All Forum Posts by: Oz Pariser

@Michelle D. I believe so. My closing attorney is very good with probate stuff so I have a call in to him and I should know by tomorrow. I don't know yet if the seller had a will. Everything's still kinda up in the air with that deal.

Thanks a lot @Michael Noto, definitely learned a lot and made some money, very happy with the result! We used a hard money lender, and my partner paid the down payment. So I didn't bring any money to the deal. I like the strategy a lot, and in many cases seems to be less risk/hassle and more profitable than a rehab. So I foresee myself doing it a lot in this market.

You're welcome @Mateusz Prawdzik. You can for sure do it without a mentor but I recommend going to local real estate investor meetups and maybe finding one, it can really speed up your progress.

A lot of the houses I saw with my mentor were bank-owned vacant properties. So a lot of it was just learned by observation. I think some of the questions to ask a seller would be what big repairs need to be made (like roof, mechanicals, etc), but if you're at the house with the seller you can pretty much see it for yourself.

Thanks @Mateusz Prawdzik

I found the absentee owners list through listsource.com. 

I also do "drive for dollars" and have compiled those run-down/vacant properties I see into a list, and searched for the owner names and addresses through the town tax assessor websites. I'll be mailing to these for the first time very soon.

As far as the FSBO, my personal opinion is it's first wise to get a feel for what repair costs are like by looking through houses in your area and with a book like "the book on estimating rehab costs" which I found very helpful. I also had the opportunity to walk through a lot of houses with my mentor which gave me a good feel for repairs/costs. While this is tough in the beginning you eventually get better and better at estimating the numbers. I wouldn't waste a contractor's time having him quote a house unless you somehow plan on compensating him for it. The ARV you'll find by looking at comparable sales in the area. But without access to the MLS this can be difficult. Some people recommend zillow as a very rough starting point of what the ARV might be. So once you have the estimated repairs and the ARV you can figure out what you'd be willing to offer and go from there. Good luck

Had some let-downs along the way. One seller signed a contract with us but his wife who was also on title wasn't present to sign. He strung us along saying he was getting her signature, meanwhile signed a contract with another buyer and sold it to him, right out from under us.

Had another great deal under contract, waiting on some paperwork before we could close, and the seller died, rest her soul, voiding the contract and now everything is completely up in the air.

Real estate is an unpredictable business!

For sure it took a lot of hustle and also the good fortune of having a great mentor. But with the right connections investing in real estate with little money really is possible

Thanks @Amy A. the property was in pretty good condition but we specified that cash buyers were preferred when we listed it, we might've had to build some back steps if we tried to sell to a buyer using conventional financing. We also didn't want to wait that long for conventional financing because of the high cost of holding the property using hard money.

Thank you @Josh Stevenson, definitely a win all around!

Definitely not too personal.. I brought no money of my own to this deal aside from marketing dollars. I found the deal and brought it to my mentor/partner. We used a hard money lender, and my partner paid the down payment for the hard money..we then split the profit. Hope that helps

Thanks @Rick Santasiere!

Thanks @Christopher Stanis!

Thanks @Rotimi Lademo! That was the third mailing of that campaign. Sounds great, shoot me a message when you get here