All Forum Posts by: Marvin McTaw

@Rowan Yearwood don't get overwhelmed by everything you think you need to do. In the famous words of Gary Keller, we often succeed in spite of everything we do, not because of it. 

I'd encourage you to talk with a handful of cash buyers and find out what they are looking for because their purchasing criteria may be vastly different than what a 70% rule number would suggest. For example, we have some buyers that will pay up to full ARV for certain types of properties.

I'd also encourage you to read Real Estate Wholesaling: The Ultimate Guide. It's a good starting point and would answer a lot of your questions.

@Earl EJ Jones I think you may be getting mixed up between active, pending and sold comparables. When you are looking to determine After Repair Value (i.e. how much the property would be worth once it's fixed up), you should focus on the sold comparables (i.e. deals have closed and money has changed hands). Those are the best indicators of actual value since they've already closed. For the most part you can ignore Active & Pending listings although they do provide indicators of where Sellers think they could potentially sell their house at. A lot depends on the neighborhood but I would suggest using Zillow or RedFin to help you find comps if you don't know yet what you're doing. Hope it helps! 

@Angie A. don't feel the need to shy away from making a profit. You're running a business, not a charity. I would encourage you to speak to the seller about your need to have a win/win transaction. She wins by selling the house as-is, relatively fast and you win by having a profitable transaction. You could present her with the information from the contractors and potential buyers to help. You can't and shouldn't do a deal that doesn't make business sense for you to do. If the Seller is unwilling to move, then cancel your agreement and move on. 

@Rick Mavrovich I've used Listability.com before to pull data lists. I had lower bounce/returned mail rates using their data. The one drawback relative to Listsource.com is that it is not self-serve. You have to go through an account rep to pull the data you want. 

You could also try Rebogateway and there are a number of other list building services including vacant house data feeds and such.  

@Teja Williams it's probably important here to make a distinction between the asset (i.e. the property) and the owner (i.e. the legal Trust). The revocable trust most likely owns the property. The trustee (i.e. the person who controls the assets of the trust) can sell the property to you or your legal entity. 

Said differently, you most likely are not wholesaling a trust. You are likely trying to wholesale property owned by the trust. Due to this, there is no reason to approach this any differently than a regular wholesale transaction with someone using a legal entity to enter into an agreement. Make sure the person has the authority to sign on behalf of the entity and you should be good to go.

@Devonte Blackmon welcome to BP! There are local forums here on BP where you might be able to find some nearby collaborators. I would also encourage you to check out your local real estate investors association and even Meetup.com for any meetings or events that may be taking place. 

Hi @Parth Patel ! You're actually in my hometown of Gainesville, FL in Alachua County. Go Gators! 

Generally speaking with probate records, you're usually looking for the estate administrator or executor i.e. the person who has the authority to make the decisions about settling the estate. This is usually the person you need to look for and to contact and many times some of their contact information will be included in the materials.

Now if you're looking to determine whether or not the estate has property, you can go to the  Alachua County Property Search Page On The Property Appraiser Website and look up the decedent's name to see if they own any property. That being said, their name may or may not show up on the website. For example, the decedent's may have owned property in a legal entity which would not show up on the property tax records under their name. This is usually the reason I'd suggest contacting most of the people on the list.

In any scenario, feel free to reach out to me if you need some more help. 

@Justin Westmoreland - there are lots of resources you can use to find phone numbers of property owners including Whitepages, That's Them, Pipl and a whole host of other tools and resources. For larger lists when we're trying to complete our database we use LexisNexis and TLO. Skip trace reports also should generally include phone numbers. Also, don't overlook using social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.) to find property owners. Phone numbers aren't the only way to contact people.    

@Todd Freeman I'm fairly confident you can wholesale property contracts in TN without a real estate license. 

@Daniel Williams we've used it in the past and have had some success generating leads and deals from it. Its usually better if you can layer on one or more other potential reasons they might consider selling (e.g. delinquent taxes, fines, etc.)