If you have negotiated a discount with the bank in a short sale, can you flip the property successfully to another investor?

This article explores the possibilities of wholesaling a short sale property.

In order to wholesale a property, it is necessary that the difference between your buying price and selling price leaves you a profit. Wholesale real estate investing involves finding greatly discounted properties, then finding a buyer, usually a real estate investor to buy it.

You sell it at a discount because the buyer does all the repair and you walk away with some money. This can be as little as $3000 to as much as $15,000.

If there is no enough equity in the property to allow you to make a profit, it may be possible to negotiate with the bank so they accept less than the mortgage balance. This is called a short sale.

If you create equity through a short sale, the banks require you to close usually within 30 days.

Let us explore different scenarios:

1)      Assigning a contract

In order to wholesale a property, you can simply assign a contract to the real estate investor buyer. For this, your contract needs to have the buyer “and or assigns”. Banks do not allow this clause, so this method is out if you are doing a short sale.

2)      Simultaneous closing

The next method involves buying and selling the property on the same table in a simultaneous closing, also called a double closing. As a real estate investor, you walk away with the difference.

One way of funding a simultaneous closing is using the buyers funds to close the first transaction where you buy. A lot of hard money lenders did not mind this. However lately, most of them will not accept this.

In addition, if you negotiate a short sale, the bank will not allow you to use the buyer’s funds to close the first transaction. This means you must have the money to close it.

Hard money lenders also offer transactional funding, used for just closing the first transaction, making this transaction possible.

3)      Seasoning issues

Lately, if you negotiate a short sale, more and more banks are now requiring that you hold the property for at least 30 days before you sell it.

This means that you can get a hard money loan, buy the property and flip it 30 days later. However, you of course have to take into account the buying and holding costs involved.

Of course, this filters out a lot of deals that would have made you lots of money without this clause. A deal that makes you $3000 to $5000 does not fit into this category. You would have to focus on higher dollar properties to make this work.

No matter whether you wholesale houses, do short sales, buy or sell houses or whatever your real estate investing   business model is, it is necessary to close more deals using less effort, time and money to make more profits. Learn how you can automate your business using an interactive real estate investing website.

We will concentrate on this meaning in this article.

Wholesaling houses is the quickest method to produce cash in real estate investing. It also needs the least amount of cash invested in the deal. Occasionally you can wholesale houses without using your own cash.

So what does it involve?

1) Identify cheap houses
The best source of cheap houses is motivated sellers. People with legal problems form the best source of cheap houses. These are people with inherited property, bad tenants, liens on their properties, divorcing and so on.

The easiest way is to send them letters or post cards. In my business, I send them 2 mail pieces a month apart. Each letter or post card prominently displays my real estate investing website URL as the main call to action. My phone number is less obvious. This way, I drive them to my real estate investor website which pre-sells for me.

Chances are the transactions I get are fully pre-screened and pre-negotiated so I need just a few minutes to tell whether it is a deal or not – then make an offer or move on.

Some people wholesale properties that have been foreclosed, but this is not the subject of this article.

2) Sign a contract to buy
As soon as you have identified a good deal whose figures look desirable, you must put it into contract. In each state, there are contracts regularly used by real estate agents, or you can get contracts that can be used countrywide. I prefer to use contracts mandated by our state real estate commission because they are more popular and most people, including title companies and sellers are more comfortable with them.

3) Begin title work
I generally take my contracts to my title company for title work to begin. You must ensure you buy and sell the house free of any liens. This is the work of the title company.  As an investor, you do not need to get too concerned about the technicalities involved. I prefer to let professionals do their work.

4) Identify buyer with cash
I prefer dealing with real cash in the bank. Cash transactions have few limitations and are better. Most real estate investors buying houses may have sold a house or have a line of credit for cash purchases.

Alternatively they have private money investors or get cash from hard money lenders.

Avoid buyers looking for traditional financing. Most loan companies will not lend on houses that need restoration and you could have seasoning issues, meaning you must hold the property for 6 months to 1 year before you can sell it.

5) Sign a contract to sell
The type of contract you sign depends on the amount of money in the deal. First, you must leave enough money in the deal for the real estate investor buyer. After all they will do rehab work.

If I stand to make less than $10,000 I prefer to do a contract assignment.

In contract assignment, you simply assign your contract to your real estate investor buyer. You assign the contract; you do not sell or assign the house. This is perfectly legal all over the country and you do not need a license for it. This contract is usually as little as 2 to 3 paragraphs.

In this case, the real estate investor buyer you wholesale the deal to closes the transaction, not you. You collect an assignment fee once the deal is closed.

If  I am making more than $10,00 or my profits are near or the same as the real estate investor I sell to, then I prefer to do a simultaneous closing, also called double closing. This involves buying the house from my motivated seller, then selling it to my real estate investor buyer.

In a double closing, you buy and sell on the same table, so it involves 2 transactions. In this case, you own the property for a few minutes before you sell it. Of course, you have to incur closing costs that you do not incur in contract assignment.

He  contract for simultaneous closing id just like the one to buy with a higher selling price and more favorable terms for you.

In either case, you must collect earnest money before you sign the contract. I always make sure the earnest money is non-refundable if they do not buy the house. You must make sure the contract expires before your contract to buy and the property reverts back to you.

6) Collect your cash
You must make ensure follow the transaction process until the deal is closed. You collect your check from the title company when the  transaction is completed. It is therefore in your best interest to make sure you close any loose ends and make sure the deal does not fall between your fingers.

How must money must you have to flip houses?
When you sign your contract with the buyer, you may have to put up earnest money, usually between $100 to $500. There is no contract without earnest money. When I sign the contract to sell, I collect an earnest money check which is deposited with the title company.

In simultaneous closing, the first transaction can be closed with cash from your investor buyer so you may not need to use your own money. If your buyer source of funds does not allow you to use his money to close the first transaction, then you might need to get transactional funding to a few points to close the first transaction before you can sell.

When all is said and done, the checks you collect from flipping houses will be easy and fast. You can close a few houses a month.

 As such it is typical to appear in search engines within a few days to a few weeks.

 In addition, the real estate investor websites now inform search engines whenever new content is posted, inviting them to index the websites. In addition, they also automatically notify websites that re-print people’s content of fresh information, so that they may reprint that content linking back to the website thereby boosting search engine rankings automatically.

 With the recent introduction of real, life-like video speaking models who instantly capture prospect’s attention with a down to earth message designed to convert leads into sales, the websites will deliver more closed deals to real estate investors.

 “We designed the websites to attract leads, tell your story and convert those leads into close real estate deals.”

 The websites require a one-time low payment that all real estate investors can afford, yet deliver features, adaptability and ease of use un-equaled in the market.

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Such motivated sellers are driven by circumstances beyond their control, and sometime they can lose the house if they do not sell. Such circumstances include

Foreclosure

• Bankruptcy
• Divorce
• People with liens
• Burned landlords with defaulting tenants
• Job transfer – hence they own more than one home
• Expired listings – homes that just don’t sell
• Inherited property (and sometimes debt)
• Property that needs repair, so is not marketable
• And so on

The key to locating motivated sellers is locating people in trouble who own real estate.  Identifying sources of these leads will give you an almost unlimited number of leads that could become profitable deals.

There are several sources of such leads that exist in most places:

1)  Subscription newsletters

In my surrounding counties there are subscription newsletters that list every record in the local county court system. Even though these may not exist in your local market, they are valuable sources of good leads.

I check people in bankruptcy, divorce, liens, probates, etc, then check if they own real estate. If they do, they get into my mailing list

2) County records

From most counties, you can get information such as filed notice of default, foreclosure notices, probate notices, etc. These are valuable sources of leads for your real estate investing business

3) MLS listings

People trying to sell their houses for a long time unsuccessfully quickly become motivated sellers. These expired listings can be valuable source of leads for your real estate investing business

4) Burned landlords

Landlords filing for eviction in the local courthouses are fed up with their tenants and properties, and may be looking to sell as motivated sellers

 5) Compiled leads

Even though these might be over-shopped, you may find people that compile lists such a foreclosures, bankruptcies, etc for sale. Sometimes these can yield good leads for your real estate investing business

6) Absent home owners

People that own property, but their mailing address is different from the property address means they have more than one home. It’s likely these can be motivated sellers for your real estate investing business

Once you have identified the best leads for your real estate investing business, the next step is to send them marketing mail pieces whether post cards of letters.

Preferably, send them more than one mail piece spaced maybe 30 days apart. This will drastically increase response rate.

Always make sure that you provide a web address for your real estate investing website as well as a phone number. Your website should take the role of convincing them that you are the best buyer for their property and pre-screen and pre-negotiate the deal for you.

If they call instead, make sure you have a scripted series of pre-screening questions that will tell you if it is a deal or not quickly without wasting time.

House Flipping Website

If you are a real estate investor that sells houses to other investors at wholesale prices, then you must have a  website for flipping houses for your business.

 First, what is flipping houses?

Flipping houses (or wholesaling houses) involves locating houses at below market prices, then “flipping” them to other real estate investors at a discount. This is one of the fastest ways to make money in real estate. It is also the real estate investing model that probably requires the least amount of work and cash invested into each deal.

The process goes something like this:

1) You (Real estate investor) locate discounted or distressed property puts it under contract

2) You then take this contract to the title company with earnest money to get the title work done. This is necessary to ensure the property will be delivered free and clear

3) You locate another real estate investor who does not mind putting in more work and time into the property. You the ”sells” this property to the new investor (wholesale buyer) through one of two methods:

Assigning the contract:
This involves assigning the contract to the new investor for a  fee (assignment fee ). The wholesale buyer closes on the property himself.

Double closing (simultaneous closing):
If the profit margin is high, you actually close on the property yourself, and sell it to the wholesale buyer on the same closing table. This is why it is called a simultaneous closing (or double closing). Your title company should be able to guide you through this.

The wholesale buyer ends up doing most of the work (such as repair) and makes more money eventually after they fix and sell. You have to leave more money on the table for the wholesale buyer. Typically, you must locate properties for sale at 65% of market price minus repairs or less if you are to wholesale a deal successfully. Most wholesale buyers will express less interest when the profits go below this figure.

Web Sites For Flipping Houses

I use my  real estate investor website to sell my houses fast. With these websites, you get several key features that come standard with the website:

1. Easily list houses – as easy as filling in the blanks from your admin panel
2. Automatically build your buyers list – every time buyers loook at your properties, they are presented with the opportunity to join your buyers list
3. Upload unlimited pictures
4. Upload documents – such as comps, a contract to make an offer from etc
5. Include video virtual tours with your listing
6. Google maps automatically populated in your listing
7. Allow potential  buyers to share your properties on social networking websites like Twitter, Facebook, etc – tremendously increasing chances of a quick sale

And a lot more features. Check Web Sites For Flipping Houses for more information

It is also the real estate investing model that probably requires the least amount of work and cash invested into each deal.

Flipping houses involves locating houses at below market prices, then “flipping” them to other real estate investors at a discount.

Most of these properties come from distressed home owners (motivated sellers), such as home owners facing foreclosure, going through divorce, job loss, job relocation, illness, or simply cannot afford to keep making mortgage payments.

Sometimes they just need to get rid of the house, but cannot afford to do the repairs needed, or simply don’t want to do it. They therefore accept to sell the houses at a discount for a quick and easy closing.

When you flip a house, the profit may not be very big (such as when you sell at retail), but you make your money fast, typically within two weeks.

The process goes something like this:

1) Real estate investor locates discounted property from a motivated seller and puts it under contract

2) He then takes this contract to the title company to get the title work done to ensure the property will be delivered free and clear

3) Another real estate investor (wholesale buyer)  acquires the house through one of two methods:

a) He takes over their contract for an assignment fee and closes on the property himself or

b) He buys the property from the investor in a double closing (simultaneous closing). In this case you buy the property and sell it to the wholesale buyer on the same closing table.

The wholesale buyer ends up doing most of the work (such as repair) and makes more money eventually after they fix and sell.

You as the real estate investor flipping the house have to leave more money on the table for the wholesale buyer.

Typically, you must locate properties for sale at 65% of market price minus repairs or less if you are to wholesale a deal successfully. Most wholesale buyers will express less interest when the profits go below this figure.

You must then quickly find wholesale buyers with cash in order to flip your property quickly.
Finding buyers often involves a combination of methods, both online and offline. The more methods you can employ, the more likely you are to find a cash buyer.

Offline methods include advertising the property to local real estate investors in local newspapers. I always make sure to give them my web site, rather than my phone number. Using a well designed landing page (squeeze page), they have to give me their name email and phone number before they can access my deals – building a very powerful buyers list.

The first thing I do is to email my deals to my buyers list, a list of active real estate investors I have accumulated both from local REI meetings and my website.

Each person inevitably ends up on my web site to view the full details of the property such as comps, live video vitual tours and pictures. In the process, they can email this deal to their friends exposing the deal to more potential buyers.

I use my real estate investor web site from  to build my buyers list and email my wholesale deals to real estate investors. My website also allows potential buyers to share my properties with their friends on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social networking media, and quick posting to Craigslist for a quick sale with the least effort.

Real Estate Investor Website

A Real Estate Investor Website provider has released new designs for their interactive real estate investing websites. Investors can now chose from 120 designs created specifically for real estate investing and get them fully customized to reflect their brand identity.

A simple, well designed, functional website that helps you close more deals is a basic necessity of any real estate investing business. When choosing a good real estate investing web site, it is important not only to have a wide selection of designs to choose from, but also to be able to customize the web site to look exactly the way you like it. It is keeping with this principle that these new designs for real estate investing websites have been released.

“Real estate investors can now choose from 120 designs created specifically for real estate investing. You can personalize each design with your company name and slogan or even logo, or get any design fully customized to reflect your full brand identity or even a new one built from the ground up at no extra cost.”

With many squeeze pages (landing pages) available with each web site, real estate investors can run targeted marketing and convert more leads into closed deals.

The websites are fully database-driven, interactive and adaptable to suit any real estate investing business model  controlled from a virtual back office (admin panel) with an inbuilt follow-up autoresponder system and un-equaled automation capability in the industry.

Each web site is delivered fully customized to suit your investing needs, whether you buy, sell or wholesale houses, attracting private money lenders or any other business model. Each comes fully optimized for search engines targeting your local market right where you buy and sell properties.

For more information and to see the available designs, visit Real Estate Investing WebSites or call 214-227-8718.

Press Release at PRWeb

Most these are profitable deals, but at the same time, lots of them cannot be profitable deals for the majority real estate investors.

With this proliferation in the number of deals available on the market, most real estate investors end up with more phone calls from motivated sellers looking to sell their houses. Needless to say, most of these phone calls cannot yield any deals at all.

You must therefore filter time wasters from real deals without wasting valuable time and effort, while still attracting all the good deals from motivated sellers. And why not do it hands-off if you can?

This is why you need a good real estate investing web site, which is a essential necessity of any real estate investing business.

At the same time, in the current world, every person expects every legitimate business to have a web site. Most people looking to buy or sell their house start their search from the internet even before they consult a professional such as a real estate agent.

These days, every person in America is has access to the internet. Most motivated sellers would rather to submit their house information in privacy over the internet.

Providing them with a link to your web site as well as a phone number gives them the choice to contact you through their most convenient method.

You must therefore have a real estate investing web site that is informative, efficient and interactive and one that makes your work easier and fun.

Here are a few basic rules you must follow in order to get the best real estate investors web site:

1: Privacy

You must have control of your web site and its contents. The web site must belong to you. Especially you must be able to host it where you want without unnecessary limitations where only you controls access to your data. If the company provides hosting, then capability to control the hosting account and your web site is a must.

Try to avoid companies that ask you to sign up for free, build up your web site with their templates, then pay them a monthly fee. If the web site must run on their server, be careful. In reality they own your web site for a monthly fee.

2) The web site must be database-driven

It must be able to collect information into a database and allow you to manipulate it any way you want, such as sending email, importing and exporting data and so on.

For example, when a motivated seller comes to your web site, they should be able to submit their property information effortlessly.

When you are selling houses prospective buyers must be able to sign up into your buyers list effortlessly.

If at all possible, when someone submits information on the web site, you should receive an email and that information should be logged into the database.

2) It must be interactive

The ability to interact with visitors is a crucial, necessary element of a modern web site, also particularly necessary in your real estate investing business.

You must be able to collect the information you want from motivated sellers, house buyers, or any other visitors that you target in your real estate business.

Your motivated sellers must not only be able to submit their houses for sale, but must also be able to leave testimonials, a crucial element to profitable real estate investing.

A modern real estate investors web site also needs to be web 2.0 compliant. Especially, it should allow you to share houses on social media web sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and others.

Even if you do not personally use these services, allowing your visitors (who also include other real estate investors) to share your properties with their friends on social networking media serves to share your properties wider to more people resulting to a quick sale. In today’s world, most real estate investors use social networking sites.

3) It must be simple, well designed and informative

You do not want your web site to look like every other real estate investors web site out there. The web site you buy should offer a big selection of designs to choose from and the ability to customize the designs to suit your real estate investing needs.

You should be able to keep your brand such as logo or even a custom look if you need to. If at all possible, you should not have to pay extra to choose any design you want.

Equally important, nobody wants to go through a maze to find out how you buy and sell houses, or how you run your real estate investing business regardless of your business model. A good real estate investing web site must be simple and informative enough for motivated sellers to submit their information on the web site instead of making a phone call thereby pre-screening and pre-negotiating deals for you.

The web site must seek to convert your target audience, such as pre-educate motivated sellers so they see you as the only professional qualified to solve their house problems. It must convince them to submit their information right there instead of making a phone call saving you lots of time.

When you are selling your properties, it must serve to present them in an easy, friendly manner so a potential buyer can tell in a few minutes if it’s a deal for them or not.

4) It must be optimized for search engines

Motivated sellers must be able to find you on the internet. So must house buyers or other leads that you target in your business. Your real estate investors web site must therefore be well optimized for search engines.

Targeting your local market on the search engines is especially important if you buy and sell properties in your local market

5) It must be easy to maintain

Most real estate investors are not computer geeks. A good real estate investing web site must be easy to run and control. If at all possible, the web site should be controlled from a virtual back office (admin panel). The front end should completely free of maintenance.

6) The web site must be easily adaptable and flexible

There is no one size fits all does in real estate investing. Each business is unique, and a good real estate investors web site must adaptable to your current real estate investing model you might have without major changes.

You must be able to create new pages, add or change content easily, and create any forms to gather any type of information you choose.

You should have the flexibility to choose designs and business model easily without major changes.

Most real estate investors also have other side businesses, such as being a mortgage broker, credit restoration, Realtors, etc. Your real estate investing web site must allow you to supplement these services along with investing in real estate if you want to.

7) It should offer automation capability

Automation is a essential necessity for marketing on the internet and making the running of your business easier.

A good real estate investing web site must allow you to create unlimited follow-up autoresponders to manage email campaigns for your motivated sellers, buyers lists or any other lists you manage on your web site.

For example, you can set up a Thank You message to motivated sellers after they submit their information, so that once they submit their house information, they get an instant message that says something like Thank you for your enquiry. We will get in touch with you within 24 hours or something like that.

Similarly, you should be able to create automated reminders to remind you of any important events on your real estate investing business. Your busy schedule should not get in the way of important follow-ups so crucial to successful real estate investing.

8 ) It must be inexpensive

Unfortunately, most real estate investing products are un-necessarily expensive. If you do not get hit with a big upfront invoice, you stuck with a big monthly fee.

The real estate investing web site you choose must not offer these constraints, otherwise it quickly becomes a liability instead of than an asset for your real estate investing business.

The web site must allow you to install it and run it from any web hosting account you choose.

9) It must offer free lifetime support and upgrades

When you buy your real estate investing web site, you must get free lifetime support and upgrades.

If a web site charges for everything they do for you, run the other way. Free support must be a essential part of any real estate investing business.

These are just a few tips to look out for when shopping for a real estate investing web site. There are many other minor things but if you abide by these basic rules, you should be happy with the web site you get.

In one sentence, the real estate investing web site you choose must make your business fun and simple to run.

Recommended Real Estate Investing Web Site

RealEstateInvestorsWebSites.net is no doubt the best service out there. Not only does it meet all the above qualifications, they offer lots of other features not included here that will no doubt take your real estate investing business to the next level.