30 Days Quick Cash Formula

Wondering if there is a way to find out the price that a property's current owner purchased it for? I know Totalviewrealestate and Zillow show "last sold" dates, but they are not always current.

Same drill, go to the tax records on the county website and check the sale amount. Sometimes it shows $0 or $10, which usually means it's been inherited. It seems to work out pretty accurately for me so far.

the county's numbers and the actual value of a property are usually different. in my experience, the assessor's numbers are usually lower and if it's the seller using the assessor's numbers, what does it really matter? it's all good for you.

I might be putting the cart before the horse, but if I am putting a property under contract and I'm going to pass it on to another buyer, don't I need earnest money to bind that contract? I've been looking but haven't found any info to clarify that for me.
I'm fulltime into 30 days to Real Estate Cash and really trying to keep up. There's a lot of info, but I'm determined to keep up and be successful.

Thanks,
Shirley

Hopefully this thread will answer your question

http://www.deangraziosi.com/real-estate-forums/contracts/16959/those-you...

I'm sorry, I meant LESS in my previous post. I meant to say that most of the time, after I've run sold comps on a property; the property's after-sold-comps value is significanly LESS than the value listed on the county's tax assessor website (the appraisal value is usally MORE than the calculated ARV). It matters b/c it is giving the seller (I'm speaking of one in particular) the notion that the appraisal, not the market, is what determining the property's value. Which I suppose is both true and false.

True it might be WORTH the higher price, but false in that selling the property at the higher price won't get it sold anytime soon in this market. And yes, I have let that seller and their property go with the instruction to maybe try selling it via MLS for that price and if she should ever change her mind, to contact me.

But you were right...if it were the otherway around...it wouldn't matter one bit

I followed the advice below and posted a request on Trulia for an agent in my city. The response I got came from an agent in another part of the state which was a link to a similar question along with the comment " This seems to be a common question on Trulia these days." The link was to a recent posting which had a few agents commenting on the unlikelihood the person would be at finding an agent due to the huge amount of work they would be needing to do. One, in particular, got my attention because she mentioned Dean by name and I couldn't tell if she was being derogatory or not. I believed she was so I took it upon myself to email her the following letter:

Hello Ms. Sloan:
In posting my request looking for an innovative and progressive RE Agent for my area of Polk County, I came across your comment referring to a seminar by Dean Graziosi being held in Jacksonville. Being new to Trulia, I'm not sure whether you were making a derogatory comment or what you were meaning. Are you against what Mr. Graziosi is teaching? If so, you may be disheartened to learn that the main thing he teaches his students is to find an agent not how to circumvent them. You might also not be aware of the fact that the agents who do work with a Dean Graziosi student make more money because they are closing on more deals than with the average investor. You may also not be aware that his students are shown how to make their agent's jobs easier so they can create more money for themselves with less work thus giving the agent more time to handle their more complicated customer's issues. And there are more...

If you are aware of these issues, I must have misread your intent. If you were unaware of these issues, you may want to rethink your position as well as inform your fellow agents on Trulia of the opportunity they are missing out on. With times being as tough as they are right now, wouldn't you like to have a customer that will make you money sooner rather than later?

Thank you for your time.

Andrew Sager
Fxxxxxxxxxxyyyyzzzzz@ xxx.com

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I can't get past page 2 of the blueprint because I can't get an agent to work with me. Maybe it's time for us DGer's to band together and start contacting these agents with letters such as mine or one with similar information and show them what they are missing. Maybe, if agents in the bigger national houses get the message, we would all be better off or at least not looked upon as the "UGLY STEPCHILD."

As you can read in my daily blog, my journey is hard enough as it is. It would be nice if there were a few benches along the way to to rest upon that weren't filled with the crap from the last person who used them.
What do you all think?

Andy Sager
DG's AndyS

I couldn't find this answered specifically during a quick search. Maybe it is out there but here is my question.

I've finished finding the names of the Cash Buyers on the lists provided by my REAs. The first one I checked, an LLC, via whitepages.com, not only gave me their business address but their phone number. If we are lucky enough to get their phone number, doesn't it make sense to call them as our initial contact? Or should we send the letter instead as directed by the Blueprint?

Thanks for any advice, especially from those that have tried both methods of first contact with a REA List Cash Buyer.

-Soccer Guy in LA

I would think that calling them would be the better way to go. This would save you time and postage. You will always get a better response from a phone call than a letter.
Just my 2 cents. Best wishes.

Rick

Good morning Waterloo,
I'm in TN and have read Dean's new book.I'm new to this and in process of getting established for all over the country. I have my cash buyers list and a realtor I'm working with but no concrete deals as of yet. Any suggestions?
Have a great day and lets keep striving for success!My list is for East TN.

Thanks for the info, Nick, I think we get it now. Seems like an escrow company would definitely be the best bet for all parties involved.

-s

Good Morning Everyone!

I am in the process of submitting offers. I was wondering can we do wholesale deals on shortsales?

Thanks,
Karemah

You can't technically "assign" them. You would have to utilize transactional funding and have a definite and serious buyer in place. Shortsales also take a long time to research. Carol Stinston mentioned that she's involved in shortsales regularly, and she has a power team to help her wade through them. Good luck! I'm sure you'll do great!

Thanks for your answer. I don't think I want to start off with diffficult deals initially. I may go back and deal with some easier offers first.

Thanks for the info.
Karemah

Rick Merritt, thanks for the reply.

Yes, I'll go ahead and make calls where possible!

Hey Everybody,

I am working on getting a pro-forma set up for one of the properties I just got under contract in Chicago. Does anybody have a good link to down load a "Home Flip Spreadsheet" to develop a proforma?

Thanks,
Alex

Wow, there is a ton of trial and error going on with this. Its pretty interesting how much you learn from all of this. Think about starting a month ago and how all of us had little to no experience in this. There is a lot of "dialing it in" that is needed and what a relief when you find something that works.

I don't know what is more valuable, knowing what works, or knowing what doesn't.

The agent is correct - clause 51 states - "NON-ASSIGNABILITY - This Contract may not be assigned without the written consent of Buyer and Seller. If Buyer and Seller agree in writing to an assignment of this Contract, the original parties to this Contract remain obligated hereunder until settlement."

So how do we get around that?

Get a written consent from the buyer and the seller that the contract shall be assignable.

Michael Mangham
MD Home Acquisitions LLC

Hi,

I started working my first 5 days and I have found a real estate agent, and I am excited and I am going to call more offices tommorrow so that I can have at least 3 agents to work with and also trying to get my buyers list at the same time. I am moving forward and thanks to everyone for your posts and encouragement.

AndyS, i like your letter. hopefully it will get a good response.

Michelle, i thought that was kind of weird, but now i get it. thanks for clarifying that for me.

Soccer Guy in LA, i love soccer. my 2 youngest played and i love the game. how are you involved?

You could cross out that clause, and mark your initials next to it. You also could override that clause via an addendum.

Technically, an offer that's submitted via an agent can be binding (at least in certain areas). You'd want to hire an attorney to explain all of the various nuances on this.

BTW, if anyone is looking for a "rock star" investor friendly agent in the Panama City FL area, then check out Lilia Cabezas!! She's intense, tenacious, and extremely knowledgeable about almost anything you could ever think of that's real-estate related with respect to the commercial and residential markets in and around Bay County FL.

She's ex-military (was an Airborne Ranger [a real life "GI Jane"--and she loved the movie too :)]) which is major plus in my book, and that fact was partly why I reached out to her in the first place.

She and I conversed for nearly 2 hours, and I never asked her a single one of the RBBP script questions. She naturally addressed every single point--and much more--without any prompting. Her interview was the easiest one I've ever done, and she clearly established herself as the right one within the first 5 mins of the call.

Incidentally, she also does some investing, so she's one of us too.

Cash-Flow Analyzer is a spreadsheet app that already has one built-in. Although I have that, I don't use it much. It was overkill for what I needed, so I ended up writing my own code to deliver me what I needed.

Although one could use such a spreadsheet to itemize and drill down into those costs, I've personally found the guidelines for estimating repairs in "The Flip Book" to be good enough. After all, we eventually will need to come up with a bottom-line cost per square foot. Most of my projects (from cosmetic flips to shells) tends to fall between $10/sqft and $50/sqft. I'll also add an additional 20% to account for slack (or cost overruns [to pad my figures a bit]), and that usually keeps me safe.

Here's a tip: one may go to Home Depot or Lowe's and ask some of the pros there for some basic estimates to give one an idea of the cost per square foot for doing certain jobs in that area.

Here's another tip: a mentor once told me (and several others) to include a finish carpenter on our team. They're kind of a jack-of-all trades, and they're great for providing these kinds of estimates. They also make for great project managers for overseeing the rehab project.

Nice response, but I suspect your comments fell upon deaf ears. I've spent several years confronting many agents on Trulia about some of their stereotypes about us investors (namely that we're heartless vultures). In many cases, many--even after having been presented the facts--continued to stubbornly believe their own lies. I have a four letter word for those folks: NEXT!

Yet, there also are "rock star" agents like Don Tepper (who's in NoVA and also invests) on Trulia too. He and I have developed a mutual respect for one another through the years. Incidentally, he's also pretty sharp on creative financing.

You might want to do some co-wholesaling. Since you already have the buyers, then you need to find someone else with the deals. You might try reaching out to some of the "We Buy Houses" folks in your area to see if any of them might be willing to wholesale some deals to you.

You also could call some agents on 1 of their listings, and see if you could negotiate a deal. If not, then inquire about their other listings to see if they might have anything else that might match your buyers' criteria.

You could also cold call some attorneys and/or title companies in your area to see if there are any deals that recently fell out of escrow.

You could also cold call some of the local/regional lenders in your area to see if they have any inventory (eg properties or notes) that they'd like to move.

You could also spend a day or 2 at your county courthouse. Check out several of the eviction court cases. Make sure to introduce yourself to each landlord, give them one of your business cards, and ask them if they'd be interested in selling their property/properties.

You could offer to sponsor a pizza party for a group of college students in exchange for them doing some door knocking or passing out fliers for you.

If you're familiar with a Tupperware party (my mother had several of them when I was a kid) or a gold party, then you could do something similar only with real-estate in mind. Basically, you'd invite several friends and family to your place for a party, and you'd prepare a brief presentation for them. The bottom line is you'll ask each one of them to give you at least 1 lead: 1) a property that's for sale, or 2) the name of someone who wants (or might want) to sell. Don't forget to give them several business cards before they depart. You could either offer each of them an incentive, or you could set up a contest (where the person who gives you the most leads that actually convert a nice prize [like a dinner for 2 at Morton's]).

Well quite honestly, I don't post much in any forums at all. But I wanted to follow the instructions from Dean's Blueprint. I did want to say that I have been very impressed with the Edge course and the other materials.

I kind of always thought that with most or all of the programs out there that someone like Dean wouldn't even be involved in his training company and just have all the training outsourced. I can see that isn't true. It seems like Dean is very involved at many levels and as much as he can be. I have have found that watching the DVDs really shed some light on who Dean really is.

I have questions, like,
Do agents mind if you put or assignees?
How do you get around the earnest money with agents?
I am sure I others.

So hello everybody!

J

I just received the following e-mail from a REA who "works with investors and has invested himself"... Based on the information we have it does not seem accurate... Any Feedback?
PART 1
"Hi Wendy,
The MLS system has no parameters for "as-is" or vacant properties. Many individuals listing property do not want the general public to be aware of the fact that properties are vacant for basic security reasons and "as-is" properties are stated in an agreement of sale although it is considered fact that all short sale and foreclosures are sold "as-is". I can set you up for daily price reductions, they appear on a daily hotsheet that we subscribe to."

PART 2
Also need Feedback on the rest of the email .... I am running into several Pennsylvania agents who want to submit letters of intent because the agreements are so long (see rest of email just received)... any thoughts on which to tell him to use?

" As to making offers, you have to decide whether you want to approach sellers with an initial "letter of intent" or if you want to present a full sales agreement. A basic agreement of sale is 28 pages plus all additional addenda---each page requiring initials or signatures, plus buyer's financial information and disclosures, copies of deposit checks, and supporting broker documents. The right way to do it is to present a full agreement---- you just have to decide logistically how you want to proceed. Let me know your thoughts so we can structure how to package and present deals."

THANKS!

Some agents will freak out whenever they see "and/or assigns" or an assignment clause, because they don't understand it. Others here have posted various ways for how they'd handle it, and I posted a couple ways earlier.

Just explain that you and your partners might acquire the property using one of your entities, or you all might decide to close using a newly created one. Next, ask them whether they'd prefer for you to submit an assignable offer now, which they won't have to modify later, or if they'd prefer to submit an addendum with the changes later. The point here is to emphasize that they'd save themselves more time by accepting the assignable offer.

I often will submit my offers without mentioning anything about an EMD. I use this to trigger a negotiation, because I know that most agents are trained to ask about it. Whenever they inquire about it, then I tell them that the omission wasn't an oversight, and to let the selling party counter with whatever they want.

Doing that often will buy me some time; yet, if an agent insists upon receiving an EMD, then I'll ask him/her to have a discussion with a real-estate attorney on the notion of consideration. I learned from one of my mentors (an attorney who practices in CA) that an offer submitted via an agent is considered to be binding in many cases. (He also went into a much deeper, technical explanation of what consideration is and isn't, and he explained how to tie all of that together.)

Keep in mind that consideration could be any thing of value: a promissory note (my favorite option), a car, a ring, a boat, a coin collection, $1 (or $100 in some states), etc.

If an agent still were to insist upon receiving an EMD, then I'd offer to open escrow with a promissory note (or one of the other items), and I'd submit my offer.

If the agent were to submit my offer without any an EMD, and the selling party were to counter with an offer including an EMD. Then I'd counter with 4 options: 1) an offer with no EMD and a quick close, 2) an offer with one of the other forms of consideration, 3) an offer with an EMD that I could live with (normally not more than $500--that's due upon the acceptance of the results of the appraisal/inspections) with a lower price (by at least $10K), or 4) an offer with a smaller EMD upfront with an additional deposit (that technically won't be an EMD [per the terms of my addendum]) that's due sometime later with an even lower price (by at least $12K).

Also, I have a rule that I learned from that attorney mentor, that I incorporate into all of my negotiations. Every time the selling party asks for something, I'll counter with a "more expensive" request of my own. The point is that I'm using my offers subtly to train the selling party to stop asking for stuff. I've had a few listing agents that didn't get it at first, so I stated my policy explicitly. I entered that discussion by asking them whether they noticed that every time the seller asked for something, that I countered with another request of my own, and I explain that my requests weren't a coincidence. Next, I told them directly that the seller needs to asking for more stuff, if he/she/they want(s) me to stop asking for stuff too.

Don't worry if you're uncomfortable approaching things my way. Just realize that consideration is a negotiable item, so use your own style to handle this issue.