All Forum Posts by: Hersh Shah

Hey Nick!

Few thoughts and things to consider:

1) If you don't already own a home, buy one before you transition to doing anything else because of lending guidelines

2) Wholesaling and flips are very much active. If you enjoy this, great. If you are looking to be more passive in comparison to your marketing gig, thats not the answer.

3) Most larger brokerages (at least the KW offices in town) will not allow you to wholesale so you have to hang your license at a smaller brokerage. Most of these are not capable of helping you get into production and if you goal is to wholesale, then whats the point of getting your license? You are better off spending the time it takes to get a license doing something with wholesaling.

Just my thoughts!

 Very well said!

In this case, its just better to buy a property on your own than bringing in a partner for this. Save up for the 3.5% down and go buy a multifamily. If you don't have the 3.5% down, ask your agent to help you with a few DP assistance programs so even that can be reduced or possibly eliminated depending on the product and price points in your area.

@Sambit Sharma Instead of starting as an assistant, you should consider joining a team in which you will get the guidance you need and the sales experience to eventually go on your own or grow within the team. As a team owner, I love hiring intrapreneurs - they can build a business of their within my world because lets face it, we all do better together! Hope that helps :)

Quote from @Jason V.:

Buyer gave me a low-ball offer.  Then they came up to $95k all cash, saying that's the best they could do.  OK.... Well, I said $99k was the lowest I would go, considering the buyer's agent commission % is really coming off the top, right?  That would leave me with $96k.  I've determined I could budge another $1.5k, but I need $94.5k after everything's said and done.  Period.  So that means $97.5k is the lowest offer I can accept.

Even if the buyer & seller won't budge, the buyer's agent could simply agree to a 0.5% commission, close the deal, and buyer & seller would both be happy.  But there's really a whole range of percentages that the buyer's agent could agree to that are likely NEVER considered to be on the chopping block.  If a buyer's agent could drop to 1.4% commission in this case, then the buyer would only need another $900 which seems reasonable.  Everybody would be sacrificing to make the deal work.  Does anybody ever try negotiating the agent commissions when you're within a couple percent price difference??

I've come down as far as I realistically can.  $10k below asking.  Is asking the buyer to come up $1000, and the buyer's agent to come down $1,000 too much to ask for?  I mean... really, it comes down to how invested the buyers agent actually has been.  How much work did they really do?  What is their time worth?  $35/hr for 56hours = $1,960.  Buyer coming up $1,500 to cover that and buyers agent dropping commission to 2% could save her from another 56 hours of work...

Like I said, tho... there's a whole range of variable percentages that get us all to my rock bottom price.  Can I get anymore outside the box than this?!?  I'd imagine most negotiations aren't this tight.

Every market is different, so YMMV. That said, there are plenty of discount agents and brokers that will collect the discounted commission you want to offer, but do nothing more than listing it on the MLS and letting you do all the work, take calls etc.

As plenty of people have said, you pay an agent for the value and experience they bring to the table. They can do things 10x faster and better because they have done it that many more times than you (assuming it is a seasoned agent).

The same way that you think an agent isn't worth paying, 99% of agents also think you aren't worth having as a client. Good luck!

@Jamie Blair That is the easiest way. Your agent will need to communicate with the agent that is listing the property to see if that is an option for the seller. If the seller is willing to consider it based on their circumstances, you and your agent will likely need to present what it would look like to the seller. There is an option in our MLS to indicate if the seller is open to it, but most agents indicate no by default.

There are opportunities, but few and far in between unless they are investors. Hope that helps!

@Benny Cash

How do you know that the previous owner actually agreed to this? Was it in writing?

In either case, you can terminate lease with a 30-60 notice depending on what was originally signed. Give them notice and and tie in incentive that you won’t go after backlog rents and actually give them one months rent upon satisfactory final inspection…though if it’s in disrepair as you said…that might be tough.

Get them out and sell to an investor willing to flip. You could also go this route with tenants in place and they will gladly take on this problem for a discount.

@David B.

If these were my funds, I would go buy 4-5x bigger by getting $2M -$2.5M in real estate. I would go non QM and try to stick with 20% down and 30 year amortization.

In Metro Atlanta, that could get you 10-25 units depending on how close you are to city center. In either case, that would provide the cash flow and appreciation that you are looking for long term as our market is expected to continue appreciating long term. Rents also increased 12% past year so they will keep up as well!

Cheers to the success so far!

@Mel Park Multi unit will be tough, but if you use the same agency or company for all your policies, you will generally save the most money.

I recently consolidated myself for all policies and saved roughly $1000 by doing so!

Let me know if you would like to be introduced to my policy guy!

@Preston C.

As an agent, you are an independent contractor at the brokerage you are with. What you charge is your business, not your brokerage’s. At least here in GA.

That said, I tend to work with clients that value me for the things I bring to the table and want to have a genuine relationship. If they want a transactional agent, that’s not me nor is it how I want to do business.