All Forum Posts by: Zane McLaughlin

listsource.com is probably the best place to get pre-foreclosure leads from. You can also get them from vistaprint.com and yellowletters.com as well.

From what I have seen, listsource is the cheapest. just make sure that you know how to use the filters well. I looked up youtube videos that really helped me solidify my target mailers.

Hope this helps

One of the ways I would look into this part is to see if the owner would be interested in a carry-back loan. you get the loan from the bank for the house and he gets a loan from the bank to give you enough for the down payment. Some owners may not be into that, but I've heard of plenty of investors who had success in this area.

I hope this helps

Are you investing within Germany? or are you just going to school in Germany, and are investing somewhere in the states?

I have posted a little bit on craigslist but am drawing a blank on where else to look for wholesalers in Fayetteville NC. Is there like a list or an organization that keeps track of this stuff?

Any advice would be helpful.

Wow let me first say I envy you. One day I will be doing what you are doing, but at this point in my REI career, I am not there just yet in experience, but I envy your big problem because that means you are at a place to solve big problems. My current employment requires me to listen to peoples issues and than I provide feed back based on what I see, so my following opinions are merely insights, not necessarily advice.

The following are based on 2 conflicting notions for you to consider:

1) Learn from your mistakes. You once passed on this deal in the past and kicked yourself ever since for doing it. Your pride got the better of you, and it caused you to miss out on a deal that will now cost you $122k more if you were to buy it today. What will happen if you once again pass on this deal, and then get the opportunity to purchase it later, for even more?

2) Trust your instincts. Some thing about this deal in the past kept you from buying it in the first place. You may have called it pride, but it may also have been your gut. When in doubt trust your gut. There have been studies done where people were given an extraordinarily difficult test, and the ones that chose the first answer they considered, did much better than the ones that decided to change their mind and choose a different answer.

If you were looking for an answer to make the choice easier, I'm sorry for leaving you in the same boat you were before I started typing. However, I do hope this allows you to see what is most true about yourself, and perhaps that will make the decision more clear.

I would love to know what your final choice is and how the deal goes in the end.

Hi @Oron Subayi,

You are right in the fact that it is not a traditional loan. The seller, can sell you the house, through owner financing. The benefit to this is that you wont have to go through the hoops of getting a traditional loan through a bank, pay closing cost and all of the other things that come along with purchasing a house.  

Essentially, the seller becomes the bank, and if you agree to buy the house on the agreed amount of $X, you would make mortgage payments to the seller at an interest rate that both of you agree to. Think of it as Leasing the property, but the monthly rent goes to paying the house off once all payments are made. Once you have made all of the payments the seller would sign the deed over to you in the same way the bank would. In these cases, you can agree to make a down payment, or not. You don't have to if both sides agree not to. This will make the monthly payments go up a bit (because you are borrowing more), but that can free up some of your out of pocket cash to fix the place up and put a renter in it to make passive income. You can google mortgage payment calculator, and then enter in Sale price, interest, estimated taxes, duration of loan, and it will spit out your expected monthly payments.

Interest in these cases is good for the seller, because he can make more on the overall sale, and is more worth his while to do seller financing instead of taking a traditional loan. Since the seller isn't getting $X all at once, he needs a reason to take monthly payments.

I love deals like these, and in my opinion, this is the best way to procure properties in order to make money off the rent that they produce. This strategy may not be advisable for fix and flip deals though.

I hope this helps.

I am wondering if there is a way for me to find wholsalers in Fayettveville NC.

I tried posting on craiglist, and found a few, but I was wondering where else I may find some more if anyone had some ideas.

I haven't used a architect for repair cost estimates before, but I would assume that it would cost more than its worth. Kind of like paying a doctor to take blood, or give routine shots. Sure he can do it, but you can pay a nurse far less to do the same thing just as just as well or even better.

My point is, you can take a trusted contractor with you to asses repair costs, and renovations. You might pay him for an hour of his time (maybe $50), or he may even do it for free since this would channel him some work. He may even have an interior designer that he works with to help with assessing some ideas for your project for a discount.

Real Estate Investing is only an investment if you can keep your costs low enough to turn a profit, which usually means looking for creative ways to cut expenses.

I hope this helps.  

Hi @Ivory Quintal

In my opinion, starting in your home town, or somewhere you know well is the best way to start out. The place that I started in, isn't my home town, but I lived  there for 4 years, and got to know the area pretty well.

When you invest in a place that you grew up in however, you know a lot more about the area than you would somewhere else. Things like: where are the walmarts? Where is the bad part of town? Did a new factory/corporation spring up in the last few years? Is there an area where new houses were built in the last few years? So on and so forth..

All of this information really goes a long way to assessing the market, and finding the good deals.

Now if the town you grew up in is a bit pricey, that could make it hard to start out in as well. If you found an area where the market is less expensive and you know that area fairly well, I'd say go for it. If you don't know it that well, start doing your homework. If its important to you, you can find a way to make it work.

Hope this helps :-) 

@TJ Peterkin I'm not to sure on the details other than it was a subject to contract and he did it without a lot of research haha.