All Forum Posts by: Steve Theobald

@Jordan Dzubak As an experience rehabber myself and agent who works with investors, I have been closely watching the Tooele Market for about 18 months now. I have helped several investors buy rehabs in both Tooele and Grantsville. The rental market is stable as well and has great potential if the purchases are done correctly. The BRRRR strategy is a good one that works on the rentals that need some luvin', but if you don't mind the 10 or 20% down, then some turn-key properties in the right neighborhoods can get you 8%+ Cap and 10% CCR as well, with awesome 15%+ 10-year IRR numbers. Please message me privately to talk more.

@Nyla Smith.  I 100% agree with @William Hochstedler.   Take your time and do it right.

Ouch.  You can call @Jeffrey S. Breglio, real estate attorney in Salt Lake.  He will give you good advice.  Look him up on google:  https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=breglio%20law

@Clint Roberts   Realtypath was my choice after working under 3 other brokers and interviewing/reviewing several others like KW and C21.

I liked the balance of hand-holding/training vs. low fees.   With each of my previous brokers and those I reviewed there seemed to be either low fees and nothing else or high fees, lots of training, and a potential for referrals.  Realtypath is not too hot or too cold, but "just right" (for me).

• $199 per deal always.  But there is an extra $500 fee on the first 7 each year.  Once you are consistently profitable, then they drop the $500 after the first 5.  
• The $199 fee can easily be added to the HUD-1 form, so in theory you could pay NOTHING after the first 7. Equity encourages its agents to pass on their $500 fee to their clients as well. (I disagree with this practice by both brokerages and have done it only once. 3% is enough. If Realtors lose out to other avenues, then we only have ourselves to blame.)
• Proagent website discounts
• Great online document submission and support
• My sub-broker (Realtypath-Solutions) does a short weekly training meeting and accountability session for those who want it.
• Free initial signs and business cards
• Weekly free CE courses and broker-wide sales training.
• Second largest in UT behind Equity, so management is on the ball.  They are always available for questions.  In fact, the many associate brokers rotate through taking the calls when the agents own broker can't answer.
• You can use any Realtypath office anywhere.
• I don't remember the high end commission splits.  I work mainly with sub-$300k flippers.

I hope this helps.

@Brad Irwin.   I interviewed with KW a couple years ago and was very impressed.  I decided to go with Realtypath, the second largest brokerage in Utah behind Equity.  The training is awesome like KW, but the commission split is more my style, especially since I work with lots of investors who are always looking for "deals."   The average priced home in Utah is about $250k, but my average deal is only about $175k.  This means LESS for me, so I want to keep MORE of it.  Go it?    The split is $699 for the first 7 deals and then $199 for the rest of the 12 months.  But there are no referrals.  I recommend checking them out.  For me, Realtypath is the perfect balance of low fees and just the right amount of hand holding.

Great advice @Cody Steck.    @Brad Irwin, there is always room for good agents here in Utah who want to do things the right way and have a passion for helping people.  I used Stringham online for my 120 hours of training.  I wish now that I had gone a little slower and had gone to some of the classes in person; despite the generally good online content, after about the 60th hour in front of the computer my eyes began to glaze over and my brain must have looked like those old "this is your brain on drugs" commercials.   Success to you!  

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/8070/51749-the...

Starting out?  

See my latest blog post about ARV's from wholesalers and agents who just might be peddling something invisible!

@Jacob Cogswell  Did you put the correct title for your post?   I recently blogged about the very same topic:   https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/8070/51438-the...

This is what I wrote:

"Hunting for your next deal or residence? If you are getting a deal from the MLS (and yes, there are still some on there), you need to be aware of something important if you are using the listing agent while you are the Buyer: The listing agent's hands are tied during the purchase negotiations. They are NOT negotiating for you.

"The thing about listing agents is that their hands are legally tied when they represent both the seller AND the buyer. It's easy to see that you can't on negotiate on behalf of your client - against your other client. In real estate they call this "limited agency." Agents "representing" both sides should have you sign something recognizing that their ability to negotiate on your behalf is curtailed.

"Some listing agents bring in another agent to help any buyers so they don't have this conflict of interest. Better yet, bring in your own buyer's agent."

Hopefully between the two of us the investors will get the message!

@William Hochstedler.  Thanks for the input.   I am a Zillow Premier Agent and regularly upload my recent sales so that I appear to the public as the "Super Agent" that I profess to be, LOL.   I realized in doing this post that if Zillow were to actually utilize the data that I and other agents have given them that they could increase the quality.  Perhaps they do use it.   But this I do know:  every single AVM I have tried from Zillow and other is way off on my own personal residence by a big margin.

@Ammon Ellison. I am researching the Realtor.com issue. The Utah MLS's are very aggressive in protecting the privacy (sales prices) of the Realtors' clients, so my guess it the data freeze applies to Realtor.com as well.

Two years ago the National Association of Realtors appears to have passed a resolution requiring all MLS's to feed data to AVM providers but Utah objected. I don't know the final outcome yet...

Before someone comes to me for a CMA, I'd simply like to know that they have a good idea what the ARV and rehab will be - and that they still think it is a deal after factoring all their other costs. I enjoy doing CMAs, and as long as I am not taken advantage of, I am happy to help.