All Forum Posts by: Tucker Merrihew

If the home is already listed with an agent the best way to get the home is to make an offer directly with the listing agent. Hopefully they are experienced with negotiating short sales or they use an experienced negotiator. Given that is the case offer what ever you feel the home is worth to you and let them go to work negotiating with the bank to get it approved. The only problem is that if you don't have a good relationship with the listing agent they may not take your offer if a higher one comes in.......this is why we only offer on short sales that we find through our marketing (before they are listed). Then we hand the short sale off to our in-house agent and negotiator so that they can negotiate my offer and not an outside third party (that may or may not close).

We have always included our office address on any mailers we send.....and we also include a business card with most direct mail letters, so people could easily find us if they wanted to. In over 5 years of sending a ton of direct mail we have got countless "f-u" calls from crazy homeowners, but never once have any of those same loony-tunes actually shown up at my office. Personally I think having an actual physical return address gives you additional credibility, since you are a business right? Or at least you should be.....

Once you get your first primary residence under your belt I am a big advocate of learning the art of wholesaling as your first investment skill set. This way you always have the skills needed to find properties at a discount......which is the root of achieving financial freedom in this great business. You can then move onto rehabbing, building, developing if you want to......but at least you have options.

You can either let it go to voice mail in hopes that they leave the property address so you can look it up before you call them back, or answer the phone and find out some basic information to start with:

1. What is the property address

2. Is the property for sale

3. General description of the property (style, condition, repairs/updates needed)

4. What is the situation (is it a rental, owner occupied, inherited, ect)

5. What are their current price expectations

If you get all of this information you will be on your way to putting together a deal.....good luck.

Unfortunately most wholesalers suck and only try to push crappy deals so that they can make a few bucks at your expense......however with that said there are some good ones out there, but it takes time to figure out who they are and to work your way into the rotation on their buyers lists. I would reccomend asking around in your area to find out who the real players are when it comes to wholesaling solid deals that make money.

The biggest reason why my company has been so successful wholesaling is because our buyers ALWAYS make money on the houses we sell them. If I am off on my numbers I will make it up to them on the next deal......nobody else in my market cares nearly that much about the end result, which is why we have people calling us every day trying to get into the buying rotation. Just start looking around and asking other investors and you should find the guys in your area who opperate in a similar fashion to how my company does things.....good luck.

1. Find a distressed property to purchase (via marketing, RMLS, Auction, Networking, Ect)

2. Figure out what reapirs/updates are needed

3. Rehab the property

4. Sell the property and hopefully make a profit :)

You might want to target a list of people who bought in 2006-2007 that have little to no equity.....they likely get a lot less mail than the NOD list, so you would likely get a much higher response rate......good luck.

We will mail them at 2 week intervals for the first couple letters and then every 4-6 weeks after that.

Do a driving for dollars campaign in an area where you would like to either buy and rent or buy and flip......then start sending direct mail to the owners over and over and over again......you will get deals if you stick with it.

@Corey Davis - I would be happy to give you my two cents on what we would do and why......just shoot me an email [email protected]