Being new, I need all the info I can get on the subject, but its a daunting task trying to weed through truth, and whatever else is said in a post, on a forum.I mean no harm/offense/negative to anyone here, but shouldnt posts in a forum be treated as if we were speaking in everyday life?

I can only speak to a specific location but here in the San Francisco area, the standard commission of 6% can often be negotiated down to between 4% to 5% for $1mil properties.

You'll learn alotjust from reading the old stuff...not to speak of divingin and asking about deal or two and just general participating.We're glad you're here.

When I speak on fraud, Im not referring to only mortgage fraud.

Doug, even with those techniques (which I use open ended yellow postcards), I would say generally speaking that 10% response is not a realistic target with most mail outs.

The second thing I see newbie’s do is the life story type where a newbie’s give you his/her life story about what they are doing in life and what they do and now there on hard times and they just have to make real estate work, now I’m sorry for your misfortune and I’m even sorrier if you’ve spent countless hours reading going to seminars and now you READY to do real estate but the simple fact is action speaks louder than words, so if you are spending all of your free time reading up on real estate your failing.

"no equity" is not the opposite of money in the bank.no or negative net worth is.the term "equity" has many different definitions.

Now I am merely speaking from speculation and vicariously at this point because my market is still very strong.

do you have access to speaking with the owner?

Then as for talking to the seller, here's how I would approach him/her.When I call, I would first make a list of all the negative factors and all the positive factors.