All Forum Posts by: Doug Smith

Hey there Jesus. Doug Smith here. I founded and run MyHouseDeals. I'll try to address some of your concerns...

- You were wondering why a wholesaler would sacrifice $25K in equity for a $5K wholesale fee. The reason is that getting the $25K requires work (overseeing the rehab and sales process), time (waiting for it to be rehabbed and waiting for it to resell), risk (some deals don't pan out as expected) and money (some lenders want you to use your own money for repairs). Wholesalers don't want to take on one or more of those things.

- Getting wholesalers to call or email you back can be tougher after their property has been listed for a couple of weeks. Most are trying to sell in days and are therefore more responsive early on. As a free member, you're only seeing properties that are 2+ weeks old.

- The wholesaler you reached probably works for New Western. They require the up-front $5,000. They're more aggressive with getting buyers to commit, but they're not operating a scam. That money really will go towards your purchase. I suggest that you avoid deals listed by them if you're not comfortable with the way they do business.

- The two-month-old property that you mentioned was most likely sold. Wholesale deals go in days, not weeks. I contacted their office in Dallas and reminded them to remove properties that are sold ASAP. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any other questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Doug Smith

Hi Victoria. Our records show that you have a free account and haven't been charged. Are you seeing a charge on your credit card statement? If so, I'm happy to look into this further.

Thanks,

Doug

Paul, we occasionally get properties in those areas. Just go to our home page, click into NYC/Tri-State, and in the search box, adjust the Location Filter to search by City, County or Zip Code. Hope that helps!

You're right, Jim. The scammers are back in full force. We noticed a huge pickup in this type of suspicious activity right after the new year. It was almost like it was their new year's resolution to scam as many people as possible on our site. Last week and this week, we have refocused all of our efforts on taking further measures to block these bad actors. After several long meetings and a lot of digging through data, we've created a list of 7 additional things (on top of about 10 that we already have in place) we'll be doing to block them. These 7 new ways of blocking them are all very solid, so we're very optimistic. We're working on #4 right now and will be rolling that and the remainder over the next few days. As a result, the list should be cleaned up to a very large degree within the next few days. Our apologies for your troubles. You're entitled to a full refund should you want it. 

Sincerely,

Doug

Hey Jeff. Thanks for your comments. I'll address them here...

When someone provides their first name and email address on Private Money Goldmine, we ask them if they're a borrower, lender or both. If they say lender or both, they're taken to a page that asks them for their name, phone, email, amount to lend, interest rate and locations where they're lending. When someone creates an account on MyHouseDeals, we ask them these same questions. You can do so on either website, and you'll see that questionnaire.

If someone indicates that they're lending nationwide, they'll show up in all zip codes that you enter into Private Money Goldmine. That's why you're seeing many lenders appear no matter the zip code.

The reason they're not listed as entities is because we don't ask for their company name in that questionnaire. However, many will end up lending out of an entity. So when you search the deed records, you're unlikely to find their name.

Our list isn't perfect because a few unscrupulous people have previously posed as lenders and tried to extort funds from borrowers. (This has largely stopped due to our recent extensive blocking efforts.) And it's not perfect because not all lenders will respond to calls or emails. And it's not perfect because building trust with local lenders face-to-face is still best.

But it's certainly not a scam website of made-up lenders as you suggest, and it does provide tremendous value through this list of lenders, private money training videos, a credibility kit template and a free thirty-minute phone consultation with an investor who is an expert at borrowing private money.

Doug

Hey Ann. This is Doug Smith, founder of Private Money Goldmine. Some of the previous complaints about our site are inaccurate or have become dated. Here's the latest update on our service... 1) Scammers who pose as lenders have almost totally been removed from the site due to our recent efforts (this was a long and tedious process as they can be extremely tricky), 2) Lenders can still be difficult to reach by phone or email, and we're constantly working to improve that, 3) We don't get these lenders by scraping other sites or digging through courthouse records. These lenders answer online questionnaires indicating that they're lenders, 4) Anyone who has ever asked for a refund of their up-front fee has received it, 5) Some investors are borrowing from these lenders according to the emails or phone calls we receive from our members.

Hope that helps!

Doug

Thanks @Dell Schlabach . We're going to give it a shot!

Jerry, Steve Skillern at Prime Loan Services and Leff Laird at Laird Law are both experts on Dodd-Frank and would probably accept a couple hundred dollars for a phone chat on the subject. You can Google them.

Thanks Brian! We've been getting picked on for way too long. We're just so disorganized that it's sometimes tough to fight back.

Thanks Matthew. Agreed!