All Forum Posts by: Mark A.

I LOVE REO's in Florida. There is one bank in particular who I know from experience will dump property if you just ask them for it.
Case in point, a nice 4/2 got listed in January for $430,000.00 (yeah OK)
The actual ARV was $350K. I offered $160K right off the bat, they came back and said $170K. LOL

Listed at $430K and accepted $170 within 30 days, nice going bank!
Of course we bought it :D

I actually went to a Rich Dad initial meeting at a Hotel in Orlando.
LOL, what a joke. From start to finish it was nothing but getting people to part with 5 or 6 hundred bucks to attend the next level meeting.

We ended up walking out, like I need to give my money to those guys!

I know a couple of people who went the next meeting and they spent another couple of grand! One of them even went all the way and ended up dumping a nice big 15 grand. Idiot, he could have been in and out of a couple of deals (like we were) in the time he wasted on that.

None of this is rocket science, of course you need some knowledge but the best way to get that is to dive in head first and get it done!

Yes, of course the show is entertainment but I much prefer the Trademark shows over some of the others.
One thing, I saw an episode where Richard jumped out of his truck and ripped this contractor a new one because the guy jacked up his price AFTER he completed a bunch of work.
I think the guy had found out what Trademark had paid for the property and was trying to get more money based on that.

I just wanted to say, we once made the mistake of telling a GC what we paid for a property and he was trying to get deeper into our pockets because of it. That was totally my fault.

A GC has no right knowing what you paid for a house and no right knowing what you want to sell it for. He needs to come in and do his work based on his price and the job, not what he thinks your profit might be.

Just my 2 cents :)

I get their available property list all the time here in the Orlando area.
First, most of it is in erm, let's just say not very desirable areas at all AND their ARV's are normally way out of whack.
IMO, not very good deals whatsoever, especially if you need to borrow the money.

Good to see you guys too :D
You get deals in Orlando? I'd be happy to take a look at them any time.

Update: After a few issues getting started and looking at countless properties, we have been trying to pull the trigger on our first deal but as it turned out I had to pull the trigger on a double barrel shot gun!

TWO came up and our hard money guys let us get them both :D

They are both under way, on time, under budget and looking great.

LOVING it.................... :shoot:
And if anyone ever tells you it's a bad time, don't do it or other negative BS like that, get that person away from you and get on with it.

Good Luck

Hey Guys
Just a quickie for those of you who are actively investing.

Let's say you see something listed on the MLS or whatever and you want to make an offer on it, do you have your own RE agent onboard or are you just calling the selling agent and telling them what you'd like to do?

I was thinking about getting an agent, one who already does there own thing but then using that person as "our agent" and when we want offers etc. presented, having "our guy" do it
OR
just going to straight to the selling agent.

Is there any real advantage to having our own person? what do you guys do or suggest?

Thanks

Mark

Hey
Can anyone help with this one?
With regard to getting a hard money loan, there are 3 of us in our group and we are obviously using the person with the best credit to get the financing for our flips.
That person has a credit score of just over 800 BUT doesn't show much at all in the way of income. He works in a literally "all cash" business and let's just say, his money rarely goes anywhere near one of those things we call a bank!

My question is, with his 800+ credit score, can we go for a(cough) "stated income" loan??
If so, if anyone handles these and wants to tell me about them, please do.

Thanks

Mark

Don't do it! Once you get there it's just yet another series of up-sells. I haven't been (not a chance in hell) but know someone who did and that fool has so far spent over 17 grand on BS!!

Please allow me to elaborate a little on our situation.
Oh, and please don't think I'm being a smartass with some of these comments :)

I'll try to keep this very short.

A few of us have our regular Poker game on Friday nights at my house in Winter Park. We all have other "stuff" going on and between us, we also have some Internet Web Site projects going on which pretty much take care of themselves.

We are all pretty smart people and we are looking at property flips like any other business venture... do it right, get in fast, use good people, provide a quality finished product, make our money and move on to the next one.

We are using obviously using the person with the best credit in our group to make the purchases and our newly formed LLC will be what carries our $$$ (we don't really need to take any profits out and we intend to make cash purchases when the time is right) In the meantime, and as we should do anyway, it's OPM all the way (Other People's Money of course)

So, we spoke to a few Broker's and so called Direct Lenders (it's amazing how many of these guys flat out told me "It's MY money, you are dealing directly with the source") And of course I come to find out that they too were Broker's so I simply cut them loose (telling me lies up front isn't a good start is it)

Another thing these guys kept saying is "You will ALWAYS need to bring 15 grand to the table on any deal" Which at first I accepted as normal but now I don't! Not a chance in hell!

My plan now, we are bringing ZERO to the table (yep, nada)
Quite simply, if the deal doesn't fit, it's not getting bought! (not by me at least) and if these guys think I'm going to pay all kinds of upfront money then well, it's just not going to happen.
I know we need to pay some minor BS fees but we are certainly not going to pay to borrow extremely expensive money.

Anyway, we were pre-approved with a (I guess they can remain nameless at this point) lender here in Florida. I called that company last Friday just to check on the status of our POF letter and was told that they just went pop and are no longer funding anything, how nice!!

Our credit person is also pre-approved for conventional financing in the event we need to get out of a hard money loan, we know we are OK for Hard Money so it's all systems go.

Our GC is very well respected, has a great team AND we are not paying retail for anything (remember these guys are all in our Friday poker game, one of our guys has known the GC for 20 years and has put a LOT of business his way)

Here's a deal that one firm wanted us to bring in 15K for:

$340,000 After Repair Value (very solid comps)
* 65.0% times Loan to Value
$221,000 Loan Amount
$- 2,800 less Estimated Closing Cost
$218,200 Amount Available for Purchase and Repairs
$- 18,000 less Repairs Budget
$200,200 Amount Available for Purchase Price or Offer Price

The property was listed at 215K BUT, as I said before and because we don't want to take $$$ into the deal, I wouldn't pay more than what's left available within the loan AND I want to be able to offer it for sale below the comp value so I offered 185K.

That deal is not dead. We'll see what they say next week.

The way I see it, the Banks caused all in current BS in the housing market and then they go crying to the government to fix it. Now they have boat loads of property on their books AND they think it al comps out a LOT higher than is true so they need to wake up, take the hit and sell it off for what they are getting offered and not full $$ (they just want it their way every time right?)

Our actions in a nut shell.

1) Great team, good to go.
2) In and out in 4 weeks or less.
3) During the flip, find the next one.
4) No property remains in Hard Money for more than 120 days.
5) Sell for less than comps, open house etc. etc.

We have a written plan, all of us will do what we are supposed to do and as soon as we know our plan is good, stick to it and move on to the next one. We are not looking to reinvent any wheels here, just do our best job and get on with it.

I said I'd make it short, sorry, that didn't happen did it :)
Also, I really hope I didn't sound too arrogant, that wasn't my intention and if a HML guy wants to step up, go ahead but please, don't try to hide anything because I'm going to ask for a break down of every single dime during the course of the loan.

I'll go now, thanks guys.

Mark

Hi There

Awesome web site, plenty of information to plow through and it seems a good bunch of people.

Just a quickie about me (us) We are located in Orlando. We have spent the past few months researching local Real Estate Investments. We have structured ourselves well and are ready to pull the trigger on our first flip.

Our General Contractor is a very well respected company with a lot experience in this area. We have a Project Manager in our group with construction experience, a Real Estate Agent is another of the group and we are ready to go having developed a plan, exit strategies etc.

One thing we have already discovered is that we seem more professional than a lot of the people we have run into thus far!

We have been offered so called "deals" that simply don't stack up!
Our experience with Hard Money Lender's has been full of empty promises and we have sure met our fair share of, well let's just call them characters!!

I look forward to meeting some good people here and obtaining some good, valid information.

Once again, great site :)

Oh, and if you have an "real" hard money loans available and / or Orlando (Orange and Seminole Counties) investments, we would be happy to hear about them. Thank You

Mark