randian

I don't know if it's a man/woman thing or not, but I find that when I aggressively refuse to answer questions it instantly turns off the seller.

If you're looking for a lead tracking system you might want to try Highrise or PipelineDeals. SalesForce is astoundingly expensive.

I don't mess with them either, but if the agents weren't improperly (and I might add illegally) failing to disclose they were licensed agents I wouldn't be contacting them in the first place. I keep a list of "bad sellers" just so I can keep track of all the non-disclosing agents in my area. In some cases even that doesn't work, because nothing in the ad identifies the seller and the anonymized email addresses CL uses mean I can't match on email address.

Realtors tend to think they're lords of the universe, I don't think they care about such threats. I've talked to Realtors about posting in the FSBO section, or failing to say they're a Realtor in their ad. Every time they cried "oops, my mistake" (yeah, right) or "I'm just posting for a friend" (again, as if), and you have no way of proving otherwise to the Board, which as we all know is as lenient as the Bar when it comes to censuring its members.

So you're doing one-step email marketing rather than two-step like Mike does? I wonder if that's my problem, I've mostly been contacting sellers by email and don't have any deals to show for it. After the initial encouraging emails they mysteriously disappear, and even when I get to the point of giving them an offer they don't bother to respond, not even to tell me how full of **** I am.

You can tell that from their voice mails? What are the clues?

You're assigning to the tenant, not the owner?

Doing a CA.

Has anybody tried LPing one? They're plentiful here in FL, but of course the exit is a lot harder.

The way I've seen it done is either Contract Rights or Unrecorded Liens. Either have standard lines on the HUD-1 and should be acceptable to a bank.

I've been sending the LPA along with my second email and assuming they've read it. Should I not do that? I don't want to insult them by reading bullet points from a document they've already read. Also, when I'm on the phone I'm not sure what more can be said in response to "tell me more", assuming they've read the followup and LPA. Looking back at the LPA, nothing in it explains "how it works", rather it explains "what it does". Should I be interpreting the "how it works" question as a "what it does" question and answer that instead? I've talked to plenty of sellers that want to know exactly what they have to sign, will there be rent credits (though they rarely use the term), who want to read the contracts ahead of time, etc.

Is the blank part the price? They're usually asking "how does this work" long before I've given them a price. Indeed, it's one of the first questions they ask. Only when they're comfortable with the idea, and that it doesn't seem illegal, immoral, or fattening, do they want to discuss price.

It seems like I'm always getting asked to explain exactly how the transaction works. I can't help but wonder if I'm being too detailed or technical in my explanation, which might help explain why I'm batting 0/400 (ratio of signed deals to outgoing contacts). Do any of you have a good way to answer the question that satisfies the seller and forestalls further questions?

If I recall correctly, it's illegal to offer a Section 8 tenant a lease/option.

Having one's email account terminated on the accusation that you're a spammer isn't entirely paranoid. If Craigslist threatens to blacklist everybody served by your provider, they'll gladly sacrifice you. I was tempted to apologize, but I figured that would be interpreted as more spam, so I just deleted the email. So far this is the only threat I've received. The seller's real beef isn't that I'm dishonest, but that I violated their assumptions. Their self-righteous indignance is amusing to behold.

After sending a followup email and the LPA letter to a prospect, they responded with "You're dishonest!" (exact quote) and threatened to report me to Craigslist. I guess they flipped upon seeing I wasn't the end buyer. As a bonus, since CL anonymizes email addresses I have no way of making sure I don't send them another email, should they post another ad. They'll think I'm intentionally spamming them.

My limited experience could have been a fluke or otherwise not representative of the usual experience in dealing with this kind of seller.

Is that as brain-damaging as dealing with listing agents?

Anybody have success with them? They seem to want the whole enchilada for themselves.

I've talked to sellers who sound enthusiastic about the idea of a lease purchase, they say it sounds like the perfect solution for them. I then ask them to email me some pictures if they have them, plus a little more information on the property so I can run the numbers for their approval. Then everything grinds to a halt, the pictures don't come, the information isn't forthcoming. I talked to 4-5 sellers this week that seemed like surefire quick deals, but they suddenly seem to have forgotten me. One even said he'd "call back in 15 minutes". No dice.

A seller I was talking to today wanted a financial penalty if the buyer didn't buy at the end of their option period. He didn't think losing the amount they paid me, plus the loss of all rent credit, was enough to really commit them to the deal. I expressed some skepticism that it would be effective or worth the money to enforce. Since he hasn't yet made it a must-have, the deal is still open. Hopefully he'll decide it isn't worth the effort.

So far I have 0 deals on ~300 seller contacts, in Florida where sellers should be kidnapping me to get their house moved, so I must be doing something wrong.

I've tried approaching agents with that exact deal: I'll get as many of your unsold houses sold on L/O contracts and we can split the profits. They universally display total indifference. In some cases, they're offended that an unlicensed person would dare make money off their clients.

FastMail is a paid email service, but it's not a bulk email service like MailChimp or Newsberry. I haven't tried Yahoo or Gmail, but as well known SPAM generators surely they would have worse delivery, not better.

I finally got a reply to my ad: from a realtor! Argh!