All Forum Posts by: Jeff Copeland

I agree with Nelya Calev about getting approved for a hard money loan. If the numbers work, they'll usually provide proof of funds the same day.

(I've found Bridgewell Capital out of Orlando very responsive as long as you meet their underwriting requirements).

So you have POF for your offer, then, if the deal moves forward, you have more options with regards to funding it.

Just don't take advantage of your HML and only use them for proof of funds. In many cases, it makes more sense to use their money anyway (certainly better than splitting profits 50/50 on most deals).

@Deanna McCormick - Congratulations and good luck!

@Rick Jones - Be careful, Adwords can be a highly effective way to advertise, but it's also possible to waste truckloads of money (and Big G will happily keep taking it) if you set it up wrong.

Just be very narrow/selective with your keywords, and particularly with your geographic targeting. People often miss the geo-targeting component and have ads running all over the country, when their business is actually hyper-local in focus.

You can set it so your ads only show in certain zip codes, or inside of certain polygons or radii drawn on the map. This is a great way to keep your costs down - only show your ads to customers or potential leads who are physically located in your target area.

It's also a great way to test market to a small sample and then scale up once you get it working.

I highly recommend the "Dummies" books, and SEO for Dummies and Google Adwords for Dummies are the best 20 bucks (each) you may ever spend on marketing. Good luck!

You might consider raising your offer by just a few hundred dollars - that way at least you can feel confident they will look at your offer again and (hopefully) respond. Anything to draw attention to your offer is good at this point, and the timing couldn't be better, with the first offer falling out of escrow.

Thanks @Stephen Lofthus!

@Terry B. - Could that have been because they were owner occupants and you were not? Particularly with Fannie/Freddie/HUD REOs, they have a bias towards owner occupants and a 'first look' period in many cases where they won't even consider offers from investors.

The seller generally isn't "obligated" to accept anything. They can raise/lower the price, re-list it and wait for more offers, accept yours, or counter. Sometimes banks have specific guidelines and a step by step process they follow in cases like this.

Bottom line, the ball is in their court - give them your highest and best offer. If they get a higher offer, it's shouldn't be an issue because you weren't willing to pay more anyway.

If they accept a higher offer and you're kicking yourself for not offering more, then it wasn't your highest and best in the first place.

How much were they asking from 2011-2014 when it didn't sell? That's a solid indicator that they overpriced it...which will at least give you an idea of what it isn't worth.

Sounds like a very unique/historic property, which may limit your pool of potential buyers. Which in turn means the normal laws of supply and demand (which determine value) are more difficult to apply.

@Rick Jones - I just posted a few blog posts about SEO that may help you or your VA.

And in my opinion, for $400 you could probably get 200 very targeted visitors to your website using Google AdWords or some other form of pay per click advertising.

I don't see you having that kind of conversion rate from restaurant placemats.

I would include more details about the financing in #1. Such as down payment, interest rate, and the total amortization.

And I'm not sure where you got $325/mo from? (Seller financing doesn't mean "interest free").

For example, with 100% owner financing for 20 years at 4.25% (which should be very attractive to you), your P&I payment would be $620/mo, and the seller would actually get $148k in P&I for the home (which could be very attractive to them) over the life of the note. 

Focus on the $148k (or whatever the total P&I number ends up being) in offer #1 to really pique the seller's interest (no pun intended).

Thanks @Joshua Dorkin. I did find that, but was surprised to find it limited to 160 characters. I though maybe there was another field for the blog that allowed more info.