All Forum Posts by: Sean O'Dowd

These are great questions! 

If you can move anywhere, I'd recommend looking first online at the resources shared by Suzanne and even public sites like Zillow and Trulia. Do some searching to get a feel for what you can get in different areas of the country. You absolutely can get something in great shape for $150K, but it will definitely be a more rural area

I'd agree with everyone, disclosure is definitely the better way to go! It sounds like your vibe is pretty casual on your yellow letters, so I'd err on the side of making it a pretty casual disclosure.

Something along the lines of "I'd love to buy your house. Believe it or not, I'm actually an agent myself! When was the last time an agent actually tried to buy your house instead of promising they'd find you a buyer?!"

What a month! Congrats! I work with agents who do a wide range of transactions per month and 12 is absolutely upper limits there in terms of how many they do.

I'm a huge fan of handwritten notes and use them myself in my business. I've seen a ton of agents have success sending handwritten notes to all similar homes within the neighborhood to the one you just sold.

For example, if you sold a single family from the 1990's for $500K on that street, send a handwritten note to everyone else on that street with a single family from the 90's to introduce yourself, say you just sold 123 Main street for a "great price" and you'd be happy to give them advice about how they could get a similar price for their house.

Every seller keeps a close eye on what houses on their street sell for. Your notes will be well received!

Oh, sorry if I wasn't clear! Whether or not a loan is a jumbo is not up to you. It's based on the government-set level for your area.

In most cases, if you loan is >$500K, it's a jumbo loan whether you like it or not. 

Once it becomes jumbo, your lender is going be way more restrictive. Once it's jumbo, you're going to need significantly more down

https://smartasset.com/mortgag...

Jumping in here: I own a transaction coordination company so my clients are agents. These agents pay my company a fair bit of money each month in order to save themselves time. Agents also pay money to social media experts, leads companies, and a ton of technology  in order to save time.

However, the easiest time savings an agent can get is also the cheapest: not responding to any outreach that doesn't seem like a buyer will come out of it.

I'm sorry if this is coming across harsh, as it's not my intention. I'm simply trying to show that agents value their time so much that the best ones spend thousands of dollars a month to protect it. 

If your goal is to get an agent excited to work with you, then the best trick is to get a pre-approval from a local bank or lender. Nothing gets an agent more excited (and rightly so), than a buyer who already has that preliminary financing lined up and is ready to go!

Best of luck

I'll take a slightly different track. I'm the Chicago suburbs, but a downtown 3-flat (Chicago is weird and calls 3 units a 3flat instead of a triplex) in an A+ neighborhood like Lincoln Park or Wrigleyville will never cashflow

My wife and I even looked at a couple that could be used as an owner-occupant and the rent from the other units don't offset the mortgage. They are very much "negative cashflow."

However, these get snapped up in a second when they hit the market and there's a fairly large off-market network that sells them too. 

The reason why is most investors aren't buying them for the cashflow. They're OK being negative a grand or two each month because they're building ~$2-5K a month of equity from the mortgage equity. 

We have had a little baby, so we moved to the suburbs. In an alternate world where we didn't have the little guy, we would have bought one of these buildings as an owner occupant and been "negative" cashflow to build the equity

Vulcan7 is pretty popular and hard to beat.

Honestly, going "old school" still works pretty damn well though.

The phone book is a great option.

I'm also very partial to door knocking as well, especially in "hot" areas. Anyone who sees their neighborhood have lots of "for sale" signs is going to be more receptive to a realtor knocking on their door

Know this conversation has a couple different contentious points being debated. One additional point to raise though:

I am CEO of a transaction coordination company and see a ton of deal flow. It's right to say that there are more rentals being put on the market right now.

However, there is also a TON of buyers for those properties right now. In fact, I'd argue that the rentals I'm seeing are selling faster than ever. This is especially true for multi-families, 5+ units, typically A/B class.

My hypothesis is that there are a lot of wealthy individuals (doctors, lawyers) who typically invest in the stock market but are hesitant to do so now. It could be COVID, cyclicality, Game Stop, etc. However, a lot of those stock investors are looking to stay away from the markets right now and are quickly buying the real estate that landlords are selling

The public record tip is right. One additional thing you could do though.

If the 4plex is near you, I'd suggest knocking on the neighbor's door. Tell them you are looking about buying in the neighborhood and would they mind sharing with you what their utility cost is?

9 times out of 10, they verify what the public records will say.

The one other time: you'll find out that the neighbor bill is way lower than what the records say your new property pays. In that case, it means your property has something wrong, like a leak. 

Easy five minute investment, but could save a ton of money

Wow-this is absolutely horrible. So sorry to hear that this happened, and even more sorry to hear that your broker doesn't have your back on this.

The key question is: What is your objective?

If your objective is to get the commission, check to make sure the representation agreement you signed has not expired. Then, give them a call. It almost doesn't matter if it's enforceable. In my experience (I own a transaction coordination busisness so I've seen this before), the threat of legal action is more than enough to get everyone to work together.

If your objective is to learn what went wrong, I'd echo what Lien said. Reach out to your ex-clients and asks for feedback. What went wrong? 

My two cents: the feedback you'd gain is going to be 1000X more valuable than the commisssion. I'd index on the objective of learning what went wrong.

Again, sorry this happened but I hope it's the start of better things