All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Greene

@Daniel Luedtke if the property is on the market and there are multiple bids, you have to have an agent and you must submit your offer with the timeframe of their Best and Final offers, usually a day and time the week following the first Open House or as specified by the listing agent. Any on-market property you will need a buyer's agent. If you don't use one and contact the listing agent, they will act as a dual agent, but their primary responsibility will always be to the seller.

Preforeclosures are not real, especially not as identified on Zillow. Zillow marks any property as a preforeclosure after one lis pendens has been filed. Many of these are cleared up and Zillow does not remove the preforeclosure label unless the homeowner complains and gets to the right person. Zillow is not an effective research tool for investors in any way. It has 1/10 the data and is a profit-based system. You need access to the MLS to properly evaluate any property and know the actual sales, which are nowhere near complete on solds on Zillow and other sites. To look for back data for free, with no RE license, look up the property on the tax assessor's site and you should be able to see the last sale price, but that won't help you know it's current value.

What do you want leads for? Off-market seller opportunities? One of the best lists is people who have owned for 20 or more years and are older like 60+, they may comprise 50 percent of all good lists (not counting divorce, foreclosure lists) and website capture won't work as effectively on them. A website for an investor should serve as a landmark hub to add authenticity and corroboration to their business. If you want leads, you can use a company like ZBuyer, who I have had success with, but some markets are saturated. Those people are calling back ZBuyers online lead system and then the leads get referred to you (and others). Online leads in all aspects of real estate (on-market and off-market) will find you a lot of interest clickers because it's easy to click, but far less effective than those who call back on your postcards. A call back is a choice, a click is mild interest at best.

@Peter Tverdov and @Ronan Donnelly yup. The transcendence of TV and online guru preaching has made people think that buying a perfect home is expected and investing in real estate is easy, even with no money or idea what you are doing. Many real estate agents don't hold their clients accountable and police their crazy desires and too many REI "coaches" and "mentors" are preaching that it's easy to find seller financing and BRRR deals for 50k anywhere, no biggie.

@Brian Ploszay That is definitely one I have seen happen when partners are both busy with other parts of the business or side projects (or real jobs) and just lose track of one. But in the grand scheme of things, that's not a bad loss for being the worst in a year. Is the partnership still solid or was this the start of you going in different directions?

Trenton is too far out with the commute. You would want to focus on Northern NJ. Newark, Orange, and East Orange have lower-priced opportunities to BRRR and the commute to NYC will be easy. If you are moving and work from home then you may have different options. You want to focus on train line towns to maximize your rental options if you are looking to BRRRR a two-family.

Who are you trying to sell to? If you did a lipstick flip to sell to investors, like an upgraded double close wholesale because it was a good deal, then you might not need it. But if you did the quick flip to attract new homeowners, which it sounds like you did, then I would definitely put them in. If you clean the place up and mini-flip it and don't add appliances, they will try to get that money back somewhere else in my opinion. It looks better, even on a small flip, to have a full kitchen. Buyers are used to associating no kitchen or missing appliances with REO or short sale and you want to make the most and not lump in on those.

Focus on things outside of the final price, which I agree you should stick to. Your terms are just as powerful as your bid price, even for banks. How quickly can you close? What inspection repairs are you willing to waive? Most investment properties are as-is, but buyers still add terms. When you have more experience, it's common to waive inspections or limit them to major structural, electrical, foundational, and plumbing issues. Make sure your financing is tight and backed up by a separate proof of funds that shows you have adequate reserves for closing costs and all deposits prior to the loan funding.

Ask your managing broker who has the biggest team at your brokerage. For new agents, working on a team provides training, experience, and leads.

Tax records first for the current address of the owner. Many times they will not disclose the phone number and rarely are phone numbers listed online in the tax records. Then take the full name and the address and use a site like Spokeo. You will get maybe 20% correct emails and 50% correct phone numbers there, but you will have multiple options with a paid account.