All Forum Posts by: Nic Williams

Thanks for the info @Scott Wolf.  I am pursuing my real estate salesperson license for the exact reasons that you described above.   I understand that I must hang my license under a broker, but there are a couple things I'm not clear on.  

When you write an offer for yourself for your own investment property, is your broker entitled to any fee or commission (which would make sense)?  If so, is it based on a typical commission of say 2.5% or 3% for the buying agent/broker, depending on the area, with a percentage of that commission going to the broker?  And I assume the same is true if you sell your own property?

Also, do you have any suggestions for finding a broker that is willing to hold the license of a investor that will be writing his or her own offers and selling his or her own properties?  Do all brokers offer this service?  I would imagine the large companies would prefer to work with people representing other buyers and sellers.  

Thanks so much for your help.

@Kyle Dalrymple thank you for the recommendation!  I will definitely reach out to him.

Hi Everyone,

I've submitted an offer on an old house in Yuba City, CA that I intend on flipping if I end up buying the property.  The seller countered my offer at what he says is the lowest he'll take.  While his counter is quite a bit higher than my original offer, I think the numbers may still work.  However, I'm new to the flipping world and am looking for someone that can help determine the condition of the property, the likely issues that will need to be addressed, and a ballpark rehab estimate.  I could certainly accept the counter offer and then perform inspections and have contractors walk the property at that time.  However, with my lack of experience and the fact that this is a very old house, I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on inspections and waste everyone's time just to find out that there's no way this deal will work.  

I'm reaching out to see if there are any contractors in the Yuba City / Marysville / Live Oak / Sutter area that would be willing to take a look at this property, determine the likely issues that need to be addressed, and provide a ballpark rehab estimate?  I don't have anyone lined up to do the rehab, so I am certainly willing to hire you if everything works out.  

Please send me a private message or reply to this post if you are interested or if you know a contractor that may be interested.  Thanks to everyone in advance for reading this and for your consideration!

Thanks,

Nic 

I'll be there as well, thanks for organizing @Al Williamson.  Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help out.  Looking forward to meeting everyone.

Thanks for adding me to the thread @Sergey Tkachev.  Yeah I'll be out of town on the 25th but I look forward to meeting all of you another time.

Thank you for the replies @Deonta Dorrough, @Jason Flynn, and @Pratik P.  I agree that the out of area landlords that are interested in selling their homes at market value are the owners to pass along to you guys.  I've sent both of you private messages about this.

Jason- we're getting our lists from Listsource.  I worked with a sales rep at Listsource and paid for a bulk order which I believe gives you better pricing than if you just pay for each list individually.

Pratik- it's too bad that lady got angry about all of the mail she is getting.  I'm sure she isn't the only one that gets annoyed with it, but I'm sure there are also people that are happy to receive these letters because they need our help.  I just wish I knew where to find them...

Thank you for your input @Pat McGrath.  Yes I'm keeping track of the people that have called.  It's a pretty small sample size so far, but the majority of the callers have been out off area landlords (mostly people living in the bay area) that were interested in finding out how much we'd be willing to pay for their properties.  A few of them also recently had a tenant move out and were in the process of trying to rent their properties.  That combination of being an out of area landlord and trying to fill a vacancy may present some good opportunities as long as the properties or owners are distressed and there is a need to sell.  As you and Sergey pointed out, I'm sure the older properties and those that have been owned for longer will have more potential for an investor.  Our next list of properties will definitely fit the pre-2003 criteria that you suggested.  Thanks again.

@Valentyn Svit thank you for the tip!  That's a great idea.  Along with a potential referral fee, I like that it provides another way to help sellers that don't have a need for our services.  

@Sergey Tkachev I've added you to our buyers list as well.  Thanks again.      

@Gabriel Ugarte thank you for the response, I will certainly add you to our buyers list.  We are primarily looking for flip properties for ourselves, but we're also building a buyers list in case we have deals that we would rather sell to another investor instead of rehabbing ourselves.  Thanks again.

@Sergey Tkachev thank you as well for the welcome and for your input.  I've heard a few times now that targeting owners that bought in 2003 or earlier can be productive due to the amount of loan pay down those owners have experienced so far.  This will most likely be the next group that we market to.  Thank you again for your feedback, it is very much appreciated.

Hi everyone- I'm reaching out for some input and suggestions on direct mail.  My business partners and I sent out our first round of direct mail about 3 weeks ago.  Our goal with direct mail is to find off market fixer uppers that we can rehab and either rent or sell.  Our property criteria and some additional information are below.

Criteria:  

• Location: Parts of Sacramento, CA and Yuba City, CA
• 3+ bedroom single family homes
• ABSENTEE owned
• 40 - 100 % equity
• Built between 1950 and 2013
• Last market sale date between September 2008 and December 2013

Additional Information:

• Property info came from Listsource
• Postcards sent by Yellowletters.com
• 6 month campaign planned, with 6 pieces of mail sent to each owner over 6 months
• Total Postcards Sent in First Round = 1025
• Calls from Owners: 8
• Offers Made: 4
• Accepted Offers & Counter Offers: 0

Our plan with this list of people is to identify owners that purchased when the market was low and have gained a lot of equity as the market has gone up over the last few years. We've had a decent response so far, but all of the owners we've talked to are landlords that are just interested in finding out how much they can get for their properties. So far nobody has really seemed "distressed" or had a real need to sell. The owners just figured they would call us to see how much we'd offer them. When we've presented our offers that are basically the ARV less rehab costs, closing costs, holding costs, and profit, we've been laughed at. And as I said above, none of these owners has really been distressed or had a true need to sell.

My concern is that the last market sale date criteria of September 2008 through December 2013 actually gave us properties that are NOT distressed and are most likely in good condition because they were all purchased somewhat recently.  I'm sure there are some actual distressed properties and owners in the group, but so far the data is saying the opposite.

I realize this is a very small sample size, but I'm curious to see if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions for us.

Did our search criteria give us a bad list of properties to go after?  Or is it too soon to tell?  Should we have targeted properties that were purchased much longer ago?  Or should we have targeted a different list of properties all together?

The current plan is to send out at least one more round of mail to the same list of owners and see if our response is any different.  If we end up with more owners that are NOT distressed and expect top dollar for their properties, we may cancel our 6 month campaign and move on to another list.

Any feedback or suggestions that anyone has would be greatly appreciated!  Thank you in advance.

Nic