BiggerPockets

what were the complaints? I was looking at their site today and thought their model was interesting. They seem to have a lot of "deals" on there. I love the testimonials from peoples with large sums of money written on large white checks....

First separate the two.

LOOPNET is a national company that is very credible.They recently acquired COSTAR another great company.

www.myhousedeals.com has nothing to do with LOOPNET.

I have not dealt with Myhousedeals but it appears just from a testimonial they are PUFFING numbers.

Published On: November 18, 2011
Interviewed On: August 30, 2011
Membership: Premium Elite
Deal Overview:
After Repaired Value: $65,000
minus Purchase Price: $26,000
minus Cost of Repairs: $12,000
equals Total Profit: $27,000

Where is the holding costs??
Where is closing costs (attorneys or title fees,recording fees,real estate broker commissions on resale)?

If they used hard money where are the points in this calculation.

I'm with you Rob. My motto is if it's "for sale", I'm not interested. :wink:

Joel- I am with you on the curiosity of missing details in proformas. I see it all too often and with each passing day I am more convinced that the general public has not learned their lesson with the downturn (we have short term memories). If you don't know what you are doing, and are not willing to take the time to learn the right way, you are better off staying out of the business. Too many amateurs out there doing dumb deals based on 3 line proformas they see on "flip men" with a going-in margin of 10%. All they do is crowd the field and artificially increase pricing. Just my two cents.

The site for finding deals is "the MLS". That's a misnomer because the MLS is really a bunch of different systems for different areas. But that's the one place where residential real estate is listed for sale.

But I think you're asking for a site where great deals are readily available for your choosing. It doesn't exist. Think about it. It can't exist. If there really was some site where anyone could go easily find a deal, all the deals would get snapped up. I know people monitor the MLS diligently and make offers very quickly on good deals. If there was some site where truly great deals got posted, people would monitor it continuously. A great deal would disappear in a matter of seconds.

Now, if such a site does exist, and you grabbed deals and turn around and resold them at a profit, what value are you adding? An investor could just monitor the site and find the deals directly. That's somewhat true even for the MLS.

If you're wanting to make a profit wholesaling, you have got to get out and find the deals. There are lots of ways to do it. But all of them take time or money or both. If you're short on money, spend time grubbing through publicly available lists and knocking on doors or making phone calls.

Even loopnet, which is a legit site, tends not to have the best deals. If a broker is approached by a seller, that broker probably has a pool of buyers. He or she can shop the deal to their buyers or list it on their own site. If its a good deal, someone will probably pick it up. If its just an OK deal, it goes on loopnet and (for smaller residential properties, at least) onto the MLS.

I am a member of myhousedeals.... they are way over on ARV... I use it for contractors, cash buyers and hard money. You could use it to see what other wholesalers are picking up property for but as far as the numbers, I haven't seen anything that looks like it would work in Atlanta. maybe they do? I dont track them...

Hey guys,

Looks like I'm late to the party. Five or ten of you have already chimed in. I'm Doug Smith, investor and founder of MyHouseDeals.com. I'll quickly respond to a few of your comments...

Zubair: Throughout the years, tens of thousands of investors have come and gone as members. I think just 1 or 2 complained to Ripoffreport, so I'm happy with that ratio. Ripoffreport is bad for small to mid-sized companies because we get Googled more to see what kind of bad stuff is out there. Dell, for example, has 1,218 complains on Ripoffreport, but I doubt people even look them up or care that they have that many complaints.

Drew: Thanks. We do a 10 to 15 minute interview with each person who emails us saying they bought a property off our site. Glad you're getting some value from them.

Joel: Those values are mentioned in several of the interviews and will be different for each person.

Rob: If you aren't interested in buying properties from MyHouseDeals, it's still a good place to post. We see that the top wholesalers in many markets use our site to post and sell their deals.

Drew: Yes, these deals are posted by real people. Our staff just reviews and approves them if they meet the wholesale criteria.

Michael: Agreed.

Brian: I've met plenty of people who use our website as their #1 way to find deals. And I've had others tell me that they can't find a good deal on it. Guess it just depends on one's buying criteria.

Jon: Agree with much of what you said. On the MLS, good deals go in seconds. On MyHouseDeals.com, they go within a day or two, presumably because we get a lot less traffic than the MLS. Since they go fast, it's best that our members either check the new listings daily or unsubscribe. As for something else you mentioned, some sellers on MyHouseDeals post all of their deals to the site right away and some only post if they can't sell to their internal list. It's really case-by-case.

Carlos: We get a lot of repeat business on the $197 emails, but there's certainly no pressure to pay for that service. Hope you get a buyer for your deal. Wholesalers who post good deals tend to.

Mark: Sellers post their own numbers, and we warn investors to do their own due diligence. If you see someone posting deals with bad comps or inaccurate repair numbers, please mention that in the "property discussion" section on that deal's page. This will help keep them in check.

Will: Like with Mark, please use the property discussion section to call these people out.

On a related note, I've spent six years of my life and untold sums of money to build a website where wholesalers can post their deals, where rehabbers and landlords can purchase them, and where investors in general can profit. My team and I have also worked hard to convey the value of our services in a way that is appealing but doesn't come across as "scammy."

So many of our members love the site because they do get value and they do profit. I take a lot of pride in that. But if you're not a big fan, just know that we continue to work hard on making improvements. And it's my hope that one day, maybe one of those improvements will bump us up on your like-o-meter, even if it's just a little bit. :-)

Happy (and profitable) investing!
Doug

Update (myhousedeals inflated my ARV and asking price)....

As I mentioned above, I posted a property on myhousedeals.

Here is what I entered and what I see when I try to update the property on their site:

Est. After Repair Value (ARV): $100,000
minus Seller's Asking Price: $37,000
minus Estimated Cost of Repairs: $35,000
equals Profit Potential of: $28,000

How Seller Determined ARV: Comps: 1/4 mile radius shows conservative ARV to be $110k. Rehabs bringing $81/sq. Subdivision comps show ARV to be $100k.

About Property - Property is vacant, sits on the corner of a cul-de-sac, has a large yard. Would make a great flip or rental. Dallas County shows: Built 1962, 1386 sqft, 1-Story, slab, brick, and 400+ sq ft. Addition that shows as Unassigned. Tax Appraisal $112k.

About Repairs - Needs just about everything including foundation work (we have a foundation bid that includes a lifetime transferable warranty).

myhousedeals manually approved my post. Today, I received an email informing me it had been approved.

myhousedeals inflated my ARV, left the repairs as is, and inflated my asking price. They also added 400 sqft (even though I specifically said it was 1386 sqft.

Their site shows the following:

Est. After Repair Value (ARV): $110,000
minus Seller's Asking Price: $41,000
minus Estimated Cost of Repairs: $35,000
equals Profit Potential of: $34,000

About Property - This is a 3-bedroom, 2-property and 2-car garage homw with an approximately 1786 sq. ft.

About Repairs - Repairs Needed: Foundation, Roof replacement, flooring, paint, fixtures, kitchen updating, bathrooms, garage door etc.

It's clear why everyone is seeing inflated ARVs. They are inflating them. I made screen shots of the pages in case Doug Smith of myhousedeals tries to contradict what I have written here.

I don't have premium access to see the listing. I clicked on the link in the email from your site and it took me to the higher priced listing. That's why I thought you inflated it. Thanks for clearing things up. That other guy must be trying to remarket my deal. I found another one yesterday where a woman had it listed on FB for 30% higher than my ask. Kill his and put mine back up please.

Thanks for posting a well researched explanation. Best of luck with your business.