All Forum Posts by: Lou Castillo

You know, I hear "it's hard to find a good deal" a lot. what I fnd is that the investor is usually not looking in the right place. What you are lookling for si a truly motivated seller - one that is willing to sell their house at 50-60 cents on the dollar. These people are overwhelmed. The house is just another problem on top of whatever else they're dealing with. So you have to find them - they're not in the typical places like the MLS or in the classifieds. You have to market within a target area. If you develop a good marketing plan and stay consistent with it, you'll find plenty of good deals.

Keep in mind too that you have to go through a lot of leads to find one great deal. Let your marketing do the work for you of bringing in a lot of leads.

A good mentor can greatly speed up yoyur learning curve and make you more money. I've been in the business for over 15 years and I still have mentors that I pay to keep me growing and expanding.

The trick is to find the right mentor. One that has your best interest at heart. I am always wary of any mentor that is looking for a cut of the action - especially one that will sell you his deal. To me that is a conflict of interest.

Before you get a mentor, get educated in the business. Make sure that you know in what area you want to specialize, and where you need help. Then look for the mentor that specializes in the area that can help you reach your goals. Also, be sure that your personality and your mentor's match. If you don't like and trust your mentor, they'll be of no service to you.

Finally, be sure to determine how accessible your mentor will be. Some will charge you a fortune, but never be personally available to answer your questions.

Good luck as you begin your career in this great business.

I'll tell you the same thing that I tell my students - never let anyone else tell you the ARV - calculate it yourself. Whether you are using a free site or a paid site (if you e-mail me I'll be happy to send you a list of both), or getting a CMA from a Realtor, you still want to analyze what the data is saying. o not look at averages. Look at the individual properties. Which ones are the closest in distance to your subject property? Which ones are most comparable in size? In bed/bath configuration? In age? Which have sold most recently? Which way are the sales prices trending? What else is on the market right now? How are they priced - above or below recent sales?

All of this together will give you a good idea of the ARV.

The best thing to do is to join your local real estate investors organization. Wholesalers advertise at these groups. You can also try to Google for "wholesale real estate" and terms like that and see what you find.

Do you like to renovate properties? To speed up your success rate, you may want to consider getting on multiple wholesaler lists and reviewing the deals that they have to offer. Look for simpler rehabs in your area where you can get in and out quickly and put those back on the market below market value for quick sale. With this model you could easily do 3-4 per year and make $10,000 on each one minimum. That ould give you plenty of seed money to really expand your business.

Just do a Google search for foreclosure reports in Atlanta. There is a big one in Atlanta and a couple of large national reports

Mike,

I hear what you're saying, and frankly, that is my favorite way to work with someone. It sounds like you have doen a lot of research and have a good idea of what to do.

As a treacher, here is the problem/question: in order to coach you properly I have to make sure that you have all of the missing pieces filled in and also that you hae interpreted the information you found correctly. Then we could have personal meetings, but that takes a lot of time, so it becomes relatively expensive.

To help me learn more about how I can help new investors (who are serious), would you rather pay more and get personal 1:1 attention; or pay less and get small group attention (like 30 in a group)?

Thanks. And thanks for having the forum where I can do that.

Exactly. I want to make sure that I am providing what people really need.

Generally I try not to have both conversations with a Seller - Lease Option and Subject To. My goal is to always buy ST and not do LO. Buying under a LO scanrio leaves you wide open to a lot of potential problems in the deal.

If my Seller is more "in the know" and brings up LO, then I tell them I'd be happy to do that, but I generally offer the ST since it has several advantages to the Seller:
1) The house is SOLD - I don't have the OPTION to back out
2) Under a LO, you the Seller are still responsible for repairs to the property - it's the law and a right that I as your tenant can not waive even if I want to
3) You, the Seller, are still responsible for keeping insurance on the property - and since it is in your name, you could still be sued if someone ever got hurt
4) The Seller must also continue to pay property taxes
5) With a ST deal you can walk away and never be bothered by this house again. You got rid of it.

When I position it like this as a benefit, they are usually very happy to go with ST.

If you are trying to give the Seller 2 options: LO vs ST I would recommend that you don't. A confused mind always says NO. Pick the strategy that you want and sell that idea.

By the way, I always get keys to houses I don't own - that's just part of the deal. They need to move out and give me access for 30-45 days prior to closing!