All Forum Posts by: Joe McCall

There are a lot of really good podcasts out there. See this BP forum post for more:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/80389-list-of-real-estate-investing-podcast

I agree with Joe Bodeck - the MLS is a great place to find lease option deals. But in my experience, the MLS is better for finding "sandwich lease option" deals - where you are going to stay in the middle. Whenever there is a Realtor involved, it's a lot harder to explain to them that you are going to "wholesale" your lease option to someone else.

When I do talk to a Realtor (and they are a great source of lease option leads), I always approach the conversation as though I am an investor looking for a house to lease purchase for myself. If the numbers work, I will stay in the middle. If they don't work, I will sell my contract to someone else.

If I am talking to the Realtor of the house I want to lease purchase, whatever commission they get is between them and the seller. It's none of my business. I just make the offer.

But really - if you are looking for lease options to assign or flip - Craigslist is the best place to go.

I look in the "For Rent" and the "For Sale By Owner" section. I then send a text message, a voice mail, and an email asking them if they would consider selling their house on a lease purchase. I only call back the ones who respond.

In my opinion, cold calls work - but only as long as someone else is doing them. It can get very frustrating & old, really quick.

In addition to Craigslist, there are 2 other strategies you can use to find motivated sellers who might be open to a lease option:

1) Call all the wholesalers in your area. Ask them what they do with their "trash leads" - all the leads they throw away because they have little to no equity. Tell them you will give them 25% - 50% of your profit if they send these leads to you and you do a lease option on them.

2) Look in Zillow for all the new "For Rent" houses in your favorite zip codes. Then look up the owner's address in the county records, and send them a simple "we buy houses" yellow letter. I am getting a 20% response rate right now doing that. Think about it - these are houses that have been vacant for at least 2-3 months. A lot of these sellers are tired landlords. If they aren't looking to sell, they might be looking to buy more properties. You can add them to your cash buyer's list.

Hope that helps!

Scott - that was a great post. I appreciate the nice comments about our podcast.

I've got to tell you - there are a lot of really good podcasts out there - especially the new Bigger Pockets podcast.

Big kudos to the Bigger Pockets guys for creating a really awesome podcast & pushing the rest of us to up our game!

Joe McCall
Real Estate Investing Mastery Podcast

I use Docusign all the time. I know lots of Realtors who use it too. I think it's acceptance still varies by city / state.

Also check out www.SignNow.com. They will do online notaries that are accepted in all 50 States. (See https://notary.signnow.com/)

BTW - FHA & HUD accepts online signatures - http://nhl.gov/offices/adm/hudclips/letters/mortgagee/files/10-14ml.pdf

I hope I am placing this in the right forum...

I am looking for some wholesalers in the SoCal area to partner with on a couple deals (specifically Riverside County / Inland Empire / Orange County).

If you're interested, shoot me an email or reply to this post.

Thanks!

Joe

Of course my opinion is biased. I hosted the conference with Todd Toback ;) I think it was one of the best conferences I have ever been to. We had so many high caliber investors there - several of whom have done over 100 wholesale deals. I even learned a ton of things from them. There was a lot of sharing of ideas back and forth - great feedback and encouragement on all sides.

We didn't pitch anything at the event (except coaching for 30 minutes during a lunch break for anyone that wanted to stay and hear us talk about it.)

We taught everyone there how to do traditional wholesaling deals, how to flip lease options, how to do sandwich lease options, how to flip leases, how to partner with private investors on deals, how to find virtual assistants, and how to wholesale properties remotely. We even gave away our contracts and tools to everyone who attended.

I think you would have been pleased, Jon.

(If anyone was concerned about it being a pitch fest, believe me, it was me! My mother was there the whole two days.)

Ed - LOL!!!! That is so funny. In fact, their mansion is about 5 minutes from my house. Very out of place. Very strange...

As far as their pricing goes - it didn't look too astronomical. Maybe $500 bucks to start and $40/mo - all depending on the rent. I am trying to look them up in the BBB & trying to find anyone that has used them in the past.

I just found this website from some real estate investor magazine. This company actually has a program that insures against lost rent for 60-90 days if the tenant breaks their lease or stops paying rent. I have never heard of a company doing this.

If this company is legit, this is incredible - a real game changer in my business... But what's the catch? Obviously, someone has to pay for it. But the pricing seems pretty reasonable.

www.cosignmylease.com

Trust me - I am not affiliated with this company. Just wanting to get your take on them, and maybe find out if there are other companies that do the same thing.

Thanks! :D

I highly recommend any book by Peter Conti & David Finkle. They give away tons of really good information in their books. Also - Wendy Patton has some great books on Lease Options. The Gary Keller books are great too.

Let me just throw in my 2 cents about Sean. I know Sean & he is a good friend of mine. He really does have his student's best interest at heart. And he is a guy that is actually doing 5+ deals every month in his market - Phoenix. Just check out his podcasts and his free ebook. He doesn't hold anything back - seriously. His academy just dives into a ton more detail and gives lots of real live examples. I highly recommend his course. It's very affordable. I've been through it and still refer to it from time to time.