All Forum Posts by: Will Skillman

@Brian Gibbons  My favorite strategy as well.  

I am looking to have a logo designed. Anyone use Fiver or similar? Recommendations?

Don't be afraid to make an offer and include seller finance. Keep a few things in mind. First, in my experience the buyer pays a slight premium for seller financing. If price is important, find a way to cash the seller out at closing. If you don't have the downpayment, seller financing is great. Just don't expect to get both price and terms (although it does happen). Second, be prepared to educate the owner. Very few sellers will be familiar with seller financing. Be very clear on how it will work and be able communicate that effectively to the owner. After all, they will be your partner in deal and need to feel confident in your ability and knowledge. Lastly, find a good real estate attorney and title company that can help you structure your deals. We find seller financing to be a great strategy to acquire property.

@Michael Hayworth We compile our own list by driving areas and compiling addresses of distressed houses.  Then we use the County Auditor's Site to find a mailing address for the owner.  Our rate of return mail is really low, but they are usually the most appealing deals...vacant property in good areas.  If the owner moved more than 6 months ago, there isn't a forwarding address.  

Generally our response rate is between 7-10% and our close rate is about .5%.  For every 1000 letters, we close on 5 deals.  It is not the list that is the issue.  

For example, there is a vacant two family in a great residential area where prices are going up very quickly.  It needs a ton of work, which we can do. The address on the Auditor's site is incorrect, and our letters come back as undeliverable.  Are there other ways to track down an owner's current address and phone number?

@Peter Mckernan Great idea contacting our title company.  We close on +30 deals a year so we have a good relationship with out title company.  

@Ramzi Nuseibeh I work with a great mortgage broker for multi.  PM me and I will send over his contact details.

I'm sure this has been asked (and answered) somewhere in this forum, but... What is the best way to hunt down owners of vacant properties? I am a wholesaler and we send out 1000's of direct mail pieces and get return mail from vacant properties with no forwarding address. Struggling to figure out how to find these people. There are deals to be made with these properties. Any recommendations would be helpful...

I am a wholesaler and I hope that our numbers are never that far off. However, if they were and a potential buyer came to me with data that supported a different set of numbers, I would certainly listen to their offer. Also, If you show your wholesaler that you know your numbers, he/she will be more accurate when presenting you deals in the future. Real estate investing is just a math problem. If the numbers work, do the deal. If not, look at the next one.

We only do cash deals and use private money. Typically we use a simple promissory note and mortgage that our attorney prepares, and include them in the closing docs. The title company records the mortgage after closing. The mortgage includes a draw schedule for renovations and we have the investor provide a payoff when we sell. Rates are similar to 8-10% on most, some we do an equity split, some are a hybrid. Very short-term deals, so not too worried about interest rate. The objective is to get your money as cheap as you can, but let the investor make enough that they are calling you asking about the next deal. Because we provide a good return we have more investors lined up for our deals. If we need money quickly we can get it.

Anyone using Daylite? It is a great CRM to use with Apple devices. I Installed the Real Estate module and it keeps our entire team in sync. Very robust, cloud based product. Unfortunately not free to use.

I agree with @George Emmons.  Having someone sourcing deals for you will allow more time to focus on the renovation / flip.  We are wholesalers in the Cincy market and have a consistent deal flow.  PM me if you are interested.