All Forum Posts by: Jerome Harrod II

Hey I'm really looking for some guidance here, did research beforehand, but I'm still not grasping the concept.

Here's the breakdown:

1. Investor talks to Seller about buying their house on a lease option.
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2. Seller tells Investor that the property is listed with an agent.
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3. Investor convinces Seller to allow him to buy said house with the "right of first refusal".

How does the new contract with the "right of first refusal" work around the existing agent's listing agreement? What happens to the agent in this case?

Furthermore, Can this be considered as an unethical practice?

Any input or opinion would be greatly appreciated.

Jon Klaus & Nathan Paisley
Great idea, Yeah I will try contacting them, I'am using Listsource to target maryland absentee owners that own 75% to 100% of
equity in their homes, as well as what Don Konipol suggested in his post about driving neighborhoods. From what else he suggested it seems I have a lot more to learn about marketing as a wholesaler or investor period. Awesome stuff.

Mark H.
I had no idea of those rules nor know that I could complain about that. I could very much look into that to help try to clean up these listings a bit.

Ugh! Lead Famine! Has this ever happened to you?
Where you recently had a few failed direct marketing campaigns drain funds and no one is calling on flyers/classified ads anymore? And you look up to find you have no more marketing money?

Well it happened to me just now and I'm part timing this while in college so that hurt my pockets, So my brilliant next move was to start calling aged/seasoned Online FSBO ads of about 30 days, calling on homes from Craigslist/Owners.com/Forsalebyowner.com and other sites like that.

After calling 3 ads or so a day for a week, I find it troubling that every call I made, with the exception of 1 ad, was either a wholesaler or a RE Agent. That's about 21 to 30 calls to find one lead.

Many people would find that that's not enough info to make a credible observation in a market, but most FSBO websites aggregate listings from each other so it's not like I have many leads to call after sifting through duplicates.

Some may be thinking network, and I will add that I didn't have a good experience partnering with other wholesalers in my area (Baltimore, MD) so I stopped and I haven't a clue on how to navigate and co-op with agents as a wholesaler, as I don't want to get too competitive with foreclosures yet.

So from that I pose a question, In your opinon is it worth going after FSBO's anymore? If you are doing well with this lead source, I would love to hear from you on your thoughts and what are you doing to find "legit" owners.

Hey, I'm having trouble looking for the owner for a vacant junker.
The example goes like this:
I find a vacant Junker on ABC Street.
I pull the house up in the tax records and got the name of the owner which is Bob.
When I go to switchboard.com or some other "People Finder site" to find Bob's number, it lists all the Bob's in baltimore but for some reason you don't see ABC Street Listed at all with any of the names. Which shows that possibly Bob doesn't own the house.

So When I reverse the address on switchboard.com or some other People Finder Site to find the owner, it says that Bill owns the house instead of Bob.

Has anyone ever found a vacant junker where the tax records and a People Finder site ( like switchboard.com or zabasearch.com) have two different names and numbers as the owner of the house?

Which information do I go by? The Tax Records or The People Finder SIte?
I was thinking of sending a letter to the house with “address correction requested†on the envelope and see what happens.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hey, I was reading on different real estate strategies, purchasing styles and found a similarity between lease options and owner financing. Now to summarize, correct me if I'm wrong, but generally lease options are used for renting the house monthly with the choice owning the house in the future and owner financing is used to pay for the house monthly with the ability of owning the house now.

I'm not entirely confident that I know how lease options works, but Can these two strategies be tied together? Is it possible find an owner already set to sell his house with owner financing and then turn around to lease option off the same house to a rent to own buyer?

Here is an example of what I'm talking about, I'm not adding numbers for simplicity's sake:
Sue Seller is advertising that her house is available with owner financing ==> Ivan Investor comes in and tells sue that he wants the house but asks to have some time to come up with the required downpayment and for the ability to pay off the entire note at anytime without penalty ==> Sue agrees and they put it under contract then holds from closing for 20 days ==> Ivan marks up the property for more and advertises that the property is available to Rent-to-own buyers ==> Bill Buyer responds and qualifies to recieve the house ==> Ivan asks for a larger non-refundable downpayment than needed to pay Sue ==> Ivan closes and pays Sue, while Ivan keeps the difference between the two downpayment fees ==> Ivan closes with Bill and Bill moves in ==> Ivan keeps the monthly difference between what Ivan agrees to pay to Sue and from what Bill pays Ivan until the giant pay off [end]

I'm not sure if that's the end of that particular transaction style, but I think you understand what I'm talking about. It sounds like it could work. What are your thoughts?

Also, since I help people sell thier notes, I was thinking of the potential that I could make money on the back end by seeing if Sue would be interested in selling the note. If Sue agrees then I can also get a good finder's fee from the buyer of the note.

I get paid 4 ways. From:
1. The Difference of the Down Payment from "Bill".
2. The Monthly Difference From what I owe to Sue to what I'm owed from Bill.
3. If Bill decides to want the house, the payoff difference from the rest I owe Sue and the total I get from Bill
4. After a couple months of holding the Note, Sue is interested in selling her note off and I get paid from the Note Buyer for finding her note.

Now what are your thought on that?

Starting from the top. Now during my hunt for Junkers, I came across a house in relatively good shape in my own neighborhood. A pretty house, It just had overgrown grass and weeds in front and back, broken wooden fence that allowed me entrace to the back of the house, the screen of a the backdoor was ripped into and the deck in the back was torn down. ARV of this house is $140K and I see only $15K of work needed, not a bad deal, but the problem is that it has a notice on the front door.

Now on the front door, I see papers that this house was closed due to a violation. Before I contact the seller, I want to ask if properties closed due to violations be wholesaled? Is this like a foreclosure property or a Bank owned property?

I understand where your coming from Don, and I'm sure that "No pain, No Gain" strategy would be a very hard to do but a very effective approach to getting over the fear of rejection. However, My fear is not simple rejection. I handle and take many No's all the time cold calling noteholders as a note broker.

My fear is having lack of knowledge and the fear of not knowing how. I don't like looking/sounding stupid or being misunderstood to the point of not being taken seriously and losing deals. I can handle a No when I know I'm doing something the right way, because since it's the right way I'll eventually succeed. Not when I'm just blindly running my lip and hoping for the best, that's how I nearly failed in the note business when I started cold calling noteholders. I just said whatever and lost more business than I did when I used a script as a foundation to start from. Not to use and abuse but to guide me.

I believe there is a system for talking to people and everything else in between. To have a foundation to first start from and then build your own style around that made foundation. Less pain, More gain in my opinion.

Talking face to face and on the phone with people has always been a nervous fear for me. Which is why I always stick to email for business related topics, and that is why I'm not exactly booming in this business like I could be.

So Thank you very much Peter! I very much look forward to working with you and your clients.

Also, thank you Andy for the script. I really can start using that line of dialog to help me talk to my buyers.

Well Rian, I get the impression that either you don't believe me or you want to milk me for my buyer finding techniques. I assure you, it's nothing new you've haven't heard off, I collected buyer leads through the same ways everyone else does. From classic "We buy houses" signs to Internet marketing with Craigslist. I purchased many wholesaling courses but I learned the most from Ron Legrand and biggerpockets very own Eric Medemar and Chris Chico.

But my biggest secret and the only technique that I haven't seen in any course or even listed as a way to find buyers AND sellers is knowing how to use Google.com. Google has the power to legally access to EVERY webpage in EVERY website in the world by default unless intentionally blocked by the website owner.

Google is a very powerful tool that not many people know how to use effectively. Google is really my free version of the MLS. I can pull buyers, sellers and comps, with a simple yet advanced google search phrase. Google is how I found Biggerpockets! What I learn from google about real estate, I confirm here as either fact or fiction on biggerpockets.

Google is how I closed my first deal as an unlicensed note broker within my first 4 months of starting in the note business at age 17. I'm 18 now by the way and somewhat successful, but not Successful enough to get done what I need done.

Even though I don't feel comfortable sharing exactly what I do out of fear of competition and the fact that it took me very long to figure out, I feel this is my only way of giving back to biggerpockets for helping me so much. So I won't spoonfeed my strategy to you, but instead I can scratch the surface of it and tell you what to research. I will start spoonfeeding when I start making money lol, but It is up to you to take it seriously. Infact I you encourage to take action and research it. Or else I will just laugh as I beat you to every possible deal that is posted on the internet ad sites, not being rude but truthful.

Here's the power tip: Learn how to use google advanced search operators and Learn how those operators can be manipulated to have google search every webpage of any website for whatever you want for you.

With advanced google search operators, I can use google and have it show me very specific things like every We buy Houses ad only in the baltimore area in craigslist or Be general enough and have google show me every Seller Financed Note for sale posted on backpage and criagslist all over the United States. Heck, you can even make google email you whenever a person puts a for rent ad up on craigslist on a daily basis. Constant landlord leads coming everyday free. That's just priceless.

Wow, I feel like a guru lol. I encourage you to take the time to research this and you'll no longer be at a lost for deals or buyers in this information age. This one strategy alone is how I built my 30 person buyer list in as little as 1 week of effort. All that is left to do is to screen them to see if they are serious buyers or "seminar junkies" lol.

Another tactic is to simply use Listsource.com. The site is self explanatory, pay for targeted leads. Easy, if you know how to look and what to look for.

It's not hard for me to find wholesale deals or buyers, it's just hard for me to get up the nerve to talk to them.

Just so you know a little about me, I've been self-training to get my Certified Ethical Hacker Degree from UMBC since 9th grade and now getting official training at ITT-Tech Institute. In layman's terms,I'm a young Specialized Computer Cop in training with above average knowledge in computer security and internet manipulation. So, I have learned many of internet based strategies that I can use to build my buyers list as well as my seller lead list easily.

I hope that answers your question and gives you some quality advice at the same time.

Alright, I have committed one of the worst sins as a new wholesaler. I have deals under contract but no buyers. Interestingly enough, what makes me a special case is that I already have a list of 26 buyers that I could contact.

Now, I bet you guys reading this are thinking "You have Buyers and You have Deals! What's the matter? Make it happen!"

Well let me ask 2 questions that could lead you to understanding my problem. I only have one shot of a good first impression right? and Buyers are technically the money and soul of wholesaling correct?
You probably guessed right, I'm experiencing some phone fright, I have no idea on how or what to say to my buyers so that way they don't mind being on my list.

The best I can come up with is "Hi my name is Jerome, I'm a real estate wholesaler here in the baltimore area. I see that your buying houses in baltimore, Can I add you to my buyers list and let you know of any deals that I come across?"

That line of dialouge doesn't work or failed because the list I had was originally 30 buyers, 4 buyers said No right off the bat and we hung up. I can't afford to get 26 more No's, So now I come to you biggerpockets,

What do you say when speaking to a buyer on the phone that you want to add to your buyers list but you have never met before?