All Forum Posts by: Steven Leigh

How to find motivated sellers is a HUGE question to cover. This will at least get you started. Work your way through the list.

http://retipster.com/50-quick-actions-you-can-do-today-to-find-motivated-sellers/

Seems sleazy to me because in my county it's totally free. But still, I would probably pay it because tax delinquent lists are really hot leads.

Also, another tip. Keep all of your returned mail and start researching the names with a site like BeenVerified.com because if you go that extra step and track these folks down, you may be the only one reaching them! Good luck!

So I'll add a rather strange update to my saga with the coaching program. Somewhere in the process of canceling the coaching or whatever, a few weeks later I have now started to get calls from the Alex system, which is Michael Quarles automated call center. They keep leaving voicemails and sending me texts every few days because I supposedly "contacted them about a house I was hoping to sell". I absolutely did not. 

This just adds to the communication and organizational issues that I witnessed in the coaching program, and it doesn't speak well for the Alex system either, as the messages seem very spammy and persistent. 

@Brent Hill What do feel this deal would have netted as a wholesale deal? 13k is very doable for wholesale deals and this seems like so much more work. 

@Tavaris Little It's not a dumb question.

Yes, I generally look for the seller to have 40-100% equity in the house, in other words if it is a 100,000 house and they still owe 60,000 they have 40% equity. If they owe nothing, they have 100% equity.

A short sale is going back to the bank and trying to negotiate a payoff at a smaller amount. It's possible, but it's very tricky.

The other option that SOMETIMES works, is that the seller is so desperate to sell they are willing to bring cash to the table to get the house sold. In that case, say I want to buy it for 70,000 but they owe 80,000. They may be willing to actually pay 10,000 at the closing table in order to get rid of the house. This is a RARE thing, but it does sometimes happen. Don't count on it often.

If all else fails, use the Parcel Map. You can zoom in and find your property and it gives you the name, which you can then search in their system I think.

Phew! What a mess! I thought my counties were arcane. 

Should be public and searchable. Here is Wayne County for you: 

https://www.waynecountylandrecords.com/recorder/we...

There's is just about the most confusing system I've ever seen, but maybe you can make heads or tails of it. It sounds like you need to know the name of the owner rather than looking it up by address, which is strange.

Try this if you can't get to it the way you want:

Go to Zillow.com and search for your address. Scroll to the section where it lists the bedrooms, sqft, etc. and click "More" to show the info that includes the parcel number. This is the number the county uses to track the property. This might be useful in your searches on the county site.

Also scroll down on Zillow to the Price/Tax History section and you might be able to get a name there. 

Good luck! Tag my name if you need more help, or you can even PM me.

I generally tell realtors to add their commission on top of my asking price when they market it to their buyers. It may be too late for that now, though. The buyer is generally expecting to pay for their buyer's agent, though, so I would think if you asked the buyer to pay the 3% commission for their agent, they would be fine with that.

I generally try to get agents the full 6% commission on my deals, and they just add that to the price for their buyer. It's why they love working with me. :) You could always consider taking some of their commission out of your fee if you have enough room to do that.

As for the mechanics of it, just put it in the addendum of the contract how you want it to go, and the title company should be able to take care of it.

@John Thedford You have a story about a bad wholesaler who screwed people over, so you are using it as an example that wholesaling is bad. 

I have several stories about "buy and hold" investors who turn into slumlords, don't fix their properties, cheat people out of their security deposits, and even eventually get locked up for it. Does that mean "buy and hold" is a bad strategy and that no one should do it?

As @John Thedford said, start with the tax records. The mailing address may be different than the property address.

If it's the SAME as the property address AND you know the house is vacant, that can be a GREAT lead! The county might not even know they are gone yet, and if you can reach them before the bank or the county/city know it's vacant, you can help the owner out before a lot of bigger trouble comes along. This can often be a homeowner who really doesn't want the property anymore, and thought they had no way out, so if you can just pay off the mortgage, back taxes, etc. that might be all they need.

If you've exhausted the tax records, try googling their name and address, or search for them on Facebook. If you want to go a little deeper, other investors have recommended beenverified.com. I haven't subscribed yet myself, but plan to soon, as I get a lot of returned mail and would love to track down the owners.