All Forum Posts by: Brandon M.

@Paul Springer - 

I always use Anchor Title based in Tampa off Clark Ave. My friend Chris owns the company, he is a real estate investor who also owns a title company, so he is very familiar with the investment side of real estate transactions (double closings, etc). If you do a Google search you can find his info, I can't post his info on here directly. 

I would be interested in speaking more about what you are looking to do from a wholesaling perspective down here. I am doing some wholesaling/buying/selling myself down here in Florida, both properties and notes all over the state. Maybe we can partner up on something. 

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated or being compensated by Anchor Title for the mention of the company, just a friend of mine that I use for all of my transactions. 

@Dion DePaoli - Thanks for the clarification. With the previous note I purchased I already had the DIL agreement so I didn't have to really worry about the servicing. Any idea what a typical charge is for FCI or someone else to service the loan if I don't end up getting the DIL ahead of time? 

@Mark Gustafson - with this particular lender all of the negotiations were actually done verbally/through email and they drew up the contract and then the assignment docs. You might not even need to have your lender draw up the docs, typically a lender has experience assigning mortgages so they likely have the docs they can use already. You might just want to have your lawyer review the contract they give you and then the assignment docs they send over. 

@Bill Gulley - With this particular deal I actually spoke to the borrower first and saw the lender was one I had never heard of, located out of state, so I figured I had a decent chance of reaching them and buying the note from them. Typically a lender like that has no interest in foreclosing on the property and owning a property out of state. Luckily for me this was the case here and I got a great deal. And now I have a good relationship with this lender and have been presented 3 more notes just in Florida that I could buy from them at a nice discount to current value/unpaid balance. 

Geo- I will send you a PM

Failed to mention, if you are doing lots of internet searching on them anyway, once you have their name, Google the county official records for your county. You can usually search the official records to find out if there is a mortgage, how much that was for and when it was mortgaged, and/or if there is a lis pendens (foreclosure) filed on it. This will give you an idea of what kind of distress the owner is in, if any. 

You obviously may not want to mention that you know about the foreclosure directly, but you could just ask questions that lead them to volunteer that information. 

The more information you know ahead of time the better you will be able to determine what type of options are available when you speak to them. 

step 1: property appraiser and search by address to locate name

step 2: white pages.com - reverse address or search by name. 

If that doesn't locate a phone number you could do a Google search for the person's name and the city the house is located. Sometimes you can find their business, a LinkedIn page, Facebook page, something. Sometimes this will help you find a phone number or email address to try and contact them. 

If all else fails, you could always mail them a letter or just go knock on the door. 

They are your neighbor, go knock on the door and introduce yourself. So much more friendly than a phone call from a stranger. They will likely be a lot more receptive when they can see you in person and see you are trying to help. 

Had not thought about the staged increase approach. I am definitely going to be aggressive in leasing up the vacant units at the new price. 

@Joseph Chen - the issue with explaining the increase to the tenant is that I will have 30-35 tenants so that will be hard to reach each of them to explain the reasons for an increase. 

I definitely don't have a property that would compete with one of those two big guys, my building is literally just a rectangular building with 21 garage doors on either side. No security gate, no office on site, doesn't even have electric or water on the building (one of the appealing features). No recurring expenses other than taxes and insurance. 

As a result of the quality of the property, I likely will have to be the cheapest around. That is fine, I can still make money being the cheapest storage around, because it will also be low maintenance as well. 

I just wanted to follow up on this and get some more feedback. It seems like most people, whether you are buying an apartment complex or a self storage facility, would increase/standardize all rents as soon as you purchase the property. 

Since I am closing on 11/14 I will likely just implement the changes starting on January 1. I will just require that rent is still due on 12/1 at the old rate (the sellers didn't really enforce on time/late payments too much, they owned the building outright so anything they received was a plus). 

Anyone else with any other experience in buying notes in Florida?