All Forum Posts by: Curtis Gabhart

What is the final date Joshua? I intended to do a video but we have a couple deals were closing now.

MZ

I think that came off wrong. Their was no disrespect intended and sorry if that is how it sounded.

If you fiance has his license that's great and probably a good way to get the best of both worlds. The reason I say people who wholesale should get their license is I get calls from them almost every day trying to sell me deal that I usually already knew about and passed.

What I realize is even when they have these deals under contract many can't close and unless they have a lot of control and trust with the people they are sending deals to it is very easy to get screwed out of your fees.

I think having your license helps protect you and also gives you access to a lot of information you otherwise usually don't have.

I can't answer your question about the state law or interpretation but i am sure someone else can. It sounds like you are definitely in the right direction and will do well.

Good luck

Curtis

1) If you don't have experience find an agent (referred) who does to represent you.
I personally go to the listing agent but I am very comfortable in buying properties and understanding the process. You don't seem to even know which way is up (this is not meant to be condescending) and you really can't expect to get more than general answers from a real estate board.

A few things I can suggest.

1) figure out your financing up front. It's not that difficult to figure out what you can buy whether it is commercial or residential. This will lead you to what price range properties you should spend your time tracking down.

2) don't talk to the tenants until you get the deal under contract. It's a waste of time to spend to much effort up front if you don't even know if you have a deal or not.

IF you have a deal and it is a short sale you probably won't be able to get income and expense. Ask for tenant estopels which are forms filled out by the tenants letting you know how much they pay, their deposit and lease terms.

If you don't know expenses make a bunch of cold calls to owners on craigslist with similar properties and let them know you are new to the business (people usually like to help others if you approach it correctly) and are currently in escrow to buy a 5 unit property (don't tell them the exact size or location just in case they are snakes and try to swoop in and buy it from under neath you) and wanted to get their opinions on rents, vacancies and expenses.

Keep track of this info, see if you can see a unit they have for rent and keep a chart on these properties so you can compare to your own.

If you are buying larger apartment complexes check out IREM.

Good luck but be careful. Everyone seems to wants cash flow just like everyone wants to be a millionaire UNTIL they realize how much effort is involved.

You may want to start small by buying your own house first, living there for 6-12 months, buying another place, renting the first and get your feet wet to owning rentals to make sure it is really what you want.

Keep us posted and I will say I love this business and feel fortunate everyday that I was dumb enough to know any better and by the time I knew any better I was to far in to get out!

Ok since my previous post here about listing or selling agents and me harping on using the listing agent I have bought and closed on a deal through a buyers agent.

B U T .... that buyers agent was a listing agent who I met through cold calling listing agents (he was a listing agent who I called about some of the properties he had for sale).

I find a lot of deals doing what I call (I am sure others call it this to) circle prospecting.

I locate an area I either want to buy in, currently own property in, selling property in, etc. and pull up all the listings in the area.

I pull up all the active & pending for a similar bedroom mix. i.e 2/1 & 2/2 baths, 3/1 and 3/2 etc.

Let's use pending as an example since it is my favorite for finding deals off the MLS and building relationships with agents who get good deals.

I specifically pull up the bedrooms so the 2 and 3 bedrooms don't get mixed up. I do this because I like to sort the lists by price from lowest to highest and start calling the lowest price first.

If I have the 3 bedrooms mixed up with the 2 bedrooms it makes it more difficult to sort quickly.

By sorting by bedrooms only (and approx sq. footage) I can see real quick how much cheaper the lowest priced 2 bedroom is than the average 2 bedroom.

So back to pendings.... I usually will find a bunch of properties that on the surface I would have offered on but are currently under contract.

I start with these pending first. I like to start my "pitch" by letting them know that I am an investor and just got done watching a carlton sheets infomercial last night at 2 AM and wanted to buy there pending property for zero down and get cash back at closing.

Once the tension gets really thick I then tell them I am totally kidding (which they are relieved about and are now smiling most of the time) I then go on to tell them my criteria (which is very specific) and that it looks like I just missed out on the deal they have that is pending and am wondering if there is any chance it may fall out.

At first they tell me it's solid until I let them know that I ALWAYS buy through whomever tells me about a deal first and sell from that same person usually within 30 days me buying and rehabing it.

I follow up with a template email letting them know my criteria and a link to my website (to hopefully establish some credibility) and then follow up on a regular basis to see if 1) if the deal I originally called about fell out 2) if they have anything new coming to market, any price reductions or know of any other agents that have good deals.

This leads me to my buyers agent (wow that was a long winded way to get to the actual subject eh?). What I find happens is that if an agent feels you are credible, won't waste their time, can close they will call you on deals. AND if they are good listing agents who sell a lot of property they have good relationships with other who sell a lot of property and these agents have an inner circle going a lot of times where they give each other more insight than they would to other agents.

So moral of the story - Listing agents are the way to go in most situations (if you are not experienced I would find a good buyers agent you can trust) and many times they turn into your buying agents because of deals they run across from their colleagues.

I hope this made sense and apologize if I rambled but it is late and I don't have the time or energy to re-edit this post so it makes more sense but hope some people get the point.

or god forbid you just get your real estate license which will
1 - probably make you much more money than wholesaling. Think about it, you only really make money if you find a steal or 1 in 20 deals. What about the other 19 deals you have to pass up that you could make 3-6% on (usually more than wholesaling). On top of that you actually have a pretty good contract that protects you from jack holes going around you
2 - you will actually learn something. Getting a license isn't always about getting commissions. It's amazing at the tens of thousands of dollars people pay these so called gurus who sometimes teach them pie in the sky dreams but don't really teach them the fundamentals of a transaction like how does title & escrow work. How to write up a contract etc.

It may be total nonsense to you are may make some sense but getting a license for me was the best thing I ever did for my investing career.

But your roi is huge.
good job and a great start to get you going in the right direction again.
real estate is absolutely a momentum business and hope this builds good momentum for you.

There's a reason they make people get a license.
I don't know why anyone who does this as a living wouldn't get their license.

Just because you have done it before doesn't mean its not illegal (not saying it is).

Closing on the deal Would now make you the seller and I would think that would work.

Btw when you guys are assigning your contracts are you disclosing to the seller your selling it for more money?

Sounds like my kind of place. And on the bright side if the resale doesn't quite work out the way you planned you could always live there right??

Your fire point is actually valid and I didn't really think of that (but I did think of invisible mouse traps and I am pretty sure no one else would have thought of that).

With that being said I would send a couple guys from your crew over to screw some plywood up over the easiest opens to break in with.

You may even want to get some cheap battery operated motion sensor lights that may scare them if they see the lights turn on.

Cops won't do anything.

Maybe put invisible mouse traps on the toilet seat so when they sit down it the mouse trap now turns into a balls trap...

or or or put a bunch of clear marbles on the floor and walkway so they fall all over the place walking in...

Or leave the door ajar slightly and put a 5 gallon bucket of red oil based paint sitting on the top of the cracked door ledge so when they open it they get painted and you can follow there tracks to catch them..

just kidding obviously but if it's a good deal and you don't own it it's not really your problem... Hell you may even want to lay a couple turds in the house to annoy the intruder...

Anyways if you were real worried secure the place just don't let anyone know your doing it and when you do finally buy it THEN get serious about it and install the alarm you mentioned. I am sure it is a good selling feature in a so so neighborhood.

When we used to do condo conversions in mediocre neighborhoods I would install alarms at the beginning of the job for security and include a 2 year contract as part of the sales price...

Let me know if you want any more anti-trespassing techniques...

Aaron banks don't allow assignments. What some people do is add the buyer to the contract and then quitclaim it over at closing.

Ok back to the great agent debate... To be or not to be using a buyers agent that is the question...

Well I was an agent and now only work as an investor. I have used the experience and relationships I got from being in the trenches to help me, and it has tremendously.

I will always go to the listing agent. UNLESS another agent has called me on the deal first ill use a buyers agent. That agent though can't just send me the same stuff I get from the MLS unless
1) I didn't already know about it
2) they can provide insight that brings value to the transaction.

Working with the buyers agent does put me at a disadvantage 90% of the time.

With that being said some of you who talk about putting in a bunch of offers at 50% are wasting your time and the agents time and if I were the agent i'd tell you to either pound sand or pay me for my time until we got a deal if you really think anyone is going to take 50% of what they were asking.

To get deals I believe it's key to
1) establish credibility with whomever you want to work with. Remember the agent doesn't get paid unless you close the deal and believe it or not there's a lot of people who say they are investors and just waste peoples time with methods from late night informercials.
We have actually set up a page on our website that has a list of our current projects and previous projects so the agent see were for real. They also see how much I make, what type of product I produce etc. It has helped a lot since I put up our "current projects page"
2) not be a friggin jack *** and think that you are doing the agent a favor because you think your the next donald trump and have visions of telling some rooking buyers agent "your fired" like trump does on the apprentice. Agents who can find good deals don't need you, you need them and if you forget that your back to your late night informercials again.
3) do what you say. don't waste peoples time.

Our company policy goes a step further than just buying it through the listing agent. We also have them list it with us. This holds true with any agent whether listing or selling agent. Bring me a deal and Ill sell it through you on the back end.

Good luck