All Forum Posts by: Doug Smith

Thanks for your interest Duncan. Several well-respected attorneys are telling us that they don't know of an easy way around it and have advised us to flat out stop selling on owner financing. We're working out a deal with the Matt Keelen at the Keelen Lobby Group. You can Google him if you'd like. The cost is $30K for 3 months as a trial and then we can continue at about $10K per month. We could amp up the $$ and thus their efforts more if we wish. I'm putting in $5K. Others are putting in more, but we're working out those exact amounts. Still interested? We can probably take it to private message. And I can connect you Glenn Lee who is the one coordinating all of this.

Selling on owner financing is a key exit strategy for my real estate business, and the new Dodd-Frank Act regulations are really throwing a wrench in it.

A few investors and I pooling money together to hire a lobbyist in DC with the aim of excluding owner financing sales from some or all of those regulations.

Would you be interested in joining forces with us?

Or do you know someone who would?

Please message me if so.

Together, we can fight against an over-reaching government that's keeping qualified buyers from buying and a housing market from fully recovering.

Thanks!

Doug

Susan, I'll PM you and we'll resolve this issue immediately.

I see. I'm wondering if the housing crisis took away so much equity in LA that wholesalers are just contracting them for about what the sellers owe... but that still isn't good enough for many investors like yourself. But on the other hand, maybe some investors are ok with a smaller % of equity now in hopes that LA will rebound just as quickly as it fell.

You're right. Wholesalers post ARV and repair estimates that are way off on most deals, and we're open about that on the website. That's why the best strategy is to ignore those values and focus on the asking price. And then to offer a few thousand less than the asking price. Some of those offers will get accepted.

We interview people all the time who have bought properties from the site and post those interviews on our Success Stories page. Each interview is 10-15 minutes, and they go into detail about their purchases. You can see their first and last names on that page, so maybe you can find them on Bigger Pockets.

A free membership gives you a 14-day delay, so it's really tough to get deals that way. Good ones go within the first day or two. A premium membership allows you to get access to the deals in that time frame, so the odds are much higher that you can pursue and purchase a property that meets your criteria before it's sold. But regardless of whether you stick with a free membership or upgrade to premium, you should reach out to the wholesalers individually so that if they do have their own email list, you can get on it. This allows you to access deals that might never even get posted to the site. Doing that is free.

I buy all my houses at 65% of ARV minus repairs or less and have recently bought 15 from wholesalers, so apparently some wholesalers "know a good deal to start with."

Most properties posted to myhousedeals.com don't meet that criteria though. That's why you have to analyze a number of them, look at a few, make some offers, and get some accepted. It's a numbers game and can be time consuming but worthwhile.

All of the wholesalers who I've recently bought properties from have posted properties to myhousedeals at one point or another and all have their own email lists that they blast deals to.

Some of these wholesalers have started blasting deals to their own lists first, and if they can't sell it there, then they post to myhousedeals. So that's why you want to be on their email lists... so you can get first dibs. But again, you can meet all these wholesalers on myhousedeals, even with a free account.

If you don't feel the deals are good enough or like working with wholesalers, there are plenty of other reasons to join the site... private lenders, cash buyers, vendor discounts, etc.

P.S. Will, you were a member in the LA area at one point. Maybe the deals there weren't as solid when compared to other markets for one reason or another.

If a BP member signs up for myhousedeals.com and isn't happy for any reason, just send me a private message, and I'll see to it that you get a full refund.

I recently bought 2 properties off the site myself, so I know for certain that there are some good deals to be had. Plus we interview about 2 people a month who have bought properties and post them on our Success Stories page. We're a little behind on actually uploading those interviews, but we're working to catch up.

One good strategy is to connect with all of the wholesalers who post deals and get on their private email lists. That way, if they do email a solid deal to their own list before posting to myhousedeals, you'll be able to jump on it. Hope that helps.

Doug Smith

Hey Moises. I bought a note from someone on there last month, and it's working out. The site is legit. You just need to due your due diligence on each note and its seller.

Ok. Your deal is listed (it was never taken down), and I just removed his deal. On Monday, Gracie will probably call Todd to see what happened. He may have a contract with the seller as well.

Thanks,
Doug