All Forum Posts by: David Tower

Hi John,

I don't don't want to hijack this thread but I'm curious about lease options in TX. I keep hearing that you can only do a lease option for 6 months here?

So as to not hijack I will contribute to the thread. I will be sending out my first yellow letters within the next 10 days after a year of learning. My biggest roadblock has probably been fear of the unknown. I'm one of those people that would take unhappiness over uncertainty as evidenced by my corporate job that I hate.

I've used the teachings of Napoleon Hill, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, and Les Brown to get my head right. Ultimately there's really nothing to fear at all except the pain of regret for not ever getting started.

As someone who also has been lining up all my ducks in a neat little row for the past year, let me tell you how I'm breaking in to the game.

First....shoot the damn ducks.

If you don't have the basics of a wholesale deal down, my suggestoin would be to listen to Sean Terry's podcast and download his e-book at flip2freedom.com (ok so I'm biased)

Next, read the book Think and Grow Rich and follow it to the letter. Do whatever you need to get your head right and get over whatever fear you have. I'm serious when I say this is the MOST important step. Once all fear is gone, the rest is simple. (not easy, but simple)

If you don't have a marketing budget, save money until you can send at least 500 yellow yellers or 1000 postcards a month.

Attend your REIA and get a list of the people that are looking for deals. I guarantee a few of them would be willing to go on some appointments with you to split your first few deals. They could help you negotiate, fill out contracts, deal with title companies, and buy your deal. (there goes about 90% of your fear)

decide what list you want to mail (probate, inheritence, absentee, pre-forclosure, etc). buy names from listsource,melissadata, etc. Learn how to filter the search on BP before purchasing.

get google voice number, send it to your cell

get a po box

read the stickies on BP about 2%/50% rules in landlording forum. learn it.

learn how to evaluate ARV and estimate repairs. contact a realtor for accurate comps. give them leads you can't work with

contact hard money lenders in your area (they'll be at your reia). If the perfect deal comes along and it's paint and carpet it will be better to make 20k than 5k

get a seller lead sheet. get some ideas on how to build rapport while filling it out. learn about making soft pass offers on the phone. come up with "fear of loss" questions and a way to show a seller what they'd net if they listed their house

sign up at highrise.com for a free account up to 250 contacts. put buyers and sellers in it.

Write the letters or buy the letters/postcards

mail them

take calls

make deals

hear the lamentation of the women.

(written out like this is seems pretty damn easy neh?)

p.s. I'm about to send out my first batch of letters I'm super excited.

Sounds like you might need to go grassroots style until you get some deals. If you're marketing on a very tight budget you could:

1. have your wife (i assume she has MLS) find all the cash transactions in your county for past 90 days. go where all the deals are being done and door knock. Maybe leave a sticky note or flyer and all the houses that look either run down or vacant.

Walk these neighborhoods and talk to people. There's a guy at my reia who gets all his deals by chatting up all the people in his farm walking his dog. Sounds pretty free to me.

2. call all the for rent and fsbo ads in the paper and craigslist. Ask if they would like to sell. If not, ask if they know anyone else OR if they might want to buy (for buyers list)

3. get on all the wholesalers lists in your area. if you can save the day and get their deal sold you could maybe split the profits.

4. Fax letters to all the relevant attorney's offices or call them. divorce, probate, estate, bankruptcy, etc.

5. Find a realtor you can work with to make offers on HUD homes. It's pretty simple. The competition is high in many areas, but no one person can get all the deals.

6. Go to all the pawn shops, title loans, paycheck loan places and train the workers/owners to look for potential deals and offer referral fees.

that's all i got off the top of my head I'm sure a search on these forums could yield a lot more cheap or free methods.

I know this is an old thread but the topic is always relevant. I have a couple questions on Listsource

Should i use the Total Assessed Value filter to ensure the home is 2/3 of median or below?

Also, if money and time are factors (time due to job). Would it be better to filter for last sale older than 2005 (absentee) or are there enough inherited properties in recent sales so that I shouldn't filter it. Do inherited properties show up as sales at all? The difference was huge it went from 6500 names to 2200 when i filtered for sale date.

Thanks

Great job and congrats on your first flip!

Hi folks,

I've searched around BP but couldn't find a really good post about dealing with out-of-state absentee owners.

I was hoping some pros could chime in with common hiccups, conerns, tips, tricks, or suggestions on this topic.

For example, do you usually get keys mailed to you? Do you generally have access or paperwork problems? Title or closing issues? Do you find it easy or hard to negotiate the whole deal by phone?

What have you learned after doing a few out of state deals that you wish you knew before you started?

Thanks in advance!

Ok great thanks.

I'm about to start a yellow letter campaign and I'm pretty sure you'll be hearing from me very soon! I was going to write them myself but 500 a month w/ a 40 hour a week job just seems like a bad idea.

The DFWREIClub is a great group. It's definitely not a pitch session. Robin and Greg are great guys.

The content is good and they meet every saturday morning. The new time and location are welcome changes also.

Hello Michael,

I just read a post of yours, not sure how old it was, where you listed 4 different absentee lists as your 1-4 with IL being number 5. Has that changed or are you lumping all the absentee (out of state, out of town, etc) together in this example?

If your view HAS changed, I assume you'd still say out of state is best?

Thanks

Right....but i'm focusing on how an agent can pay me, in the form of paying half my yellow letter costs while benefiting themselves also.

Traditionally, the advice is to give all your dead leads (not the ones interested in seller financing) to a realtor. In return, the realtor (should) give you comps when you need them and MLS data.

Well, if I'm giving a realtor multiple thousands of dollars in off market listings, I think perhaps splitting the cost of a $1000 yellow letter campaign is not out of the question.

Most agents are not good at marketing which is why they struggle as agents (I said most, not the good ones....the data supports this). I see it as a win-win.