Has ANYONE acted as a marketing consultant for a FSBO and held an auction?

I have searched and finally found some info, but it was only for homes that people owned themselves.

Be careful to check local laws to see if you need a license to market someone's property for a fee.

I'm glad someone saw my post! I have been searching frantically to see if a 'marketing consultant' requires a license of any kind, or if holding an auction for real property requires any kind of license. I've been running into walls making phone calls and checking the internet.

So, I searched more to see if it is required to be licensed in CA to be a marketing consultant or do a real estate auction, and I looked at the assessors site where I pay my property taxes, and lo and behold there was a link there to see what business activities require licenses. Now, this is only for the county, I still have yet to find out about the state as a whole, but if this information can help someone in the future, I thought I'd post my findings here. I'm still pursuing looking for an answer. I think I may have to just stick to assignment or double closing for now.

I do real estate by auction part time (united country has a whole department specializing in by auction). Try contacting an auction service in your area and see if they will let you do this part time as a "consultant". If you don't have a real estate license you won't be able to do some of the tasks but they may allow you to get paid to help out. I get the listing (this is why you may need to have your license - in order to get the exclusive right to sell you need to have a license - unless it's your property). I market the property and do the open houses, and the day of the auction the auctioneer does all the work.
You could learn and it wouldn't cost much - I don't have any "office" expense like the regular realtors do and I work at my own pace.. and I get paid to learn real estate.

I've actually taken the broker's course, just never went to get certified because I thought it would be a conflict of interest as an investor. Do you think it would benefit me to go take the state exam?

Dean describes a scenario that I don't know could technically be considered an auction. I don't have my book with me but maybe someone else remembers reading about this.

Someone is behind in their payments and really needs to sell but has been unsuccessful. They've cut their REA loose. You meet with them and figure out what the rock bottom amount is that they will accept. You ask them to give you 5 days or so to get it sold. Then you start plastering the neighborhood around the house with House for Sale to Highest Bidder signs and give the date. The sale will start promptly at whatever time (usually around noon) and last until the highest offer is made. Put ads on craigslist and other such sites, because you aren't going to have time to put one in the newspapers. Put up flyers.

The day of the sale, you inform everyone what the starting bid is and have them write their offer on a piece of paper with their name and throw it in a big jar. Take the offers, go through them, and announce what the higest bid is. This will be the lowest accepted offer for the next round of bids. You keep doing this until eveyone drops out but the highest bidder. The winning bidder needs to have his POF and earnest money check with him. If not, it goes to the next highest bidder.

Now, I don't remember if you receive a percentage of the difference between the lowest acceptable offer and the winning offer or if you agree to a set figure with the owner.

Hopefully, someone reading this will remember the details. But it would still be best for anyone interested in doing this to read about it in the book (of course).

I did do one for someone and just charged them a flat fee for house setting. we did a open house, we stared with A low bid, At the end of the day we called each bidder back to see if they wanted to raise their bid in increments of 500 dollars. The owner actuary got 7000.00 more than he wanted. And I was the highest paid house setter that you have every met. I have only done this once, But it did work great. I will do anything not to lose a deal as long as I have no money involved.

Randy

Hi there!
I was running into the same problem in Colorado. This was the first thing I wanted to try because I felt it was the safest.
First of all, if you really want to do the auction, buy the book that Dean suggested, 'Sell Your Home in 5 Days" by Bill Effros. It is a very quick read and far more detailed than what Dean went into about this type auction. You can also go into the 5-day.com forum and see all kinds of people doing it and they are more than happy to reply.

Now back to the legalities! I talked to a lawyer who also sits on the CO RE Commission Board and he said that as long as you are only "advertising" for the owners, it would seem to be okay to do as a marketing consultant. Of course a flat fee would be better than a percentage (from a legal standpoint). There are lots of realtors that do this same type auction for their clients as well.

I think you mentioned that all you needed to do is take the exam to become an agent in CA, this would be beneficial if you want to do auctions. In fact, the lawyer told me he would advise me to get licensed in another state.

In general, with auctions aside,I personally think it would be beneficial to be licensed... ESPECIALLY if all you need to do is take the exam! Wish I was in that situation!

To get around all this for sure, you are definitely allowed, in any state, to hold an auction of this type if you have a property locked up on contract because you have certain owner rights during that time frame.

I hope this helps. If anyone else has any input on the legality of actions as a MC, I also would love to hear them because I think they would be just flat out fun!!

All the best!

Thank you so much for the info on the book and the forum. This is something I thought I'd like to try and it's nice to have a place to go for more info and to have questions answered.

If you are going to hold an auction on a property that you have under contract, you are auctioning the rights to the contract, not the property. You do not have ownership of the property yet. To do this, you would need to have assigning option written into the original contract.

I found it for $5.24!! - and the shipping is free!!! - at the following site:

http://www.hotbooksale.com/store/productView.aspx?idProduct=46096&ec=1&P...

Needless to say, based on Dean's recommendation I will be ordering it.

Oh, it looks this deal may end 4-30-10 so if you want to be sure to get this price order before end of day Friday.

Al, Thank you so much for that clarification. That was an important piece of information I left out!
DC

My pleasure! I am sure you will find both the book and the forum extremely helpful if you want to pursue auctions. I found it put all the pieces of the puzzle in place for me that I had about this type of auction process.

Great price for the book! Heck- I paid something like $19 for it! lol - It was worth it though! Nice of you to put up how others could get the book at such a great price!

After soaking tons of info into my head from this site for the last 3 week,I'm just glad I was finally able to contribute SOMETHING to this forum!
There are so many wonderful people giving so much valuable info here.

I hope to share my experiences soon. We are all going to be sooooo succesful!! Thanks everyone!

BTW, Al, I read about how 1 day can make all the difference in another thread. I agree. You are so motivational! Thanks!

DC

That's a great thing! So, I can do this with a FSBO property if I put it under and/or assigns? Hot dog, that sounds great! Gonna go hit some FSBOs next week! (Well, not literally, but you know what I mean. This is exciting news!)

Cindy, I'm ordering the book now! Thanks for the link! I will try to be at the next REIC meeting! I need a lead time to arrange babysitting (and I have no sitters. ) I am updating this to advise that when you agree to the terms on that site, you are signing up for a monthly fee of 7.99-$19.95 or more, and the first week is $2.95. There is a number to cancel it, but don't forget to cancel your 'subscription' (in order to buy you have to agree to terms that sign you up as a subscriber). The number is at the bottom of the 'terms'. I didn't write it down because I decided to wait and look around a little more.

THANK YOU to everyone for the input! Marketing consultant, HERE I COME! {:)

You go girl!! Let us know how it goes!

Ok, I have read this entire forum, and have heard that people are doing this legally, but I have SO many more questions....number one is this: 1) HOW do you convince a seller (who doesn't know you) to let you do this? 2) How, When, and how Much can you reasonably expect to get Paid for doing this? 3) How FAR do you take the whole process? 4) Can you charge a commission after they close for a percentage (like brokers, or real-estate agents) do? 4) I saw in one of the posts that someone said you have to have the property under contract to do this--everything I have read is contradictory to that...that's supposed to be the beauty of this method--you don't have to have control of the property to just hold an 'auction' for somebody.
Whew! I have SO many more questions to ask, I can't even begin to list all of them right now. I just Really need to talk to some people that have done this before, LEGALLY and Successfully.
P.S- I live in NC if anybody knows any specific laws about this in my state.
Thank you!

Oh, just forgot to add something...I own the current edition of Bill Effros' 5-Day book, and have read it cover-to=cover twice, but since it's geared towards home-owners, he doesn't really give any advice to people who want to do this and make a profit out of it (like us investors). Even in Dean's new book, he doesn't cover this much in detail, and even pointed out that he hasn't even USED this method before (warning!, warning!). Bottom line is this....if Anyone can do it, and it's supposedly so easy to do, then why isn't he, and everyone else out there doing this and becoming millionaire's??? Yeah, that part really concerns me!

Hi,
I would really like to know how you convinced the sellers to let you do this, the process you used, the contracts you used, how much you charged, and when you collected the fee, etc...
Did you personally know the sellers? Did you check with a real-estate attorney to see if this is legal in your state? Please advise me if you can, because I really want to do this!
Thanks!

Has mastered this concept, I believe.