We're in CA - had our first mtg. with our RE agent today......help!

If not, you should state that you are working with other investors and that you or one of them will be purchasing the properties depending on whose criteria it matches. You can provide them with your POF (go to www.coastal-funding.com) for any property you decide to put an offer in on.

I have never heard of the FICO score thing... but, they are cash offers you will be making so they shouldn't need your credit score as you will not be obtaining financing.

Hope this helps!
Susan

Not having POF and FICO scores doesn't mean you can't make an offer. It just means that when presented with similar offers, the seller will tend to go with one that has the POF and the good FICO scores over one that doesn't. If you are dealing with a property that has multiple offers, you don't want to get sucked into a bidding war. What the agent is telling you is true, however, if he is asking you for POF and FICO scores it seems he doesn't understand what you are trying to accomplish and might not be the right agent for you. I spoke with an agent the other day and asked him if he was embarrassed to present low ball offers. He said he didn't want to waste his time or the seller's time with those kind of offers. To which I replied "Interesting....I wish you had the same opinion about my money." Some agents are lazy or just don't know any better since their idea of being a real estate agent is "How much are you pre-qualified for? Here are the houses in the MLS that you can afford." If you are dealing with a seller who requires POF, maybe the seller isn't really motivated enough to provide a good deal. As mentioned above, you can always get POF from Coastal Funing. Anyway, it's just a minor stumbling block and won't take you out of the real estate business........SWSWSWSW.....some will, some won't, so what, someone's waiting.

We're going to go ahead and provide a POF letter on the properties we want to make offers on. Thank you for the link Susan. We have that one and also cashformyclosing.com - if our agent still wants our fico scores we will refuse and possibly go with a new agent, but hopefully that won't happen. Thanks again!

Penny and Dino

excellent insight and advice. I was wondering the same thing about our agent. Does she really get it?? Your feedback is really appreciated.

alot of realtors DO know about assignments and other creative ways of RE

Them asking for a POF or not accepting a trans POF is their way of protecting their time and I for one can completely understand and relate.
Also not every seller is that motivated to sell and accept a lowball offer.

Have a fallback if the trans POF is not accepted; have an agreement for a fee from buyer after they've closed just in case

our plan is to only go after motivated sellers.

in CA. I thought my last agent was the one. He was an investor, understood all the terms, still required POF and EMD (there isn't one I've ever met in CA that will put in an offer for you w/o one). He knew all the stuff to look for in an investment property. He knew I wanted to put in lowball offers from 50-75% of FMV on homes that have been on the market for at least 180 days and had a price drop at some time, he knew it was my first time using transactional funding and that I was branching into these methods I'm learning through Dean's material.

After 2 offers, not being accepted, I don't hear from him any more. Without trying to put 25 in at a time, without even trying to just make verbal offers (which I told him would be fine to weed it out so he wasn't wasting time writing up offers. I've moved on to FSBOs and am closing on my first soon.

I got nowhere with my realtors, and this last one I used every technique Matt tells about to get a good realtor. I even showed him the letter from Matt's agent, and used the letter in the book and tweaked it for me. Still, went through 6 realtors here. Either I'm doing something wrong, or realtors just don't want to work with investors because there is more work involved to get one deal working with an investor. If you've found a Starr, please let the rest of us in CA know who have also had much the same experience trying to get a realtor.

So glad you are getting out there and taking action! You're off to a great start. Do not get unmotivated by anything, plow through it all. You have to in this business! Especially trying to work with a realtor in CA.

I'm feeling a little defeated today, but I know it is temporary, and we will move forward. I'm now thinking about every angle - fsbo's, probates, realizing that we must have more than one "pole in the water" so to speak. I'd like a chance to put in offers where there aren't already a bazillion. Also, although we're able to obtain a POF letter from a couple of web sites, my gut is telling me that they may not sit well with our realtor. So, a shift may be needed and that's ok. I'm ready to talk to some more realtors if need be.

What kind of fsbo deal are you closing on? HUGE congratulations to you for making it happen....very exciting! Bring on the diamond...)

ps How the heck do you make a smiley face?? Haha....