This is amazing
I been fighting for months to get some deals going, I had a big one fall thru a few months ago,
Man it was emotionally devastating. So it comes as a big surprise when one actually falls in my lap.
I ran an ad on Craigslist List in Hanford CA that I buy houses. Yesterday morning I get a call from Sandra a lady that described a boarded up junker house/duplex she purchased a while back that she planned to fix up. She tells me she just wants to sell it fast and wants $50,000, I ask, is that the best you can do? I can do 45K I then looked it over on zillow and google maps and called her back.
Sandra, I can do $25,000 on your duplex in Cash. She then asks, can you do $35,000 I tell her, if you will take $30K I will buy it. She says, sold.
I emailed her my contract, she had to go to Staples to print it and had to go to Kinko’s to fax it back to me. I had it sold before I got the signed contract back.
Now in 24 hrs, I got this on contract, got it sold, and started a 7 day Escrow.
I flipped this for a fast 5 Grand 35K I wish they wer all this easy.
This blows me away ever time. Now get this, it’s a house I never seen, a buyer and seller I’ve never met, all while sitting on my butt in my over stuffed office chair’’ Can you imagine making 5K in 45 minutes? What planet am I on?
And I got another have dozen deals that might come together.
Now, let’s make some MONEY.
Rando
Wow, Congrats Rando! I’m a newbie to assignments, so I’m excited to see what falls in my lap. I was in a webinar tonight with Camron Dunlap who was selling his system called iFlip and was wondering if it’s worth the $1500… As a newbie, everything seems to “Look Good”
Why were you not worried about back taxes or any other liens on the house? Also how did you find a buyer so fast?
Yea, I told the seller she would be paying pro rated property taxes and she said thats fine. She also told me she owns the property free and clear. But yea, if ther are any liens on the property it cud screw up the deal.
I found my buyer awhile back when I was advertising on Craig’s List another junker property that I found, which he’s buying, and he’s also buying another junker I found. It seems he will buy anything I throw at him, cept I have 3 junkers on one lot that he didnt want. They are a bit over priced, the seller wasn’t very motivated, I have 75 days to find a buyer on those but I may cancel the contract and try to renegotiate or let it go.
My Buyer, He’s a Realtor Broker, owns his own realty company and he’s flipping these to his cash clients, for how much I don’t know, he didn’t say and I didn’t ask. Anyway if you advertise cheap houses on Craig’s List you will soon have a good buyers list.
Paying $1500 for the Camron Dunlap course would be scary. Reminds me of me, I paid $997 to Phil Grove for his course on buying subject to. My first deal fell thru but I made $1,000 on the non refundable deposit, and the next deal $2,500 and I did one for $15,000, so it sure paid off and I continue to look for Sub To deals while wholesaling.
Haha, it’s never as easy as you think. If anything can go wrong, it will and at the worst possible moment. And take twice as long as you thought.
Where did I hear that before? Murphy?
Well, we started escrow and the Title company finds out there are Code Violation fines and back taxes owed in the amount of $16,000 frikin dollars.
Then we find out the seller didnt use a Title company to complete the deal and there is a guy named Andrew and his father on Title also. It seems Andrews father kicked the bucket and Andrew is a tweeker drug addict living in someones garage with his tweeker GF. Andrews GF hates Sandra and is telling Andrew not to trust her cuz shes trying to rip him off.,.
And now Sandra says they got a higher offer.
Andrew and Sandra want 20K each. Man, that will buy a lot of drugs
It don’t matter we got a contract for 30K
Incredibly my buyer really wants this property and has agreed to pay the liens and
$45,000 for the property which includes my 5K Holycrap thats $61,000 buks.
So anyway, Andrew and Sandra were supposed to get into the Title company yesterday to bring in the Death Certificate of Andrews Father and sign the paperwork, hah, but guess what? They called the Title Company and said their car broke down and rescheduled for 4PM today.
I don’t believe it, It looks like this deal might still happen.
Zillow says this duplex is worth $119,000 but that cant be right, it’s just this small dinky 1,300 SF house built in 1928 in an older neighborhood. and it needs a lot of work
Its probably worth more than my original 70K estimate. but not that much.
Give me some more drama. Rando
It is starting to look like this deal is to good to be true, especially with all the twist and turns. I deal with clients like this occasionally as well, everything looks great in the beggining until you find out all there dirty little secrets they didn’t tell you about in the beggining. It amazes me how people think they can sneek one buy you like you are not going to check into everything before the deal goes through.
Haha, the drama continues. Luckily I can see the humor in all this. Sandra is trying to hide how much she’s making from Andrew. I told Sharon to give Andrew 30K and she shud be happy with 10K But she wudnt have it. And then she tells me, we got a higher offer for 25K each.
I started getting mad, I told her we have been bending over backwards for you guys, wer paying the frikin liens, we increased our offer to 40K. Then I gave them a deadline, Friday by 5 PM, if they hadnt got to the Title Company and signed, my partner and I was pulling the plug, and we wud be filing lis pending with the County records to put a lien on the property.
Sharon says “I dont appreciate your threats” It was hard not to lose my cool, If you guys cant come to terms, everybody is going to lose.
Well guess what? Thursday Sharon calls and says she’s with Andrew and wants the phone number of the Title Company. Friday Afternoon she agrees to give Andrew his 20K plus a Travel Trailer so he can move out of the garage with his tweeker GF.
Both of them show up at the Title company yesterday (Friday) but Andrew dont have a frikin valid ID, plus they need to go get a copy of his father’s Death Certificate.
Of course by the time they did that it was after 5PM and the Title Company was closed.
My partner says they are retarted and he wants to send out a mobile Notary.
But I was impressed they at least made a half ass effort Friday.
I still think its going to happen, just not holding my breath.
I find that when I’m dealing with unsophisticated sellers, and there’s several moving parts to a deal, that it’s wiser to do as much legwork for the seller as possible (baby-sitting and hand-holding). That includes getting all the documents to the title company necessary (death certificates, etc) myself.
For example, getting a copy of a death certificate is a very unusual task for about anyone. Most won’t know how/where to get that. I do.
Of course, there’s not much you can do when a seller is so derelict that he can’t produce a valid ID, except accompany him to the DMV to apply for a state ID card. Even then, it takes a few weeks to get the photo ID in the mail.
I have no idea what you can do in the meantime, unless the title company will accept a photo ID from Costco, or somewhere.
Meantime, complicated deals usually go to the most determined and patient buyers.
Great post.
My partner/buyer says they did get the death certificate and all Andrew needs is a temporary State issued ID, no photo needed. Which he got. This deal is ready to fly, of course by the way things have been going, there is bound to be some more drama.
I’m surprised my buyer is hanging in there. I’m working on another deal this same buyer wants, meeting seller tomorrow to get it under contract. That’s 4 deals hes buying, and we lost another 1 that he wanted, the fickle seller decided to list it after agreeing to my price.
My buyer is a Realtor Broker and he’s flipping it to his cash guys, he’s careful not to tell me who they are.
We have these 4 deals going, 3 in escrow, and he’s still asking if I have anything else.
He’s young, aggressive and motivated and will buy almost anything I throw at him.
Some exciting times. And were just getting started.
Rando
My partner just called to say the sellers Andrew and Sandra made it into the Title company today and signed the paperwork, Its like its time for a celebration,
I told him I was going to get a cigar and a hooker? Haha.
I have 3 deals closing this week.
It’s funny cuz my Partner told me the girls at the title company had to spray air freshener after they left. I suppose living in a garage U can get mighty ripe.
Well, if all goes well I’ll be counting the money in a few days.
This has turned from the easiest deal I ever did into the most difficult deal from hell.
Our end buyer is using an IRA account and has to get it into a self directed IRA.
So this is taking a little extra time with all the paperwork.
In the meantime this Sandra is calling and calling Matt and I, Matt is my Realtor buyer.
He told me he refuses to answer any more of her calls. I just got off the phone with her, it was a 20 minute ordeal, a one way conversation. The woman went on and on about her needing her money now and how she has 4 kids and bills that needed to be paid yesterday. I was trying to stay in a humorous mood and that really pissed her off.
She could of got more money selling to others but she trusted us to get this deal done fast. Shes an experienced Investor, and were not good business men. She claimed our 30 day contract is up. I reminded her our contract is for 60 days to read the contract. and that her and Andrew took their sweet ass time getting their s___ together.
Oh Man, she wasn’t interested in what I had to say.
If she didn’t get money today she was going to cancel our contract. She says Matt wont return my calls and I tried to borrow some money from him.
I told her were not in the business of loaning money.
I told her if she didn’t want to pick up her money in a few days that’s her problem.
And if she did anything to screw this deal up we were going to file a lien on the house and nobody would make any money.
OMG, a half second of silence, Well, I’ll go get that money wen it closes Monday or Tues, but I have 2 more houses and I promise I wont ever call you or Matt again.
I asked, is that a promise? She says yep that’s a promise. I replied, thank god. Bye now, and I hung up before she cud start her loud obnoxious ranting again.
I actually would have loaned her $500 if she was nice and sweet and reasonable. But Sandra is an African American, loud and obnoxious with that ghetto accent.
I can see why shes a single parent.
Matt said the paper work was done and the funds were ready to wire to Title, but last Friday was a holiday (Good Friday) and Title Company was closed.
Haha, this will make a hot readable chapter in my forthcoming book, Sellers from Hell.
Let’s make some MONEY… Rando
Yee Haw, Just closed on this house from hell. The seller Sandra and Andrew can move on up.
Sandra was bothering me, Matt, (My Buyer) and The Title girl to no ends, calling multiple times a day, asking to borrow money. She actually told the Title girl when she picked up her check, that she was going straight over to buy some high priced designer shoes.
And she wonders why she’s having financial issues.
I told Matt, I’ll bet she’s out of money in 3 months or less,
Matt says, Ha, in 3 weeks or less.
On to the next deals
Rando
That’s quite a story! So glad it turned out okay in the end. I’ve done a lot of deals over the years and only a few have actually gone off without a hitch. There always seems to be some kind of drama going on. Congratulations.
There’s usually drama from my experience, too. The “right” sellers are often caught up in drama before we ever show up, and we just get pulled into their vortex of dysfunction, if we’re not careful.
Worse, sellers lie; they change their minds; consider better offers after we’re in escrow; claim ignorance when we catch them lying; and can do all sorts of pissy things
All that is what separates the sheep from the goats, pretty quick.
Only a very few of us want to deal with this level of need and motivation, because of the massaging and cajoling that’s often necessary to close.
I don’t have that temperament anymore. I gave up before I had all my teeth kicked in by those types of sellers.
That’s a lot of the reason I only flip upscale houses that are in good shape, that are easy to sell. I also deliberately sift out the bone heads, so that I don’t end up negotiating and renegotiating, and …missing teeth.
Randoski, I admire your tenacity.
Haha, this drama continues, a month after this deal closed, Sandra calls and says she has yet another junk house for sale. This house had a roof that collapsed. All the debris had been removed and only the front wall of the house and 2 partial side walls were still standing. I had my bird dog go over and take a few photos, he said a homeless guy had made this place his home.
I sent Sandra my contract and it took a week to get it back. We agreed on a $14,000 price. I sent it over to my buyer who usually buys everything I throw at him and he actually laughed.
I ran some ads on Craig’s List with no calls. Soon Sandra calls and asks are we ready to close on this house? I tell her no, nobody wants it, I’m cancelling our contract.
She starts her ghetto ranting, we have a contract, your going to buy this house in 48 hours or I will sue you. I explain that the contract has an inspection clause and you should read these contracts before you start your ignorant rants. I asked, whats the problem? Just sell it to someone else.
Oh crap, she was going to spread the word that I was a shady investor and bla bla, and I was going to hear from her attorney. I told her to make sure she shows the lawyer the part that says “subject to buyers inspection and approval”
When will I learn not to deal with this psychotic drama queen?
Somebody slap me.
Rando