All Forum Posts by: Nicholas .

Hey Gary,

Those seem like good techniques. In the paragraph about painting, did you mean the Buyer would do the painting and carpet cleaning?

Wincing as soon as you hear the offer is always helpful. Even if it's a good offer. And then the classic, "Is that the best you can do?"

I agree with Dan. Try some of the little- to no-cost methods first.

I also agree with Rachel. Make sure your personal finances are in order first. $50K can work very hard for you in eliminating any debt you might have. I didn't start investing (in anything) until I was 100% debt free (with the exception of my mortgage).

I don't see any point in earning 8%, for example, when I'm paying out 12% on a credit card. But 8% makes sense when I only have a 5% mortgage.

I guess the point is just make sure your yield from investing is higher than the interest your paying out on debt every year.

Make sure you save money for marketing, staging, attorneys, etc.

I can agree we should agree to disagree, but not until I can get another word in :)

I don't expect to have to give a lot (or any) houses to the private lender. It's just that IF I completely messed everything up on the house and I couldn't at least break even on it, I'd much rather not lose my money on it.

I'm not looking at making risky investments (even using someone else's money). I want the sure things. But if something ever did happen, then I'd be safe.

BTW, if we want to continue this discussion, it may be better suited in a new thread. We're really getting away from Elaine's question about short sales and using a course on that.

I've never listened to a course on short sales (not even Ron's), so I don't know who's the best in that arena. I know the techniques I have learned cover buying short sales using OPM, but I know there's more to it not covered in what I've listened to that involves negotiating with the banks to discount the loan(s).

Ron's got a course on it, but, again, I've never listened to it, so I can't give my opinion on it.

Mike,

I'm not a full-time investor, and I have no desire to be a full-time investor. I'm a website designer. That's what I enjoy doing.

I don't have the time to go to a closing or take phone calls all day long.

If I were a full-time investor, I couldn't imagine going to all those closings. They take at least a couple hours each. And most deals require 2 closings. It's just not necessary.

And it, of course, takes longer than 15 seconds to make an offer. When I say make an offer, I mean have the seller make me an offer. I ask them what's the least they'll take for it, and then I try to get them down further. For those who get down to my MAO, I need to make sure they agree to the terms I'm proposing. Once I get them to agree on all that, then I actually have to go out to the house to make sure everything they told me is true. To make sure the repairs are what they told me. That's what takes up all the time.

I'd rather be out on the boat every weekend instead of at closings (or even making offers for that matter, which is why I don't mail more letters).

Charles, are you saying I can't give my opinion and advice on this forum until I get more experience? I'm not here to argue with anyone. I just wanted to share the knowledge I've acquired so far and my opinions on topics. I'm not asking anyone to take my advice and opinions as gold.

Yes, mailing letters is the only method I use to get callers. I don't need anymore than I'm getting now, and it's no work on my part. If I did want more callers, I would just increase the number of letter I have mailed.

I'm sure Ron employs every way he can to get calls in. I just employ the way I believe to work the best and that has worked for me. I don't want to try to fix what's not broken.

Jon,

I've done a few pretty house deals. My exit depends on the situation of the buyer. If the buyer has credit, but no money, I try to get them qualified through a bank. If they have money, but no credit, I try to owner finance them. I just need at least a 10% deposit, and I make sure the monthly payment at least covers what I have to pay monthly for the PITI.

I also entertain the idea of doing a lease option, but I haven't fully investigated doing this in Florida, and haven't done one yet. But basically, I would take a lower deposit, and I'd lease it to the person with the option to buy. Since they intend on buying, they should be better than renters and not trash the house since they intend to own it one day. I would also stipulate in the contract they make all there own repairs after the first 90 days.

Basically, I just try to make it as easy to buy as possible. With banks not lending right now, owner financing is looking like the most viable option for everyone.

On the ones I've done, I've used some of my own furniture to stage the house. I'm looking into partnering with a local company to have them stage the house for me and just take a cut of the profit.

As far as getting people to the house, I use signs (always hand-written). I've put the listings on Craigslist. Craigslist always triggers a lot of calls the first few hours, but as your listing goes down the list, the calls dwindle.

I personally have never used signs to get sellers, only buyers. I recommend sending out letters.

But as far as phone calls go, I'd recommend using an answering service set up with a script. Have them e-mail you the info for each lead, and then call back the ones that need to be called back.

I use patlive.com/ronlegrand. They're already set up with the script Ron LeGrand recommends.

I should clarify...I use PATLive, but I ordered a MagicJack (which comes with a local phone number), and I just set up that phone number to forward to my 800 # at PATLive. I don't want my potential sellers seeing an 800 #. I want them to think I'm just a consumer when they call.

Actually, I remember receiving an e-mail from PATLive sometime last year that they have local numbers now, so I guess you don't even need the MagicJack. But I already have it, so there's no need for me to switch now.

With an REO or short sale, you can just get a private money lender with the house as collateral. It shouldn't be hard to get the money if it's as good of an investment as you say. If you can't get the private money, then the it's too risky.

I, personally, don't do rehabs. I don't want to be tied up in the house for months. But if I did do rehabs, again, I'd have a private money source for it. And there would be a large enough spread to include repairs in that money. That way, if I mess up, they just get the house, and I've only lost time, not money.

Good point, MikeOH. I'm just saying what has worked for me. Ron told me that the deals are never going to work ideally. There are always going to be hiccups, and it might take you twice, three times, 10 times the work...you'll make mistakes, but as long as you follow the system, you won't be at risk any large dollars, and you'll always come out ahead in the end. And I have yet to see any evidence to disprove that.

What he means by the less I do, the more I make is work smarter, not harder. Have someone take calls for you. Have someone send letters for you. Have someone handle closings for you. This leaves you more time to make offers. So you make more.

Jeffrey,

Yes, yellow paper, lined paper, like from a legal pad. And it's written in red ink. There are a lot of companies that will do this for you. Just search for yellow letters in Google. I pay $1.39 per letter, and I provide the mailing list. The cost includes postage.

A live stamp just means that it needs to have an actual stamp on it. Not an indicia or something that would indicate that it was from a bulk mailing. It needs to look like you wrote it out, you addressed it by hand (not a label or anything), and you stuck a stamp to it. The only label you can get away with is a return address label, because people use those all the time. I actually had VistaPrint do my return labels for me. They're really cheap.

Jon,

No, I do not mail to the same people again...well, at least I don't think I do. I mail to whatever list is given to me when I purchase the list. I don't check to see if it has any of the same names on it. If my repsonse rate started to drop, I would look into that. Until then, I'm not going to fix what's not broken.

Yeah, it's a response rate that unheard of in direct mail. A typical good direct mail response rate is around 3%. Using the hand-written yellow letters in hand-addressed, live stamp envelopes gets me anywhere from 10% to 30%.

Charles,

I agree with you that the boot camp is not necessary. You can find out everything you need for free, but you run the risk of getting some bad information and finding out that it doesn't work the hard way. For example, I say send out yellow letters. Someone else might say to send out postcards because they're cheaper. But I know they won't get the same response rate. If you saw the thread about sending out postcards first, then you'd find out the hard way you're not going to get the response you want.

I can attend a 4- or 5-day boot camp learning a system, or I can spend 90 days trying to figure it out myself. How much income have I lost in that 90 days? I'd say more than 5K.

It's just my opinion. If a person doesn't have the 5k to put down, but they have time, then by all means, they should try to learn it on their own.

You're right about the people who deserve a reply. I never really thought about it that way. But I am about to attend a class on selling leads in April. Basically, I'll have someone call back all the leads I consider suspects and get the rest of their information that my answering service doesn't get.

There are tons of local companies that would pay for their information. What companies can you think of that would want information on someone looking to sell their house? Agents, movers, painters, title companies, etc. And you can sell the same lead to multiple companies. I can see the income from selling these leads dwarf the real estate income. Now my suspect leads aren't wasted. And I still keep the good ones for myself.