All Forum Posts by: Han Oh

Alright @Account Closed Found what I was looking for. Thread started for OH, but many references to CA. I'd better get a license. Better safe than sorry..

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/93/topics/184743-getting-busted-in-ohio-for-wholesaling-and-praticing-re-without-a-license

 So is it still legal to make our own contracts assignable when the state approved RPA is no longer assignable? Do you need a license to do assignments or double closings in California?

@Joey Harper If you want to get leads for free, try getting calling up title companies in your area and asking them to send you a list. They would be willing to help you with that in exchange for future business that you bring to them. You get to build a great relationship with the title agent as well, which you will need in the future when you get deals to move.

I did that with a local title company and got out of state absentee owner lists for five different cities that I asked for, all with names, addresses, property specs, sale value, title transfer date, loan info, you name it. 

Only thing is that you have to sift through the data to filter out leads that match your criteria. But hey, it's free.. can't complain about a little extra work. 

I also use paid subscription list providers, one of which is PropertyRadar which I really like, but I think they do not service TX, only west coast states.

I was talking to an escrow officer and she mentioned that doing assignments of contract or double closings requires one to have a license since they are considered real estate transactions. 

I know that they deal with investors because I found their info from one of the BP forum discussions under recommended escrow contacts. They used to do a lot of these assignments and double closings a few years back, although it has slowed down recently with the hot coastal CA market making it harder for wholesalers to find deals with enough spread to move it to the next guy. 

So, is having a license a requirement specific to CA or is that information inaccurate or am I missing something else?

Hi @Kenneth Sok I didn't think about using a 1099, appreciate you mentioning it.

Hi @Brian Burke

Your post answered a few questions I had about starting a wholesale business. But what I want to do is wholesale just a few deals and then move on to do fix and flips. If I were to partner up with someone on the wholesaling part of it, can we do it without filing for a business entity and just by filing a DBA for both of us, even if that person already had a LLC setup for his own business? And how would we handle the tax reporting if we agree to split profit and expense 50/50; do we need to open a joint bank account or can we use either one of our accounts as long as we have a contractual agreement about the profit split?

Hi BP,

I've been communicating with the Orange County tax assessor/treasurers's office staff about obtaining a list of properties that have been tax delinquent between 3 and 4.5 years. They are taking their time to respond and the responses are not even helpful. I was directed to a public link which I had already checked out long time ago, which only lists properties that will have been tax defaulted for 5 or more years as of this July 1, 2015 or delinquent for 3+ years as of July 1, 2011, which obviously do not serve my purpose. After repeated attempts, the last email I got from them is as below:

"We don’t have any lists or reports that have this information you request. We can check to see what it would cost to program a report and would charge you with the cost to develop the report. Please let us know if you would like us to consider this as we have an older system that is not user friendly, and we would expect that it would require a number of programming hours and quality control hours to develop."

Is this what others are getting as a response also? Can anyone share more information on how they obtained a list from the county or is this even possible in Orange County, CA?

Thanks!

@Ana G. How's PatLive working for you? I have a full time job so I doubt I will be able to handle all the calls myself (I'm about to send my first mailing to about 1000 leads). Also, is the 2-3 minute voicemail effective? I guess if a seller is super motivated, he/she would listen to the whole message, but do you feel you are losing some potential leads because you do not take their calls live as some may be on the 'motivation borderline' and just bail at the long voicemail and move on to the next investor in their PC stash?

@Scott R. thanks for the article. I agree that accurately calculating adjustments is a judgment call based on the individual market, and that's why I think I need to get a whole lot of practice and experience to become good at it. 

@Joe Homs thanks for the feedback. Yes, the listing price seemed a little too good to be true but then it's a short sale so depends on what the bank is willing to accept. The agent told me that the short sale was accepted by the bank and went into a binding contract with some buyer (although she didn't sound 100% sure) so no more showings. I'll have to find a vacant home like you say to crunch some real numbers..

Hello BP,

I was looking at some real ways to practice estimating ARV and repair costs and I thought what better way than to find below market priced listings and use them for my analysis. In the process, I stumbled upon a property in Mission Viejo. Here's the link: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Mission-Viejo/25711-Po-Ave-92691/home/4842630

One difficulty I have is determining by what amount I should make adjustments to comparables. I looked through the appraisal report for my home and noticed for example that difference in square footage didn't make a lot of difference. Same for the number of bedrooms. However, the number of bathrooms did make a big difference.

I would think the amount by which adjustments are made is partly subjective and influenced greatly by the neighborhood in which the property is located. So I cannot find an accurate way to quantitatively assess the differences in the comparables. In spite of this, I gave it a shot and came up with an estimated ARV for the subject property. Link to the table:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s6Khrj4E8XBbJsrBM5fC_TdlOEi5VqKBRGVjpRWIP00/pubhtml?gid=212345418&single=true

The numbers that I used to make adjustments are in no way scientific or derived from equations, they are ballpark numbers I got using my home's appraisal report as reference. 

I'd appreciate any feedback and/or suggestions on how to better estimate the ARV using comps and adjustments to comps.

Next up, I'm going to walk and take lots of pictures of this property to practice estimating repair costs, using the book by @J Scott as reference. Will share that too so that I can get some very needed advice from great BP mentors!  =)

Thanks!