All Forum Posts by: Jennifer Minge

Contact John Bell at 404-374-7075. Tell him you got his name from Jennifer.

Yes you can buy a foreclosure before it hits the MLS by posting your contact information on the property. I purchased a foreclosed quad this way. We knew when it was foreclosed on, waited a month or two till all of the tenants were gone and property was vacant, we posted our business card with handwritten note on back that says we want to buy property. Put on all 4 doors. The bank assigned it to an agent who had yet finished all the necessary paperwork to get it listed. The agent sent a person out to rekey all of the locks and put a lockbox on it in preparation of showing. That person saw our notes, called the agent and relayed the information and the agent called us that night. Once she realized we already owned other quads in the area and were serious buyers we named our purchase price and why we offered that amount. She talked to bank and they bank acccepted it. The agent did convince them that it was a good offer using the reasons we gave her. I think she was motivated because we did not have an agent which meant she got 100% commission. We closed 3 weeks later. It was never listed in the MLS.

I use to write extensively for their website on real estate investing. They dropped that when they went to the new layout.

Realquest has 2 different products: RealQuest Pro and RealQuest Express. The price mentioned above was for the Express and when you called the quoted you the Pro product.

The Pro product is designed for full time real estate people that means appraisers, agents etc. For most real estate investors the express product will give you the information that you need.

If I remember correctly you can put in an address in the pro version and it will atcually show you a map of all properties on that street. If any are listed in foreclosure they will be flaged, if any are reos they will have a different color flag. You can get details of who owns, purchase price, tax value for all properties on the street.

With the express version it just gives you the owner name, date and price purchased and tax appraised value.

If you drive by a property that you want to find out more information on then the express will allow you to put in the street address and it gives you that information.

I think we are getting caught up on semantics. Yes there use to be part of the IRS code called component depreciation which isn't allowed. Since I was recommending Al's book I used his wording exactly in his product. The chapter on depreciation is called "operation component dereciation". The reason the word component is used is because you break down your real estate property into different components that are depreciated using different rates.

I second his book. It rocks.

Seems the tenant has the landlord pretty well trained to accept rents on their terms instead of yours. In addition they know they can short pay by paying only part of the late fee because you have shown a pattern of not attempting to collect it.

Obviously this late payment history annoys you because you are posting here. Suggestions that you keep the tenant and do nothing is equivalent to saying suck it up and live with the annoyance. You have to ask yourself if that is what you really want to do or not.

He has been there for 2 years so he is aware of when the rent is due. Filing one dispo due to late payment on the 5th next month will get his attention and get him trained back to paying on time. This will also reduce the stress in your life which is why you came to asking the question in the first place, right?

I too have spent a fortune on buying books, tapes, CDs, bootcamps and courseware on real estate investing. Of everything that I have every purchased, I would rank Al's material as the best purchase I ever made.

I have only dealt wtih 2 CPAs in my life when it comes to doing taxes for real estate investors. Both of them never offered to tell me about the tax write-offs that I am entitled to when doing real estate investing. Both wanted to calculate depreciation using the 80/20 rule instead of doing component depreciation.

The first year we had our business tax return done for our real estate investing business, I actually took Al's book and made changes and sent it back to the CPA to redo the return. The first CPA said it was illegal so I gave them the tax code citation that Al includes with every entry in his course. So this is why we ended up with 2nd CPA and he said it would be best not to take the write offs I am legally entitled to because the IRS might audit us. My argument is if I am doing what is legal then what is the problem.

Now every year when we do our tax returns I actualy prepare the component depreciation stuff and send it to the CPA and he just plugs it in to do our tax return.

His course is well worth the purchase price in my opinion. I think it makes you more knowledgeable about the tax code than your cpa.

Hope that helps.

You can download a .pdf sample of one of their newsletters directly from the noteworthy website. This will let you judge whether or not it is worth subscribing based on your needs.

A suggestion would be to look at the book they sell call calculator power. It will actually walk you through all kinds of scenarios you might encounter with notes such as balloons, paying partials, remaining balance on existing loans, calculating your roi, calculating offer price based on your roi etc. If you don't do notes on a regular basis it is nice to have this as a reference to refer to to when you do get involved with a note.

I don't get any commission on recommending this book. I purchased it from their website and have used it as a reference myself.

My suggestion is to read everything you can about short sales. Your source of information can be books from bookstore or materials sold by experts in this field. Neither path will give you 100% of the information that you need to be well informed to do short sales on your own. Together they will give more knowledge that they will individually.

If you half way competent at following directions, get the short sale packet from the bank. Every bank has one. Every bank has a loss mitigation department that you will call to the the information. They can fax it or mail it to you and the fax can take up to 2 days for you to receive it.

The information contained in the short sale packet is exactly what you need to submit to the bank. DO NOT forget to include anything because if you do the bank will set it aside and will not call you to let you know so you are just left hanging.

The material that you read will help you in completing the short sale packet. This is because the materials will have sample hardship letters, advice on what to include in cover letter, where to put your offer amount etc. You would not get this for the short sale packet.

If you are still nervous about doing your first deal, then partner with someone that has done short sales to help you do the first deal. I would recommend you doing most of the work on completing the short sale packet and then letting the partner review it for accuracy. Believe me when I say once you have done your first deal then you should be able to do your next deal completely by yourself.

Hope that helps.