How I Bought 5 Houses in 30 Days

[Lori Greene]

My Light Bulb Moment. There are many real estate investing strategies for finding deals and making offers. I’ve read them all and tried just about everything.

But also having had a background in sales and marketing, I realized that some of the sales techniques I’d learned over the years, could also be used to find motivated sellers and get offers accepted.

Maybe you’ve heard of the marketing tip where a salesperson should never ask a yes or no question, but should instead give the customer options to choose from.

For instance, “Would you like to by it” vs “Which one do you like the best? This one or this one? What do you like about it?” It’s well known in the sales and marketing industry that getting the customer to answer positively by giving them options to choose from can greatly increase conversions.

One day a light bulb went on in my head when it occurred to me to use this strategy to make offers. I call this strategy the Multiple Choice Offers Strategy.

It worked so well for me the first time I tried it, that I ended up getting 5 offers accepted in about 30 days. And it’s now one of the main strategies I teach.

Here’s how I did it. I started by putting ads on local online classifieds and putting out bandit signs, car decals, business cards, email signatures, direct mail, etc. You know the drill.

The same day that first ad went out, I started getting calls. Stating full market value got people excited. And you’re probably thinking, “How can you make a profit paying full market value?”

Here’s How I Can Make a Profit at Full Market Value:

1. First of all, Full Market Value is a relative term. It depends on what comps you’re using to prove what buyers are willing to pay for a property. It’s my job to do a very thorough  so I can help the seller understand my opinion of the property value.

2. My ad states, “Full market value minus repairs.” So, it’s also my job to show the seller everything that needs to be done to the property to get it into sellable condition. That way I can discount my offer by the cost of the repairs.

3. When I submit my multiple choice offers, I encourage the seller to sell the property to me as a For-Sale-By-Owner. This way, I can discount my offer by the amount saved in broker commissions.

4. And I encourage the seller to use Seller Financing. I do this by presenting Multiple Choice Offers with my cash offer being the lowest offer, my seller financing offer as the highest offer and my split seller financing offer (small down payment & seller financing the rest) as the middle offer.

Using all of these options not only gives the seller several options to choose from but it also allows me to make a discounted offer by showing the them a numbers analysis that compares the end profit they would make with a full price offer through an agent vs my FSBO Offer.

I carefully create my offer to show the seller a slightly higher profit if they accept my offer rather than a conventional offer through an agent.

Here is an Example Multiple Choice Offer I Made:

• Offer A: $210,000 100% Seller Financing for 3 years.
• Offer B: $195,000 with $15,000 Down and Seller Financing for 2 years of $180,000.
• Offer C: $179,000 all cash now.

Here is an Example of the Numbers I Showed This Seller:

Illustration of End Profit, Real Estate Agent vs. our Offer A:

Offer through a Real Estate Agent of $240,000 – Selling Costs: 6% REA commission ($14,400) + 3% Closing costs ($7,200) + 4 mortgage payments at $2,000 while waiting to sell ($8,000) = $29,600 in selling costs.

$240,000 - Purchase Price

- $34,050 - in selling costs

$210,950 - True Purchase Price after selling costs

-$135,000 - your loan pay-off

$75,400 - your end profit

Our Offer A of $212,000 - Full Market Value

$212,000 - Purchase Price at Full Market Value

-$135,000 - your loan pay-off (no selling costs)

$77,000 - your end profit

Here’s how it all worked out. They were current on their mortgage, had a ton of equity and the place needed no repairs. The husband was being transferred and they needed to sell quickly. That’s why they called me, for a fast sale.

They were asking $249k with an appraisal of $263k. They owed $135k. I showed them that their house would not sell for more than $240k by showing them my lower end comps and showing them why the comps used in their appraisal were too far away in a higher end neighborhood.

After going over my 3 offers above, they countered at $212k all cash now because they saw my logic in the numbers and their end profit after saving Realtor costs. And they wanted all cash now, not Seller Financing. I countered at $195k all cash now. They countered again at $205k all cash. I countered at $200k all cash now. They said no. I accepted their offer for $205,000 all cash now. My high comps were 247k. There were no repairs needed. I sold within about 60 days at retail for $239k as FSBO, giving me a $34,000 gain. After about $16,000 in selling, holding and closing costs, my end profit was about $18,000.

Steps to the Multiple Choice Offers Strategy:

Step 1: Create a Detailed Seller’s Questions Sheet.

Step 2: Put Out the Ad in as many places as you can: “I will buy your house today for full market value minus repairs.”

Step 3: Interview Sellers when they call in. Keep your Seller’s Questions Sheet with you. Get inside the Seller’s head to understand their motivations so you can craft your offer to meet their needs.

Step 4: Preliminary Due Diligence and Analyzing the Deal. This step is one of the most important and requires further explanation.

Doing in-depth research on a property is critical to a successful deal. But the secret to getting more deals done is a quick elimination process. So don’t spend too much time on it until your offer has been accepted.

It’s okay to start with sites like Zillow.com, Trulia.com, Redfin.com, Realtor.com, etc., to get a vague idea of a house’s features, photos, and value. But beware that those sites can be extremely inaccurate.

You can do a simple test to prove it. Do a Google search for: home value websites. Compare the values you get from the various property value estimation sites for the same house. You’ll see how widely the values will differ. 

The only way to know what a house is really worth is to get real comps from a local agent and analyze them carefully. The formula for analyzing comps for an accurate house value is a discussion in itself.

Fortunately, there's now an easy way for investors to get MLS comps from a local Realtor without the hassle. Just go to and fill out the 2 minute order form and you’ll get your comps within about a day. It’s only 5 bucks and will give you an accurate property value.

If you base your offer on an inaccurate value from an instant house value site, you could lose thousands. Don’t risk your investing career. Use a Realtor for comps!

Once your offer is accepted, you can use your due diligence period to do deeper due diligence to confirm with county records things like how much the seller owes, whether they are current or delinquent on their mortgage loan and more.

This is also when you should have an inspection done. Never skip the inspection. It will reveal many things you didn’t know about the property that will directly affect the profit you make in the end.

Step 5: Visit the Property. Make sure to visit the property and the seller in person to confirm the repairs, the condition of the property and their motivations. While you are there, make sure to take a look at any comps or appraisal the seller has. Then show them your comps (which you have previously analyzed very carefully). Show them all of the details that confirm your property value number.

For example, if your comps are more comparable in size, age, proximity or condition, make sure to point it out. If they have no comps or appraisal, just show them all of the details of the comparable homes in order to help them understand your property value number.

This step will help tremendously with the amount of offers you get accepted.

Step 6: Create and Present Your Multiple Choice Offer. Now is the time to take all of the information you’ve gathered so far to craft several offers that will appeal to the seller as I did in the offer examples above.

Step 7: Email the Sellers a letter explaining the logic of your offer and illustrating numbers crunches that show how they will make as much or more profit from your FSBO Offer vs a Full Price Offer through an agent. Then call them or visit them in person to go over all of the particulars of your multiple offers. If they don't choose one of your offers on the spot, follow up with them a day or 2 later after they've had a chance to think it over.

These are the steps I used to buy 5 houses in 30 days. Once I started making Multiple Choice Offers like this, I became a much more successful investor.