All Forum Posts by: Ed Brancheau

I might be able to help. PM me.

Of course, state laws vary so you need to check those but I'd keep it simple. Some states allow fines from HOAs or cities to be passed on to the tenant. Others don't.

Send a certified letter stating that it's been brought to your attention that the backyard is dirty and is an embarrassment. You want it to seem like one of the neighbors complained to you but don't say it was one of the neighbors. You don't want to cause a fight. Just a simple, "It's been brought to my attention."

Even if you can't pass a fine along, you can always imply that they can be fined... "The city fine for a dirty backyard is $1000 per month." I'm not saying that they have to pay it. I'm just stating a fact.

And tell them that if they don't clean it up within 30 days, you'll...

• Start eviction proceedings (if allowed by law)
• Won't renew their lease
• Or raise their rent when the current lease expires

Now, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and, even though it won't help you this time, in the future, slyly check the condition of a possible tenant's car's interior when they meet you. Walk them out to their car when you're done showing them the place.

It's not a guarantee but people usually treat their cars like they treat their homes. A car with a dirty interior probably means a dirty tenant (although a clean car doesn't mean a clean tenant.) And I don't necessarily pay attention to the exterior because that's less under their control.

William Faber at ValuEscrow in Santa Ana works with investors and wholesalers so he knows where you're coming from: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wi...

Your registered agent will only get official state documents and, hopefully never, lawsuits.

Most services don't charge you for the first five documents which would be from the Secretary of State and whatnot.

Then it's $15 for each thereafter.

I went through LegalZoom and have never received more than five documents.

Yeah. Landon's right.

There are plenty of deals off market and there are also some on the MLS but you need to target them correctly.

I'm in San Diego so I understand your frustration but there are deals to be found.

The trick is to treat your search like a diamond mine.

1. You got to research areas. Max Maxwell has a great video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxuw8xEziTY

For instance, look for properties:

• Over 120 days old (at least 90 days)
• Were removed and reposted (I use Propstream to do this)

They are out there in every market. You just need a system to find them. Like hire a VA to check everyday for properties that just turned 120 days old.

Secret: I always set my triggers to slightly less to jump ahead of what everyone has been taught.

For instance, using the 120 day trigger like I suggested, I might set it to 117 days.

Or investors use the 1% rule... I set it to .97%. You'd be surprised how many deals there are in that little .03% range that everyone else ignoring because their calculator told them to. After all, you can usually get a seller to reduce their price enough to push you over 1%.

And yeah, everyone wants cash for two main reasons:

• They keep hearing that it's a hot market. ("Yes. It is a hot market, Mr. Curmudgeon. But you own a hoarder house."
• They don't know about other options.

Even owners of the dumpiest dump in the dumpiest neighborhood want cash and they want full price.

So, the first trick is to being talking to them about what price they want. That's easy because they always want to talk cash. And if you ask for a price range, you might get them to reveal their true base price.

Then you know the real number to work off and show them that is just not going to be possible to pay cash for the full ARV.

"You know Mr. Curmudgeon, I can pay you cash and I understand that your house could sell for $300K but that's after you hire a contractor to fix everything and a realtor to sell it."

"So, I can pay you $200K cash and I'll assume the risks of fixing it OR I can pay you the full value you want if you are willing to finance the sale to me or give me the option to fix it up and lease it."

Because you're saying you can pay them full value whereas everyone else has been "low-balling" them in their eyes, they'll likely ask you, "How does that work?"

Of course, all of this starts with how you target properties in the first place.

So, how are you targeting properties?

Springfield? That's where the Simpsons live? I heard it has nuclear waste a three-eyed fish. 😂

OK. Seriously.

A couple of weeks ago, I compiled a list from Listsource of cash buyers in states that Uhaul said people were moving to the most.

Missouri was #4-5.

Then cross referenced that with Zillow to see if the zip codes that:

• Less the $330K
• Had increased in value the past year
• Are projected to increase in value this year

I'm 95% sure that I saw Springfield on the list.

Stay Awesome!

Yes. Wholesaling is a great way to get started and, while you don't need it to get started, earning your real estate license can be really helpful because it can give you authority. I'm working on getting mine as well for this reason.

Now, a lot of real estate agents will tell you the wholesaling is illegal when it most certainly not. Even the head lawyer for the National Association of Realtors explains otherwise: https://www.nar.realtor/window...

I mention this because you'll get Debbie Downers that you'll need to ignore.

Regarding you're main question, all real estate agents are like wholesalers. It's just that they don't put a property under contract.

But, most real estate agents don't realize that they can make more money by solely working with real estate investors. Instead, they all want to work with sellers who they think are "easier" to work with than buyers.

Think about it this way:

1. Investors are usually not picky. They just look at the numbers.
   1. So, as buyers they're not going to have you showing them like 5 houses and asking a bunch of questions. 
   2. You just have to ask them what they want, find it for them, and then negotiate the deal for them.
   3. Sounds like a wholesaler, right?
2. You get paid TWO+* commissions instead of one!
   1. The average home in Hudson Valley is like $250K, right?
   2. So, you negotiate the sale of the house at 70% of ARV which is $175K.
   3. Investors will want you to find them even more deals so they'll, as the buyer, pay you a 6% commission whereas, usually, agents' commissions are paid by the seller. This helps the seller.
      1. And since you're representing both the seller and buyer, you get to keep the whole commission which is like getting two commissions!
      2. That's like $10.5K (part will go to your broker where you're "hanging your shingle".)
   4. Once your investor has fixed the property, guess what, they're going to need an agent to sell the property which is now worth $250K.
      1. Who are they going to list it with if they want you to keep getting deals? You, of course!
      2. So, that lands you a commission of $15K split two ways (you and the buyer's agent.)
   5. So, whereas most agents want the one "Seller Listing" which they'll spend a bunch of time to find and make ONE sale AND have to split with the buyer's agent, you can make $17.5K to their $7.5K!
   6. Plus, you'll have an immediate, repeat buyer/seller for every deal you find.

Now, you've got about $15K to either invest yourself OR, even better, partner up with your investor and have them show you the ropes while you get an even larger payoff.

Because if you take your $15K and go in on another property with an ARV of $250K, at 70% you'll own a 8.5% stake.

When you sell the property, your cut will be over $21K (your $15K plus 8.5% of the profit.) You've increase your "commission" by $6K (40%!)

You see where this is going?

$21K + 40% = $30K (you almost have the 20% ($35K) you'd need to get a hard money lender to work with you individually)
$30K + 40% = $41K (you now have enough to do your own deal!)

But now you'll find a property, buy it, fix it, and make about $50K in profit.

Meanwhile, you're competition is still fighting over for measly $7K commissions.

Here's the kicker... you don't have to wait until you get your real estate license... you can wholesale.

Now, there is one thing you'll have to watch out for... the urge to work with non-investors just like every other agent out there.

Don't!

Your niche is investors. And there are only a few of them worth their salt. I'm in San Diego and I've only run into TWO agents that focus on investors. TWO!

I bet you'd be the only one in Hudson Valley.

Can you clarify because lead generation and CRMs are usually different.

Depending upon what your goals are, you might want a system like Carrot which helps you build a site, run online ads, and convert them into leads. This would be more passive but it takes much longer to get great results.

Then there are other systems that you can take results from a program like Propstream and then manage them through a CRM. This method can be really fast to results but takes more action on your part.

And ultimately, you'll want to do both.

Stay Awesome!

I'm not exactly sure about PA but here in CA we can't just kick them out even if we're fixing it up unless you plan on it being your primary residence which I'm guessing you're not.

And when you add COVID on top of it, it becomes even more difficult if not impossible.

Here's are a couple of great articles that should help:

https://www.parealtors.org/new...

https://www.equalhousing.org/u...

Also, talk to a great real estate attorney and put them on retainer. You'll need one anyway in the future... might as well make it now.

Stay Awesome!

Oh, yeah. We're both in tough markets.

But here's a great podcast that talks about house hacking in San Francisco which might actually be tougher than either of our markets: https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

Also, FHA/HUD loans are available for all parts of the country. I forget what the maximums are but they're higher here for, I think, up to 4-5 units.

So, it's totally possible and I'd also recommend asking people in NYC, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, etc because they're all expensive markets.

Stay Awesome!