All Forum Posts by: Shari Peterson

When I was first starting in real estate investing, I encountered my fair share of setbacks. Some were worse than yours, and would end up causing me to lose money on a deal. It was all part of the learning process.

You can react two ways to setbacks. You can let them hit you in the gut, weigh on you heavily, and cause you to recede so you won't encounter another setback.

Or, you can step back, look at the situation unemotionally, and assess what exactly happened. LEARN FROM IT! What did you do wrong that you could do differently next time? What happened that you completely didn't expect to happen? Anticipate that it could possibly be something to expected next time.

The key is to view the situation as a learning experience. That way, there is ALWAYS value in what just happened. Thinking positively like that will keep you in a better place in your head, ready to take on the next challenge.

I love hearing stories like that, Ryan! Way to go out on a limb and take action that gave you results.

I would contact Angie Bahr. I work with her in St. Louis under Integrity Title but they are licensed nationwide under Metro Settlement Services. They are very investor friendly. She can help you [PHONE NUMBER REMOVED] and tell her that Shari Peterson referred you.

Matt, of all of the POF letters I have provided, I only have received a handful of calls from realtors who are doing more due diligence. For those that I do talk to, I answer their questions honestly. My point, however, is not to worry about it so much because it rarely happens. If you run into an obstacle with one realtor, just move on to the next deal.

Hi Billy -- I am in Missouri too. I am a real estate investor who also is a licensed realtor. You do not need to be a licensed realtor to buy and sell real estate for yourself. Technically, I believe a mobile home is considered personal property and not real estate. I am not 100% sure on that but I think so. You can double check by going to the county assessor's website and inputting the address for a search. Regardless, I don't believe you need a license either way.

When I first got started I attended a boot camp by Shawn McCloskey called Short Sale Wealth. It was an excellent boot camp with lots of education without a million pitches to get you to buy other stuff. His boot camp offered step by step instructions -- including forms, etc -- on how to flip short sales. If you can't attend the boot camp, he also offers a home study course.

Many times you'll find that the bank will require you to close on the REO with their chosen title company and then that title company will NOT allow a back to back closing. The way around this is to do a courtesy close with another title company. This means that you do a back to back closing with the title company of your choosing. You sign the paperwork for the A-B at your title company and they convey it to the REO's title company. The funds are escrowed at your title company and the paperwork and funds are not sent to the other title company until the B-C closing is funded and ready to close FOR SURE.

You think its worth $160k, but you need to get a solid idea what your numbers are. Look at the comps in the area. Ideally have a realtor do it and don't depend on Zillow, which is frequently way off the mark. Find out the comp prices, and then plan on selling it at least $10k lower than the lowest comp. THEN if you want to make a profit spread, shoot for a price lower than that to get approved as a short sale. Shoot for at least a $10k spread. Once you have it under contract with the seller, you can start looking for a seller, while you are working to get the bank to approve it. Then when you have the approval and the new buyer in place, set up transactional funding.
Transactional funding is a one day loan that you use to pay off the bank in the short sale. When you sell/close it to the end buyer that same day, you pay back the one day loan and take the profit from what's left over.