2011 Year of the L/O?

Yeah, I would agree with that statement!

I think it's definately going to be a major strategy for this year with the economy the way it is. People need someplace to live and a lot of them are going to need help credit wise so it's the best strategy for them. Make sure you check out Karen's post it's awesome.

http://www.deangraziosi.com/real-estate-forums/everything-else/71370/lea...

Lease options it is. I will still use other strategies but this one seems to be the easiest and fastest way to make some fast cash.

I started with LO's 8 years ago, when people that could fog a mirror could get financing, and I quit my part time job after 6 moths, so look at where we are now! I made it thru the ice yesterday to the post office and sent of a direct mailing which cost me about $580, but I'll get a solid 15 houses out of that. Figure an average of $3500 for me per house....Daddy wants to buy an airplane!
Don't' focus on money though, if you focus on helping the sellers and buyers, the money will follow.

DG family, I have been advertising on craigslist getting calls to build my tenant buyer's and cash buyer's which is working. And putting out bandit signs on weekend's where I boil peanut's on a street corner. the problem I keep running into when I am looking for FSBO's is that when talking to them they are not interested in the LO's they want Cash and they will not take less then there asking price which is a FMV price. And I can not get enough meat on the bone for cash buyer's so that is out. I will add these FSBO on my watch list for now, But I just wanted to share my experience out here hunting FSBO in the Atlanta area.

and you'll find the motivated sellers. You need to find sellers that have to sell. It sounds like most of the ones you have been calling want to sell but no urgency. I've been calling pre-foreclosure ownwers and trying to work that, I had 1 so far but they were $100k upside down in their house. I couldn't find a way for it to work for me so I moved on. They didn't want to short sale and they keep thinking they will get money for their home.....good luck it wasn't going to be from me.

Just keep the faith and try to look for motivated sellers.

Hi Robert,

Let's see, a FSBO that wants full price and all cash (what a shocker). It doesn't appear that you are working with truly motivated sellers. I can understand they may not be interested in L/O's, but work with sellers who are motivated enough to allow the numbers on the deal to work for both parties.

Best to you in your investing !

Tom

are the most motivated. Sometimes may even be able to pull them away from a short sale. You will find it very hard to do a L/O with a seller who is not facing foreclosure. You need motivated sellers, people that are ready to hand over the keys to their property and walk away.

Ya understand the advise, Have not come across FSBO that is facing foreclosure yet. But I will soon as I continue my search effort's.

Not to go against what Lane said, but for a lease option to work , the house CAN NOT be in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure. If you LO a house that is in FC, then the tenant pays you $5k down, moves in, and 2 months later gets the eviction notice...hmmm...not a good situation.
The ONLY way you could LO a house that is behind, is if you got enough up front to catch up the arrears, and still have money left over.
I get slammed with sellers contacting me from my little tri-fold brochure I mail them. I mail them directly to listed homes. I'm not much for cold calling etc, so I want the sellers to call me.
Once they call or e-mail, I'll ask some standard questions.
Address
How much are you asking?
How much do you owe?
How much are your payments?
Are the payments behind?

From there, I put the preliminary figures together, e-mail them to the seller with a pre-typed explanation (I use Mac Sticky Notes) then follow up, and send the docs to them.
If a seller is behind, per TX law (and morals) I can't help them.
If a seller wants full price with a cash buyer, then I make sure they have my info, and I'll keep mailing them my brochure and likely they will call in about 2 months when their prince doesn't come riding in.
There are certainly sellers that you can't help, or don't want to work with, same for T/B's.

Thanks for the advice.

I've emailed several hundred seller/landlords on CList and the FSBO websites with no success. Most were not interested in doing LO and the others were just time wasters. They asked me questions like "where are you located", "what is your address", and after you explained everything to them, they say "tell me more", etc, just to waste time and then say "no".

I don't have much money, but I will try a few direct mailings to listed properties and ads in the newspapers to get willing LO sellers.

As far as pre-foreclosures are concerned, couldn't the T/B pay the mortgage company directly for the seller to make sure the payments are being made?

Outside of putting the property in a land trust, how can the T/B keep seller liens and judgements from attaching to the property?

Thanks!!
DG_DealMaker

I never did the Clist thing, but I do have someone sending out e-mails to Clist people for the last month or so, and I have gotten some houses from it, but I'm finding most people that seem to market on Clist want to do it on their own, and may actually have the common sense to know how to sell a house. (let's face it, it's not complicated!) So I'm seeing that marketing to listed sellers seem to be key for me. Listed sellers contacted an agent because they want to sell their house, but aren't really sure how to. So they tend to be open to working with me.
The TB can make the payments to the mtg company, but if the mtg is 3 months behind, who's going to get it caught up?
Example..if a seller is $5k behind, and you are advertising the house as a LO with $6k down, $1500 a month. the buyer would actually need $12,500 to move in!

I agree with you John it's hard if not impossible to work out a foreclosure with out just buying out right.

Okay Thanks.

I thought about pre-foreclosures because listened to this video with Greg Murphy and he seemed to be doing very well getting people behind in payments and then doing a sandwich lease option on the property.

I will just stick to the newspaper ads and listed properties until I can get some deals under my belt.

Thanks!!
DG_DealMaker

So Pilot, IF I am reading your post right you send out a mailer to listed sellers who have a agent trying to sell there house for them.

That's a great way to think about it and you're probably right. I'm going to give that avenue a shot and see what I get.

That's right Robert. I tried everything starting off, although Clist wasn't around, but I was hitting the FSBO sites hard with cold calling etc. I finally thought, "well, listed houses are for sale, so...why not send them letters?"
When the sellers call or e-mail, I gather some basic info then e-mail them the preliminary figures, then follow up with the docs after we've discussed the figures. I only do LO's so I structure the #'s to work for them, so I don't need to find desperate sellers, jus those that can wait 8 - 12 months to be fully cashed out. I tell the sellers, the only downside is it's not an immediate cash out, but then again...having your house listed for 12 months isn't either is it?

Pilot, Thanks for the insight