All Forum Posts by: Mike Flora

@Ed Gonzalez wherever your numbers work to put the least amount down the better. Hold on to your own money and borrow as much as you can where the numbers still work. Keep as much of your money as you can for the next opportunity and also think that if your putting money down and market turns then you possibly could be losing your money you put in as the down payment. If you borrowed it then you didn’t lose any of your own money. Your money will be sitting in the bank ready to buy at a discount.

@Dennis M. will probably help you with this, but your probably gonna have to go through a probate process to get the property into the sons name. Im assuming its not in a trust? Then you will need to be careful as to what other siblings or people might be involved in the probate process to have right to the property. What I have done before is offer to pay for the attorney fees in return to have the heir sell the property to me. Yes, this is risky but it can be done and some attorneys will tell you that they can't sign anything cause the property is not in the heirs name yet, which is correct but other things can be signed to hold some leverage with the heir to sell to you since you will be paying the attorney fees. Another thing to look at, which I did on a deal, is to look at terms of succession in stead of a full probate process. In California, the appraisal price takes place at when the owner died and if that price is under 150K then you can do terms of succession which is a couple months process and cuts out a lot of competition contacting the heir to the property to try and get the deal. Now I did this with someone who had a will that clearly put them as their to the property, so you need to figure out your situation with the heir your dealing with. Ask him how many family members could have rights to the property etc etc, if it looks like it might just be him then get an attorney involved that deals with probate and see what you can do that makes sense and is not too risky. These things can be big deals if done right with the heir and the right lawyer. Good luck and hopefully Dennis can help you.

@Geoff Garber there are deals everywhere and there are deals for you in your area as well. Use some of that money on marketing until you find the deal your looking for in your area, or in a different area if you choose. Use a website, I use property radar, to generate an excel list of properties you are looking for. You can type in the property information your looking for on these sites and it will generate a list of the property, its owner mailing address and contact information. Use the list to send mail or call the owners. Spend some money to find a great deal!!! If you want to make real estate investing a business then you have to realize we are in a marketing and sales business. You can be the smartest real estate guy in your area but you will also be the brokest if your phone isn't ringing with leads.

@Mitra Samon we flat fee list all of our SFR's and have zero issues with getting low offers or any conflict whatsoever. We have to educate most agents on what it is we are doing. They look at it as any other listing out there. Just remember to give the buyers agent a commission.

@Hyun Don Yun if all the other numbers work for you to do no money down then, in my opinion, do no money down ALWAYS!

Example of why, in my opinion, it’s better for no money down.

You buy a home for $200,000.00

You put 20% down, $40,000.00 of your money

Now the market just turned down 20%

Now you just lost $40,000.00 of your money you put down until the market turns back up 20%

Now.......you put nothing down and have $40,000.00 in the bank and the market turned 20%. YOU STILL HAVE $40,000.00 in your bank account to invest in another home at a low market point. The bank lost that money buy not having you put any money down and since your thinking about moving to rent out your house in a couple years, who cares about that small interest rate difference. Your gonna move and your tenants will be paying that soon, not you.

Of course you need to run all numbers on this but NO MONEY DOWN IS THE WAY TO GO!!

@Mohib Nawab put your name on the insurance and have your LLC as an additional interest on the policy. I do this with mine. Safeco does it for us. They will send you a declarations page you can send back to the lender.

Sub to is when you leave the financing in your friends name and you take title to the property. So you could pay off the second atclose of escrow and leave the financing in place in your friends name. Give him the 15K at close of escrow as well and then just keep making the payments on the property in your friends name. Of course you need to disclose and explain all of this to your friend as well as the risks involved with this. The loan will stay in your friends name till you either sell the property or refinance the property. If the first has been in place for a while then you will be paying more principal on it then if it were a brand new loan. That’s why I asked earlier. Another risk is due on sale clause but you have quite a bit of equity in the property so not such a big risk.

how old is the first mortgage and is it 30 year, 15 year etc etc. I ask cause if its late in the loan then your paying more principal on it if you take this sub to. Of course you need to know what the mortgage payment is on the first and second. If the second is screwing up the cash flow see if you can pay off the second and give him the remaining 8K. If he doesn't like that and wants 15K take home then run numbers and see what makes sense to either pay off second, have tenants pay off second and first etc etc. Sorry, don't have any numbers on first and second so just throwing stuff at you. Sounds like a sub to could be good on this one though.

@Joe Linares Joe!!! I thought you were talking to us about this one? If you still got the guy thinking about carrying the note with you hit us up.

@Jay Anderson don’t think there is one on here but I could be wrong. Every single seller finance deal is most likely to be different so you would have to create your own worksheet to present. What I do is verbally give the seller my round about numbers off the top of my head once I find out why they are selling and what they want. Then I’ll put together an offer or email of all the info of the deal. There are so many ways to structure a seller finance deal that I don’t think there is any better way than to create your own form. Maybe create your own template to fill out and shoot over to a seller of things that will benefit a seller and what your looking for.