All Forum Posts by: Doug Pretorius

@Thomas LeBlanc Unless you have some serious construction experience and a ton of money you shouldn't even think about getting into a property with that much going on.

Also properties selling for $600k to millions is not very helpful. How much are comparables for THAT property selling for? It sounds like a fairly unique property so it might be hard to get an accurate ARV, but still, you need to narrow it down a lot more.

If you're hellbent on going for it. It certainly would be far less foolhardy to offer half their asking price than it would to dive into an unknown money pit!

@Emma Bennett I have no idea what a tank sweep is. But everything else is fine. Doing a title search is a good idea to confirm that you actually have signatures from everyone you need. I would get an estimate from a couple of contractors too, that way you can give the investor an idea of what it will cost for a local available crew to do the work.

@Cutter David The only possible difference is if you negotiate to buy subject to the existing mortgage. If it's just a cash deal then the buyer (you or your assignee) will pay the seller cash which they will use to pay off their mortgage.

@Seth Holland Pretty much maintaining. Although I find I'm having to change my lead source. I've traditionally got all of my deals by calling FSBOs, but they're getting very hard to find. So I've been testing out different sources and it looks like door knocking old listings is going to be the winner.

@Ashley Burks Normally I cold call FSBOs so they are advertising their number. For listed homes I'll look the number up with a reverse address search. The accuracy isn't the greatest so it's more of a shotgun approach.

@Ashley Burks 9 out of 10 people aren't home or just don't answer, so I leave a hand-written note. I suggest having a partner, my wife and I go together. And of course don't door knock neighborhoods where you don't feel safe.

Skip tracing is ridiculously expensive here in Canada so I don't use it.

@Christopher Phillips @Jack Bobeck Thanks for your responses guys. The door knocking is working very well for local properties. 30 down, 1 appointment to buy, 1300 to go :)

@Dean H. I'm sure no BP member would ever stoop to such tactics ;) Seriously though, do you think the market has become so saturated that these people are just desperately scouring the planet for anything just hoping for a bite?

@Ashley Burks My first deal that came from marketing took about 200 phone calls to FSBOs. I got better with time and now I can usually close 1 deal for every 25-30 calls. My problem is that there are hardly any real FSBOs anymore, most of them are on the MLS as flat fee listings, the ones that look like FSBOs on craigslist and kijiji are actually agents :P

So now I'm turning to something I did only a few times in the past. Door knocking houses that have been on the MLS for over a month. I did my first 15 on Tuesday and have an appointment to buy a house on Monday.

In my experience online marketing for sellers is a waste of time. Direct mail can be good but it's extremely saturated, you need a budget in the tens of thousands per month to really make it work.

@Josh Perez There's no such thing. Motivated sellers are sifted from the unmotivated masses through marketing, problem solving, and offers.