All Forum Posts by: Silver A.

Hi all,

BP community has been extremely helpful and taught me more than I can ever give back. I am writing this since I would not find a script as such from other topics.

Here's the situation: the seller has called me and told me all I need to know about the property. We met and the seller was more than happy to show the property to me. It fits my investment criteria.
I find out that they must sell it in 6 months, but my offer of 70% ARV (minus repairs) is way too low for them for now. We agree to keep in touch if either one of us decides to change ones mind.

When and how should I do a follow up call again?
- so far I have been calling them after 3 weeks and then in a month just to see how they are doing. Usually they are still waiting for better offer, have not listed the property and my price is still too low.

What could I say if I decide to offer then a bit more for the property?

And most of all, some people have written here that they offer a bit less after a month than they originally were willing to pay. A script for that would be much appreciated!

Bill,

try to pre-screen sellers more - maybe it's not even worth going there and making an offer, if the seller is obviously not a motivated seller. You'll save yourself heaps of time and energy.
Think of more ways to find motivated sellers and just keep going. One offer at a time. It might take a week or a month, but you'll find a deal eventually. It this were easy everybody would be doing it ;)

Tiffanie,

it is possible, but you have to be prepared to educate both - the seller and their agent when you want to buy with so called uncommon terms (anything else than cash or conventional loan).
Good and ethical agent who is really looking out for the seller's best interests, will understand and help as they can. But unfortunately, most of the time an agent is just after the commission and the easier and faster they get the commission, the better.
That is why I find it easier to deal with the seller directly when it comes to owner financing, lease option, etc.

It depends what your goals and project related costs are, etc. I usually accept the first reasonable offer because every day costs money and that's money out of my pocket.
The last thing I would want to do is to turn down the first offer and spend another two or three weeks waiting for the next offer.
Make them a reasonable counteroffer, then sell.

I guess I am in Gen Y as well, born in 1987.

There will probably be 50% more people in the world in 40 years and everyone needs a place to live.
I would look into smaller towns that are close to the regional centers, but the prices are still more affordable, for a good long term investment, such as rentals. The demand will only go up in the long term (xx years) anyway, and so will the appreciation.

Great flips can and will still be found everywhere, just got to look for them.

The Weekend Millionaire's Real Estate Investing Program by Mike Summey and Roger Dawson. Brilliant.

Daniel,

Short answer - yes.

Longer answer - yes, at first invest towards your education on investing. Buy a few books on the subject, read and understand. Then find a mentor or at least someone who has done or is doing what you want to do and learn from them.

BP.com and many books make RE investing seem easy, but for every success there and hundreds of deals that lose money.

And only do the deal when the numbers really work. Do not try to justify the numbers when you have put several days into this one deal and it does not quite compute. Move on to the next one and start over to make sure everything works. Keep going when this happens 10 times in a row :)

I have no experience with Kiyosaki's mentoring programs (fortunately, it seems :)), but he has created one brilliant thing - The Cashflow Game.

At first read the book - "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and then try to find a Cashflow Club near you. They usually charge a small fee for a game event. (10USD or so to cover the room rent). Go there 10 times and play all 10 steps. These games are a great networking opportunity and there are bound to be other people who are looking to start investing in RE. Great value.

(I spent 5 years going to Cashflow games, since it came out. I don't regret the first 2, but the game became repetitive after that and I stayed around only for networking. Had I put the information I had in use and started RE investing then I would be much further ahead now. But playing the game over and over again has helped me to truly understand doing smaller deals. After that real life is just the same game.)

Cashflow can be played online too, but playing against real people is the best way to learn. Small business lessons from the game such as trading deal cards between players etc will come handy in real life later.

As far as Russ Whitney goes, I have never even looked into attending his seminars.

His book "Building Wealth: From Rags to Riches Through Real Estate" has IMHO all the information that a beginner in real estate could ever use.

I run the same ad weekly in newspapers and it's working out alright. I have not done direct mail yet, but once every two weeks seems to be the minimum. Twice a week for a few weeks and then a break for a month or two in the area seems reasonable to me.

Often the people will not pay attention because they are simply not interested. Even if the message is perfect and usually gets you good leads. But then, one day, they absolutely have to sell, and start looking at the ads. Either way, test different messages at first and find out, which one gets you the most pre-qualified leads on the phone.

That just popped into my head, but try to add more value with your direct marketing messages than just "we buy houses, phone no." Maybe you can print something useful to the other side, etc? You'll want the people to think that this direct mail message might come handy at some point so they'll put it aside for future reference (and forget it, and find it again when they are cleaning the house in 6 months.), instead of throwing it out right away.

You might want to try different types of ads in various places. If you know the area where you want to "farm for a deal", think who are the people who most likely would like to sell their property to you. Where do they go? What do they read? Where would they look if they are considering selling their beloved home?
Is there a free newspaper where you could place an ad just to see if this gets more attention?

At major intersections is good for reaching out for everybody in the area, but you are more interested in your target group.