All Forum Posts by: Lee Allen

I would be happy breaking down my services and giving the customer a cafeteria plan of options and let them choose the options that they want. They would have to pay the fees upfront whether the house sells or not.

MLS Listing $500
Flyer Design $150
Simple Photo $35
Pro Photos $150
Open House $25/hr
Ad Design $25/hr
Website Design $150
Website Hosting $10/month
Prepare Closing Paperwork $300
Meet Appraiser/Inspector at property $35 per call
House Staging $500+

My company offered a fee for service program and noone wanted to take advantage of it. It seems that sellers didn't want to pay a small amount of money up front and take the risk.

You may not have to pay a large transaction fee to sell mutual funds or stocks but you also don't ask them to invest $500 or more into selling your stocks and 2-3 months of their lives fielding calls either.

Your right. Many people should never be homeowners and rent the rest of their lives. People who like to move every year or two should rent. If you cannot be responsible to keep the house maintained and repaired then you should rent.

I know of one new homeowner that had been renting for years. A few months after moving into the property the AC unit died. The homeowner wanted to know who was going to pay to get it fixed.

A house is a medium to long term investment and should be regarded as such. As with all investments there is risk. As real estate investors we learn to mitigate that risk.

This is a guide to help you understand Realtor commissions. You can use this to your benefit to make cash offers to Realtors.

On a $150,000 house with a typical 6% commission is $9000.

This commission is split the follow ways

$4500 go to the selling agent & his broker
$4500 go to the listing agent & his broker

Out of the $4500 that the agent receives here is a breakdown
$900 goes to the broker
$1440 goes to pay Federal taxes & Social Security
$300 for advertising the property
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$1860 is what a Realtor nets out of a $9000 commission

Also about half of the properties that a Realtor lists will never get sold. That means that I will spend $300 on advertising on many properties that will never sell.

You can use this information to go to a Realtor and offer them $1000 cash for their expired listings that fit your criteria.

I know that many sellers think that Real Estate agents make a ton on money but the typical real estate agent makes about $20k per year and only last 1-2 years. There is a 30% turn over rate in agents each year.

I was pointing out that the last few years homebuyers that bought houses at retail value now have to pay to get out of the house.

There is a dark side of buying a property with no money down at full market value.

I get alot of calls each week from people that bought their property last year and got a 100% loan and now they have to sell the property.

As a Realtor I have to tell these people that they will often have to bring 10k-20k to closing to get rid of the house and pay Realtor Fees and Closing Costs.

Often the seller wants to just mark the house up an additional 20k to see if it sells (which never happens). I have to tell the sellers that the house will never appraise for what they are trying to sell the house at.

The moral of the story is that [/b]if you don't pay to get into a house then you may have to pay to get out of it if the market goes down[b].

I would think that buyers would just try to clean up their credit and buy a 155k property in 6-12 months instead of an overpriced 185k property now.

I get about 10 calls a week from sellers that have no equity in their houses that need to sell. Most Realtors or investors won't touch these deals. Is there any way to make money from these.

I am an agent and I have considered adding seller financing to get these deals to work.

Here is a sample deal I run into.

House is worth $170,000
Owner owes $167,000
Monthly payment is $1325
House would rent for $1200

Should I advertise it in the MLS for $185,000 and Seller Will Finance. Many of the same houses in that area are being liquidated by banks for $155,000.

I have considered taking the $5000 that a tenant/buyer would put down and then just letting the buyer pay the seller directly and hope that the seller pays the underlying loan.

Is this to risky?