All Forum Posts by: Lou Castillo

Ultimately the lender has to approve the amount that you want to offer. It could go much smoother to have the Trustee contact the bank. You have great leverage because they are already in bankruptcy so the bank realizes that it will take some time before they will get any money. The question is how much of a discount do you need? If it is too large, the lender will simply say that they want to wait and foreclose on the house.

You have to look at what you are trying to achieve. Do you need/want huge cash flow now to replace income? Are you looking to build equity for the future? Personally, I like wholesales because it is easy with very limited risk and huge paydays.

The first step is to make sure that you have a deal. Have you checked the comparable sales in the area to know what the house is worth? From that subtract any rehab needed, subtract out expenses to buy and hold the house, and subtract out your profit. That will give you the most you should pay. If you plan to wholesale the house, you also need to subtract out the profit that you are leaving in there for the rehabber.

Once you know the numbers that will work, you need to go through the Bankruptcy Trustee. You can contact them directly and tell that that you want to buy the house at $XX. They will look at the loans on the house, and speak with the creditors. If all accept then he will pass to judge for final approval.

If you are offering less than the loan amount, be sure to include a synopsis of the transaction showing the amount of rehab needed.

Good luck.

I've hard that it can be a fair amount of work. To really make it work, you have to do a lot of consistent marketing for it - and you must provide both great education and networking opportunities. I'm just deciding if I am ready to commit.

You should always be building your list of buyers. Remember that you can find buyers from around the country - you don't have to stay in your backyard. The easiest way to do that is with a website and drive traffic to that site.

You can also work with the varous REIAs (Investor Associations) around the country to advertise to their groups. Drive interested parties to a wenbsite where they can enroll for your list of houses.

The best way is to build a website for buyers that is just a squeeze page - in other words - only captures info. Offer a free special report as an induce ment for them to sign up. Then use the standard traffic driving techniques to drive traffic to your site.

You can also advertise with REIAs around the country.

You can Google "Hard Money Lenders" and see some of the national ads. If you have a REIA near you, they probably know most of the local lenders.

Yes - it is a numbers game. Do a lot of marketing to drive sellers to contact you. I recommend to my studens that they not try to wholesale all around the country, but rather pick key areas that they'll work around the country, then loate people on the ground that can be your eyes and ears. For instance a new investor or a hungry real estate agent or appraiser that can go out take the pictures for you, take pictures of the comps, give you their overall impression, etc.

Remember, many investor buyers will buy outside of their local area, so don't worry about finding only local buyers. Build a national investors list and also a strong local list.

Not only keep it simple, but keep it to just one message. Remember that you just want to collect their contact info. Don't have a bunch of info that is going to have them moving around your site becasue tehn they'll just surf right off your site. The best thing to do is to offer a free report if they will just put in their contact information.

Hi. This is Lou in Charleston, SC. Welcome. There is a great REI organization in Columbia. Very active. They just celebrated their 5th anniversary. It is run by Janice and Scott Lane. They are great people and very focused on helping other investors. their association is the Capitol City Real Estate Investors. Just Google them and you'll find them.

Good luck. Tell them Lou from Charleston said Hi.