All Forum Posts by: Rob Evans

I have an open-ended question, but I will throw it out there anyway.  My wife was surfing the internet and saw a page with the title "Investors are selling their real estate because...".  She did read the article, and she could not find it again.  Now, she has tasked me with finding it, but I have had no luck.  My hunch is that the article was about some type of government action, IRS or otherwise, that is scaring investors into selling off real estate investments.

So my question is, "Are there any recent and notable government actions that would cause real estate investors to panic into selling off their properties?".

I'm hear to learn and profit. Thank you for your help!

Welcome! I love your perspective on how you have been able to positively affect your children's lives through real-life examples. That is an outcome that I hope to achieve for my children too.

Welcome Midas! I am a former motgage banker AE, and with some good backing I am venturing into the reo world myself. Please tell us more about your exploits. I am sure we can all learn a lot from you.

Hello everyone! I joined a while back but just now got more involved. There are a lot of really smart and experienced members on this site which I hope to learn from, and I hope I can impart some of my knowledge about real estate investing too. I have a sales and software background, and I am especially interested in REOs and how to know a good deal when I see one. If anyone has some ideas, I'm all ears!

Some are good. Some are not. That's obvious. I have found that the sites that represent a local area are better and more current than the larger national sites. I even suspect that the larger national sites purchase and recook info from the smaller local sites. For example, a local listing service that I use enters information directly from the county foreclosure notices. Data entry errors are unavoidable, and it is humurous to see the same typing error propogated into a national site. But you don't have to limit your research to foreclosure sites. You can get valuable real estate info from places like local newspaper sites and the U.S. Census Bureau site, etc.

I don't advocate paying more for a deal than you have to, but I have lost a deal to someone who paid more than list for a property, and that person still made good money. My point is not that you can purchase at 50% of go-out. My point is that you should not be so concerned with the list price as with what your profit margin will be.

I think it is more realistic to offer a percentage of the go-out price. That is, offer a percentage of the price at which you think the house can be sold after it has been fixed. 10-15% off a price that is already too high can be bad, but paying list price (or more) for a house at 50% of go-out can be good!

Peter, it has been my experience that the REO properties can be found through MLS by setting your filter to "Foreclosures" in the Disclosures section. This is available to agents. My perspective is through the Houston MLS. "Foreclosures" in this sense means that the property has already gone to auction or the Sherrif's sale, was not sold to a third party and has been assigned to a broker or first to an asset management company and then to a broker for sale.
Some banks have web sites for their REO properties, but if you find one there, it is likely to already be on MLS or it soon will be. Banks turn over the un-auctioned properties to brokers or asset managers quickly, sometimes within 48 hours. The broker may provide a BPO, deal with occupants, rekey locks, do cleanup and provide electricity for showings. Therefore, the broker could have a considerable investment in the property, and the purchaser will find this investment in the price whether the property is found on MLS or on a bank site.