All Forum Posts by: Jonathan Greene

You just need to set expectations from the first day of ownership as to how you are going to do business and what you expect of them as tenants. As @Charles Carillo said, it's a small building, make face-to-face contact as you have and deliver rules and regulations and payment procedures and go over it with them and make sure you answer any and all questions they have during that visit and give them a non-annoying way to contact you (email is better) and let them know the timeframe of response.

Where did you get the list or did you build the list yourself? And if you built it, have you built relationships with them to the point that it makes sense to send the email you are asking about? If you have not established the proper relationship with them or they don't have anything to authenticate or verify you yet, an email is not worth anything. If it's an email list of cash buyers, @Abel Curiel is right. They don't care about giving you information, if you don't have a long-term relationship already, if you don't have any properties to give them. And if you ask them and they tell you and you can't find one right away, they won't be back. If you haven't built the relationships up, I would suggest that your email would be better served asking if you can meet them on the site of one of their flips to see what they are working on so you can see what types of properties they like to buy and how they renovate.

@Dawn Simpson it depends what the ARV is, the area value, and how long the REO has been on the market. Most REO properties won't take offers under 10% of current list price. especially not early. As they drag on they usually reduce and stick close to that model. They also usually have factored in the repairs to their price. Also, no REO that I know of will take an offer with full inspections. Most are as-is and inspections, if allowed, would be for informational purposes only. I curb my language to say I am looking for major structural, foundation, environmental, plumbing, or electrical issues only. Which is pretty much anything that matter other than mold, asbestos which both fit environmental or you can call them human safety issues. Based only on what you wrote, I suspect they would take 40k now, but as someone said above - choose your top number and stick with it. I don't go back and forth with REO much, I just send in a bid and say it's best and final. They always reject it and then a month later I submit it again. And so on.

It depends on your level of experience. Everyone is quick to tell you what to buy in terms of leads, but if you don't know what to do with them, it won't help you. What experience do you have looking at RE? Have you viewed a lot of homes? Do you know what to look for? Driving for Dollars can be futile, but it's a great way to learn neighborhoods and see if you are able to identify homes that will get renovated. And it's free, besides gas. This might help - https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/10015/88489-real-estate-research-on-the-cheap-driving-for-dollars

This might help. I just published it on BP about Driving for Dollars. It's good for beginners because it doesn't cost anything besides gas. https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/10015/88489-real-estate-research-on-the-cheap-driving-for-dollars

There is a big difference between a landlord and a slumlord. Sure, some tenants don't get it, but other landlords do. If you don't care about your tenants at all and don't do the upkeep on the property or respond to their calls, that fits being a slumlord. If you have a good relationship with your tenants, it's unlikely they will refer to you as a slumlord. Sometimes I've heard it in reference to someone who own a large amount of units and is never there, which may or may not qualify depending on what management they have in place. So, as a landlord I don't mind the term slumlord because I know who it is referring to.

@Javier K Perea that loan won't close unless one unit is vacated prior to closing. You are really asking a few different questions. No, a buyer can not cancel existing written leases. If a tenant is on month-to-month and does not have a new written lease, a new buyer can serve the eviction paperwork after closing. However, this is not the best way to handle it as the tenants will not be happy. These things should all be dealt with upfront so there is no confusion on the buyer's part or the existing tenants.

As others said, you can offer cash for keys to get them to move, but you would not want to do that prior to closing if you were not 100% sure your loan would close. What you may be referring to is writing into the contract that the property be delivered vacant. I will do this if I know there are no written leases as I do not want the responsibility. Sometimes I will offer them less occupied and a little more if they can get it vacant, but again, as others said they cannot terminate a valid lease either.

@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.