Real Estate Course: Day Nineteen of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 19

1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
2. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)
3. Purchase one property

Day Nineteen: Private money! Enough said.

Then have a good lunch and pick the brain of someone in the field. Pick someone you may have met but do not know. You can talk about the real estate environment and how their business is being impacted. How do they see it changing in the future? You are building relationships with these people that will pay off in the future. Refer work to them or use them.

With all the offers you have made over the last three weeks you should have gotten one accepted. The law of averages says you will. Now what do you do? First stop and celebrate your little victory…..ok, now back to work. With all the people you have talked to about private money you should have a couple of sources for it. If you do not, get on your horse and talk to everyone you have already talked to. Get more “Nos.” You need that money to close the deal. Do not use your own money in the deal. I know it is tempting to do that but that is not your job. You bring value to the deal that attracts the private money. So get out there and get the money. You can control the closing to make sure you have the money for the deal. What is your exit strategy for the property?

While you are getting the deal closed, you are going to place an ad to sell the property on craigslist. It is fast and cheap (free). Look how other people have placed their ad and how it attracted you. Copy the good ones and make sure you have pictures for it. This will get your phone ringing. Collect as much information as you can about the potential buyer. If they do not want this property you can look for other properties they might like. You are creating a buyers list. Anyone who calls about property goes on the buyers list.

Real Estate Course: Day Thirteen of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 13

1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
2. Visit properties from calls
3. Looking for equity
4. Prepare offers and structure deals
5. Talk to more sellers
6. Talk to realtor agent

Day Thirteen: Private money! Review your warm list and how they responded to your offer. This will always be the first item on your action plan because it is so important.

Go look at properties that sellers called on yesterday. You are reviewing them for repairs required and assess how a buyer would feel about the property. Does it need a lot of repairs? What is the cost of the repairs? Does it have curb appeal? Do we want to spend the money for curb appeal? This is the bread and butter part of your business. I really like this part. I can visualize how the house will look fixed up and ready for a buyer and that is exciting.

You continue your property research to see if they have equity. Same as you did yesterday. We are developing a routine that will help you get started and be successful in this business.

You have a list of properties you have researched and visited. Start writing offers on those properties. While some of the offer will be presented directly to the sellers others will be through a realtor since they may have a listing. While it may be harder to find a realtor that will present your creative offer to a seller it is worth the effort to try and find that agent, because they will be gold. They will understand what an investor does and help your business. Look at it as another opportunity to extend your network and talk about what you are doing.

Call more people from craigslist and any rental signs you may see in the area. Another good source of leads are the “Vacant with Weeds” property. If you are in an area that has a lot of foreclosed homes this will not work as a good lead source. If not, this is a great source. Find a property that is vacant with weeds or a dead front yard and research the owner of the property and call them.

Go to an open house in your farm area. Meet the realtor and get to know them. Let them know what you are looking for. Be very specific on the type of properties you want to buy.

Its the Little Things When Selling Real Estate

Hi Everyone,
I know I have a post today for Day 9 of the 30 Day Action Plan but I wanted to relay just some of the things that go on around here.  We laugh about it after but it does create stress in your day.  Lessons learned: Use an established, licensed contractor and get a property inspection.

Our program that is the most successful is buying properties (Foreclosure or distressed sellers), rehabbing the property and reselling them to buyers with owner financing.  We did that for a property that we recently sold.  It was a Bank Owed home that needed a lot of work.  So much work that we gutted the interior of the house.  We figured that since we were replacing everything that we would not need a property inspection because everything is all new.  Well that was wrong.  We sold the property and everything was great, for the first month and when it was sunny.  The troubled started in December and that is when things turned sour, the roof leaked!!  This was a brand new roof it should not leak.  The first call was before Christmas, not the best time to get someone out to look at the problem.  I would love to go back to the contractor and tell him to fix it but he closed up his business and is gone.  So we have to bear this cost for our buyer's sake.  Well when the sun came out a few days later we found the problem; the roof was a tar and gravel roof and someone put a boot print on the roof when it was hot and left a bare spot on the roof that water just loved.  If only I could use CSI to identify the person who did it like they do on TV.  A property inspection would have noted that in the report prior to the sale and most importantly while the contractor was still in business and desperately seeking more work from us.

Also we had the house rewired - I should say that someone convinced us to rewire the house.  That someone being the thieves that came in during the remodel and removed all the copper wiring, how nice of them.  We had the contractor rewire the house, and as the contractor told us when he presented his price, to bring it up to current code.  He failed to tell us that the wiring would overload the rating on the main service panel.  A normal house that is 1200 square feet will have a 100 amp main electrical panel and it will work fine.  Our house had a 60 amp panel.  So the additional outlets that are required by electrical code overloaded it.  Now of course this did not show up until the Christmas time when the homeowner had all the lights on at night and a small electric heater in one of the rooms.  All that load made the lights flicker.  So another late night call this time after Christmas.  Again a property inspection would have noted the 60 amp service and made a recommendation to upgrade to current standards. 

I am very fortunate to have a very dedicated staff led by my General Manager.  She works with all our buyers and sellers and makes the process very easy.  So when you buy that first property that you are going to resell do not skimp on the cost of a good property inspector.  They will be worth their weight in gold or cold hard cash as we learned.  They can establish a scope of work for your contractor for things that are not readily apparent, good luck.

See Ya,
Mike

Blogged with the Flock Browser