Posts Tagged ‘real estate investing’

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4 things you must know before talking to motivated sellers

Monday, January 30th, 2012

Most of the best deals in real estate investing come from people who are motivated to sell their houses.   Even though the market has so many houses sitting there without buyers, not all sellers are motivated enough to leave enough room for you to make a profit.

Even the ones who are motivated may not have deals that could make you a profit.

It is therefore necessary when you talk to sellers that you weed out potential time wasters without turning off potentially good deals.

Here are 5 things you must know before you talk to the next motivated seller.

1) Do not waste your time
You must be the one to lead the direction of the conversation. You must direct it in the direction that provides answers to all the vital questions you need to determine if you have a deal or not.

Most buyers start talking about their beautiful house, updates they have done, nice neighborhood, and so on. Most of them are attached to their house and can continue for hours if you do not lead the conversation.

None of this information is of any value to you unless you can buy their house at a price that makes you a profit.

I make sure that I always have a script with a list of questions they must answer in the conversation.  the questions can be answered in any order, but I must know if I can make the deal happen or not within 2 minutes.

First, you must deal only with motivated sellers.  If they cannot tell you the mortgage balance, they are not motivated enough.  Most motivated sellers have no problem talking about their mortgage balance; they talk about it as casually as the number of rooms.

In my business, by the time I talk to motivated sellers, they have already been pre-screened and pre-negotiated with by my real estate investor website. A few of them will still prefer to call, and they usually have to be motivated enough to leave a voice message.

My virtual assistant then calls them and fills all the information on my website.   By the time I get to talk to them, I already know if it’s a deal or not.

This way, I avoid wasting my time or the sellers time with houses I might never buy.

2) Develop rapport
Do not  represent yourself  as Mr. Big Corporate House Buying Company.  You are just a regular guy that wants to buy their house as an investment property. Their house seems to meet your needs.

Build rapport with them as you talk, especially when you establish you can make the deal happen.

3) Listen, listen, listen
Listen, listen, listen – and since you are leading the conversation, learn how they got into the predicament, what repairs are needed, etc.

You mainly need the information that you need to determine the level of motivation, asking price, equity and repairs.
4) Negotiate
Always negotiate lower even though the asking price might look low.  Most people might feel like they got a raw deal if you do not negotiate.

You can negotiate on appliances, closing costs or even furniture, not just the price.

And always make an appointment to go see the house if the deal looks good at the first glance.

This will stop them from shopping your competition.  You can always cancel the appointment if you later think the numbers are not good for you.

As long as you remember to treat them nice, with respect and with sensitivity, they will be as keen to sell you their house as you are to buy it.

When your real estate investing business is run from an interactive real estate investing website, the website tells your story for you, pre-educating motivated sellers how you buy houses. It also automates most aspects of real estate investing, so you close more deals using less time, money and effort. Learn how you can employ such a website so you receive pre-screened and pre-negotiated deals ready for you to make an offer in just a few minutes.

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How To Sell Houses Fast On Autopilot

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

To be successful in real estate investing, you must sell your houses fast.   This is quite important in a slow market where houses can sit for months with no buyers, increasing your holding costs.

Having a means to accelerate this process is therefore important, and whenever possible, employing every tool at your disposal to sell your houses fast is a must.

In this article, we look at how to automate the process of getting potential buyers for your houses.

You must first remember that real estate is a face to face game.  A buyer must come to see the house before they buy it.

But the process of acquiring those buyers can be automated, and the end result is that you can sell your houses much faster.

I highly recommend and use squeeze pages.  A squeeze page requests your name and email in exchange for something you need.

In general do not ask for more than name and email; the more information you request, the less the response you will get from your squeeze page.

You end up creating a list of buyers who have money and buy in your local market.   These people are likely to buy your next deals without more advertising.

Let us look at some simple examples:

Squeeze Page Example 1:
When wholesaling my properties, I set up a squeeze page that asks for name and email to access a list of highly discounted properties.

In order for them to view those properties, they must provide their name and email, and they are instantly redirected to the page with property listings.

This is how I built my first buyers list.  I advertised my properties on the local newspapers and gave them a website address instead of a phone number.  The website address had a squeeze page.

I ended up with a list of about 200 very responsive buyers.

They ended up buying a few properties from me.

Squeeze Page Example 2:
This type of squeeze page must be built into your real estate investor website.

Properties listed on your website show a summary page with a list of properties with the estimated market value, sale price, equity, etc.
The information is just enough to build their interest.  They must click “More Details” to see more information.  A squeeze form in a lightbox then pops up requesting for name and email to access full details.

This is my favorite and consistently gives me more potential buyers than the first squeeze page.

Autoresponders
Automation is never complete without autoresponders.   An autoresponder sends previously written email messages at pre-timed intervals.

For instant once they sign up, an instant email is sent saying something like “Thank you for joining our buyers list. We will be sending you deals that meet your needs as soon as we get them.”

Over the next few days, they will be getting helpful messages automatically.   This helps build rapport and provide more information such as phone number, areas they buy from, types of properties, etc.

This information helps you in your marketing, so that potential buyers keep getting the exact type of properties they need.

Learn how you can automate your real estate investing business with a real estate investor website fully equipped with all the tools necessary for selling your houses fast, as well as buying houses. The end result is that you close more deals using less time, money and effort.

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How To Buy Houses With Equity In Real Estate Investing

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

To be successful in real estate investing, you must but low and sell high in your real estate deals. Specifically, you need to buy houses with equity. Generally this applies to all real estate investing business models.

So how do you know that a house has enough equity to make a profit for you?

When I bought my very first real estate investing deal, I simply gambled with numbers. At the time, the real estate market was such that all properties appreciated with time, so you could still make a profit even with marginal deals.

I did not think my effort justified the little money I made at the end of the day, so I almost gave up pursuing more deals. The numbers had looked so good I did not think there was any way I could lose.

Let us take an example:

Suppose you are buying a $200,000 house for $160,000. At first glance, it may seem to you like you have an equity of $40,000.

Let us take a deeper look at these numbers.

We will assume the house just needs a new carpet and paint plus a few touch-ups before you can sell it. Your monthly mortgage payment will be $1300.

We will assume that you will complete repairs within 30 days, and that houses are sitting an average of 90 days on the market before you can sell them.

Your numbers will look something like this:

1) Holding costs for 4 months: $5200
2) 2% closing costs when buying at $160,000: $3200
3) 2% closing costs when selling at $200,000: $4000
4) 6% Realtor’s commissions when selling the house: $12,000
5) Carpet, paint and minor touch-ups: $10,000
6) Property taxes prorated for 4 months (approximate): $1050

This is a total of $35,450 assuming nothing goes wrong.

In other words, your total expense in this deal is $160,000 plus $35,450, or $195,450.

This is a meager profit of $4550!

If anything goes wrong and you end up spending more in repairs, or it takes two more months before you can sell it, you are end up making a loss in the deal.

Scenarios like these are very common with real estate investors.

You should only work with numbers are PERCENTAGES not dollar figures.

As a wholesale rear estate investor, I acquire my properties at 65% minus repairs or lower.

Remember you also need to sell your properties at a discount to get them sold.

In order to get noticed, your house also needs to be quite attractive both in the asking price and overall condition. Buyers today are more picky because they have more houses to choose from.

You might therefore have to spend more on repairs to make them more appealing.

You must also remember that the holding costs could be much higher because it can take as much as 6 months or more to sell a perfect looking house.

You are more likely to remain profitable in your real estate investing business if you work with percentages that give you a good return on investment for your business model.

Successful investing in real estate requires that you acquire your deals cheaply and sustain a continuos flow of good deals that make you a profit. Learn how an automated, interactive real estate investing website can help you acquire more deals using less time, money and effort.

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Where To Buy Houses For Real Estate Investing

Sunday, January 8th, 2012

In order to make a profit in real estate investing, you must have a continuous flow of good deals.  This means you must buy houses at low prices and turn around and make a profit, regardless of your business model.

So where do you find these houses at below the market prices?

1) Motivated sellers
This is my most preferred method of getting great deals.  It still remains the most profitable way of getting the best deals that never find their way into the open market.

A motivated seller is someone who badly needs to get rid of their house.   In most cases they are behind on their mortgage, facing foreclosure, divorced, burned by bad tenants, have inherited property, and so on.  They can do anything to get rid of these properties which have become a big bother in their lives.

So how do you find motivated sellers?

Simply targeting home owners facing some legal trouble is enough.  In my local area, I get a listing of all filings in the county court system every day.  If they own real estate, they get into my mailing list.

These people are ready to do business once they call.

2) Wholesalers
Other real estate investors that sell houses at wholesale prices form an alternative source of cheap houses.

I usually have a lot of good deals, most of which I cannot pursue.    I sell them at wholesale prices to other real estate investors who put them back on the market.

When you buy a wholesale deal, you can buy the house in a simultaneous closing or take over the contract to buy the house.  Check our other articles for details of these transactions.

3) Local REI meetings
I can bet that right near where you live, there  is a group of real estate investors that meet close by. These are people who buy and sell real estate actively in your local market.

This is a place where you can find good deals.

4) REOs and the MLS
These are not the most profitable deals you can find unfortunately.  The asking price is usually too high for most real estate investors even though thousands of properties are sitting out there with no buyers.

This is because they are too over-shopped and price breaks are not that high.

These are the deals I recommend the least for investment purposes.

5) Courthouse auctions
You might need to do a lot of home work to get good deals in courthouse auctions.   I do not recommend this method unless you know what you are doing.

6) Craigslist and other online sources
This is another source that is too over-shopped, and most Realtors and FSBO owners market here.   It is not easy to get a good deal from Craigslist.

Most successful real estate investors close more deals using less effort, time and money by leveraging the power of technology to make their work easier. Learn how you can run your business from an interactive website for real estate investing that automates most of your tasks increasing profits for you.

 

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How To Buy Houses At The Right Price For Real Estate Investing

Monday, January 2nd, 2012

In real estate investing, buy low sell high is a very common expression.   Though it sounds quite obvious, it is not always easy to buy houses at the right price.

Your buying price must be low enough to make you profits whether you sell them right away or keep them as cash flow properties.

So how do you determine the best price for your property?

A few years ago, it was not un-usual to buy a house at 80 cents on the dollar and wholesale it for a tidy profit because the market supported it.  In fact, you always expected the price of the house to go up within a few months.

In the current market, when you buy a house, you expect the price to go down.   Almost every home owner has lost some equity in the home in the last one year.

When buying a house, you must consider this fact.  Today, the regular price for wholesale properties is 60 to 65 cents on the dollar minus repairs.

Also, tenants have become more choosy since there are more houses to chose from, and are likely to go for a house with a pristine rehab job.

This has made rental prices more competitive.

When you are buying houses, it is necessary to make sure you let the seller know these facts.

So I always let a seller know that even though it seems like they are giving me a deep discount on their property, I have to fix it, then sell it, probably hold it for months and eventually sell it at a deep discount.

And probably I’ll not be able to sell it at all!

I explain that I might lose most of my profits when I hold it.  When most sellers understand these facts, most  of them relax.

I like to make this clear before I can make an offer.  I have come to learn that even though motivated sellers really need to get rid of their properties, they do not like to feel like they are being taken advantage of.

Once they understand the current market conditions, then I can make my offer – and it offer does not look too low-ball and the seller is likely to accept it.

Why do you need to explain all this?

In the current market, it means you must buy houses much cheaper than we used to just a few years ago since you also must sell low in order to sell it at all.

If you buy properties on terms such as lease options, it is also necessary to do this. You must remember that even though the price for properties that you buy on terms is usually higher, it must still be low enough to cater for the facts above.

This way, in a year or two when you try to sell it, the price at that price will support the sale.

When buying houses, it is necessary to to pre-educate motivated sellers so they understand how you buy houses. It is also important to generate leads and follow up with them automatically to convert them to motivated sellers automatically. Find out how an automated real estate investing website can attract, pre-educate and deliver motivated sellers fully pre-screened and pre-negotiated so you close more deals using less time, money and effort.

 

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Wholesale Real Estate Investing: Contract Assignment

Saturday, December 17th, 2011

Wholesale real estate investing is an integral part of a real estate investors business when they buy  properties from motivated sellers.  This means that they buy them at a price low enough that they can sell them at wholesale prices to other real estate investors.

Contract assignment means that you assign the right to buy the property from yourself to another buyer, usually a real estate investor.

In other words, you simply change the name of the buyer to the real estate investor for an assignment fee.

Everything else on the contract remains the same.

How does it work?
The following simple steps describe the process of assigning a contract

1) Get the property under contract
Once you identify a property from a motivated seller, you put it under contract.  The contract must explicitly allow you to assign it.

The easiest way to do this is put the buyer with “and or assigns”, e.g. “My Company Name and or assigns”.
Without this little clause you might be unable to assign the contract.   It is very important that you let the seller know that you can assign the contract to another investor.

I also tell them that I could partner with another real estate investor.   They must understand that the contract and closing will not be changed, and that at the end of the day, you will make some profit out of it.

2) Get title work done
The closing agent is usually a title company or closing attorney.

3)  Sign the assignment contract
Once you have identified a real estate investor buyer, you then sign a simple contract for them to take over your contract.

You must collect earnest money when you sign the contract.   The title company usually keeps the earnest money.  Usually I credit the earnest money to the deal at closing; if they do not close the deal they stand to lose it.

4) Close the deal
The new buyer then goes through the process of funding the transaction for closing.   You walk home with your assignment fee at closing.

Advantages and disadvantages of contract assignment
In contract assignment, the need to close two transactions with two closing costs is eliminated.

The assignment fee stated in the contract is what you walk home with.
You must show the assignment fee in the contract.

The final closing statement also includes the assignment fee, meaning that all parties know what you make in the deal.

Be careful not to lose the deal because some seller or buyers could develop cold feet when they see how much you are making. To eliminate this risk, I only do assignment of contract when I stand to make little money.   I use simultaneous closing when I stand to make $5000 or more in the deal.

Some deals also cannot be assigned, such as those involving a Realtor or REOs. Such contracts usually specifically disallow contract assignment.

The biggest advantage is that even with little to no money, you can make a deal happen and walk away with a profit.

Wholesale real estate investing requires that you sell your houses fast to keep it successful . Learn how an interactive real estate investing website can help you sell your properties faster by building your buyers list and using the power of social media to reach more buyers.

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How To Overcome Objections By Motivated Sellers In Real Estate Investing

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

In real estate investing, having all the numbers is crucial to evaluating a deal and making a good offer that gets accepted and makes you a profit.  Most often when I talk to motivated sellers, I find they are not willing to provide some of the information I need to evaluate the deal accurately. Usually they do not want to discuss the mortgage balance among other issues.

So how do you overcome these objections and get all the information you need?

In my real estate investing business, I only deal with sellers who are motivated. By being motivated, they must be willing to provide most of the information I need without pressure. Generally I am not interested with sellers who are luke-warm and are just shopping to see if they can let you buy their house.

Most of my motivated sellers submit their information through my real estate investor website. In this case, the website does the job of pre-screening them and pre-negotiating with them, so I just need a few minutes to tell whether it is a deal or not.

Here are a few common objections and how to overcome them:

Mortgage balance:
Once in a while when you talk to motivated sellers and ask them their mortgage balance, they might tell you it’s none of your business, or if they are polite “why do you need to know?”. So I have come up with a simple statement:

“In order for me to able to evaluate the deal and make a fair offer that makes sense both to you and me and pay off the outstanding mortgage when I buy it, I must know the mortgage balance owed on it.”

Then I go completely silent… say nothing!

Usually they will consider it and give the information.

You must let them know that without mortgage balance, you will be unable to make any offer. If they are really motivated, they will provide this information. If they do not provide it, you have no business talking to them.
A motivated seller will tell you anything in the world to sell you their house.

Repairs:
Do not be surprised that their estimation of repairs is always on the lower side. In my business, I always assume that I will need to do paint, carpet, bathrooms and kitchen.

Before I ask for repairs my conversation goes something like this:

“How long have you lived in the house?”

“Have you done any remodeling on it?”

“So what repairs does the house need?”

Usually I will ask about carpet, paint, kitchen and bathrooms. When you take your conversation like this, you are likely to get more accurate answers that you can rely on.

Asking price:
This is usually the toughest part to negotiate. Of course, you must know the mortgage balance before you can ask this question, or even make an offer.

My question goes something like this:

“If I can buy your house all cash and close quickly, what is the least you can take for it?”

Once they give an answer, I usually just say, “Hmm…”.

Then I go silent.

Not a word until they speak.  In most cases, they will talk themselves down without me saying another word. Sometimes I will still follow up with “Is that the best you can do?”.

In most cases, this technique works like a charm. Good luck in your next real estate investing deal.

Simon Macharia is a real estate investor in Dallas Texas, and uses the an interactive real estate investor website to pre-screen and pre-negotiate with motivated sellers.  Learn how you can close more deals using less money, time and effort with a real estate investing website.

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New Designs For Real Estate Investing Websites Released

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

A real estate investing company, www.RealEstateInvestorsWebsites.net has unveiled new designs for real estate investor websites. These new designs give real estate investors numerous options to customize their websites to fully adapt to their business models.

Real estate investors can run their business without any restrictions as to what they can do with the websites whether they buy houses, sell, rent or wholesale houses, or even if they are looking for private money. The websites can also be adapted to support any real estate business models.

The websites are run from a simple virtual back office that controls all aspects of the real estate investing. They come pre-loaded with over 140 designs. Any design can be loaded at any time with a single click of the mouse, while preserving the content.

They also come equipped with pre-loaded sales oriented content written to convert visitors to closed deals. A life-like video speaking model instantly captures attention delivering a down to earth, believable message that relates to the visitors needs, increasing conversion.

With pre-loaded follow-up autoresponder messages, the websites automatically follow up with leads delivering pre-timed helpful information that they find useful. These messages are written to convert cold leads to motivated sellers who are ready to sell their houses.

A real estate investing business must be fuelled by a constant supply of responsive leads. That is why the websites are delivered optimized for search engines targeting the local market. Real estate investors therefore get leads right where they do business.

For more information, visit http://www.realestateinvestorswebsites.net/ or call 214-227-8718.

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How To Identify Motivated Sellers For Real Estate Investing

Monday, November 21st, 2011

One of the most important things that determine the success of real estate investing business is availability of good deals. Unless you can buy properties cheaply, you are unlikely to make profits with most real estate investing business models.

Motivated sellers are my best source of great deals. When you are buying houses, you will come across all types of sellers. You must be able to identify the motivated sellers who drive your business.
Of course the more targeted your marketing is, the more motivated sellers you will attract in your business. I am particularly fond of targeting people with legal trouble who own real estate. These are most likely to be motivated sellers.

If you also do general advertising such a classified ads, bandit signs, and so on, you are likely to attract all kinds of people looking to sell their houses.

So how do you identify the motivated sellers? The easiest way to do this is to divide them into categories.

1) Unmotivated seller
This is the person that thinks their house is the best in the sub-division. They have taken great trouble to make sure it’s perfect for the next owner occupier.

They have probably tried to list it with their Realtor, or even for sale by owner, but have not been successful. In most cases they are looking the the full market price.

They will not be willing to discuss details and numbers, such as their mortgage balance.

Of course, you will never make money from these type of deal, so you are better off forgetting it.

2) Luke-warm seller
This is the type of person who calls you and says he might be willing to let you buy his house, and asks you to explain how you work.

He will listen keenly, maybe ask questions, but again is not very forth-coming with necessary information such as mortgage balance.

He will probably tell you he has been trying to sell it for say, $150,000 and ask you to make him an offer. He will probably ask you to go see the house first before you even know the numbers.

Even though he will show the interest to be flexible enough to negotiate, you are unlikely to get a good deal from him.

Of course if you are a savvy real estate investor, you never make an offer unless you have all the numbers such as the fair market value, repairs, mortgage balance and so on.

You could end up wasting a lot of time driving to see many such properties and not get any deals out of it.

Usually I ask him to give me a call with all the numbers before I can make him an offer.

3) Motivated seller
This is the person who really needs to sell their house. Maybe they are behind on their mortgage payments or even facing foreclosure.

Probably they have tried to sell and see no other way out. They will give you all the information you need without hesitation. Most of them just want to get out of the mortgage.

In my business, most motivated sellers submit their information through my real estate investor website, so by the time I call them, I already know whether I can make the deal happen or not.

If I pre-screen such a seller on the phone, the conversation is likely to take less than 5 minutes and they provide all the information I need.

This is the only type of seller I deal with in my business. This is the only type of seller where you are likely to get great deals that can make you a lot of money.

Successful real estate investing requires that you pre-educate potential motivated sellers about how you do business to close more deals. Learn how an interactive real estate investor website can pre-educated motivated sellers for you, pre-screen them and pre-negotiate deals for you saving you time, money and effort allowing you to close more deals.

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Importance of clean title in real estate investing

Saturday, November 5th, 2011

I recently made a novice mistake that cost me over a thousand dollars even though it sounds very basic. Generally I only do a short sale if I see the potential of creating a lot of equity to justify spending all the time and effort involved in negotiating a short sale.

I am particularly fond of properties which have more than one mortgage, because the holder of the junior lien mostly stands to lose everything in the event of a foreclosure. For this reason, they can negotiate pennies on the dollar in a short sale.

It is not unusual to negotiate 20 cents on the dollar on a second lien. If you can also negotiate the first mortgage, it means you can end up creating a lot of equity and potential for a good profit in your deal.

This is the type of deal I got a few months ago, and instantly identified it as a having high potential. The first mortgage balance was low enough, almost 50% of the value of the house,  but there was also a small second mortgage. Even if I had to pay off both mortgages, I would still have had a good deal.

All the owner wanted was to get rid of the property without foreclosure. We did all the necessary paper work for both short sales and within a few weeks had both my offers accepted.

The house needed some repair, but no structural damage like foundation or roof. There was also a lot of junk to remove and touch-ups I had to clear before I could wholesale it to another real estate investor. The yard was overgrown; there was tons of trash to haul off, and general cleanup. I ended up spending over $1000 cleaning things up and got it ready for wholesale.

I was pretty sure I was going to flip it easily and quickly lined up a buyer with cash.

In the meantime my title company started the closing process including title work. It turned out there were two other liens the seller did not disclose!

Both were mechanic liens attached to the property. One of the liens was easy to track down, but the other one had been sold twice and none of the contact information on the lien was working. In short, we had no way of negotiating one of the liens.

This means I could not own the property free and clear unless contacted all lien holders and agreed on a pay-off. Those liens could only be wiped off through foreclosure.

I ended up giving up on the short sale after spending weeks negotiating both short sales and spending over $1000 getting the property more marketable.

This experience can serve as a word of caution if you buy houses directly from motivated sellers. Even though motivated sellers have probably the most profitable deals on the market, they are also more likely to have multiple liens and judgments on their properties or other title related issues.

Make a point of checking the title before spending money to make sure the property is marketable. In my business, I do not pay for any title work because I have closed many deals with my title company. Even if you have to pay for title work, it is likely it is not as expensive as the time and money you would lose without checking the title.

Simon Macharia is a real estate investor in Dallas Texas, and specializes in buying and selling houses. Learn how you can automate most aspects of your real estate business with a database-driven real estate investing website saving you time, money and effort, while closing more deals by increasing your efficiency.

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