All Forum Posts by: Don Konipol

Seems inevitable. If the foreclosure auctions were being conducted by for profit enterprises rather than government agencies all auctions would have been online four years ago.

Make sure title co is REAL. Lots of fraud going around with criminals setting up bogus title cos with docs that look real. Easier for them to accomplish scam virtually than if you visit an actual office

There is no norm. Each individual transaction is different. For example, if the seller signs docs a day before the purchasor, the seller obviously won't receive his check until the next day. Further, if purchasor is using mortgage financing, funding may not be available until after lender reviews docs and then wires money to title company. Having all parties close transaction at the same time and for all cash and or owner financing would make it possible for seller to leave the table with check from title co. By yhe way I never leave with check, I always instruct title co to wire funds into my account. saves hassle of going to bank and credit is immediate, no hold or delays on deposits.

Two things going on here. First the banks are trying to satisfy new and revised regulations being handed down on an almost daily basis by government bureaucrats. Secondly, banks with their huge overhead and high break even costs are trying to find an efficient way to dispose of low priced properties. Very frustrating for us investors to deal with. We are used to handing over our cash and getting title to property. This works great in a capitalistic system. In our new socialistic system, government sponsered institutions (such as banks) must now consider all social directives, i.e, how the sale of the property impacts the neighborhood, if all protected groups have a "fair" shot at purchasing the property, if some public housing group wants that property, etc. Welcome back to Roosevelt era liberalism.

The chance of interesting a private equity firm in financing 100% of your real estate purchase is about the same as interesting a hospital in letting you perform a heart transplant.

Am I correct in assuming that you want the seller to accept a contract that legally binds him to sell the property to you but which in turn you can back out of and get your earnest money returned if you are unable to find a buyer? If so, we must look at the situation from the seller's perspective; why would it be in the seller's interest to tie up his property when the purchaser would close only if he can sell the property to someone else for a higher price?
We deal in an environment in the real estate industry in this country in which the "standard" residential property sale contract greatly favors the buyer. This is a result of realtors who want the easiest way to get the most offers on their listings. The NAR has influenced state real estate boards so that the boards are concerned with the "rights" of buyers almost to the exclusion of fair play for sellers. Almost all residential contracts are in reality a "free" option for the buyer. Specific performance is near impossible to enforce, liquidated damages require court action even when situation is clear cut. When a seller decides to protect himself and ask for a "serious" buyer commitment, such as non refundable earnest money, the response of the real estate community is that he is unreasonable.
As a direct buyer and as a general partner of 2 private real estate investment funds I have purchased over 200 properties, and sold 50+. Sophisticated sellers, such as banks, REITs, institutions, have developed methods of seperating "real" buyers from those that will only close if a laundry list of unlikely events occurs, i.e., 100% financing, sale to a third party, etc.
As a result, it will become harder and harder to do the proverbial "nothing down" deal. Proof of funds letters, from anyone other than a major lender, are no longer regarded seriously. This all makes it easier (less competition) for the well financed players. However, in truth, I will miss the stories of the people who were able to pull off deals with nothing except their guts and experience. In a way it is the ability to start with absolutely nothing and still be successful in the real estate arena that has made this business special.

I know real estate brokers hate to hear this, but my experience in 30 years of real estate investing bears this out. Utilizing one agent on an exclusive basis to find deals results in being presented with any good deals he has and all mediocre deals every other agent has. Utilizing several good agents results in being presented with any good deals all those agents have. Unless an agent has a specialized expertise in a certain area or in a certain property type, the typical property search consists of running an MLS search using certain parameters, emailing you a copy of the results, and asking you to pick which ones your interested in. All of which you can do yourself in less time with half the hassle.

The problem with using one realtor exclusively is that you would probably miss the hot deal that gets sold before it gets on MLS

I had been looking for a site this well run and this informative and valuable for a long time. I was lucky to stumble across it a week ago. You have done a fantastic job with this site. I have been sucessful in two different real estate investing careers over the last 30 years and still find new info here every day! thanks

How much time has passed since you made the phone calls? If you called on the weekend it would not be unusual not to get a call back until Monday or Tuesday. What did you say in the message you left? That being said, many hard money lenders either have little or no capital to lend or are out of business. Real estate investing has always been a numbers game. If you made calls on 2 properties and are already discouraged, than I don't believe you have anywhere near the persistence necessary to be sucessful. Don't mean to be discouraging but here are the statistics as told by "The Millioniare Investor". The average sucessful real estate investor looks at 30 properties to find 10 that appear to be deals. Of these 10 only 3 are worth making offers on. Of these 3 only 1 is purchased. Left unsaid is that to look at 30 deals probably takes 100 calls/emails on properties 70 of which are not worth the time to look at. I think you need to determine if you have the persistence neccessary for this endeaver.