dan332

Thanks for this... I will check them out-

Can anyone recommend a company that is cheap and provides reports in an easy to understand format?

Well, in the meantime, I am testing to see what works. Maybe its the "message" and not the "medium".. ie if its a good deal it should move. Of course I'll continue with signs. But what bugs me about signs is that they are limited to the really local area. I cant see driving more than 10-15 miles to put these up at 5AM every week.. unless I hire a helper. Or enlist the homeowner to do it, with me supplying signs (wont work if house is empty and owner has moved already). And in the newer parts of town, there is really no place that a RTO sign would last more than a day. I'm going to try: -Doorhangers around the neighborhood where we have RTOs (cheap) -Passing same out to hairdressers and nail salons (it always seems to be the women who want a place and bug hubby to get busy on finding the $$). Offering a referral fee -More frequent and eyecatching CL posts Have tried Pennysaver and direct mail to get sellers- I think a waste of money. Easier to just call or email people. To get buyers, dont know how effective these would be. I dont see spending bigger $$ without more houses to move (only have 2 now, but expect 2-3 more soon) Might try leaving stacks of brochures on top of those vending machines for newspapers and RE magazines. What I'd really like to figure out is how to reach buyers in a higher price range. I dont think these folks even glance at RTO signs. So many more expensive properties at good prices out there, but how to move them? Also tested Zillow- its cheap but you pay for eyeballs not click throughs. Might try again, although I suspect most people on Zillow are there to comp their own house, not shopping for one Might also try some unusual stuff like posting in forums, etc.. will probably sub this effort out to pros though.

How about current #1 way of finding quality T/B's? I get a good amount of calls from bandit signs.. but very few seem to have $$ for O/C Trying Bevs trick of using HTML posts to stand out on CL. I'd sure like to find a practical way to reach people who have some money to put down. I did see a suggestion on a blog somewhere to memorize buyers info off of Realtors sign in sheets at open houses and then call them.. sounded pretty clever, but not sure how practical (or ethical) this is.

We'd be hanging doorknockers where one side would say "we have a house in YOUR neghborhood on RTO so if you have any friends or family you'd like close by, this is a good deal, etc.." The other side would say "If you know of anyone needing to sell their place and they are having a tough time, call us, we have a solution" In both cases offering a fee when we find a T/B. Since we'd hang these on all doors, even those with a Realtor sign out front, we'll probably piss off some realtors.. thats why I asked. Thanks to all for great input... will probably try this and see what happens!

Is there anything that is illegal about advertsing to homeowners in a neighborhood that you will pay them a referral fee if they help find a buyer or seller? I dont want to be accused of "practicing RE w/out a license"!

Jonathan and Michael, Thank You! The fixer really doesnt "need" work, its just that the inside is tired looking. I'm not looking to spend or give up any money myself, I just thought that it might help marketing it if "sweat equity" was mentioned when people call. The idea was offer it at say 320K, with a 25K allowance for improvements, if done. The part that I am wondering about though is quantifying the type, worth, and quality of the work. Might open up a lot of issues that are better left alone. Thanks again-Dan

Potential Deal 1: Might be somewhat overpriced but house on a nice lake, owner out of state, just fired realtor after 6 months, has plenty of equity, and I think he'll be flexible when the time comes. Also 5 minutes from my house. He just wants to sell. The issue: the inside of the house needs updating. I was thinking of getting him to offer a healthy purchase price credit for a handy T/B to update the place. My question: How does this work.. ie how would a price for the work be set, what if the T/B does lousy work, etc.. Remember the owner is out of state (house in Fl, he is in Az), so he cant be checking the work. I think the credit may be a good incentive, plus a good deal for the owner (if they dont buy he'll get improvements for nothing.) But.... is this risky.. are there pitfalls? Potential Deal 2: Owner is open to owner financing to help with the purchase. Is this usually a big selling point? How does it work.. just that the owner takes back a second? Any advice on using this to make the deal more marketable? Any suggestions/advice highly appreciated. Thank You!

Pilot, 90% close is really impressive. Do you mind sharing your main methods for locating your TB's? I see from a previous post that most of your marketing is internet.. I assume this means Craigslist, etc.. right? Any other important sources? Or is the 90% more a result of your hard work to follow up and work with them to repair their credit and find them financing? Thank You! Dan

A "landlord's policy" should be put in place to take care of fire and dwelling. (Most insurance companies will not pay on a homeowner's policy if they found out it's rented) Adam, I assume this landlords policy would also be needed in a CA, correct? Thanks- Dan

What the deal is, is that he is now renting out month to month furnished because he wants to keep his straight sale options open. He'll just boot out the month to month when he has a buyer. :) I thought it was pretty straightforward with a cancellation clause but after reading these words of caution I wont touch this with a 10 foot pole. Thanks for the heads up guys. I have enough worries and dont need to lose sleep worrying about getting slapped with a lawsuit!

I was thinking that the upfront agreement would be that the owner would return the option money FROM THEIR OWN POCKET, plus a sufficient penalty paid to the TBs on top of that to make up for the inconvenience. As long as both parties agree upfront to it, I dont see anything unethical. However, the owner just sent me an email suggesting that the penalty be one month free rent, which in my mind is not nearly enough compensation for a TB to even bother. I was thinking more like a 5K penalty plus the return of option money (coming from the owner, not me)

I just had a potential seller tell me that they would like the option to cancel on the TB during the LO if they found a straight buyer. I told them that the only way I could think of that it could "possibly" be worked out would be if they agreed to pay the TB a cancellation fee written into the contract up front. Any problems with this? -Dan

MC, Thats what I suspected. I was mainly interested to see what the average seller would find when they did a search on RTO or LOs. In all the articles and sites I saw there was no mention of this thing (except Reeds site which seems to be down on every CRE technique.) Even Realtor.com has LO properties on their site, so if the NAR is comfy with them I dont see any problem. Actually I thought the 5% thing might be way to tell a homeowner that they shouldnt be too greedy on the option money:) But no.....that would probably do more harm than good.

Just poking around looking to see what info is out there on lease options and RTO, I came upon a decent article at Wikipedia on "how to sell your home with a lease purchase". One of the footnotes was as follows, which I have never seen before. I've seen discussions back and forth on whether there is a risk or not of LOs being seen as sales, (including on this board), but I've never seen anything mention a % as the basis for how a LO is viewed. Has anybody heard of this 5% thing? -Dan " In many jurisdictions if the total of the initial option money (the option fee) plus the option money from the monthly payments exceeds 5% of the agreed-upon purchase price, the seller must go through foreclosure proceedings if the prospective purchaser falls behind on the payments. If the total option money is less than 5% of the purchase price, the standard eviction process can generally be used. For this reason, lease options typically set the total option money at less than 5% of the price."