All Forum Posts by: Ralph C.

The next question would be, is the realtor and/or attorney who helped my dad put this deal together legally responsible for making this right? My dad made it very clear to both the attorney and realtor representing him that this was his intention for the property before the deal went through.

@Jordan Decuir - 95% of my deals come from the MLS. There was a poll on BP recently (wish I could find it!) that asked people where their most recent deal came from, and probably 90% said "MLS".

Many people here in the forums lament about the lack of deals on the MLS, but I have not found that to be the case at all. Admittedly, 90% of MLS listings may not look* like a good deal, but in my experience, neither do 90% of wholesale deals!

*Interestingly, there is much more negotiating room with MLS-listed properties. The asking price is only that, "asking". For example, I closed last month on a property that was listed at $120k. I paid $96,200. 

Conversely, most wholesale deals are "take it or leave it at this price, no inspections, cash only, close next week" - Call me old school, but I prefer the art of negotiation! 

Yes...your right. I made a huge mistake. The realtor is our friend so I trusted that he was handling it. I should have requested to see everything. It's all said and done now and I have learned so much from it.

We did get a security deposit and option deposit. The option deposit covers the real estate fees.

We are still getting the house cleaned up. We are almost done. It's around $1000 over the security deposit. We did do a walk through with both agents and the tenants. We did attempt to do a final walk through but the tenants left the house unlocked with keys under the mat. It's been such a mess and I can't believe I was so dumb.

If you want to recoup the damages, Try and get their current information and take them to court for the damages...

I have a quick question for all the experienced landlords out there. I made a huge mistake when accepting a lease puyrchase on my rental. Two years ago we had our rental house for sale. We didn't intend on becoming landlords but we bought at the height of the market and were upside down in the house. We had to move so we rented it for a year then put it on the market. We didn't have a lot of interest but a lease purchase came along so I trusted our realtor and their realtor. We were told that he hadn't been at his commission job for two years so he wouldnt be able to buy until this happened. We did a lease for 18 months and let our realtor handle the lease and all of the verification. Big mistake. The renter let 5 dogs live in the house so you can imagine what we walked into when he decided not to buy. So I contacted my realtor to get a copy of the background check for court because we are going to attempt to get some money out of the tenant for damages. Well our realtor didn't do a background check. All that was done was a verification that he had a job and income. The realtor didn't even verify this himself, he took the finance guys word for it. The realtor felt like everything was okay because finance officer said he would rent to the tenant. It's my fault for not visually seeing the background check but I asked several times who handled the reference and background check and I trusted the real estate agent & his company since they did the lease. They were not managing the property, I was doing that. I am just curious if it should have been done or if I should have done it? What is everyone's experience with this? Oh and I turns out the guy had bad credit but I was never told this. I was only told that he hadn't been at his job long enough.

@John Thedford Fraud is a strong word but it's only when someone is a victim of actual theft of their money. If that was the case wholesaling, it would've been shut down a decade ago. It is a loop pole in the RE industry, brokers are losing money because of it and they know it. All it is to get around without getting a license which could lead to unethical behavior. Even in my RE class we talked about legal practices can be unethical. End of the day, it is legal. 

I'll take my house for a great example, my mother passed away. The mortgage on the house is $48k, needs around $20k-40k in fixing and with ARV could sell for $95-120k. If I had a mindset like my family just telling me to sell, get rid of it. Why would I go through a RE agent/broker when I can go through a wholesaler saving me a commission of $5k or more. I get my $50k, to pay off the mortgage, and I walk away happy. Really all the agent does is slap it on the MLS, can write a offer at their other job sitting on their a$$ and make their commission. 

The seller(motivated seller) agreed to the price the property they want to get rid of, wholesaler puts in under contract then assigns it to a cash buyer(investor). Really the seller is happy when they get their check, getting rid of the house, wholesaler is happy getting a assignment fee, and fixer/flipper is happy when knowing he going to make $50k in profit selling the property AFV. 

 I can understand the hate is when wholesaler not disclosing what their actually doing of flipping the contract to the cash buyers. Problem if the wholesaler discloses about his "cash buyer partners" during negotiation this will only confuse the hell out of a motivated seller. All they really care about is selling the damn thing. So why bother even telling seller, and if contract he locked up expires wholesaler walks away.  

@John Thedford

@Ethan Atkinson, I'm under the impression that the IRS doesn't tax a primary residence if you've lived there for a certain number of years.

I found this on the TurboTax website:

I was in the home for 6 years and profits didn't exceed the $500,000 threshold (I'm maried filing joint).  Am I missing something?

Hi Joel, I really appreciate your response to my post.  I am not currently licensed in real estate.  I manage accounts for individual and corporate relocations nationally.  My ultimate goal is to become an investor of commercial real estate properties. I want to delve into multifamily and industrial properties.  I really just want to get my feet wet and learn the industry.  My family is financially able to make less than what we are living on now for me to begin pursuing this, as I expect a pay cut from my current salary. 

Hello, 

I'm getting started and I actually have 2 hot prospects I expect to be calling on shortly to see if we can agree on terms for a property.  I want to make sure I have the proper paperwork on hard before I call, so I need to make sure I have the right contracts so everything is fully legal and compliant here in Atlanta/Georgia.

One of them is a regular residential property, the other is an 5+ unit property, which I understand is classified as commercial. 

So how and where do I get a standard Georgia residential contract as well as a commercial property contract? I've been told the residential one is pretty standard and can be obtained (or purchased) through many different sources locally... but that the commercial one might need to be customized by an attorney. Is that correct?  Can someone point me to where I'd be able to pick up (or possibly download ) these contracts I'd need?

Thanks in advance for your help. 

I'm in Florida, but I just got a 1555 square foot 4/2 house painted inside and out for $1250. The guys aren't licensed or insured, but I don't care because I have my own insurance policy. I found them on Craigslist and they were hungry for work. How hard is it to paint? They did a good job and I'll use them on all my flips.

$1250 plus cost of paint. I am of the opinion that contractors will always try to take advantage of you so why use them unless they're absolutely necessary?