All Forum Posts by: Matthew B.

It depends on your individual market. In my area, the hedge funds are buying up anything they can find listed on the MLS, which has reduced inventory significantly. This has resulted in higher prices and houses listed on the MLS, whether they be REOs or owned by a private seller, are much less likely to accept an offer that is below full retail price. I can find properties on the MLS that I can buy and hold, but flips are almost impossible to find at the moment.

@James Park I think we may have to go with a slightly more professional letter, but still in the handwritten style envelope. We could say we are real estate professionals with ABC firm and we can either sell your home or put you in touch with an investor who will buy it for cash.

I also wanted to build a basic website to point people to for the purpose of collecting some data from them and telling them a little more about how the process works. I believe this too will need my full name and brokerage on it because it is considered advertising. Maybe I could use my parent's email or LLC email for the website?

I am a real estate licensee in the State of Florida. My question has to do with disclosure of my licensee status when doing direct mailings such as yellow letters. As far as I know (I'm going to ask my Broker to be sure), the Florida Real Estate Commission requires disclosure of both the licensees last name and the brokerage on all marketing and advertising. The direct mailings I want to do are for me to purchase as an investor. I could also offer to list the properties I didn't want to purchase myself. I feel like the disclosure rule will reduce the effectiveness of my campaign, not to mention show the crazies out there exactly where to find me. I do purchase properties with my parents. We have an LLC with 50/50 ownership. I thought about sending the mailings with my parents names, but I would be the one taking the calls, so I don't think that would work. Does anyone have a similar situation or experience with this? I feel like there is a creative way to do this both legally and effectively.

Hey Sean,

I'm up in Lake County. I'm a recent grad as well. Let me know if you need anything!

Good points, @Tom A. You're more thorough than most. I'm currently studying for the GMAT, so cut me some slack!

We are lucky in that we have extremely low vacancy. We also do the repairs and property management ourselves, which helps control costs.

I agree with you @Michael Power. Good analysis.

@Wes Eaves, that's my next move. Maybe I'll try some direct mailing as well.

Here's one my parents just finished and rented in the past couple weeks.

Here's an example of a deal I'm working on now:

REO 3/2 that needs a lot of work.
$36,000 purchase price
$17,500 in rehab
$1,000 property tax per year
$1,000 insurance per year
$1,000 maintenance per year
(These are rough estimates)
$800 per month rent
$9,600 gross rent per year
$6,600 net rent

$6,600/$53,500 = 12.3%

We've found that the difference in rent between our homes and the more expensive homes is not justified by the higher rent. So we stick to the cheaper properties. They're by no means the slums, just clean, affordable housing!

@Ali Boone, those are without mortgages, btw!

@Ali Boone, our cap rates are usually 12-13% on these properties. I was just curious what everyone else was getting.