All Forum Posts by: Joe Cassandra

This will be interesting to watch as Opendoor (just from running across their listings) usually pays like 95% ARV and hope their fees make up for the slim margins. So those aren't good deals for any investor.

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For your question about basements, everyone may have a different metric. To make it simple, I take average price per square foot sold of a non-basement house and halve it. So if a house with no basement is going for $100/sq ft. I use the same $100 for livable space and $50 for basement. If unfinished, more like $10-$15. 

I've found that will get you close, but if the basement is super nice, all bets are off. In GA, we love basements.

So our last deal, it didn't even hit me because the seller just crashed with a family member after the closing...

But, I've been under contract for a month on a great off-market BRRRR deal. The woman had lived there for 20 years, has two teenagers, separated from spouse.

Big thing ---> she just finished up bankruptcy. And is behind on her mortgage that I expect the pre-foreclosure papers to start by April...hopefully later. Thus, time is of the essence.

Well, the deal hasn't closed because I told her we wouldn't buy the house until we found her another place to live. 

I called a realtor who's a buying agent who's been looking for deals for me (none closed yet)...told him the situation...told him "we need to find her a place to rent, her budget goes up to $1,300/month."  He claims with her bankruptcy it'd be hard to find a place to rent. 

Over two weeks ago, he approaches me with an idea for some '2nd chance' program that could allow her to buy another house and pay less per month than rent. 

Long-story-short ---> it's been about a month and very little progress has been made to get her out of the house (to rent or to buy). I don't have time to sit on the phone with landlords trying to pitch this lady. She's a great lady, just hit a bad year in 2019. Has had a steady job in the school district for over a decade. 

Is it the realtor dragging his feet? Does it take a long time for bankruptcy folks to find a place to live? 

Where the heck do your sellers go when you've bought their house???

I've never read anyone having this problem before...

Do you just kick them out? I do believe I help families...in this case she's thanking me again and again for buying the houes (it needs repairs) and I'm getting it for about 70% ARV. I can't just kick her into the street. 

What do you do?

I don't spam people with fake wholesale deals (as I'm not a wholesaler)

But I do cold message some people here...and people in my area about deals they have, questions I have based on a post I saw, what they're looking for etc. Because I don't have time to attend multiple networking events every week. 

I find as long as I approach the relationship carefully, most pros in RE are open to helping. 

Next week will be meeting with a 20-year pro who is interested in being a private lender...

Yesterday, after a few back and forths, the agent I messaged revealed his client is sitting on 59 off-market properties that he's looking to dump. 

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I get this post was lambasting the fake lenders and wholesalers...

But cold emails, PMs etc. are how I built contacts in this industry, and how I built my marketing company from $0.

I'd close on it. Clean it out and whole-tail it. 

You'll get more money listing it on the MLS than from a seasoned investor off-market.

What you do depends if you're looking to: 

1) Build a buyer's list who trust you to find good deals (more long-term approach)

2) Make the most money right now (more short-term)

If you're not that interested in wholesaling, whole-tail on the MLS. So many hedge funds and investors over-paying for deals right now.

I don't agree with people saying "oh, all the investors in the area will now know you only keep deals for yourself." In a hot, overpriced market like this, it's expected for investor-agents to do that. 

Any local handyman should be able to fix this for less than $50. If you're paying $100 for a handle fix, you might as well just buy a new toilet for $80. 

For stuff like this, I'm not looking for licensed professional plumbers. Go on "Nextdoor.com" and find a local guy who works from home and bored.

I'm pretty good at being able to pull out information from the seller such as what they plan to do next, why they're selling, etc...the real honest tip I can give is (as cliche as it sounds) is to listen. Then when they reveal something a little personal, nudge them to give you more info. 

Sellers test you to see if you're going to judge them for their situation. Once you don't and more listen and understand, they open up. Unfortunately, that could take 30-90 min of your time when meeting them.

Where I stumble is finally getting around for them to take a lower price. 

For example, I'm negotiating with a FSBO right now. His wish is simple. Sell the house and RV down to Houston and stay with his daughter and grandkids for a bit. But he claims his bottom line is $300k. I need it to be around $260k. I'm trying to piece together how to get him to come around to that price point. But, still learning that part of the negotiating process.

The fault I have is I prejudge how a seller will respond. "Oh, they won't take $260k, why bother? Make an excuse and leave." And that's what I've done a bunch of times so to avoid any awkward moments. 

It's not the right approach and what I'm trying to work on.

I requested like you did @Jordan Northrup to multiple counties where I am for residential properties with water turned off. They all said they couldn't release that information. For a fee, they were able to send over commercial properties turned off. I'm not into commercial yet, but looked through the addresses. Most were strip mall places vacant which I'm not interested in. 

Need to go to the courthouse to ask about code violations as that's a good idea. 

We've used Atlanta Capital Lending and they are legit. Just make sure you talk down their interest rate as it can be high. But Tom over there is very helpful

@Account Closed, super helpful and generous with his time and ideas as we're looking to expand around here

Finding private money is the hardest part. 

Hard money is everywhere. And it's pretty easy to get. 

I'd say the hardest part is paying the initial buying costs at the beginning. It's always more than you think. I'm doing a sub2 deal right now and the closing costs are $1,100 for the attorney/title + $800 for insurance upfront. 

Before it became a sub2, I had a hard money lender and the buying costs were going to be $7,500 + $25k for the down payment on the property (down payment is standard for any financing). 

With the sub2, I'm paying $2,000...

Can you feel the pain? 

If I only had put 10% down instead of 25% with the HML, I would've had about 10k in CC on a $114k purchase. Do the math.