All Forum Posts by: Leilah Davis

@Daniel Haberkost - Do you do large-scale developments or are you working within a major metropolitan area??? It seems to me like most developers elsewhere in the country are just trying to obtain large swaths of land on which to build an entire development, so yes I would imagine it's much easier to do that. This is not what we're doing, hence why I used the term "lots" instead of "land". We are looking for individual vacant lots within the city of New Orleans. Most other cities in the US don't have very much undeveloped land left, but New Orleans is different. There are TONS of vacant properties on which to build single family houses. Many (if not most) of these lots however, have title issues. That's a huge part of the problem. 

I try to personalize my mailers, so I look up the property history, try to find some info about the owner(s) and send them a personal message including my business card. Direct mailers are the last resort for me, I am only doing so once I've exhausted all other means of contact (i.e. text, phone calls, emails, finding them on facebook, etc). The only method I have not tried, and I'm really not sure it's for me, is door knocking. 

But I do get a good response rate!! Overall my response rate is like .... close to 50%. Again, the issue here is time (and possibly negotiation skills) not capability. The issue isn't that I'm not hearing back from people, it's that it takes up too much of my time, and I have better more productive things to be doing. Finding the deals is obviously necessary, but it is a time-consuming task that actively reduces productivity in other areas of the business. If I can pass the task on to someone else ... and know that they can do as good a job as I can (or ideally better) that would be what I need. Basically just trying to decide if I should hire an employee or try to work with a "bird dog" who I would only pay IF they bring me deals. Getting some mixed responses here about which of these options sounds better .... Have to think it over a bit more. 

Do you do all of the searching / contacting / direct mailers yourself??? How wide is your area that you build in??? There are other constraints for us as well. We fund our projects with cash, no financing, so we are limited in our price range. There are also only a handful of areas within the city of New Orleans (which is already a very small city) that have selling prices which would give us a good profit margin. 

@Steve Morris – Yes, I am currently doing all 32 of the jobs you are talking about, LOL! That’s the main problem. I have the drive and understanding to do it, but not the time. I agree, hiring someone virtually scares me a bit ... but that’s why I would only pay if they follow through. A finder's fee, if you will. As for the “driving around” suggestion I’m not sure what you mean … I already have an excel spreadsheet which lists EVERY SINGLE vacant lot in the area I’m looking at currently. As mentioned above, vacant lots are easy to find on a map, there is really no need to drive around. It’s not like looking for distressed properties. Not sure what you mean about "paying a broker" .... do you just mean signing a representation agreement with an agent? I am an agent myself, and most agents I know are just too busy to devote the kind of time necessary for this type of job. And the payout would be very little for them, if they are experienced and good at what they do. I may be willing to hire an employee, and I think that might be exactly what I’m looking for, but it would probably have to be someone young, eager, and inexperianced, but intelligent and dedicated. 

@Anne Jenkins thanks for the recommendation! Yes, there are a LOT of different ways to purchase property through the city here in New Orleans, but unfortunately the city does not offer clean titles cleared of all liens and encumbrances. Not sure if that’s unique to New Orleans ro not, but pretty much all of the properties that have lien issues were purchased via a city aution (whether it be a tax sale, sherrif’s auction, or whatever)

@John Underwood yes this is definitely an option I’m considering., have you done this?? What has been your experience with it?? Any advice??

@Sarah Whitaker no thank you! We are only looking for lots in the city of New Orleans.

@Todd Rasmussen - good advice, thanks! 

@Carlos Ptriawan - What is the website? To clarify, I'm not having trouble finding vacant lots .... I just find them on a map, it's very easy to see which properties are vacant vs developed. I meant I'm having trouble finding lots TO BUY, in other words I am having trouble contacting all of the property owners and finding people who actually want to sell their properties. It's a problem of not having enough time and needing more work on my negotiating skills. Cold leads like this take a lot of time and effort to nurture, and I just don't have that kind of time. Not sure how a website will help me with this, but I'm open to any help I can get! Please feel free to share, you can DM me the website. Thanks!

We do spec home construction, NO rehabs or flips, so all we are looking for are vacant lots. We are aiming to do 8 properties this year, currently working on our first one of the year. By far the BIGGEST issue we are running into is simply finding the lots!!! I have sunk SO MANY HOURS into searching. I look on the MLS, I engage with wholesalers, I'm doing cold calls, direct mailers, literally everything! I know the deals are out there, t's just a matter of not having the time to devote to finding them. I have recently started considering trying to find a "bird dog".

Has anyone had experience working with a bird dog? I feel like what I am actually looking for is not exactly that. My understanding of a bird dog is typically someone who does the "driving for dollars" thing, they go out and find properties in person and then gather all the basic info on that property and simply pass the lead on to the investor ... right? 

I'm really thinking about hiring someone with skills in negotiating. I want someone who will take all the basic data that i've already collected, do the cold-calling, emailing, door knocking, etc and then actually build relationships with the potential leads and only bring the deals to be when they are hot and ready to accept an offer. I would even be open to having the "bird dog" (or trainee, or apprentice, or whatever you want to call it) doing the actual negotiating and getting to a price verbally that everyone can agree on, so long as this person understands the market and our needs enough to do so. 

Thoughts? Concerns? Am I Crazy??? Is there anything I'm not considering here?? 

If you have done something like this, what was the compensation structure? 

Hi all! This question is specifically for those investors who are also licensed agents - what is your favorite CMA software or website?

I agree with everyone above on the attorney advice .... but here's an anecdote from a recent experience that might also help explain some things: 

I recently purchased a property from someone who acquired the title through Civic Source, exactly the same way as you. He was past the redemtive period, but he had not contacted the previous owners directly at all. He didn't even know their names .... I do think he went through the legal process with the city to claim ownership, but I don't know what all that entailed. At the point that we purchased the property from him, he DID have "full ownership" of the property, but he had not gotten a quitclaim deed or quieted title from the previous owners. But yes, he did have full ownership. As far as I'm aware he would have been legally able to do WHATEVER he wanted with the property, as long as he owned it. 

The only issue came about when he actually went to sell it. Legally he would have been able to transfer the title to us, but it requires a special type of title insurance, which can only be provided through an insurance company called "US National" (if you are a real estate agent, you will see many listings that have a disclosure about needing to close with one of the title companiess listed on the US National's website. I beleive this typically means the property was at one point acquired through a tax sale). So legally he was the property owner, and could do whatever he wanted with the property, but most title insurance companies won't provide title insurance on that type of ownership, therefore making it difficult to transfer the property to someone else. Not impossible, just difficult! 

At the end of the day, we ended up getting a quitclaim deed from the previous owners ourselves, only so that we could get regular title insurance and move forward with the sale. It really wasn't hard - I googled their names, knocked on their door, and asked nicely. If you don't want to deal with attempting to get a quitclaim deed, I see no issue with you holding onto the property and doing whatever you want with it (so long as you have proof of ownership). 

And as for the title insurance, I beleive you could be insured through USNTI, if you wanted to purchase title insurance. As far as I'm aware, though, title insurance is not a requirement of owning property .... it's insurance like any other type of insurance. Basically, you can have ownership of the property without title insurance and potentially there would be no issues! But if someone were to claim that they were the rightful owner of the property, whether they had any legal right to claim so or not, you would have to come out of pocket for ALL legal expenses to fight that if you didn't have insurance. That's what the insurance covers, it covers the cost of fighting for your right to own the property. 

But again ... I am not an attorney either. I think a quick phone call to a title attorney is the way to go. They can probably answer the question in 2 minutes without needing to charge you anything,. After all it's a very quick question!

Hope this helps!

Part of being a "scrappy" investor and entrepreneur is understanding the market you're doing business in and making adjustments as necessary. Being one step ahead of the game is important, especially when the market you're dealing with (i.e. real estate) can and does fluctuate in a BIG way that effects your investments and your business.  

We're under contract on a property that we really like for our next project. This is an off-market deal. I had contacted the owner directly and asked if he wanted to sell and he said yes, so we worked out a deal. Unfortunately the abstract came back and there's a problem with the title from 1996. I feel like a lot of people just walk away at this point ... but all that's needed is to get the owners from 1996 to sign a quitclaim deed!! It feels doable ... has anyone had success doing something like this? If so, how did you go about tracking them down and how did you approach them about getting them to sign a quitclaim deed? Any suggestions would be great. We are totally comfortable spending a couple thousand dollars on this, as there aren't many properties in our area that fit our needs AND we've already pumped some time and money into the design assuming this deal would go through easily (naive of us, I know). 

If your advice is to just walk away, there's no need to comment please. We've already discussed it and we're willing to spend about a week trying to make this happen. After that, we'll walk away. I'm mostly looking for advice from anyone who has successfully done this before. 

Thanks!!

Yes! I would like to ditto this. It's more likely to stray on my radar if it has keywords. 

@Stephen Keighery Thanks so much! I certaibly had fun with it, haha. Looking forward to the next one!