All Forum Posts by: Dave Van Horn

I've closed same day when I've bought properties without title insurance (which I don't recommend) and you can close right away. But it's a calculated risk especially if it's inexpensive or bought from a family member, etc.

When I had a title company, I've had searchers embedded at the courthouse so we could rush it and it would typically be a day or two.

@Iris Sanchez In my experience I've found lenders usually prefer earned income rather passive income. 

If they do consider it, they would probably discount it or only use of portion of it. You can always ask "is it an asset based loan only or are there income requirements?" and go from there.

Good points from Jaycee above. 

I'll just add that coming from someone who has bought and sold multiple portfolios, a lot of it comes from your network. My last buyer came from BP! Or partially from BP I should say, we also shared the same maintenance guy (from the same property management firm). All avenues you can look to for viable connections with transactions like this.

For buying multiple properties, a lot of those deals came from close associates from local REI networking groups.

In terms of a better deal I guess you could say a lot depends on how the deals are structured. So my last portfolio I sold 14 properties in bulk, the seller and I both had ideas of what it was worth. When the appraisers came in, we did multiple adjustments. Some advantages were we didn't need a realtor which saved us on fees and I was able to carry a seller 2nd for a short period of time on a portion of the portfolio. So we had a lot of flexibility with terms which was nice. Also had minimal home inspectors to deal with or repairs. 

So it's not always direct pricing savings but peripheral things like that too. Hope this helps! 

In this scenario it's probably easier to do a collateral assignment of note and mortgage than trying to find a lender for a portfolio that size.

That's one of the reasons I started my own group ;)

Although I will say the REIA I recently attended did actually seem to expand into more of these topics. I think REIA tends to be narrower in focus because these types of groups are targeted toward beginners. I've found these more advanced topics in pay to play groups.

We've ordered thousands of BPOs over the years, and I tend to agree about the overall value accuracy but we're not always looking for value. We're using BPOs more to look for property descriptions and photos so that we can make a potential renovation judgement or to validate values we have from other sources.

We also have REO agents in specific locations where we buy often. And since they're dispositioning assets, they tend to give us better quality BPO reports.

Also when you're reading a lot of these reports you can start to tell from these descriptions who is good at BPO's and who isn't - and who to use again. We'll also will call the BPO agent sometimes to confirm data on it to get more details(another way to figure out the quality of the report pretty quickly).

Also keep in mind that bad BPOs can make you money too, like when the bank is using that for example, and you have quality boots on the ground giving you a more accurate value. So, I've found it works both ways!

I'm sure I've told this story many times but REIAs changed my life for all the points you mentioned and more. 

It even spurned me to start my own group which expanded into 5 states, 6 cities, and over 8,000 members. This in turn led me to screening speakers (which is how I learned about notes) and even met my business partners who I started my current company I still own today.

I still go to REIAs when I can (I just spoke at South Jersey REIA) and not sure anything virtual compares.

The biggest is that Real Estate Investing is always passive. 

That's probably tied with the myth that real estate always goes up in value!

@Jim K.

My story is similar to some on this thread as my dad left my mom when I was 8 with 6 kids. There were many limiting beliefs from my depression era family largely due to scarcity mindsets. One was that it takes $$ to make $$. I figured if I worked more I’d have more, so I had two jobs, 2 kids, a RE portfolio and my wife worked part time, looking back it was ludicrous. There was no focus or specialization ( like working in my unique ability) and the word leverage, and I’m not just referring to capital here, never entered my mind. Wish I knew then what I know now, hey I think that’s a song! :)

I agree with Brian, it's a rare request and I can't think of many instances of seeing it in the last 20+ years of working in funds and syndications.

Expectations are set up in such a way that most investors don't expect they're able to do this. It's more likely to happen when you're just retitling (i.e. in the event of death, divorce, etc.) or if you were bringing a prospective buyer for your share.