All Forum Posts by: Jason R.

@Matt Gragg It's actually hard to find an area that's not hot right now, including the rough areas that are seeing plenty of flip action. I haven't come across any area in town with a rehabbed property under $200k that can't sell very quick. This also mostly holds true up to $300k. If you're not too familiar with Vegas, the properties you may want to stay away from are the custom homes because they're not as predictable in terms of ultimate sales price and days on market. However, competition for flips is very real here and most flippers are willing to rely on slim margins, so the best opportunity you may have is a custom value add property. Of course, this depends on your level of experience and risk tolerance. 

Feel free to message me for recommendations.

I just created a post on this so I'll provide a recap below, but you can read the rest here if you want: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/712/topics/437139-why-so-hard-to-find-wholesalers-in-las-vegas

Most people don't realize there are legit wholesalers in Vegas, so I wanted to provide a realistic perspective as to why. These wholesalers don't usually blast out to buyers lists because they've narrowed down their best buyers, as described below.

• Buyer attributes:
• Respond very quick
• Can close with cash as quick as needed
• Don't need to view the property in person to make an offer
• Don't care how much $ the wholesaler makes
• Stay true to their word
• Have flipping systems in place
• Don't require large ROI per deal
• In other words, they're reliable and pay top dollar.

I know this from experience. I have a biz partner and when we started wholesaling in Vegas, we blasted out the deals to our combined buyers list of around 150 investors. A handful rose to the top so we started working only with them.

We ended up partnering with our best buyer so we could start paying top dollar to take down deals instead of needing to wholesale them. Newer wholesalers love working with us to learn and earn, but even with the backing to take down a deal in days, usually paying more than any other buyer, it still wasn't easy to convince established wholesalers to bring deals to us.

I hope this is helpful for people thinking they'll be able to come to Vegas and pay a wholesaler 70% ARV minus rehab. It's just too competitive here and it's much smaller than a market like Phoenix (which is also very competitive).

Happy investing!

Most people don't realize there are legit Las Vegas wholesalers, so I'm going to provide a realistic perspective as to why and explain how I know.

Experienced wholesalers don't need to build buyers lists and frankly most aren't interested in adding anyone to their buyer list. Why? They have established a limited amount of reliable buyers that pay top dollar, and it doesn't make sense to deal with new buyers that very likely can't compete with the existing ones - they'll just eat up valuable time. These wholesalers don't post deals publicly or blast out to large buyer lists because there's no need. And this is why most are unaware that there are plenty of local wholesale deals going around every single week.

What are the attributes of their buyers?

• Respond very quick
• Can close with cash as quick as needed
• Don't need to view the property in person to make an offer
• Don't care how much $ the wholesaler makes
• Stay true to their word
• Have flipping systems in place
• Don't require large ROI per deal

In other words, they're reliable and pay top dollar.

How am I qualified to know this?

I have a biz partner and when we started wholesaling in Vegas, we blasted out the deals to our combined buyers list of around 150 investors. Most people wouldn't respond, some would just ask questions, some would make ridiculous offers, but a handful rose to the top (see attributes above) so we started working only with them.

We ended up partnering with our best buyer so we could start taking down deals instead of needing to wholesale them. Newer wholesalers love working with us to learn and earn, but even with the backing to take down a deal in days, usually paying more than any other buyer, it's still wasn't easy to convince established wholesalers to bring deals to us.

I hope this is helpful for people thinking they'll be able to come to Vegas and pay a wholesaler 70% ARV minus rehab. It's just too competitive here and it's much smaller than a market like Phoenix (which is also very competitive). If you want to actually get deal flow sent your way, you'll have to accept less profit and prove you have the attributes above. This is easiest for buy and hold investors since they won't have selling costs, but the other options are finding deals yourself, or working with newer wholesalers that haven't (yet) connected with top buyers.

Just to give you a perspective of what it currently takes to compete with buyers in Las Vegas, I used to send deals to one of the largest volume flippers in town that operates in multiple markets and doesn't need large margins, and their offers were never on the same level as the top 3-5 I would receive.

If you are able to get sent a deal from a legit wholesaler, you better analyze right away, make a legitimate offer with thinner profit margins, and follow through if it gets accepted.

This post isn't meant to deter anyone. I just wanted to share a realistic view that I don't ever see mentioned. Hope the info is useful and feel free to ask questions.

By the way, the LV metro area also includes Henderson, North Las Vegas, Boulder City, and some people extend to Pahrump, Mesquite and a few others.

Happy investing!

Thanks @Jim Biggs this is very useful as I didn't even realize the cells could get their own EINs. I knew about the DBA method which seems to work fine, but this would probably make it much easier for the banks not to push back when they're unfamiliar (which almost all personal bankers seem to be like you mentioned). And it's so simple to apply for the EIN that it's worth that minimal effort to avoid the potential bank hassles.

I found that US Bank is fine with the SLLCs but just depends on who you're speaking with. Wells Fargo can also do it but you almost certainly have to speak to someone quite experienced to get it set up properly, and they still want you to open sub-accounts for cells with DBAs as opposed to separate bank accounts.

I might have missed some details but if I'm interpreting this correctly: there is only 1 lien on the property, which is the 1st position mortgage and the redemption period has ended. If this is correct and you're your friend is still looking to profit then my advice would be to hire an attorney to negotiate with the bank for a discounted payoff. You would want to choose a real estate attorney that has experience in working with banks. You could alternatively consider hiring an experienced short sale negotiator that has dealt with BofA because they would likely have the connections & know-how to deal with a decision maker. Even if the bank ends up unwilling to discount the amount they're owed at least you'll find out how much they're owed so you can figure out some other options of how to proceed. Plus, the negotiator could let the asset manager know that it would make more sense to work with you instead of incurring the additional costs of foreclosure and the continued payment of taxes and such. You could either pay the negotiator for their time, a pre-negotiated flat fee, commission-only (based on a successful negotiation), or a hybrid of these.  The downside with this is that it essentially alerts the bank about this property and potentially prompts them to realize they should foreclose.

To answer your questions:

1) Yes they would have to notify you since you are legally the owner.

2 & 3) If the bank forecloses, an auction date will be set. If the property doesn't sell there, then the bank will take it back as an REO. It doesn't become an REO unless it has gone through the foreclosure process and didn't sell at the trustee sale. From that point they can do as they wish - they don't have to sell it within a specific time. If the property gets bid up at the foreclosure auction and it exceeds the bank's total payoff amount, then the excess would go to you since you're the owner. You don't need a lien on the property for this.

Alternative strategies could be to:

Hire a professional (such as a PI) to track down the previous owner and get the info you wanted. You could likely pay her a small sum to sign a lender authorization doc. This would open up various options for you.

Rent out the property until the bank does foreclose. This also leaves open other options but at least provides income until the bank forecloses. If the bank has put off the foreclosure this long, it might be a while longer before they get around to foreclosing and you could begin recouping some of your investment. You would just want to disclose the pertinent info to the tenant and I would make them sign the disclosure.

I'm sure I missed some stuff rushing through this but hope this helps for now.

Thanks @Bill Gulley.

To help clarify, there is an account for the master llc that has one member, but I want a cell to have two members and taxed as a partnership. If the payments for that cell go to the master llc, how does the master's bank account then distribute to the cell when the cell has no bank account? It sounds like you're saying that the cell can have a separate bank account opened as long as the master account is already in place (at the same bank) - is that correct?

Anyone know of anybody in town (Las Vegas or Henderson) willing to open a bank account for a series llc cell? Banks like Wells will open one for the master llc but not the cells, so that won't work.

I know the larger institutions typically shy away but I'm sure there are others in town willing to do it. Anyone have experience with this or know any specific banks that will do it? 

@Jean G. I'm guessing you might know.

Thanks all

Thanks @Jon Q. I look forward to connecting with you next time I'm headed your way, which looks to be around Spring.

I dealt with a situation in NV similar to what you described @Christine Ans except the HOA did foreclose.

HOA foreclosed on a property. Investor bought it at auction. After NV Supreme Court ruled that HOA foreclosures extinguish mortgage liens (on a different case), the bank with the mortgage argued that the HOA was not allowed to foreclose because the previous owner (borrower) had filed BK. The investor's attorney argued that the bank cannot use this argument; the previous owner would have to. The bank won. Still a convoluted situation to unwind but just letting you know how it was ruled in NV when it ended up happening.

Keep in mind the lag time that it takes for a sale to close. For instance, you shouldn't decide to purchase in January because you see the lowest sales prices during that time. You would want to get a property under contract in early December.

Likewise, you shouldn't decide to sell during the month with the highest sales price. That is the month when the properties are closing for the highest sales price, meaning they went under contract before then so you would want to put properties on the market about 60 days ahead of your identified month of highest sales price (depending on market factors such as expected DOM).

Common sense but it's been overlooked plenty of times.