All Forum Posts by: Bryan L.

The timeline to get your paperwork into HUD used to be 48 hours. Now, with the new e-signature, what's the timeline? Here's what I have going on: I placed a bid and got a counter-offer today (Wednesday). If I accept the counter offer, I will basically get it accepted by HUD tomorrow (Thursday). I want to have a little time to finalize my inspections before the e-signatures are due. Will the e-signatures be due on Friday or Monday? I'm hoping for Monday so that I will have the week-end to do some more inspections. Actually, Monday is a holiday, so it would give me till Tuesday if my thinking is correct.

@Shawn Clark - did you see the part about making over $1000/ hr on referrals?  Also, I have another sales gig that I work, and I like to hike and fish a lot, so I really don't have much time for the paper-work and taking pictures and putting up signs and all that.  For the referrals, the leads are coming in from my "I Buy Houses" marketing.  So, I'm already doing that marketing anyway.  If it's not something for me to buy, I do a little sales script with them while I have them on the phone to build them up and get them ready to list with my other Realtor friend, then I send him a text or email with their name and number.  He does the rest.  We're all happy.  Win/win/win.  I spend maybe 15 minutes on it (30 minutes max) and make 1/4 of the side.

@Michael Badin - Way too much to type.  It's taken me years to develop it and fine tune it.  But now that I have it, it only takes 10-15 minutes on the phone to work it.  I was just talking with my Realtor-listing-partner just 5 minutes ago, and he said that he thinks we convert/close about 3/4ths of the leads that we work together.  On the types of leads - they are whatever/whoever calls in from my "I Buy Houses" marketing.

@Justin Westmoreland - It only takes a few minutes with them on the phone, but I have learned that there are some very specific things to say, and some things not to say in order to help them along the way to listing their home with my Realtor friend.  In the same regard, there's some certain things that the listing Realtor needs to say.

My advice may be different than others, but here it is.  When you're first starting out, most of your business will come from your "sphere of influence" (friends and family).  Work this set of leads hard.  But, for the most part, they won't care what your website looks like or if you even have one.  The rest of that story is that leads that come in from a website (even a good one) are harder to convert if you have no other warm connection to them.  Those people are also on the websites from 12 other Realtors in town.

@Mindy Jensen - Mortgage, pish.  BUT, have you ever bought a house for 25,000 with a bank mortgage and walk away from the closing table with a check for $16,000 - from the BANK!  (in all fairness, this happened before the crash).

For me, I wouldn't have bought that MF deal that eventually ate my lunch with negative cash-flow.  If I remember correctly, I closed on it just a month or two prior to the Lehman Brothers crash.  There were plenty of mistakes and problems with that deal too.  I wish Lehman would have crashed prior to me getting that MF under contract so that I would have never even bought it.

@Justin Westmoreland and @Michael Badin - It's common for a Realtor to split their commission with another Realtor in this way on a closed deal.  That's the key though.  It's a closed deal rather than just a "lead".  I also spend a few minutes on the phone with the lead, coaching them to list with my Realtor partner and I spend time with my Realtor partner, coaching them on how to convert these types of leads.  I have found a great Realtor to work with and we get probably 50-75% of these leads converted and closed.  It works out to be great money for me on a per-hour basis, because I am already talking to the sellers on the phone anyway (they have called me to see if I will buy their house).  I just spend 10-15 minutes doing some pre-qualification and coaching of them.

@justin 

@Justin Westmoreland it varies, but I generally make 1/4 of the other Realtors commission at closing.

One thing that you can do is to refer that buyer to another Realtor and make a referral commission in the process.  I also often make referral commissions by referring "un-motivated" sellers to other Realtors in my office - often pulling in over $1000/hr through referrals.