All Forum Posts by: Brian Fouts

I am sure some have done this before, so hopefully they will chime in.

I would research questions like:

How long business been in place?  Are they currently doing this with other properties/landlords?  Is the employer furnishing the property?  Are they willing to sign a longer lease or pay a higher premium?  Ask them for 3-6 months up front (not sure if that would be a good one).  Is company big or small and who would be your point of contact?  A person or a department?  What is their business credit score or do they have one?  If small company, what is their monthly revenue and expenses?

Just throwing some things out there...

With tech companies in Seattle, I know this is done quite often.  

@Chris W.

Everyone is going to give advice based upon their goals and desired outcome in life.  Lots of factors here... family, kids, career, job, hobbies, etc.

The quality of the answers reflect the quality of the question.  You have some GREAT responses already.

But perhaps a better question would be: "If someone happened to give you 100K, how would you use this to achieve your real estate/financial goals and what are your goals?"

This would allow you to "align" your goals with others.  

My goal is massive passive income NOT through real estate (well... some through real estate).  I would use $100k to finance short term real estate projects, such as fix/flips,  to generate significant chunks of revenue that I would then use to purchase or acquire other assets.  These assets would be businesses, larger real estate if it makes sense, and oil/gas options.  I would also funnel the revenue through certain channels in order to reduce the tax implications.  

I was going to say, what was the amount of earnest money the buyer put down?  Always take earnest money from buyer for this reason.  

Did you put earnest money down with the seller?  If you didn't take EM from buyer, but you put EM with seller, then you may be paying them.

What is it they are asking for anyway?

Well, there has to be some sort of agreement in place.  Can't exactly do anything without something in writing (equitable interest).  

How does she expect to go through with a transaction without the terms figured out up front?

We have a project starting up in Tacoma in the next week or so.  If you would like to meet at that property at some point, we can review some first steps for searching for a property in the Pierce County area.  Let me know.  

That's great!  A very good way to get started and one I wish I had done myself years ago.  Look forward to seeing you at some events.

Well, first, $625k is a long ways off from $750k.  How motivated are they?  Are they selling $750k on the open market?  If so, you can work their number down by pointing out that your offer doesn't include $45k in commissions, you will close quickly, etc.  But your price is still a ways off from their amount.  Your 17% away from their desired sale price.  

Item 2 above is just them financing the sale, basically them becoming a bank.  You give them $10k and they carry a note for the rest.  Note terms can vary, but a standard one is 5% interest, 30 year amortized payment, 5 year balloon.  Every one differs.  Since you are not going hard money, paying points and interest only, etc., option 2 allows you to offer them more.  but with this option, I feel you would still be below what they could get on the open market.

Item 3 is just a lease option.  You acquire the home, they hold a lease option contract with you.  This is good because you don't have to get financing, it is attractive to a rehabber, etc.  They would typically need to be a motivated seller for this to work, but every seller has their pain points and motivation points. 

The items above are just my thoughts, not knowing what the property is worth, condition, etc.

Does your brother need to sell this home to buy another?  If not, then you could basically just rent it for the cost of the mortgage payment.  

As Al mentioned, if the loan is assumable, you can take it over through the banks process.  Fees and such are going to apply in most cases.

Perhaps reach out to Julie.  Not sure what you are referring to about wholesaling foreclosures.

Going after leads to wholesale off the MLS is a tough game. Lot's of agents have filters set up to look for MLS properties that fit a certain criteria. We get daily lists from about 5 different agents and might make one offer a week. We expect to get one offer accepted for every 25 offers we make. Numbers game.

Typically, the best wholesale leads seem to be off-market sellers. They will not be on the MLS.

yup, we require video of our projects before releasing funds and we also have our pre-determined listing agent go by the property to verify the progress before releasing funds.  Doing remote rehabs has its risks for sure.