All Forum Posts by: Jason Pachomski

I used Freedomsoft for a couple of months and IMHO it's not worth the price. I believe you can do everything you need to do with nothing more than a hosting account, Wordpress (with the right plugins) and a little bit of time to dig in and get your hands dirty. 

The one thing that turned me off most about Freedomsoft though was the relentless upselling they do. Even after I forked over around 300 bucks to sign up for the service, I was immediately (like literally the next day) getting calls from an outfit called Fortune Builders. These guys have some sort of tie in with Freedomsoft. They're one of these "coaching" service companies that (get this) charge like $25,000 for "mentoring". Even after I turned them down the phone calls kept coming in . 

Anyways, I digress. My point is that in my experience Freedomsoft wasn't worth the money or the hassle. If you do insist on subscribing to a web based CRM, iFlip is pretty solid and WAY cheaper than some of the alternatives. The support for iFlip is really good too.

I use wordpress on Hostgator. Personal preference really... Bluehost is just as good, I'm just used to hostgator. If you don't want to / don't have the time to set it all up yourself, you could easily outsource to someone on Odesk or Elance. Fiverr is good as well, especially if you want an inexpensive yet serviceable header image (assuming you don't have a company logo that you would want to use, if you do just have your wordpress guy use that). 

Short of that, I know most hosting companies have website builders that are really user friendly. I've never used one myself but it could be something to just get you up and running for now so that your site gets indexed asap. As long as you have a lead collection form on there you can start sending traffic to it (or at least trying to) via craigslist ads and other means.

Yup. Mine too @Jordan DeLozier . Craps out as soon as I try to open a thread 

<throws phone>

Man, I started a brawl  <stands in corner>

For the record, I'm grateful for any advice, however delivered. My mentor here in L.A. has, if nothing else, definitely thickened what I thought was an already pretty thick skin. 

For example: the first "deal" I ran by her was met with a voicemail message from her that went something like this: (without saying 'hi' -- "Your voicemail message is horrible. Just terrible. You need to fix that. Also you are WAY OFF on your comps. Not even close. Call me"

Anyways, quick update for anyone interested. The reason I even pursued this, and why I think the PR is motivated, is that a) he called me off a letter I sent. b) once he found out what I was about, he gave me all the info I requested and then thanked me profusely. c) When I presented him with preliminary offers (not just the old ARVx70%-repairs), I followed it up with "If these don't work for you, let me know what would. I think we could come to an agreement that would really work out for both of us". Again, I was thanked profusely. The benefit I could provide to him, and I think he's in agreement, is that he can walk away from the property as-is. He wants to sell ASAP (his words), so that kind of screams motivation to me. My point is, yes, I'm new to this, but I'm not so ignorant as to assume people are going to be throwing their houses at me and begging them to take them -- especially in the L.A. market.

All that said, @Rick H. Can I get a hug too? :-)

Thanks again everyone.

Also, I can't believe I did this, but I forgot to leave out one key detail (for anyone just now reading this): the $220,000 owed is on a REVERSE mortgage. I've started researching how that affects a potential deal. My mentor here in LA sent me a quick message saying "because it's a reverse, it'll have to be paid off"). If anyone can speak to the situation with the reverse mortgage in mind I'd be forever grateful. Thanks again everyone.

I think they're all just moving in so they can be close to Santa Anita :-D :-D

I've taken a couple of Ron's courses (online / study at home) and I've found, in my limited experience, that he definitely knows what he's doing and there's a minimal amount of BS in his courses. The very first REIA I went to had Ron as the guest speaker, which was cool. He's kind of a curmudgeon but personally I kind of liked that. I think that relatively speaking his courses are pretty affordable. I've never gotten a call from his office asking me to pony up 20 grand for a mentorship program (which is what I got when I signed up for Freedomsoft.... don't get me started on those guys though). Bottom line, IMHO: his courses are full of good info and pretty much free of empty promises and hype. For example, in his wholesaling course instead of feeding you the standard "you can do this without using any of your own money!" line, he actually berates the class for being to cheap to spend money on marketing. Which I found humorous.

As far as Cameron Dunlap... another (seemingly) nice guy. I used his iFlip service for a little while and it's a legit product. Good service with good support. I just personally didn't need to spend the money on the subscription as I was able to create a similar system myself.

Hope this helps somewhat

@Rick H. thanks for responding. I think I'm just a little naive to the process. The son does have full control, that much I do know. The property definitely wouldn't appraise for 325 as-is, but I do see your point. I guess I was just assuming he was willing to part with the equity in order to avoid inheriting a 1200/month mortgage payment.

The subject-to option seems like it might be appealing to the seller though.

I also think I need to learn more about the probate process in general. Sorry for the noob question. Thanks for the help!

Hey everyone,

So I've been mailing letters to probates in my area (both to the petitioner and the attorney) and I finally got a lead. Got a call from the son of the deceased who is the administrator to the estate.

Wondering if anyone is willing to comment on what their exit strategy would be, given this info:

ARV: 325K

Owe: 200K

Payment: 1200

1 month in arrears

est repairs: $15K

The son seems very motivated to unload the house.

My initial reaction (being that I don't really have any of my own capital to work with) would be to wholesale it. I would offer him $205K cash for it. (ARV x 70% less repairs and $7k fee for me). Doing this would allow him to pay off what is owed and still walk away with 5 grand.

Is this the best exit on this kind of deal though? Being that I'm new, obviously wholesaling is the easiest exit strategy to wrap my brain around, but I'm not opposed to get funding (private and/or hard money) to do the fix and flip myself instead of wholesaling it to another investor. Just wanted to see what any of you thought about the deal in general and how you'd work it.

Thanks in advance!

Jason

Thanks @Account Closed  and everyone else for the advice!