All Forum Posts by: Doug P.

@Deborah Squibb You definitely want to be licensed for what you're proposing. Marketing a property that you don't own, and have no principal interest in, for a commission. Is the very definition of brokering real estate.

However...if you want to test your marketing theories out you can do that without being licensed. You just can't get paid for your work.

@Hal Mullins It also depends a lot on what you want to accomplish.

Are you great on the phone and want tons of calls from totally unqualified leads so you can work them with your superb one-on-one sales skills?

Or are you very busy and don't want to have to deal with a lot of tire-kickers, and prefer your marketing to generate a trickle of highly screened prospects?

If you just want loads of calls a hand-written message like the following will probably generate the highest volume:

"My name is Hal. My wife and I would love to buy your property at 123 Main Street. If you're thinking of selling, please give us a call."

But if you want pre-qualified leads you're going to have to test, test and test some more. Crafting marketing that delivers pre-qualified leads is something I have never been able to do. No matter what my marketing piece says I always end up with people who think that "I will pay you what you owe and not a penny more" to mean "I'm ready to give you $10 million in cash."

@Spencer Rossie The seller is obligated to pay, but in reality they pay with the buyer's money. If you feel the deal is worth it you can go ahead and pay the seller enough to cover the commission if you like.

@Soroush Mir Seraji You can definitely do it with the right team. It also depends a lot of what type of investing you want to do. For rentals I wouldn't buy anything without seeing it in person, otherwise you don't really know what you're buying.

On the other hand, if you're doing wholesale or lease option assignments then you don't  even need to visit the city. For wholesale it's all about the numbers. And for lease options the only person that needs to physically view the property is the person who's going to be living there.

@Jessica Sheppard The seller sounds like what we call an 'accidental landlord'. They probably lived in the property themselves, moved for whatever reason, and couldn't sell because it's underwater. So they rented it out. Now that you're there and can obviously afford the payment they're thinking: "Hey, maybe she'll buy it!"

This could work out for you if the loan is a good one. So verifying value and the mortgage details should be your first order of business.

Being underwater doesn't really matter if the property cash flows. And personally I don't even think about the due-on-sale clause any more, I've never had a bank call a loan and highly doubt I ever will. But that's a risk you have to assess for yourself.

@Jay Hinrichs 15 years this year. But it's hard to lose money when you have nothing in the deal.

I lost $250k in the stock market last year (admittedly mostly profit). But I've never lost a penny in real estate.

@Shara Carlton Yes, you can buy the property subject to the existing financing remaining in place and in the seller's name.

Barring that, the seller could finance 100% of the sale.

@Ethan S. I was 22 and my first deal was a Lease Purchase from a tired landlord. My payments and purchase price were equal to the underlying mortgage so I got in with nothing down and no new mortgage. Ended up selling it 18 months later for a $25,000 profit. Should have refi'ed it out of the sellers name and kept it though, that place is worth about $150k more now!