All Forum Posts by: Alvin Grier

We are constantly working to increase the number of deals we analyze each day.

We recently decided to find an agent to work with us to provide us with expired listings that meet our criteria. In exchange, we provide them a list of weekly leads of home sellers looking to sell.

At this point we've had two different agents that have agreed to work with us in this capacity, but neither have held up their end of the bargain.

Thinking that perhaps they wanted to see if we'd hold up to our end of the bargain first, we sent several leads to both agents, but we never received anything back. Not even a "thank you" for the leads we provided.

The leads we pass on to them are home sellers that want to sell, but that have homes that don't meet our buyer's criteria.

Before I go searching for yet another agent/realtor to approach with this proposition, I was wondering if you might be able to tell me what I might be doing wrong, here.

To me, it seems like a pretty even trade.

I know you can't hear exactly what I'm saying to these agents, but what I've shared in this thread is pretty darn close.

Is there something wrong with this agreement that maybe the agents are scared to tell me? Or is my intuition right, which is telling me that I might have to just keep approaching agents until I meet one that's accountable and holds up their end of the bargain?

Yeah, I thought about that. The issue with that, is that I wondered if that might be a little too much to ask someone who calls.

Although, on the other hand, it's just one additional question, so it might not be that big of a deal to ask them that as well.

Hmmm... First off, thanks for taking the time to reply.

I'll have to look into that feature to see how it works, otherwise it seems like it would be difficult to simultaneously monitor/answer seven different numbers.

On the other hand, being that our bandit sign number is a Google Voice number, Google might provide some simple way to accomplish something like what you're suggesting.

We're working to track the efficiency of our bandit sign campaign.

While in the midst of drafting the spreadsheet for the tracking form we were going to use to track this, I discovered that I didn't know how to track which bandit sign route (we have 7 different ones, a different one is done each week) the call came from.

Our routes are segmented by zip codes.

The difficulty (at least perceived difficulty) with this, is that someone could very well call from a bandit sign that was placed in a different zip code than that of their property.

For example, today, we got a few leads from a city that we don't even place signs in. There are, however, two or three different routes/zip codes that sit next to these properties; neither of which was populated with signs in the last three weeks.

After racking my brain for way too long about this issue, I decided that I was going to just deal with this. I figured that I may as well just live with this issue, as it would only likely skew the numbers by a little bit.

On the other hand, I don't want to leave an opportunity on the table to get accurate results, if I can get around this issue.

Before I decide to just live with this, I thought I'd run it by you guys to see what you thought.

Is there a better way to track where these leads came from, or is this too minor of an issue to give it much thought?

Thank you sir! Great ideas.

I have a decent sized mailing list built via the opt-in form at our website. The product that they get as a result of opting in is an ebook on many of the mistakes to avoid as a real estate investor.

Our focus at the moment is on wholesaling residential real estate.

I reach out to the people on the list via mass emails from time to time, however I'm unsure of how to benefit from the list financially.

I don't have a course or product to sell (at least not yet), so I'd like to benefit via real estate deals some how; at least for the time being.

I suppose I could find an affiliate product that I believe in to promote, but again I'd like to benefit via real estate transactions if at all possible.

One thought, was to let them know the kind of deal I'm looking for, and to offer to pay them a wholesale fee if I close on a deal they brought to me (the "bird dog" approach), however I'm unsure.

I'm looking for ideas on how I can financially benefit from the mailing list.

I put a lot of effort into providing quality information, so I don't think anything is wrong with pitching something here and there within the emails I send out.

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks!

Yeah, I kinda figured that. The thing is, they're making it hard for us to know for sure whether there's genuine interest or not, without having a little more information.

Unfortunately, I think this is what happens when the dynamic between us and the realtor lacks a strong relationship.

Other than assuring them that we're not going to risk our namesake with them by going around them, is there anything else we can do to get the info we need to truly evaluate this deal?

There's no way in heck we're going to get one of our prospective buyers to come out without having the necessary info to see if it's even worth their time to come see it.

We have other deals in the pipeline, so I'm not stressed about it, I just hate leaving money on the table if there's a viable way to get around the obstacle in the way.

We've had wholesale deals where we've had private sellers that owe a lot in back taxes (as I'm sure you have as well).

Anyways, in order to close on their homes via Warranty Deed, as many of our buyers prefer, the taxes need to be taken care of at closing.

What we've been running into, is sellers that expect to walk away with nearly the entire purchase price as well as have us take care of their back taxes.

So for example, if the selling price is $30k, and they owe $20k in back taxes, they expect to leave the closing table with $30k in their pocket, and have the buyer pay the $20k in back taxes, which usually just flat-out isn't going to happen.

I've done some reading on the Internet on the topic to see how other wholesalers deal with this issue, and I've found two perspectives:

1. Be upfront with the seller from the beginning, and let them know that the taxes are going to reduce the amount they're going to leave the closing table with (which is what we've been doing up to this point), or

2. Don't tell the seller that they're going to leave with less money than expected, and allow them to be surprised at the closing table, when they look at the HUD (which risks the chances that the seller will get up and walk out at the closing table).

I was just interested in bringing this up on this forum to get some perspective from some of you guys on how you have or would approach such a situation.

Being upfront with the seller is the route we've went up to this point, however this obviously reduces the amount of deals that reach the closing table.

It seems that some are of the opinion that it's up to the seller to be savvy enough to know what they're going to leave the closing with, so I was wondering what you guys thought.

Thanks for your feedback and time.

First and foremost, I'll preface this by saying that my current niche is wholesaling residential properties, and that I don't have much experience working with realtors/agents.

Anyways, I'm in the beginning stages of building a relationship with a realtor, and they let me know that they know about an apartment building that they are trying to help someone sell without listing it.

Being that we know a few people that buy and hold commercial properties, we asked them to go ahead and give us some particulars on the property, so that we can mention it to the investors in our network; for all I know, we could possibly wholesale this property to an investor.

Well anyways, they gave us some very generic info on the property (number of units, etc.), and wouldn't give the address of the property, nor would they even tell us which part of town it sits in.

They said that they'd only give that information if we were interested in seeing the property.

My thing is, how would we know if we (or our prospective buyer(s) would want to view the property, unless we had enough information to become officially interested?

Is this normal?

Can someone possibly explain the realtor's rationale behind taking such a stance? From my perspective, it doesn't make much sense.

Thanks

I decided to just call them, and we had some good responses. Some of them requested that I send them more information via email, while some others requested additional information via physical mail.