Do I have to learn and use the lengthy California Association of Realtors contract or is there something that isn’t quite as lenghty that I can use. I’m just a private investor dealing with non-realtor represented sellers so I don’t want to use a contract that contains a bunch of pages regarding realtors since none will be utilized.
i dont know what the law in Ca. is but most states i have dealt with you can make a contract with the seller. standard or otherwise. its just an agreement for you to buy the property and them to sell it. just make sure you cover aqll the bases in the contract.
rkmin,
you can certainly use your own home-grown real estate contract. however, depending on the seller’s attorney and seller’s comfort level with not using the standard boiler plate contract - you could be in for some challenges.
things to consider:
addendums - you want something added, or taken out - cross it off the boiler plate - write in the margin - “see addendum attached”
i looked over the boiler plate in my state - ny and looked over other contracts - in books and the like, then adapted the contract to my liking - one for me as buyer and another for seller. different clauses protect each party. note - i have not used one of them yet… 
my gut tells me that the boiler plate with modifications in the margins would be the least shocking and would probably not scare anyone away.
What sort of addendums should I include?
And what is a “boiler plate”?
A boiler plate is just a slang term for the standard or run-of-the-mill document. board of realtors use standard forms and standardize everything. They just try and make it “easy” for everybody. In reality these contracts make everyone “think” that they must use them.
Some addendums to a contract could simply be some subject to’s, like “subject to partners approval” - under your signature on anything you sign. That’s not really a full addendum, but it is an alteration to the contract that can help cover you as the buyer or seller.
Okay, an addendum might be that in the contract as it is writtten that the buyer will pay for title insurance, you cross that off and put “see addendum” and in the addendum, you write that seller will pay for it.
Alot of times, realtors will take everything into consideration before a contract is written and put it into some form of proposal. This way all that stuff gets taken care of. But if you’re not using a realtor - you need to deal with a seller directly. Basically, you want protections in the contract, whether you’re a seller or buyer. For the seller, he wants price, terms, closing date, money down/earnest money and usually no weasle clauses for the buyer to get out of the contract. For the buyer, he wants creative terms of some kind, seller to pay this or that, appliances that may not be staying, a car, whatever, plus title insurance, inspection of home - usually twice, in the beginning and right before the closing date.
With realtors and deals in general - a contract is usually not signed until after an inspection has been completed, which the buyer usually pays for, BUT, this can be something that’s worked out BEFORE and the seller can easily pay for this. When you’re selling a property, you might even advertise that you’ll pay for the buyers inspection.
Everything under the sun is negotiable, including what type of contract you use.
Great stuff. Thanks for the detailed response.
My market is mainly people in preforeclosure where I don’t want to make them pay for anything. I am willing to pay for any inspections, closing costs and whatever since I know that I will get all of that back and more when I flip the property or something else.
These kinds of folks don’t have much money anyways so I don’t want to burden them by having to pay for anything. I would like to make it very easy and stress free for them and if that means I have to pay for everything in order to get their house at a good discount, then so be it.