All Forum Posts by: Nick Cifonie

The usual way to close this would be to get it under contract to purchase at 40k, then do a double close using transactional funding.

Since the buyer is approved FHA, they will allow the dual closing, but if you mark it up more than 20% they'll want 2 appraisals and a little more documentation.

The alternative is to use hard money, private money, etc., and buy it yourself for 40k, lease it to the buyer for 90 days, and close after that... then you could resell for 75k or whatever without the 20% concerns.

Nick

DoDeals.com is Tim Mai's company... Tim is a stand-up guy, and I've never heard anything at all negative about him or his program.

Nick

Not learning the most basic of sales techniques, like answering a question with a question will cost you time, deals, and money. Saying not to do those type of things is like saying "I won't learn to negotiate, I'd rather wing it"... which is what you're doing if you don't learn certain cause-effect and planned responses.

Asking the right questions is the key to knowing how to reply...

From the information provided in the 1st post, she was losing control of the conversation, which caused her to lose deals... and money. The seller was asking all of the questions, she was answering them, and getting nowhere. (and losing potential deals)

A little sales training makes all the difference in the world... and without it, a car salesman (or investor) will either fail and leave the business, or do a lot less deals. We're all in the sales business, whether we admit it or not.

I'm NOT saying to lie, hustle anyone, or "take" someone for anything... but learning the most basic freshman rules of sales will accelerate your learning curve greatly, and answering, then asking another question is one of the 1st things a salesperson is taught in sales 101.

It can be the difference between getting 3 contracts signed of 10 house visits, (or phone calls) and 7.

Being up front and laying all your cards on the table is great, but knowing what to do (and how to do it) when being up-front doesn't work is also important. In time, it becomes second nature.

Some people are so motivated to sell that you can say everything wrong and still get the deal, but you also have to know how to deal with the "difficult" or skeptical seller to maximize time and profits. Most investors don't want to settle for only the "easy" ones.

Again, I'm NOT saying to be rude, lie, scam, or BS anyone, but you'll get a lot further knowing persuasive speaking techniques than not.

Nick

the seller who brought you the deal can list it with you, as long as he discloses it to the owner of record. (we do this ALL the time... get a contract, then list it ourselves)

The contract we have the seller sign has a clause in it that discloses that we may put it on the MLS, although we used to do it without putting it in writing. (as long as we have the equitable interest)

So you'd get paid by the person who has the 1st buying contract when it closes. No title company will question a Realtor getting paid, with or without an assignment in the deal... however, you're right, you likely won't make as much $ this way. Maybe take 6%?

Anyway, if you find a deal someone else already has under contract, and you get an option to buy from them, you're within your rights to try and find a buyer. What you want to attempt to do though, is take control of the transaction, so you don't get lost (or cut out) somehow.

When you sign your option with your seller (not the owner of record) I'd suggest you tell him, as well as have it in writing, that if you find a buyer, you want to be put in contact with the owner of record and facilitate the close. Either that, or have your attorney do it.

You could have your seller assign the deal to you, then do a double closing, you from the owner of record, then you to the end buyer, or you can have your end buyer close directly with the seller, paying YOU the spread, and YOU pay the parties involved.

I find this to work, as long as I am in control.

A disclaimer: This has been found to work and be legal in the states I do business in. I'm not familiar with "every" states Realtor and listing rules, so in some areas it may be questionable.

Nick

First off, the deal looks good. Like above, do your due diligence and make sure of the condition, future rental potential, etc., but it definitely makes sense.

The fact that you'll have a low payment that can be covered relatively easily even if all 3 units are vacant is assuring as well. (I bought my 1st rental properties with payments of $1700-$2200 a month, BIG mistake!)

As far as quitting the job, I was able to leave my job after around 6 months investing, but to do so, you have to have a different model than 100% buy and hold.

Buy and hold will make you wealthy over time... but if you want real estate to pay the bills sooner, you'll want to learn wholesaling, rehabbing, short sale flips... some type of buy now-sell now method.

Perhaps set a goal of 2-4 properties a year bought and rented, and one "flip" a month to pay the bills.

Whatever you do, don't be in a hurry to quit your job, even if you make some fast $. That was another mistake I made you can learn from, heh.

As far as the bank guy telling you that you can only have 3 loans in your name... you'll learn plenty of ways to get around that.

Nick

Like stated above, the empty units can be excellent. Since each building is separate and commercial, you can get a value of the properties individually.

It may be in your best interest ONLY to buy the vacant ones, depending on cap rates.

Nick

I guess I'm the exception to the rule here!

I have new investors who run my leads for me under my guidance, and we pay them 25%-50% when we close.

They do all the work of course... although we generate the leads, provide the funding, etc..

I'll take 70% of 10 people's profits over 100% of my own ANY day.

Nick

I could explain how to do it if you have an interest of course... get an option, and do whatever you like with it...

However, as a Realtor, couldn't you just facilitate the deal and charge a commission?

Maybe I missed the point, but that would make sense to me.

Nick

When asked that, you need to answer, but you also need to take control of the conversation while doing so...

One such technique is to "answer their question with a question", after giving them a brief statement.

Example:

(seller) Can you tell me about your program?

(investor) We have several different programs, if you can tell me a bit about your situation I can tell you which program best suits your needs. Do you have an unwanted or vacant property that you need to lease or sell?

They then start to talk about their property.

You can even be more specific with your questions.

However, you should develop a short patter about what you do.

"We work with homeowners with an unwanted or vacant property that they are having a hard time selling. We provide a service where we put a good family into the property that cares for the house and makes your payments for a while until they get financed and close on the property. There's no charge to you to use the service, and you'll no longer have to maintain the property or deal with any tenants."

I can assure you it works 90% of the time. :)

Nick

We've had so much trouble with BOA that we're not taking any more short sales with them.

The problem we seem to have is the Equator system they use. Prior to them using that, we had good luck with them.

In any case, we have a couple of old deals we're still working on with them and had something similar just happen.

We had an approval letter, submitted HUD, etc., and we were ready to close, then for some reason the case showed up as "closed". The person we were dealing with was suddenly not with the company any more (this happens ALL THE TIME!).

In this case, we had the Realtor whos Equator system the deal was being run through call another number and somehow got a VP on the phone. He explained to him we were ready to close, etc., and he got the OLD price and deal accepted.

We've not closed yet, should be in a week or two, but in our case we ended up getting a closed case re-opened and accepted at the old agreed upon #'s.

We find very commonly, that when working on SS's, if we get an answer we don't like, or more specifically something ridiculous that we KNOW is wrong, by simply calling back and asking for someone else, we get the problem solved.

I know, it sounds unbelievable, but we do it all the time, and get totally different answers and different help just by talking to someone else.

Gotta love the banks.

Nick