All Forum Posts by: Harvie Arington

Thanks everyone for the encouragement. I'm targeting absentee owners who have owned the property between 1/1/85 and 1/1/05. Houses built between the same dates. The card basically said

Hi
"My name is Harvie Arington and I work with a group of investors. We are interested in buying your house at

."
I tell them that I buy as is and I can close fast. I tell them that I can buy their house even if they don't have much equity. I give them my phone # and website and tell them they can get free info on how to sell their house for a fair price and close on the date of their choice. I also tell them that if they don't respond I assume they aren't interested or they are working with a realtor.

That's about it.

I just sent out 768 yellow post cards to absentee owners in 2 zip codes in my area. Really it's 767 + 1 to me so I know when to expect the phone calls to start. I used Click2mail's 4x6 single sided card. I'll post updates on response rates/quality.

Happy investing!

Harvie

Eddie,

Let me clear up a little confusion. To me, retirement = financial independence. To me retirement means not being beholden to anyone to support my way of life. I think some people hear the word retirement and we think of our grandparents (WOW they were old. At least that's how I remember them). For me retirement is at the TOP of my list of goals not at the bottom. Retiring from my job means I can spend all my time building my real estate holdings and spending time with my family, which is pretty much all I want to do.

Harvie

You know Rich, the main reason I'm interested in real estate investing is for retirement. I'm 40 now but I don't want to work a JOB for another 30 years so I can retire just before I die. I also don't trust the stock market. My wife and I have talked about buying an RV and traveling the country when the kids are grown ( the youngest is 2). My goal is to "retire" while the kids are still kids and enjoy them while I can. What I'm trying to say is thank you for bringing up this topic. Reading about this helps keep me focused on our goals.

Harvie

Welcome to Bigger Pockets! As the saying goes..."There's more than one way to skin a cat." I would suggest that you dig in to this site and learn as much as possible about the many different ways the people here are investing in real estate. The more you learn, you will find where your interest lies. A big mistake I made when starting out was not figuring out what I was interested in and what I had the time for. I thought I was going to be a wholesaler, but that takes a lot of time that I don't have. Besides, I'm more interested in fix 'n flip and rentals. The point is, don't rush into the first thing you come across. Take some time to find your niche. Hope this helps.

Happy Investing,

Harvie

Bill,
I'm a little confused about this:

"I really don't think it's a good idea at this time due to the SAFE Act, since there are too many things in the air, even if you found a mortgage originator to do it for you (they will probably think they can't do that) "

Would the "mortgage originator" be the title company when I sold the house or are you talking about when the purchaser refinances? What I am trying to do is to find a profitable way to buy houses with only about 15%-20% equity and flip them to an end buyer. I believe all of the methods you mentioned are both legal and ethical, but I'm not confident the average end buyer is sophisticated enough to be comfortable using them. Do you think that this is a worthwhile strategy at all? (properties with only not much equity) or should I drop it and move on to something else? The reason I thought about this strategy is that there are a lot of homeowners who need to sell but don't have much equity in their house. They are not behind on payments so the bank won't talk to the about a short sale. Do you think I'm better off renting the properties for a year or two instead?

Thanks,
Harvie

Thanks, I like the way you think. I like the idea about buying subject to. How do you feel about buying a house subject to and then selling it owner finance?

I know that lease-options or rent-to-own in Texas are basically illegal (or at least strictly prohibited), but people are still advertising properties for sale on lease-option and rent-to-own in San Antonio. So I have two questions:

1. How are they getting away with it?
2. What other options are there? What are other investors in Texas doing to creatively sell their properties?

You can go to your local tax assessor's office. I did once, but I'm not a big spreadsheet guy and it was a HUGE spreadsheet so I got confused. Also I've heard you can get lists from title companies, but I never tried.

In my opinion, the best way to find motivated sellers is sending direct mail to absentee owners. These people are usually emotionally detached from the house which allows them to make logical choices instead of emotional ones. It's not the cheapest method, but you can control costs by limiting your target area. You can buy a list from someone online like MelissaData or another source and upload it to Click2Mail from the USPS and send yellow postcards. To further cut costs you can take your mailing list and send hand-written "yellow" letters yourself. Hope this helps.

Harvie Arington