Options

General Real Estate Investing
1

Hi!

Yesterday, Randoskie sent me the book he was telling All-Ears about.

I’m excited to try to do an option deal! I’ve done most of the action steps- I’ve made a buyer list about 40 long, reviewed contracts, and have my neighbor and babysitter birddogging as a start.

I’ve got three title companies lined up but haven’t called them yet.

I have about 10 pages to go on the book, which I’ll finish now. Tomorrow, I’m going to get to work calling people my buyers list and finding deals!

I don’t have anyone to tell what I’m doing, so I’m going to blab to y’all on here. It will keep me honest, and accountable.

Anyone want to join in this at the same time and start out and learn together? All Ears, Redstar? We could set a goal to try to do one deal before the end of the year!

:beer

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:beer

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I have my own independent goals.

I plan to learn quickly and by the end of next year, be sending out 70,000/month with a staff of people to do most of the work for me.

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70,000 pieces of mail a month, impressive. I hope you get there! You need to not only be reading/learning about real estate but also how to build massive systems.

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Started my investor/buyer calls. Talked to one and got his info, emailed him a followup. The first one always makes you nervous, but I feel good to go now. I know what I did right and what I did wrong and will do better with the next call.

Then the baby woke up so I went to go get groceries. I recruited the boy who helped me load my groceries as a bird dog- gave him my card (an old business card but right name/phone. Will get new cards when I can). I told him to text me the address and any info on any house he sees that looks vacant/abandoned/run down, etc. Told him I pay $500 finders fee for any houses he leads me to that I buy. He looked pretty excited about it, and pretty high. If he just drives around after his shift smoking weed and looking for houses for me, that would be great. I hope he does.

While unloading groceries, some guy came buy to try to sell me windows. I gave him my card. Same thing, but better, he’s on foot in neighborhoods going door to door. Got his card and info and we agreed to help each other out. I’ll follow up with him tomorrow.

Baby’s asleep now and I need to finish getting groceries unloaded! Friends are coming in from out of town for the weekend but I will keep doing the best I can!

Maybe nothing will come of all this but I won’t know if I don’t try. At least I’ll get an A for effort, right?

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There is no limits to the grandiose delusions I can come up with.

https://goo.gl/images/61sFkL

Here’s a map of every county in the USA. I should be in every county. No reason why I can’t be in every one.

My dad has lots of money to finance

He says “if it works on a small scale, it would work on a large scale.”

That’s where we left off.

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Awesome Redstar! You can do it!

It’s small scale for me.

Today, I recruited another bird dog. I worked on my website and got a new email to reflect what I do. I called two more investors, got their buying info and emails, and sent followup emails. Really nice people, it’s great to talk to good people. Easier too, after bombing the first call I made.

However, it can be difficult when you have a 4 month old baby crapping her pants while you’re on the phone, sounding like a straight up 300lb truck driver. That was embarrassing lol -_-

The guy that came door to door selling windows yesterday got back to me. He’s really excited to look for houses for me, asked me some specifics, and we texted and emailed. He’s on foot in neighborhoods going door to door every day. I think he’s going to be a good lead source, he’s very charismatic. I’ll be keeping in touch with him.

I’m off to get stuff to do a garage sale tomorrow morning, and still have friends staying with us through the weekend. What’s that saying? Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans?

I’m not going to let life get in the way of getting RICH!

8

What do you instruct your bird dogs to do? Do they just send you the address or do they try to contact the owner at all?

I have found bird dogs on Craigslist before, but wasn’t set up to benefit. I’m about to post another ad now.

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I tell them to text me the address of any house they see while out and about that looks vacant, abandoned, overgrown yard, busted window, anything that looks decrepit and that needs repairs.

Or if they know anyone who is behind on payments, or inherited a house- basically anyone that needs help with real estate. I want to be their real estate problem solver.

I tell them I pay them $500 for any house they send me that I buy. I pay that at closing only when I get paid.

And I will absolutely honor that because not only will it make me money, once they get a taste of it, they will level up to super bird dogs.

I was going to get my real estate license here, but I’ll hold off for a while because I don’t know if it’s legal to do finder fees like that- it sure wasn’t where I came from (NM) so I’m guessing same rules apply here to agents.

Also Redstar, I have more luck with in person contact than online. I prefer to do business person to person and build relationships. I’m also a stay at home mom and desperate for human contact… “nervous laugh”

10

Garage sale was a success, but waking up at 3 to feed baby and 4 for the sale was pretty rough.

Got a lot of contacts and passed out all my old business cards. Doubt anything will come of them.

We just moved and are in an HOA, so we can only do neighborhood garage sales once a year, and we just missed ours. So the neighboring neighborhood had theirs and we combined ours with a guy. (found through the nextdoor app. If your community supports it, huge resource for everything. like a facebook for neighborhoods)

He’s selling his house, and has no mortgage on it. We became friends through the course of the sale, and maybe there’s some kind of deal there. He’s open to owner finance. Maybe I can do a sub2 or something. He’s not that motivated so back burnered for now.

However, there IS a cash deal I found through Craigslist that I’ll be checking out I think on Tuesday, if the numbers play out. Going to have to get those calls in and get my investor buyers lined up on Monday for sure!

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How many houses have you successfully wholesaled?

Can you describe the cash deal you found on Craigslist?

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I haven’t wholesaled any- I just read the book randoskie sent me on election day. I’m following the steps, one step at a time.

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Oh and I’ll describe the deal when I break down the numbers tomorrow. Too tired now, played cards against humanity with friends all night and I need to hit the hay.

14

With conservative figures, ARV looks to be about $143,000. Using only limited info and a few pictures, repairs look to be somewhere from $12,000-$18000. Seller is asking $105, so right around 70% ARV.

Backing out profit and repairs, this might work for me around $80k. House actually doesn’t look that bad in or out, looks like some drywall, paint, some tile, maybe a little siding and roof work. Biggest is probably AC. I have an appointment to look at it Tuesday. Sent an email to HML, he said he’ll help me with better comps and numbers in the morning.

Got business cards ordered. They just say my name, cell phone, and company email on one side, and a $500 bill on the other. They’re plastic so if they go through the wash, they might make it.

Unpublished my facebook pages (one for my estate sale company, one for my old job as a director of talent acquisition). In total they have 400 likes which I’d like to keep, so I’m working on merging them but facebook is being a beach about it. I’ll try to have my FB website up by the end of the week.

I guess I should do a DBA for my LLC this week too, if I’m going to be legit. Should I be doing deals in my name or company name? Or does it not matter?

15

Called 16 investor buyers. About half of them were bad numbers but I have a solid list of 10 buyers now.

I have two houses that the numbers look good on.

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HML got back to me and my $143 ARV estimate was dead on. That’s reassuring at least my numbers aren’t off.

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Well folks, I had a lesson in listening today. All the advice and books say off market deals are where it’s at and I see why now.

I checked out two houses, both priced right now at 70% of ARV. One has been on the MLS for a few days and already had 5 offers. One was on Craigslist FSBO and had about a dozen people checking it out at the same time I was.

I haven’t written them off completely. There’s still a possibility on both of them if they can be bought for the right $, but more as a rehab for my husband and I, not as wholesale deals.

However, all was not lost.

They were in the same neighborhood and I had about 40 minutes between appointments, the baby was asleep, so I cruised the neighborhood. I found two houses with weeds and newspapers piled up and left notes in the door. (I want to buy your house, cash, call me, name and phone number). I’ll look them up and try to contact the owners. I also wrote down the addresses on some rentals that were looking pretty forlorn and will try to get in touch with them too.

I really like the neighborhood and am going to farm it.

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Since HML ran comps on the one yesterday, I know that neighborhood is good for about $90/sf.

One of the houses looked abandoned and I left a note on the door (yesterday). I checked out all the parcels on the assessors site on that side of the street, about 30 of them, and handwrote letters to all of the out of town owners- 5 of them.

I Facebooked them to get a feel of their interests etc, and it will be nice to put a face to the voice if/when they call. I won’t tell them I stalked them though, lol, just want to have a leg up in finding common ground when we talk. One of them actually lives in my neighborhood.

My notes say,
Dear (first name)
I want to buy your house on (street), we have cash. Please call me at #, thanks! my name.

In my notebook, I wrote down estimated ARV, backed out profit (aiming for $10k on each house but we will see) and 30-35%, and will go from there. All of the houses are basically the same and within 50 sf. Really cute neighborhood, good area, close to a lot of new shopping. I’d live there. They’re all 3/2s one car garage, 1300-1400sf built in early 80s. Well maintained neighborhood.

I left a note on another house today- yard overgrown, at least 2 months of phonebooks, newspapers etc piled up. Recruited the Target cashier to bird dog for me. Looking forward to my business cards coming in on Friday!

19

The harder it is to find an owner, the more likely you’re gonna be the only one to find them.

Don’t forget to introduce yourself to the neighbors, and ask if they know the owner, and/or where he is. However, the neighbor will want to know that you’re someone who’s gonna fix the house up, not someone who’s just chasing his neighbor for other ‘reasons.’ Few people want to be a snitch.

Back in the day, I tried to find neighbors that would let me pick their brains on the situations going on at the house. They often have ‘stories’ of why the house is vacant, etc. This is the time to spend some time talking. Once the neighbor likes you, and is comfortable sharing information with you, he’s more likely to tell the owner about you, when he sees him again. Neighbors then become referrals, if not testimonials of what a great guy you are.

Never mind that they’re anxious for you to clean up their neighbor’s fugly house.

BTW, just for giggles, I have reported derelict situations to the codes administrator. Somehow ‘they’ know how to reach the owners, and ‘somehow’ the owners come by the property and find my notes on their doors in a short time. (After I’ve removed all the other investor’s cards and letters from the property…). I’m no dummy.

Meantime, now the owner is finding my card at the same time he’s being threatened by the city, and suddenly he has the motivation to do ‘something’ with the house, besides letting it rot.

BTW again, this can also work on vacant, rotting REO property… Of course, this assumes you’re in contact with the bank’s REO gatekeeper/agent, and they actually become motivated to unload that particular deteriorating asset.

FWIW

20

AWESOME Javipa, you rock. I knocked on three neighbors doors after knocking on the door and leaving a note on the big one with the newspapers and weeds. I’m pretty disarming with my little baby in hand, but no one answered.

It’s across the street from the rental/townhome we’re buying, so I’m going to keep hitting it. Records show owner address is same as house, but I could do some more digging. I’ll be going by again this morning, a different time of day may work.

Need some advice-

Can you do an option on property that’s listed?

What about listed for lease…specifically commercial land?