All Forum Posts by: Brian P.

Never think twice about what people think about if you rent. When my kids were in school I lived in a very nice area but when it was getting closer to the time for them to go to high school I moved to the top of the market, moneyville, and rented a mansion and the cost to rent the place was not a heck of a lot more then buying a home in a average neighborhood if you could call where I lived average. My new next door neighbor, the wife was the dean of admissions at the university my youngest son wanted to get into. He was a straight A student but even so the applications for the 168 spots in the program he wanted were over 12,000. He got in and I think my rental move was the reason. Plus it opened doors to new business meeting my neighbors on a informal social basis. I never would have bought a home there, not my thing.

Where to look depends a lot on what you want to find. What does your investor have in mind? What does he want to accomplish?

Get the license, the average agent out their does a couple deals a year and you can do that and more as a investor agent. I keep hearing having a license restricts you but in general that is BS. First of all what it does in most states is require you to disclose your an agent but think about that for a minute, if your really an agent you know the paperwork, you have relationships with other people involved in the business, such as closing agents, title companies, and other professionals. The seller or buyer is normally glad you know what you are doing and they were not having the deal handled by some half knowledgeable idiot and I made a point of that in my disclosures. Now I became a California Agent/Broker in 1965 ten years after becoming an investor and if I could redo it I would have gotten my license as soon as possible.

As a side note California law doesn't require me to disclose my license status when acting as a principle, but I did it anyway and it didn't screw up my life, it actually gave me more side business. 

I am of a different school. I don't believe in living like a pauper and pinching each and every penny, why because that mindset holds you back. Note I am not saying don't control your expenses and spending. My mindset would be to put that student loan amount on my bathroom mirror and say to my self 30% of my profits from my next deal are going toward that loan.

I went to college but didn't get any student loans, I just worked full time and any extra change and time I had went to courting my fellow student and future wife. Actually my wife was the only reason I even considered going to college and getting my degree worthwhile. 

Just a side comment and a rant, the cost of college is ridiculous and it is time to force the colleges to grant degrees with just three years of study instead of four, all the extra courses you have to take are really designed with one purpose in mind, to get income from you for four years instead of three. And don't give me that exposure and well rounded education crap. If you want to round out your education you can do it on your own time within your own interest range, and you can always go for your MA or PHD if you want more and save a year and a lot of bucks in the process. 

If you are in a market of any size then any agent that wants your exclusive business is an idiot. They may find or only know about 1/10th of the deals out there. Before I was licensed I told agents if you find a deal that you think I can rehab and resale at a decent profit and it really isn't MLS listing material give me a call. Just to let you know I am letting other agents know about me too because I know there isn't a single agent that knows about every property and whats going on, and you may find me a deal or they may find me a deal first but again I intend to fix up and sell and do it again and again so it is not a one time shot deal. It is also my policy to list the property with the agent that brought me the deal if I don't keep it as a rental.

Now when they ran into a piece of crap they didn't want to list as it was and the owner didn't intend to make it marketable they called me instead of tossing that lead into the round file. And even after I was licensed they continued to call me and do business.

It sounds like you have landed in the small town I was born in. Thank god my father rode the rails and found a job in California during the Great Depression and I was forever  grateful for the Crash of 1929. 

It was a everybody's business is everybody's business type of town. When I used to go back to visit in the summer it really got to me, privacy and confidentiality were not in the towns vocabulary. Wanted to spread the word just tell two people in the morning and everyone would know by dinner. My grandfather called it a grandson visiting, but to me it was called a grandson being an unpaid farm hand for 3 months. 

Have a talk with Mr. Money bags. Finding people with skin to put in is one game. Now the BUT, Most of the big and profitable deals me and my gang did involved the deal, what we were putting together had true equity being created and was a far safer bet and return for our money people then us coming up with 10 to 20% and dealing with a banker type. 

I do believe in skin in the game when selling. But our biggest profits came from creation and the deal itself. So ask him if he is only interested in being a banker or would he consider taking a piece of the pie for his contribution or in addition to, which in my experience led to a much greater return for our money people. I understand the safety issue but there is safety and there is safety.

OK  first thing to do is check the property taxes, being paid and current? if so someone is doing something with the property, an heir or someone is out there.

Taxes not being paid, then check for liens. I had a few cases where I bought the liens and foreclosed. no one ever showed up except for some bidders at the sale. another had no liens except the property taxes and I knew a young struggling couple and suggested they move in pay the taxes in installments like a low rent and hold themselves out to be the owners. In California it only takes 5 years to take over a property, check out your state.  This couple stills owns this property 20 years later as a rental. They keep it as a reminder of where they were and never want to be again.

Are the owners dead, could be and no known heirs to handle things and it is just sitting there, the burn out due to squatters. Check the death records with the state, ask the neighbors when was the last time someone lived there. Turn into a private eye. The good news is other investors give up quickly on a property like this and you will probably be the only one working on it.

You don't attract them. Your new license is really a hunting license and just like any hunting license it just allows you to hunt and if you don't know how to hunt that is your first thing to learn.

When I was a very young investor/agent I used to imitate Elmer Fudd from the Bugs Bunny cartoons when I was shaving in the morning, and sing A Hunting I will go, a hunting I will go, etc. Stupid, maybe, but it gave me my mindset for the day. Agent or investor my job was to hunt and if I wasn't going to hunt I might as well just go back to a 9-5 job and a paycheck.

So I suggest you find one thing to hunt and learn how to hunt them, and then later on add another.  May I suggest you log on to you tube and for a starter neil schwartz and expand your education from there for your license, and be sure to kick in your investing side here. One activity should feed the other and vise versa.

Nancy

When my brother and I started landlording we were real suckers for the sob stories and the usual bs certain tenants were very good at. After several months we figured if we couldn't find people like us to be out tenants we would get out of the landlording business and stick with rehabs.

First thing we changed was the speech we gave when they were filling out the rental application and what they could expect from us if they weren't honorable people. Well we owned a home next to the head of a certain motorcycle club and he stopped by to deliver something, the couple trying to rent the apartment were professional deadbeat tenants (we found out later) and when they saw our friend and asked who is he, we said he is in charge of collecting the money people owe us and don't want to pay. And gone in a flash were two deadbeat tenants.

Well we overhauled out tenant screening, once in a while we were fooled but when we sent the "head of our collection department" over to talk to them, they were happy to move and pay all sums due. and like you most of our residents were long term. Don't like the word tenant.