All Forum Posts by: Doug Pretorius

@Scott Titus My advice is to be honest with everyone. You don't need to go scurrying around in the shadows with land trusts and whatnot. I have gone to the bank with the seller, had a meeting with the manager, told him/her that the seller can't afford the payments and so I'm going to make that payments for them.

Know what the manager said?

"Great!"

@Josh V. As a rule of thumb, in my experience when a seller says: "Make me an offer." It means they are NOT motivated. In your case my rule is confirmed by the fact that you're needing to walk a fine line to try to keep this 'deal' profitable.

When a seller has a lot of equity or owns the property free and clear, the first thing you need to do is negotiate the lowest price you can. Then you ask if they will finance it. And only if they mention interest do you then negotiate a rate.

As it stands right now you're really negotiating with yourself with no idea what the seller really wants or needs.

When you said that the duplex is $150k I'm guessing that means that's what it's worth? How much is the seller willing to sell it for all cash? If his number is also $150k you have an uphill battle on your hands. If you don't know, then start with that. Go back to him and say:

"Mr. Seller, I hear you saying that you're sick and tired of dealing with tenants and just want to get rid of this property. Let me ask you, if I came in with an all cash offer, took the property as-is, paid all the closing costs, and closed on the date of your choosing, what's the least you will be willing to take for the property?"

@Anthony Hornbeck Since it's hypothetical I wouldn't have gone to school and would have no student loan.

Seriously, in my area the property would be appreciating about 5%, plus principal pay down, plus cashflow. So I'd be further ahead keeping the property.

@William Johnson Huge congrats on your first assignment! That's a nice payday too :D

Talk about a technicality. Everyone knows that an open house sign means that the house is for sale.

Plus, in my city quite a few agents leave directional signs up during the week that say: "[Office Name] For Sale --->"

@Bill Gulley I looked up the sign bylaw specifically for Waterloo (my home city). The laws are slightly different for each city.

All I know is that political signs are almost entirely exempt (although they can't be placed on private property without the owners consent.) So my signs say: "Vote for, We Buy Houses!" LOL ;)

@Jon Holdman I haven't read the sign laws in a long time so I just checked. Real estate sales signs are only permitted on the property being sold/leased/rented. There's no mention of an exemption for directional signs.

Surely yourself or colleagues use directional open house signs on the corner? Like this:

Those are bandit signs.

It's just extremely rare to get into trouble for them because they're usually only up for a few hours on the weekend.

Like several have mentioned, I got interested in real estate after listening to Carlton Sheets. I did my first deal (a lease option) largely thanks to him, although I had to create my own contract that worked here in Ontario.

I will say one thing about his course. It did a decent job of outlining several creative financing options, many of which work today the same as ever. Not really surprising when you consider the fact that sellers get motivated for the same reasons they did 20 years ago, or 50 , or 100. The fundamentals of real estate never change.

@Jon Carter my advice to anyone starting is always the same. Learn how to make money without money, before you start risking your hard earned cash. There are many ways to do real estate deals without using that $10k. The information on how to do that is readily available here and on other sites.

On a more philosophical note. I know getting into real estate is a very exciting prospect, but the reality is not particularly sexy or elaborate. You need to find a problem that people have in your area and then learn how to solve that problem in a way that helps them and earns you a profit. It's really that simple. If you can't or don't know how to find sellers who have problems that you can solve, then you won't make any money.