All Forum Posts by: Seth Williams

Glad you found it helpful @Stephen Menches

Hi @Michael Czepil - the rental properties I own were all built between 1890 - 1920 and they needed moderate rehabbing when I bought them (nothing major, because the prior owners did a halfway decent job of keeping them in good order).

I can understand why the age would scare some buyers away, but if you look at the numbers (income, expenses, ROI, etc.), these properties can be awesome performers. The ones I own have low vacancy, the tenants are just as good (assuming they're screened well upfront) and they cash flow extremely well.

Do older properties have their issues? Of course (e.g. - smaller stairs, not very handicap-accessible, lower ceilings in the basement, electrical service upgrades, etc.), but there is still a huge demand for this kind of rental space in my market.

The thing I always have to remind myself is... just because I wouldn't want to live there, doesn't mean there aren't thousands of other people who would be happy to live there.

It's easy to confuse our own biases for that of the market - which is why it's important to talk with people who understand the market for these kinds of properties (property managers, agents, investors, etc.). When you understand what the actual market data says, you can make much a more educated decision (rather than basing your decisions on the assumptions flying around in your head).

@Jose Figueroa - per the comment from @Joe Butcher - AgentPro247 is an alternative option you could try. It's a subscription service (I pay $18/mo) which you can use to pull up to 2,000 records per month.

It's the same data that a title company would have access to, the only difference is that YOU are the one who controls it and specifies the criteria (rather than working at the mercy of your title company).

Their system is relatively simple to figure out - here's a quick video tutorial I put together on it a while back:

Hope this helps!

Hi @Eric O'Brian - I know the type of caller you're talking about. I've talked to my fair share of callers who who think they're sitting on gold and have no intention of selling at a discount. I've also heard from a few who claim that they get mailers every month (and who knows, maybe they do... who am I to say?)

I've found that this happens when my mailing list hasn't been filtered well (or when I didn't get the right list in the first place). Where are you getting your lists from? What kind of filtering criteria are you using?

In my experience, when you mail to the right list, you'll get calls from property owners who are significantly more motivated and willing to "cut and run" from their property for a fraction of market value. I know one person working in the LA area right now who has absolutely no shortage of deals to work with... so I'm pretty sure the opportunities are there, even in the craziest of markets. If you're able to obtain and filter a list down to the point that it excludes the bulk of the people who aren't motivated, I think you'll find that the job gets MUCH easier. It's not a dream, it's just a matter of grazing in the right places.

I can't really speak to the state of the SoCal market (because I don't know it as well as you do), but I'm willing to bet there are plenty of motivated sellers who would be willing to work with you... you probably just haven't been looking in the right places.

When I was a new investor, I used to get frustrated out of my mind trying to find deals on the MLS (because everyone else was looking there too - all the good opportunities seemed to be picked over), but when I figured out where to pull my lists and how to filter them correctly, I was able to bypass a lot of this resistance that you seem to be dealing with.

I know there are different philosophies on this, but I think @Steven J. has an excellent point. It depends greatly on:

• The volume of calls you're getting (are you being inundated with more callers than you can handle?)
• Each caller's level of motivation (do these people think that you are their only hope, or do they have plenty of other options that can solve their problem?)

Personally, I've almost always been in a position where I had an overabundance of callers and they frankly needed me more than I needed them. I also didn't have unlimited time to chat with strangers on the phone all day. For this reason, I created a 2 minute voicemail message that automated my process a bit. It was designed to answer questions, keep people on the line and pull some answers out of people before I invested any more of my time on the phone with them.

Did I get some hang ups? Of course. But this also indicated pretty clearly that they weren't a motivated seller (if someone can't take 30 seconds to leave a message, does that sound like a motivated seller to you?).

Anyway... the system has worked pretty well for me over the past 5 years. I've never really had any shortage of deals to pursue.

Happy B-day buddy! This world is a much better place because of you.

Hi @Bryce Robbins - this is a great question. Valuing land can be an extraordinarily challenging task... it's really more an art than a science.

I'm not sure what exactly is implied when you say "improved" land, but when it comes to finding comps and relevant data in your market, here is a quick overview of what I do:

It's not a perfect solution per se, but then again - neither is an appraisal. An educated person would never give you an iron clad guarantee about how much a property will sell for... and given the lack of data we have at our disposal, this is one of the best valuing strategies I've found for land, and I put to work in my business with every property I buy (and it hasn't steered me wrong yet).

There's actually a lot more to this subject. If you want a more in-depth overview of my entire process from start-to-finish, it's all here.

@George P. - that's certainly one of the dangers of investing in land (taking over a headache, or a junk property), but this only happens when investors buy without doing adequate research. It's actually an easy trap to fall into in the beginning, but it's also a mistake you don't make twice.

But to answer your question... yes, many of them are in fact, hidden gems. It's not that these sellers couldn't have sold to someone else a long time ago (for a much higher price) - because they easily could have. In most cases, it's that they're lazy, they just don't care, and/or there are external factors at work that are getting in their way of selling.

When an investor goes through the effort of seeking out these kinds of property owners and making the sale process very easy for them, there are some incredible deals to be had. These kinds of sellers are desperate, and they aren't necessarily thinking, "I need to get as much money out of this as I can". Instead, they're thinking, "I need to get this property out of my life as soon as possible."

You generally won't find these kinds of people listing their property on the MLS (because if they have it listed, that's a sign they they care, and they're not lazy). You have to find them where they are and make the deal easy for them to digest.

Excellent work @Brandon Turner and @Joshua Dorkin - this podcast is a great service that you've provided for the RE investing community (on top of the already great services you were providing in the website). You both deserve all the props in the world. Keep up the good work!

That's okay @Bryan L. - @Joshua Dorkin is the only one you really need to know.