three properties for $90,000. Definitely can't do that here in the Seattle area. Good job though!

I definitely agree, a $1000 fee is reasonable if you delivered a lead that worked out.

I think that if you could bring the person you are referring it to as much info as possible it would help substantiate the fee. If someone gave me a name, number and address and that was it, I would be more hesitant to be forking over money.