All Forum Posts by: Joe Liu

I would definitely call the principal broker of that office, leave him a voice mail if they don't answer and even personally show up in the office. It is unlikely that the principal broker of that office would keep your EM just to keep it and risk all the back lash. You should contact the state real estate agency and file a complaint, but worse case, you can always leave the scariest message for voicemail - "if you don't call me back in 48 hours, I am contacting the local news crew and telling them how KW refuses to give me back my deposit". The news would love nothing more then a fraud story coming out of a real estate agency. I usually say lawyer, and I get calls back instantly (this is from a car insurance issue I had a while back) but the same should work on a brokerage since that would be devastating to the brokerage. The emails alone, they will just claim that they never got them and they don't check there junk mail folders.

Good luck!

Hi guys! Never formally introduced myself, but wanted to as I just joined a few weeks back and am slowly getting around to all the areas on this site. Quick tid bid about myself - I work a full time job as a product support analyst (10 years), as well as a part time real estate agent (7 years) and a part time flipper / wholesaler (last 2 years)! I've thought about leaving the full time job but its software so I spent most of my day looking at real estate and that in itself almost feels like cash flow =p

Looking to get into rental properties and sharing knowledge! I will probably be pretty active in the real estate forums and if anyone has questions on the real estate agent side of things, feel free to ask!

Hi Marc, I'm both a real estate agent and a wholesaler / rehabber. I choose this combo because if I don't want the lead that I find, I can wholesale it and while I wholesale it, I let the person buying it know that I'm coming to them first before I contact all my other cash buyers and that if I give them this deal, that they let me list the house. This has never been a problem. For me, it works out great if its something from the MLS since I can typically squeeze out the buyers BAC and then when they sell it, I get the listing BAC. Even if you don't take this strategy on fully, the agent should still be able to get the buyer's BAC which is still a good deal for the agent.

As far as a realtor, find someone who's a little savy in technology. If the agent doesn't know how to text and has a hard time working a scanner, you probably want to move on. Make sure the agent has a Docusign account so you can sign everything virtually. It'll save everyone a lot of time and you can fire off a lot of deals in one day without printing, signing, scanning, sending it back.

Besides expired listings, I usually pop a box over the entire city and surrounding cities (you can narrow this down to just an area you like to work in). Put in what my minimums and get 500 results. Export that to excel and I have a macro that I run that looks for all my keywords, like TLC, FIXER, CASH ONLY, etc. That pops me out 10-20 MLS numbers and then I take a look at those and start with them. You can do the same thing with expired to narrow it down faster.

Also, you might be able to find a good investment real estate agent at an REI meeting. The real estate firm I work for specializes in pre-foreclosure and we even have our own REI meetings.

Good luck!

I agree, its probably just the agent lagging on updating the MLS, but I would just have your agent call or text the listing to double check. Doesn't hurt.

I've heard about cheaper properties in other states with solid rents. Do you have any experience with out of state investing and would you recommend that path?

Thanks for the information Joel. I've taken a peak at multi-units in Oregon from time to time in the last few years and they all sort of look like this deal. To get a triplex at around $100k here is some what unheard of and I can peak at prior records and see what they went for so this isn't negative talk. Besides the MLS and Craigslist, are there other ways I should be farming for these listings?

Thanks!

Hi guys, have done other forms of investing with wholesaling, flipping, etc. but I've finally hit that maturity and bank flow of being able to do some buy and hold. I kind of peaked around this section of the forums but I'm not entirely sure where might be the best place to start, what cap rates I should be looking for, how the 50% rule works, rent multiplier, etc. Any links to prior topics with this information would be greatly appreciated.

A current deal that I am looking at is as follows -

List Price: $275,000
3 units, average rent is $625 on month to month.
There are no pictures of the inside so I don't know how much the rehab is going to be. The rent on each unit could be $100-150 more since its in a great area, its near my house which is what is attracting me to it and the apartments with pools go for around $950 (same size) and other dumps go for as low as $750, so thats why I think I can get another $100 easily.

Property Tax/Yr: $4,356.81
Actual Gross Income: $22,500 ($1875 mo)

I would put down 20% @ 4% / 30 yr fix

Loan - $1050 mo
ptax - $363
insur - $100
oper expen - $300?
----------------
$1813 a mo

Not sure what my operating expenses are or a safe way to figure that out. I know this deal only works if I take that monthly of $1875 and tack on the $100 more I think i can get per unit, so $2175 so I would still cash flow $360~. None of this takes into account any rehab costs though. I'd have to get inside and see.

Am I way off on that?

Thanks for those of you who took the time to read all that!

Joe

Hi guys, I've kind of switched gears and have gone from REI back to Real Estate Agent since there appears to be a flood of buyers (also its been a pain to find deals in my area lately with the foreclosure laws changing). I've been mostly targeting home sellers to list their houses since people are starting to get equity back again. If they are motivated sellers, then the REI stuff comes into play, but for the most part, I have been able to list and sell a house in a day. Does anyone have a real estate assistant and if so, how much do you pay them and what do you make them do? I've seen some realtors with an escrow assistant and multiple buyers brokers assistants, but there closing quite a bit of deals. I am thinking if I can get something setup and going, that I maybe able to get a pipeline going and have my assistants handle most of the brunt work while I do dual REI and REA stuff.

Hi Joel, I tried looking up some sort of commercial realtor in that area and I didn't really get much. Found a guy who does a lot of hotels, but the guy looks ancient. Any tips on how to better find an agricultural broker in my area?

Thanks!

Hi guys, I usually deal in residential and I do have my real estate license, so I am a complete newbie to commercial.

I got a lead from my father about one of his friends who wants to sell his building, land and a currently non operational business in a small town in the middle of almost no where. This town isn't that bad in size since it does have a Costco, but its an hours from anything else, so its mostly farms, logging community, etc.

Anyways, I am trying to run comps and there hasn't been much near this building that has sold or even in same industry. It was being leased out so someone who ran it for a few years and just picked up and left in the middle of the night. Its acutally a cattle slaughter house and he has the only license to slaughter cattle in the state. Sits only on 1 1/2 acres though and the slaughter house itself is pretty small (6000 sq ft building).

How might you guys go about in figuring out what its worth? It does have equipment in there. Guessing most of it is pretty old n used. The building is over 50 yrs old and doesn't look all that great.

Lastly, is there a place I can go to pull up the tax records of the last person who owned it if all i have is the addy?

Thanks guys!