All Forum Posts by: William Allen

@Account Closed 

Welcome to the site. I recommend reading the first post in this thread and start your own thread in the new member introduction section. You will get the correct response in there and make the moderators happy. 

@Zachary Baldwin 

I think you are asking about how much equity versus why we choose people with equity?  If so, it will probably depend on what the length of ownership you are using.  I am using 50% equity but I have read that some folks have had success when lowering the equity percentage with older houses that have had the same owner for a long period of time.  This is due to the calculations the companies use to determine equity percentage on these lists you are pulling.  The homes have appreciated but they are still getting taxed on a lower value making it look like they have less equity in the home than they do.  There are marketers on here that are much smarter than me so hopefully they will chime in for you.  

If your question was the latter, it should be obvious that you are trying to buy these properties below market value and the best way to do that is to buy from someone who has equity in the house.  If not, you are likely looking at short sales and I'm not interested in going down that path right now.  

If I missed the mark with this response let me know what you were really looking for.  

The clock resets each time a new bid is placed to allow for a response bid. They do state in their terms that they can place bids themselves so beware of that. 

@Zachary Baldwin You can target absentee owners, not sure about probates but others may be able to answer that better.  Just go on there and play around with the different options, you can target lots of different options to narrow down your list.  Some of those include age of home, when it was last purchased (help insure they have equity), etc... There are also a bunch of posts on here about list criteria that you can search.  

I am targeting minimum 4/3 in a specific neighborhood and owners with 50% equity or higher.  The minimum order on list source is $50 and I haven't been able to figure out how to add multiple lists to the same order.  My orders have been over $50 each though so hasn't been an issue for me, will just depend on the size of your list. 

Good luck!

They will certainly help, I have picked up a lot from listening to them.  

I agree, I spread the word about this site to people all the time.  It's one of the first things that comes up when discussing real estate investing.  I just wish someone turned me onto BP earlier...

list source has a feature where you can draw the specific area you want to target.  You could then couple that with the size of the house, bedrooms, bathroom, equity, etc... To get a list of houses that fit your criteria.  Then mail or contact those owners somehow to see if they are interested in selling.  I am currently doing this to target a neighborhood we want to buy in to renovate a property for our primary residence.  As far as the photo and more details, I'm not sure.  I have read some other posts in the past of poor responses that way, saying that the potential sellers called asking for a lot more than the houses were worth because they seemed desperate to buy in that neighborhood.  I'm sure some others will give you more advice on that...  

@Dave Myers 

I also use a local flat fee MLS broker to get my properties on the MLS and attract buyers. I offer 3% to the buyers agent (local standard is 2.5-3% so I stay on the high side of that). My flat fee broker gives me two options, up front payment of $109 (6 photos) or $139 (30 photos) for 6 months of MLS listings or $39 up front and $256 when it closes for a 6 month listing. Longer listings are also available for slightly more. The second option allows for low up front costs in case you are listing the house for sale or rent and don't want to pay all the money up front for the sale listing. I have a lot of experience buying and selling houses and typically don't recommend this option to people who have limited experience. However, the buyers agent does most of the work. You just need to keep them on timeline per the contract and ensure everything is getting done.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

@Jabari Brooks 

I am just a tiny fish in this community with a few SFR rentals under my belt. There is an incredible amount of experience and knowledge on here and people who are willing to give advice and help you for FREE. The networking is also incredible, I am still overwhelmed with information on the site. I started with the podcasts and then when I wanted to research a specific topic I used the search function to read all I could about it. Then I asked the questions if i couldn't find the answer. Good way to start but a lot of ways to skin the cat. Enjoy!

-Bill

@Tom Linnik 

 Did you find the local website for this?