All Forum Posts by: Gary M.

I had this fantasy that when I did my first deal I would become a paying member of BP and then amaze all with my tale of success. Alas my tale of success will have to wait and in the spirit of honesty and reality I present my tale of hubris and bungling.

I'll start with the moral of the story which is do your due diligence. I found a FSBO triplex which has been vacant for a couple of years. I brought the property to the attention of a local investor who has been a great help to me as I learn the ropes. He looked at the tri. and told me that if I got it under contract he was certain he had a buyer for it. I had no reason to not believe him, he's a seasoned investor, he did his own estimates of the repairs needed, he has been doing this for a while and has sold multiple properties to the buyer in question. What could go wrong? Well, the buyer said "no". After that I decided I would estimate repairs. So I walked through the house and imagined the worst case scenario for repairs and I was so far from 70% it wasn't forgivable. If I estimated for best case scenario I ended up at 100%!!! I have contacted quite a few investors and nobody wants to touch it. If I had run the numbers when I was supposed to I wouldn't be in this situation. I don't blame my investor friend, he does feel like crap though. I've done my studying into REI, I know better, I should have done the work myself.

The worst part is that the seller is very upset.

Fellow newbies, learn from my failure. There are no short cuts.

Humbly yours,
Gary

First thing is to determine what kind of deal/deals you are prepared to see through. There are a lot of articles and forum discussions here that will help you determine what type of investing you are ready for. Hopefully you have colleagues in your area to go to as well. After that, you should approach them like you would any other seller. Get the details of their situation and property, find out what they want accomplished. Calculate the numbers to determine what kind of deal is possible.

Thanks Braden. All the information I have seen backs you up.

Right now I am focusing on wholesaling properties to fund my long term buy and hold plan.

I may be able to get early looks at a local banks commercial REO but I want to know if I can truly wholesale them or if I will need to form a double close strategy.

Thanks Allan.
Good article but not the one I was looking for. Honestly, I might of imagined the title...

Can anyone tell me where I can find article that was in one of the BP newsletters on wholesaling bank properties? I inadvertently deleted that email without reading it (I did search for it before asking here).

Thanks

John and Bill, thanks for taking this subject seriously. As a newb I am tempted to embrace the quick and "easy" but my gut tells me that there is more to it.

On a side note: I found a source of RE documents that might be helpful to others. There is a local printing company in my city that specializes in county and court documents. They have everything, court approved eviction papers, contract for deed, RE contracts... They are $1.50/page, max $4.50 and the girl behind the counter said that they are kept up to date.

Where could someone pick up state approved forms if they don't have a connection to a realtor?

Thanks for starting a great topic. Sorry to say I can't add much except that from my experience and reading those who have answered are pretty spot-on.

I think that most of the offers the realtor will take will be, at or below what the bank is asking. The realtor will give them all to the bank at the same time and then the bank will accept the highest one that meets their guidelines. If you have a realtor that you work with you might as well have them work for you on this. When you're dealing with banks it can kinda get screwy and having someone go to bat for you is a good thing.