All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Greene

@Michael McMinassian as said above - check with your office first because they should have a discount program. Oakley (oakleysign.com) does a lot of the heavier items and Merrill (merrillshop.com) does a lot of the smaller items for big box brokerages and for anyone.

@Joseph Rios - what would the drawback be to putting your photo on your card? Facial recognition and recall is more powerful than words.

@Joe Liu - Cole should have some of the best number info if you are using the cell phone plan. I use Spokeo and it's pretty hit or miss, seems to be about a year behind in upkeep of phone and emails, but you can reverse run by addresses, etc.

@Zora Luan - this blog post may help, just about this subject to point you in the right direction.

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/10015/64388-5-...

The only way to get it done these days is to sign up for all the REO sites (Xome, Equator, HomePath, Res.net) and wait unless you know someone who can get you into some of the larger scale REO events to network with the asset managers. Res.net is the current best option, but it will cost you about $650/year.

I work with many, many investors, but shy away from "investors" for the following reasons:

1. If I ask you what you are looking for in an investment property and you say "anything that makes sense," I don't want to work with you. I need to know the towns you are focusing on (not counties), what your preferred price point in is (again, not whatever works), the amount of work you are comfortable with, your flip time, whether you have a crew, how many flips you have done, etc. If you can't answer these questions for me, you are an "investor."

2. I don't like when investors tell me they don't want to see anything from MLS because anyone can find those. Technically that is true, but a good agent sets alerts for short sales and REOs that come back on the market (when they are most ripe) after a failed deal.

3. If you think all agents are the same and just a vehicle to give you info, you won't understand how much I can do as an agent for you in terms of off-market access, digging, negotiating and then listing.

Since I am an investor as well and have been doing that for way longer, I can say that my biggest gripes with agents, as an investor, are as follows:

1. Short-sighted agents trying to get me to buy one deal and not understand I am going to make 10 offers to get one and I need info on each deal to make the right offer.

2. Lack of understanding of what is important when we are on-site at a property. I am there to calculate my repair costs, see where I can make more money and to assess the block as a whole. I am only thinking of what will make me the most money on a flip or a hold and those are different calculations and processes.

Hopefully that will get it started @Bram Spiero.

I sent you a PM @Andres M.

@Matthew Huff - get in touch with @Sunita Maharaj for sure.

@John Spina jr - you can absolutely go on your own, there are rarely agents there, but in most areas around here you will need to bring a bank check for 20% of your expected spend, register on-site, and then they are always cash only, as-is, no viewings, no inspections requests, and you are responsible for all liens, disclosed and not. Depending on where you are, it could be 30-60 days for full payment.

For my clients who go to sheriff's sale auctions, I give them ARV before they go and block values so they know a top bid and hopefully they stick to it because too many people get caught up in the auction bidding and bid too much. I hope that helps. You should go one day first and just watch in your area to see how the process works.

@John Spina jr - if you are talking about Zillow pre-foreclosures, those are not accurate. They get tagged when a lis pendens is filed and often they get resolved. Zillow also does not track the foreclosure process because they don't have access so many pre-foreclosures on Zillow have already been bought at auction, renovated and sold and are still sitting there.

The MLS is useful for REO deals and short sales, but true foreclosures won't do much on the MLS because they will get auctioned at sheriff's sale or end up in the REO bin at the end. All of the above can be owner occupied so I am not sure what you are referring to in regard to the difference.

If you are looking for your first flip opportunity as a contractor and have MLS access, look for the REO activity of you can use sites like Xome, Auction.com, etc.