All Forum Posts by: David Dey

Not a realtor but have been selling homes for 25 years.

Especially in a transitioning market, there seems to be an interesting occurrence.

You have a 4/2 2 car garage that you feel you have priced right at 299k. (You chose to keep it 1k under the 300k so you will still trigger the buyers that just meet the threshold, sound familiar?)

The problem is there are a hundred identical homes at the same price. 

So after sitting there for 20-30 days your advice is to lower the price, which is valid advice.  However, the issue is this is the same advice all the other realtors are giving their clients.

So how does one stand out?

While price most certainly is a factor, I have a few suggestions for you.

In the end buyers agents sell homes.  Reward them.  Encourage your seller to offer a buyers agent bonus.  (You can always include, “with full price offer” so there is room to pull it if they try negotiating too hard) 

Practical incentives:  credit for insurance, closing costs, buy down on interest, to even making the first *blank* number of mtg payments (with full price offers is a powerful statement while still instilling the emotional response.  This can actually end up cheaper than negotiation)

Unique incentives:  let’s say there are 3 identical houses in the same neighborhood, all for sale for the same price, but yours comes with maid service for a year. (with full price offer) Which one will stand out?

Other options:

Living room or bedroom set.

Cruise/vacation

Free gas for (blank)

Vehicle 

A friend of mine sold an investment property for a relatively reasonable price at our local reia. (He had offered the property for several months prior at the same price)

This evening he made his grand announcement. He was throwing in his F250 in to the deal for FREE!! The truck was used, reasonably nice with plenty of miles but he had a bidding war that evening and walked away that night with a contract that closed. (again *with full price offer leaves you the ability to keep or pull the offer)

The point is get creative.  People buy on emotions then justify with logic.

Look to who this house will sell to and tailor your bonuses to them.

Confidence!!

(imma let you marinate on this for awhile)

What was the question again?🤔

Michael, I may be able to help.

We have a realtor on our team, as well an appraiser.  We also bring off market properties to the table as well.

Ashton, congratulations on stepping out on one of the cheapest and most successful way of finding deals.  Further, great job looking up the property assessor site to get the info.

Now we gotta find them.

You should have seen the post from Chad, who is right on the money.

See the mailing address on the property assessor’s site.  If it is different from the subject property, that is the address to “skiptrace.”  
if the mailing and subject property are the same, “skip” the subject address.

I fully endorse Chad’s “return service requested,” concept.  

I’m just going to give you some additional, free, cheap and more expensive ways to find them.

Free:  truepeoplesearch.com is a free search engine that allows you to look up people by name, address, phone and email.  And while it’s true that you get what you pay for, tps is actually not that bad.  (I always advocate for searching by address as it should give you relatives and assisted to reach out to if you can’t find the owner themselves.) 

Cheap:  BeenVerified.com, skipgenie.com  both of which are probably a step higher on getting phone numbers than tps, BeenVerified will also give you great data on death info, relatives, associates, marriage and divorce info as well as my favorite. Social media info.  (I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten ahold of someone through their fb acct.)

Highest level of skiptracing:  TLO, idi (I almost have to drop them to the second tier but they aren’t cheap) irb, tracers, Thomas Reuter’s Clear, etc…

These are the top tier people search engines.  While these tools are the cream of the crop, they usually need some higher level vetting of you to qualify to receive these.

You can do this yourself by becoming licensed as a process server. (Not very difficult to do, and can be an additional income stream and deal source in and of itself) 

Or you can sign on with sites like property onion, property radar, and propstream.  The only questions is where they are getting their data from.  

last 2 options are to see if you can make friends with someone with the service and pay for individual skips or if you have a realtor, title agent, process server, or attorney on your team, see if you can get them to qualify for you in exchange for you paying for it for both of you or in exchange for a fee or piece of the deals.

I hope this helps.

So between 2012-14 we averaged selling around 360 properties a year to hedge funds.  Honestly it was what brought us back after the crash.  

(Yes we were sucking wind from 2008-11)

Honestly, we learned about them by accident.

I was visiting a “whale,” in the central Florida market who bought at the steps and beat all bids, even if they were too high to maintain control of the steps.

That day, while I was at his office, he lost 3 bids in a row.

He started swearing up and down, and I had to know how he kept losing.  “It’s these @$&# funds that are buying up everything!!”

I had to find out what this was all about.

I went into public records and found the properties that had been purchased and then started digging and saw many other funds buying.

(Hint: if you see a buying company with Roman numerals as part of the name, it is most likely a fund.)

There were 5 or 6 big groups, and dozens of small to middle sized groups trying to swim with the sharks.  

I reached out first to the big ones, they were by far the toughest to deal with, but I learned a secret that usually gave me the in.  You should ask for the regional person for the area where you are wholesaling.  

The funds hire people, often realtors or property managers or whomever to be the person who controls the county where they are investing.  This is who you actually need to get in touch with.  They are the ones who really make the final decision.

Another tip is to pull up the properties they have bought in public records then look them up on Zillow or various marketing sites for rentals.  They will be offered by the contracted property managers.  

If you can reach the manager, they will be in contact with the local contact or may be the contact themselves.

So in the end, while we sold some to the big guys, we actually found our sweet spot with the smaller to midsized funds.  Those who couldn’t keep up with the Blackstone’s and the American Homes for Rent, etc, so while the big guys had rigid guidelines to go by, the small to mediums had to broaden their criteria.

To the smaller guys, we actually created a sales letter presenting ourselves as a boutique wholesaling group that would take their criteria and them off market properties that met their requirements.

While we got multiple funds that we ended doing business with, we found one group in particular that jumped on our offer.

Of the 360+/- deals we did annually, We ended up doing over 300 to the one fund who began putting in monthly orders each time a train h of funds came in.

While we didn’t make huge spreads, we made up for that in volume.

If you would like to see our sales letter, feel free to message me.

Disclaimer:

Regarding your specific questions, please know I can only answer in general as I haven’t owned property in GA in a long time.  What I am doing is attempting to only answer your question and add any general items to consider.  They are not by any means meant to advise you as to your specific contract and situation as I don’t have the contract to review so I am very limited in what I can offer.

I just hope to assist any way I can. 

1) I will be letting the sister know today that she has 24 hours to vacate the premises. But, if she does vacate I cannot then begin the eviction process unless the actual tenant also stops paying rent? (The next rent is due 11/15).

That is correct.  If she complies then the violation is cured.  You will have to uphold the contract or see if there is any other violation, such as the rent not paid when due.

2) If the actual tenant does not pay rent am I able to keep the security deposit to cover a month of rent to allow me to look for a new tenant (yes it is written in the lease for an early termination fee)  

If your contract provides for you to keep the deposit, then yes you can.  If there are specific conditions to your contract by which you may keep it, make sure you don’t violate those conditions. 

3) If she does not vacate the premises in the 24 hours provided do I call the police to ask them to notify her to leave as she is now trespassing? Or do I then begin the eviction process?

The short answer is, in most circumstances the police will tell you that this is not a trespass situation but a civil situation, which this is.  

The longer answer:
Neither the tenant or the sister is violating the law by being in the property. The tenant has been invited by contract to possess the property, therefore legally he has the right to do with it what he wants to as long as it does not violate federal, state, or local laws.  Inviting his sister to move into the property is legal by federal, state and local law therefore this is not the police jurisdiction.  
This is a violation of the contract thus a civil matter.  
Further, there may be federal, state or local protections that the tenant may rely on regarding familial possession, or regarding time to cure a violation.  Or if they are of a protected class.
IF you have any questions regarding your specific situation and want to make 100% you are compliant, seek the advise of an attorney in your area.

4) The actual tenant has not responded to me since 10/13 and I do not have any forwarding address information. If I do begin the ecivtion process how do I go about that with out any information for him? ( I do have a copy of his license from his application but do not know if that is where he would have returned to).

General rules of notice provide for you to serve the property which he is renting from you.  
if he is not there, and someone is there at the property, generally you may substitute serve him through them.  (As long as they are of legal age to receive notice)

Again, if you are concerned with your specific situation, please consult with an attorney in your area.  

Finally, I found this basic breakdown of eviction law in Georgia.  You may already have this information but I thought I might include it here just in case.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-eviction-process...

I hope I have helped in some small way.  If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

Quote from @Account Closed:

Quote from @Alexander Babenchuk:

Cold calling is legal without a robo-dialer provided they are not on the Do-Not-Call registry and between appropriate hours. Door knocking is legal. Mailers are legal.

I am not encouraging you to break the law, but 1/2 the industry does things that are not legal. Robo-dialing, blast SMS, breaking into vacant houses.

If you want to make an omelet you need to break some eggs.

 Haha nice! Thanks for the info! 

Someone mentioned that half the industry uses dialers and to make an omelet you have to break some eggs.
All due respect, that is horrible advice.
While I agree, MORE than 1/2 the industry does use dialers, it is still breaking the LAW!!
Don’t do it!! While many will not get caught, I don’t recommend you do 90 in 35 mph area. Everyone else is doing it is not an argument against prosecution.

There are now lawyers that are building practices, solely based on suing spam callers to the tune of 1500 per call.

And yes I know a number of people in our industry hit with thousands and thousands of dollars for just this issue.

Quote from @Karl B.:

What are a few of your favorite wholesaling/RE deal-finding books?

I'm not so much interested in becoming a wholesaler but I am very much interested in learning the best ways of locating off-market deals to purchase.

So I’m trying to do this as non self serving as possible.😁

I wold tell you to look up any books or courses on utilizing public records to find deals.

If you learn to use public records correctly, you literally have a business in a box.  You will have all the information necessary to find deals, buyers, and even the money to put it all together.

Deals:  why would someone either abandon a property or let it get into a distressed situation?

I call them the “4 d’s.”
1) Death- the big D!!
2) Divorce- family issues are one of the biggest reasons for a property to be abandoned or distressed.
3) Disaster- (this could be financial, such as loss of job, loss of income due to illness or other reason, etc… or natural disaster, such as the hurricane, tornado or any of the other disasters around)
4) Detention- jail, or legal issues.

all of these are public records.

Buyers- it doesn’t matter if you are a investor or buying for yourself, but there will be a deed.  (All these cash buyers lists come from this source, and it’s just as easy for you to do it yourself for free.


Money- I don’t care if it’s Bank of America or a
👉private lender👈 if they lend money, they will record a mortgage or a deed of trust… public records.

obviously, it’s as simple as I say, just not as easy.

I have developed my particular system over 25 years, and do teach this stuff. (The self serving part) but anyone with this kind of information is what you should look into.

Quote from @Mason Sergent:

Quote from @David Dey:

Quote from @Account Closed:

@David Dey Thanks for the info! When you cold call with your iPhone, do you use any kind of software? I know there's a software called smartphone.io where you can dial up to 3-4 people at a time, have the call recorded, and auto generate a phone number that isn't your personal phone. 

If I personally dial them using smartphone.io, do you think that could lead to trouble down the road? I was planning on using that first, and then giving them my personal phone number after I identify people with motivation.

So if the software is giving you an “unfair advantage,” by automatically allowing you to call more than one number at a time.
However, I think you may have more issues regarding recording the call without their express permission.
For me, my recommendation is to try and get a list that promotes the most motivation in the first place.  (Vacant+tax delinquent, preforeclosure, etc..) 
I do recommend very strongly before you go buying the same list everyone else is buying and worry too much about dialers and the such that you take the very first right of passage that I believe every investor should take.

DRIVING FOR DOLLARS.

This is also probably one of the lowest cost of entry while also being one of the surest paths to success.

Simply start going through the B and C areas of your town and start looking for signs of distress and abandonment.

Look for the tall grass, homes that you can see right through at the windows, homes with no curtains and no furniture inside, damaged mailboxes, mailboxes with no doors, missing mailboxes, cars with expired tags which have obviously not been moved in quite awhile, etc…

Once you have found 20-50 addresses, look them up on the county’s property appraiser.

Here is a link to a site that will pull up the property appraiser, clerk of courts and tax collector for every county in the country. 

(I set it for Florida counties for you: https://publicrecords.netronline.com/state/FL )

Once you identify the owners (or in the case where it says the owner is an estate, look on google or legacy.com for an obituary which will provide you with the heirs) use a skiptrace tool like skipgenie.com (who has a cool price point of $99/month for unlimited searches) to find them and see if you can make a deal.

By taking these basic steps, you will learn how to actually identify deals, which will be invaluable over your career.

On the other hand, anyone not willing to put in this specific sweat equity, will ultimately be robbing themselves of valuable experience and might not be right for this industry in the first place.

I truly hope this helps.

@David Dey you mentioned "once you identify the owners" - what is the best / most cost effective way to identify the owners?

The property appraiser/assessor is the cheapest resource to find the owners of a property.

When you pull the county on the site I listed above you can go to the property appraiser and click on “go to data online”
it should take you to search page, where you will type in the address.

whej you get the property, it should pull up the owner, mailing address and subject property address.

also, it should list the sales history and chain of title, where it should mention who they bought it from and how much they bought it for.
this ought to help you understand what you h
ave to work with.

for example, the last real sale on the picture listed was in 2008 for 325k, so unless there was additional money borrowed on the property, there ought to be some equity.

Quote from @Account Closed:

@David Dey Thanks for the info! When you cold call with your iPhone, do you use any kind of software? I know there's a software called smartphone.io where you can dial up to 3-4 people at a time, have the call recorded, and auto generate a phone number that isn't your personal phone. 

If I personally dial them using smartphone.io, do you think that could lead to trouble down the road? I was planning on using that first, and then giving them my personal phone number after I identify people with motivation.

So if the software is giving you an “unfair advantage,” by automatically allowing you to call more than one number at a time.
However, I think you may have more issues regarding recording the call without their express permission.
For me, my recommendation is to try and get a list that promotes the most motivation in the first place.  (Vacant+tax delinquent, preforeclosure, etc..) 
I do recommend very strongly before you go buying the same list everyone else is buying and worry too much about dialers and the such that you take the very first right of passage that I believe every investor should take.

DRIVING FOR DOLLARS.

This is also probably one of the lowest cost of entry while also being one of the surest paths to success.

Simply start going through the B and C areas of your town and start looking for signs of distress and abandonment.

Look for the tall grass, homes that you can see right through at the windows, homes with no curtains and no furniture inside, damaged mailboxes, mailboxes with no doors, missing mailboxes, cars with expired tags which have obviously not been moved in quite awhile, etc…

Once you have found 20-50 addresses, look them up on the county’s property appraiser.

Here is a link to a site that will pull up the property appraiser, clerk of courts and tax collector for every county in the country. 

(I set it for Florida counties for you: https://publicrecords.netronline.com/state/FL )

Once you identify the owners (or in the case where it says the owner is an estate, look on google or legacy.com for an obituary which will provide you with the heirs) use a skiptrace tool like skipgenie.com (who has a cool price point of $99/month for unlimited searches) to find them and see if you can make a deal.

By taking these basic steps, you will learn how to actually identify deals, which will be invaluable over your career.

On the other hand, anyone not willing to put in this specific sweat equity, will ultimately be robbing themselves of valuable experience and might not be right for this industry in the first place.

I truly hope this helps.