All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

I've seen a broker protection period of 4 months. That's quite punishing in this economy. Better have the seller check the listing contract so they don't get burned.

It's not mandatory in NJ to have a signed written agreement but it is required that agents inform the prospective client of agency relationships verbally and in writing by giving them a copy of Consumer Information Statement (CIS) prior to any substantive discussion of the prospect's needs and wants. You can certainly limit the scope of the agent's service to you if you don't want to end up stuck with one agent. The agreement should allow you to specify the timeframe of the agreement, whether for specific property or type of property (i.e. multi-families vs. single, or commercial), and location. It also specifies how much your agent would get paid if a deal closes, but if the seller's broker offers less than the amount on your agreement (say, 2.5% instead of 3% on your agreement), you're liable to pay him the difference.

The purpose of having a broker buyer agreement is to clarify the agency relationship, i.e. whom does the agent work for. It stems from the fact that many times buyers would go directly to the listing agent thinking that because the agent acts all friendly and helpful, that he's now "their agent," and start to tell him all sorts of secrets about their buying needs, how high they could go, etc. Not knowing that the listing agent's fiduciary duty is to protect the seller's interest. Then the buyer gets taken advantage of because they end up saying too much. Having your own buyer's agent is supposed to give the buyer a level playing field.

However, you should still limit the buyer relationship so you don't end up oweing a commission if you signed too broad an agreement and ended up working with another buyer agent, the first agent might have a claim against you. Read the contract and only sign when you both agree to the terms. A smart agent will try to get it to be as broad and as long as possible. It's up to you to be the smart investor to make the terms favorable to you. You can just as easily make the contract on a per-property basis or do a month or so at a time.

Costco saves you about 50 cents on the roll of 100. Hardly a bargain considering the long wait in line. :D

@Will, how often do you plan on mailing to these thousands of people? Since a typical homeowner may be bombarded with mail at the first sign of distress, you may consider doing multiple mailings to the same address - at least 3-7 times over the course of several months, to keep your name in front of the seller. If that's the case, instead of mailing out a couple of thousand one-off mailers, you may want to select a promising area and mail multiple times to a few hundred sellers. That may be more manageable in terms of your budget and time.

As a broker myself I can understand why agents need loyalty from their clients. However not every agent is equipped to handle every kind of deal or work in every locale. You don't want to have an exclusive relationship with him unless/until he's proven himself, and then again maybe you want to work with him on certain deals or geographical areas and not on others. Don't think you are obligated to use him for everything. On the other hand, be clear upfront that you are pursuing your own license and that it does not have to mean you will cut him out of a deal if he can work with you. He may even try to recruit you to hang your license at his brokerage!

First class letter stamps are 45 cents now. Stamps for postcards up to 4.25" x 6" cost 32 cents each. If you have the mailing list and want to do bulk, you need to get a permit which will cost hundreds of dollars to set up and your bulk mail needs to be presorted and compliant to postal formats to qualify for the bulk rate. If you are doing a few thousand at a time it may make sense. However, if you're doing a few hundred at a time it may not be worth the hassle and expenses. If you do enough volume you may look into a mail shop to handle it all for you.

I personally don't have any experience with MelissaData but any lists you buy will not be 100% accurate. Do you must buy vacant homes or can you buy with tenants in place? If you don't want tenants maybe you can sell those leads to other investors. If you can become friendly with some local realtors, ask if they can provide absentee owner lists from their MLS and you will be able to save money. I think some real estate industry-specific list sources like CoreLogic or RedX might give you better quality leads than MelissaData.

We're just talking about this the other day.

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/79/topics/75529

The bank coud have tacked on late fees, legal fees, filing fees and other fees to that figure. Also in some states the foreclosure is a judicial process requiring the banks to go through the court. In states with judicial foreclosures and all the backlog from the credit crisis, the courts are overwhelmed with cases that it can take a couple of years to foreclose.

Also if your seller has filed for bankruptcy it may halt the foreclosure until the bankruptcy is resolved. You need to get thee whole story from the seller.

FYI net listings are illegal in NJ. Check with your own state realtor board before going this route.

The danger of listing your wholesalee deals on the MLS is that agents who are unfamiliar with your process may get in the way or become overly protective of their clients. If some buyer agents get pissed off they can report you and your listing broker to the state regulatory agency. You may be accused of practicing real estate without a license. You also can't often underprice a property and hope to attract multiple bids because some listing contracts stipulates that if a full price offer is made you will owe the listing agent a commission even if you did not accept that offer; So if a buyer comes in with an offer that matches your lowball listing price, you're toast. Plus the broker protection period and other terms favorable to brokers will be in the listing contract as well. Gotta read all the fine prints!

I agree you need both - have your own buyers list to get investor buyers and use the MLS for retail buyers who are willing to pay more for better condition. You will decide which way to go for each property.

Well I tried it - I downloaded the list from the BK site, which cost me about $3.70, pulled the list into Excel, picked one county and went through the names comparing them to tax records which I have access to as a Realtor, and pulled MLS data to verify the properties were not listed - don't want any complaints from other realtors - and personally wrote 23 yellow letters and dropped them in the mail Saturday. Got a call on Monday who did not leave message, but after checking caller ID it was one of the recipients I mailed to. Called back 3 times over the week and did not receive a response. It's not as "easy" as the program makes out, as it entails hours of me sitting on the computer and checking tax records. I do plan on using the leads myself and not reselling, because to me if a lead is good why give it away? If it's no good then you're going to make your lead buyer mad. Obviously I am going to follow up with additional mailings and possibly do a drive-by on some of these properties. Yes there are tenants on the list but that's why checking against tax records is necessary. For tenants who are in BK it'd be perfect to mail to the landlords asking if they want to sell! LOL. I find that a lot of times the name belong to a relative of the owners (spouse, child, siblings), and lots of these houses are not listed or have equity. So it's possible to do a separate mailing to the owners who may need to sell to bail out their relatives. The cost of leads is low enough that I see it being another good source. It may be they are not ready to sell now, but sooner or later that will change.