All Forum Posts by: Mark Freeman

@Jamie Wooley 

I've had pretty good success with winter rye.  (I'm not sure how it does in Texas).  Plant it as soon as you get the property and make sure it gets some water. (I put some out in the middle of a drought and it didn't start to come up for 6 weeks because it didn't get much water). It will probably take 5 or 6 weeks to look pretty good. It doesn't grow very fast so it makes mowing easy, but it will die when it gets hot.

@Tammy Wise

Try 220 grit sand paper (the metal screen kind) with a good cleaner.  I have had good success with this but it can be pretty labor intensive.

@Jerry Poon

I like your question about What happens if MEXICO has an outbreak? I'm bringing this back up on the active list to see if anyone else has an opinion about an EBOLA outbreak in a bordering country. Seems like we'd be in trouble with our porous border!

@Jerry Poon 

I don't know how it will affect real estate, but I'm glad I'm glad we're not in the airline business!

@Summer Segeleon

In California you can tell your title company that you don't want the price you paid to show up in public records. The title company does things a little bit differently and you sign one extra form. After that no one knows what you paid for it! It works beautifully for flips or wholesales! You might look into it and see if your people can do something similar for you on the next one.

@Kenneth Z. 

I don't have any experience in the military but I used to be a door to door salesman.  I have knocked on 10's of thousands of doors.  There were lots of days (probably most of them) when I dreaded knocking on the first door. There were even days when I showered and got ready to go and couldn't get myself to leave the house. Sometimes I gave into my fears and was paralyzed, not able to do anything.

Most days I remembered that If i just got that first door out of the way everything got easier. The 2nd door was so much easier and by the time I hit the 3rd or 4th, I had forgotten how hard it was getting started on the 1st one. Once I got a sell under my belt there were many times that it seemed like people couldn't say no. They could tell I was successful and their neighbors were buying from me and they wanted to as well. I like what Luis Lopez said about acting like an expert. Sellers want to deal with someone who is confident and seams experienced.

At this point you have nothing to lose other than potential deals. I would consider every call back a success whether or not anything comes of it. You can learn something from every call and so you are that much better off.  I have learned a lot on every deal I've done even when they didn't go the way I hoped. The beauty of real estate is that it affords an opportunity to earn while you learn. Unlike many schooling programs that saddle you with student loans without any guarantee of a job when you graduate.

You can do this and have already gotten close to a deal. It will only get easier. Good luck my friend, 

Mark

You would be better off to give your friend $2,000 or even $20,000 if you can afford/want to no strings attached.  Then you would be able to maintain your friendship and even feel like you tried to help.  As one who didn't lend to him, if he does lose his business/house you can be there to console him and give him another $2,000 if needed to get into a new place.

You can't afford to lose the $200,000 so you shouldn't lend it to a friend. Can you imagine foreclosing on him if he gets behind on his payments? Calling him constantly to try and find out where your money is?  As the lender, you would become his enemy if you aggressively collected or foreclosed on him.  He would resent that you loaned him the money wanting to make a tidy 18% profit and then ruined his life and business by aggressively foreclosing when things went bad. There is a very small chance this loan works if you go through with it and a much greater chance that you either lose your $200,000 and your friend or he looses his  business and house and you both lose a friend when you foreclose.

@J Scott 

In California you can have the title co. Run it so that what you paid for it won't show up in records. Then the appraiser can't use your low purchase price against you. On my part it's just one extra form and a signature.

@Quentin S. 

Sub 2, then fix and put on the MLS. Offer him a little something out of escrow when it closes if needed to delay the mortgage payoff a few months. He wants that mortgage paid off so do it fast and move on. Should be a nice profit!

@Tony Thompson

Any updates? Just wondering what happened on this one? I think the 10% non refundable probably killed it? Putting up $170k non refundable to try and make say $25k to $50k+ doesn't make a lot of sense. Seems like way to much risk compared to the reward. I am still interested though, and if it didn't work out, did you learn anything for next time? Thanks,

-Mark-