All Forum Posts by: Brian P.

Most of these are attempts to find bird dogs by investors. They may have a specific house to do and pay you some bucks to do it. Most of the time they are having you look for the house to photo and check on, they are having you do their driving 4 dollars that many investors do, so your effort may produce a few bucks or none.

If it is something they want you to do, they provide the house, and the price is right for you fine, consider it a set fee for set work. Many of them are cheapskates, one well know national investor teaches his investors to find bird dogs to find possible deals and comes up with $15 dollars for the lead. Good deal the investor makes 5 to 20 grand and gives you $15 for your time and gas etc.

When I was using bird dogs I paid nothing for leads like this, but if I put a deal together from the lead I gave $500 dollars or 10% of my profit which ever was higher.

If you raise the rents where are thy going to move to, don't think they will find anywhere cheaper do you? I always preface the rent increase with a letter saying I'm the new owner and unlike the old owner I have a mortgage payment he didn't have and will be having higher expenses then he had so I am going to have to increase rents by 10% or to Whatever starting the first of whatever. If you are planning to stay you will need to sign a new month to month lease agreement with me before whatever. They will check rents elsewhere then come in and sign a new lease. Don't go over board on the first increase but enough to start a move to market. I would want to keep them if they are good so I would work with them. I used to move to almost market in one swift move but found I liked this better overall. keeping it month to month allowed me to change my mind.

My first statement if that had been one of my brothers, You have several non-paying tenants why do you think that happened, did they slip a few bucks to you to get in or is it you just never heard about deadbeat tenants. Why don't you go spend a couple of days at the eviction court and meet some of the other people that think like you.

Frankly tenant screening is the biggest failure of many owners and when they cry to me I just say you just got what you asked for. I get answers like they were really nice. I called their current landlord and they said they were the best.

Ask a lawyer, if you can divide or assign the assets within the trust to specific beneficiaries. I would  be concerned that moving the assets to a new trust might create property tax increases if you are in a state like California maybe creating a new trust and moving assets into it my be considered new ownership and trigger property tax increases. Need to check that out. The tax collectors are looking everywhere now days to increase revenue. But it seems with the brothers attitude I would want a separate trust and maybe he should be the one to create a trust for himself and transfer his share to it and he can do whatever he wants after that.

Well according to my experience the quote assuming he doesn't know the market is totally off base. 

As a Broker I often found new agents getting and doing business because they were more in touch with the current market then the old time agents who were often 6 months to a year behind the newbie in their thinking. 

To offset that I insisted that my salespeople preview 5 new listings a day five days a week. Know the territory and the market was posted above the coffee pot. The weekly sales meeting started out with a current market review. If you didn't show up for the sales meeting and weren't producing you were gone.

No problem. When I was a new agent I continued to invest and at that time California had a list of the Real Estate Commissioners Regulations as part of the Code. Later it was removed, but during that time we had to disclose even though we were acting as a principle and not an agent.

I found out it was no problem, I just created a written disclosure that said I was acting as a principle in the transaction and in no way was I acting as an agent for the sellers or buyers I was just representing myself. 

I also said that my being a licensed agent it was a benefit to them because I was knowledgeable about real estate law and familiar with the proper contracts, etc. and had a relationship with some of the best title companies, mortgage brokers and other professionals  that might be needed during the transaction to insure a smooth as possible transaction for the both of us and they wouldn't have to worry about dealing with someone that  was flying by the seat of their pants and full of misinformation. 

Almost every one loved I was licensed and knowledgeable except for those few that were intending to play games during the transaction and avoid the disclosure of material facts and hoping to extort some more money from me during the process. Also a few wanna be sellers that didn't actually own the property and had no legal interest whatsoever.

Glad Nathan brought up management. One of the hardest things to get into the head of many new investors when evaluating a property is to include management expense and turnover rate and costs being figured in. I don't care who you are, when you start valuing your time as worth zero, you get what you ask for and more.

I had one investor bring me a sheet asking what I thought about a certain property and the vacancy rate was about right but I was familiar with that property and even though it was vacant only a few days most of the time there were much longer periods when it was vacant, it was vacant often and the turnover rate was high and the prep for the new resident wasn't a once a year thing it was more like 3 times a year and because of the former owners month to month policy he got a lot of short term residents Of course they all said they intended to stay a year or two. So that expense and headache was also out of line. 

You have received some good answers, I would add just one more, often times there are the wolves and the parasites working these REIA's, be sure to check out these helpful people with the clubs leaders. Well usually, one meeting I went to out of state while visiting an investor friend the parasite was the club president.

First questions I broke the ice with were are you a member? How long? and what's your specialty? 

Christian

I'm old school, and hitting doors is always been the best approach for me even though I was very fearful in the beginning of what kind of nut I might run into. but if you approach them the right way almost all the receptions I got were good. One bad one was a shotgun when the door opened and a loud burst of profanities. I said good morning, who the hell do you think I am and why are you sticking that scatter gun in my face. I was really amazed that came out of my mouth, and I didn't wet my pants. 

He said aren't you from xyz bank? I said hell no, I hate xyz bank they screwed me over once. What's your problem with xyz bank? Definitely not my usual opening statement. He said they are trying to steal my house from me. I said that is interesting , how are they planning on doing that? He tells me his story and then said what are you doing here? I said I wear three hats, one is I'm a real estate agent, and I'm knocking on doors in the area  trying to find people that might be planning to sell in the next year but I wasn't planning on finding you. 

I know a lot about foreclosure law so how about we go inside and sit down and maybe I might know something that can help you out?  I was able to help him out and he kept his property,  and he became one great referral machine for me. One thing I found out in my early years is that face to face rapport building put me in front of all those competitors that phoned and mailed and put a flyer on the front door. Competitors told me yes but while your hitting 5 doors I can mail out 100 letters. I said how many deals do you get from those 100 letters, they said usually one.  I said that's nice I usually get 2 from my 5.  Of course I did mail outs to the houses not in my immediate market area I didn't intend to pass those up as possible business. Also I bet I got about one deal a month by paying attention and driving 4 $ on the way to those leads and back. Well some were deals, some were listings.

Bob I had an executive job that was a 90 hour a week emergency room. I did the work of the executives above me and they got the credit and the bonuses. I ask for a minor pay raise and got a we are now in a austerity  program, and can't do it right now. It was a fortune 500 company and over the previous 3 years I been able to reduce their overhead by over 3 million a year and increase income in some areas by 12%. I asked for a $25 a month raise(1964) just to see what would happen. All my work had evolved to way above my pay grade. and I had authority to sign for most departments in the division. 

Because of circumstances no one knew my job and how I did it. I had 4 lovely assistants that I think I could have taken over the world with. and after I got the no raise answer, I pulled in favors and got each of the girls set up in new jobs in the company at higher pay grades except for one and she said the only reason she stayed was because of me and when I leave she will leave. I told each of them to volunteer nothing about my job, that I would just give them an assignment and they would do it. I knew the bosses would be having a stroke and jump on the ladies for help and put them in the middle of the mess. I then went to the vice president I reported to and told him I was going to lunch, he said you don't need to tell me when you going to lunch and I said I thought I should because after I have lunch I'm not coming back.  I did a few deals a year while I was there but jumped in full force after I had taken my 4 lovely ladies to a long first class lunch.

The pilot of the company plane called me an said who is going to teach me to do more investing in real estate? It really wasn't that hard to replace the corporate job income by working only 40 hours in real estate being one of the early wholesalers. My father was a contractor and became a friend of Henry Kaiser, I would go with him when he had a job to do on the Kaiser estate I would sit around the pool with him and gain an education. He always told me to call him when I graduated from high school but I didn't.  I thought I wanted to be the CEO of a large company company, I was wrong. The real goal should be to be the owner of a large company, and hire and fire the CEO. 

What is my purpose in telling you all this, just this, get the heck out of Manhattan, find a job in where ever you thought you might go out west and jump in. Even though I didn't need to I took a job as a teamster from 3-11 am when I quit and it turned into a perfect anchor for getting my real estate license and doing my investing gig. What are you making an hour now, it can be much more in your new field.

You say on the market, do you mean on the MLS? You said nothing about an agent, Is this a FSBO get in front of them again in person, maybe to look at the house one more time to be sure excuse. I would tell the the husband you may be right if you wait until spring you might get a better price. but after looking at the property again I don't feel safe going any higher and I feel maybe I should have a little more cushion in case something unexpected shows up, which often happens . May I suggest if your going to wait then take it off the market until spring because all that is happening now is your house is becoming shopworn and stale to the agents and buyers and it is hard to shake that status.

Plus maybe interest rates will rise and when Interest rates go up, house prices go down if everything else remains the same, so that is something to consider. 

Plus you will have a lot more competition in the spring when sellers start putting their homes on the market and if your home doesn't compete in price and condition you will have waited for nothing, and you end up getting about the same and maybe even end up getting less if it does sell. Plus if house price do go up, the price on the house you hope to buy is going to go up too.

You have a bird in the hand now, or maybe a better bird or lesser bird or none later, it is now up to you to make the wise choice. Collect what winnings you have now or roll the dice and hope they don't come up craps and you get a bigger payday. It is the old story sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. You think it over and if I haven't invested my time and money in another property I would still be interested. Have you just considered staying here and just forget about selling at this time? Maybe waiting a few more years would be a good thing, what plans could that foul up?

Make sure the wife is present, she can then go to work on him later.