<Steve>

With low to no real estate inventory, CraigsList (my market) for months has nothing but crap handy-man specials, some mobiles and full of investors and agents and no motivated sellers. The only veins of nice houses in good areas are MLS listings. So, marketing is ramping up with direct mail, drive-by flyers and may even need to get back to bandit signs. The goal is to get in front of the sellers and locate those who are motivated. What are you doing to market for those motivated sellers . . . ?

Congrats on going Full Time! If this is a Lease Purchase offering larger or even 100% monthly rent credits can help.

Another idea maybe to market a Lease Purchase with bank or owner financing. The lease/option term is set for one full year, as a kind of test run before committing to a contract for deed. If the tenant/buyer works out well for that year, then the offering of a longer term more permanent owner finance / Contract for Deed can be entered into with down payment. The seller & tenant/buyer can consult an attorney to put it together; maybe you can locate and suggest a good attorney. You may not get the 20K, but you can get option consideration. Or if comfortable, work as a consultant, receive a consultant fee down the road for the set up of the contract for deed.

If marketing for a retail buyer, I think I would set it up as a Contract for Deed with the right to assign; then market it like an Option to Purchase with Owner Financing & 10% down as your assignment fee. Assign to the buyer, then share part of your fee with the seller. Spend a couple late nights cramming to put together the CD agreements the $20K is worth it.

A while back I tried to charge a small fee to show, but as expected it didn't work out.

On the phone I will get right to the point of how the RTO works and let them know the that the option consideration and first month's rent are due before move-in. This weeds out a bunch. If they mention they have credit issues, I will ask what they are? And I let them know I am looking for someone who can purchase in a year or so. After a while I get the "a typical" responses, and most of the time can tell if they are worth the time to go see the house.

Nice to be on the same team.

That's all we need is another weiner in the White House.

Had a showing of a house today and the wife was holding her husband in her hand. Her husband was in Afghanistan and live on her smart device. With his face on the screen, he was looking around the house with his wife and they were chatting. Just kind-a goofy. Maybe there can be away to show houses in a more virtual way and not have to be on site??

I agree, the manual is good to have on the desk when making calls. Tag the those pages and use them as a reference during the phone conversation to make sure you ask all the needed questions. Also, have an attutude that you don't care if you get a deal or not and take the call/deal as far as you can. Gets easier as you go.

It kinda freaked me out to see these corporations in my own backyard I guess. My market is small. Maybe I am over reacting, but the cool thing about RE investing, and specifically L/Os, is that the average Joe (me) can get in, hustle at it, and make it work. It’s a great business model. Just not sure when looking at these mega corporations what’s to come. They are buying up the nice bread & butter properties too.

I just left a SLO house I have as the t/b is moving forward with the purchase. The increase in the interest rate has motivated them to obtain financing and buy. They mentioned that there has been a large corporation scooping up houses in the area. The house next door was just purchased and is up for rent. The corporation is http://www.americanhomes4rent.com so I pulled up their site. It is interesting as the billionaire is from California and is the one that started Public Storage. Anyway, they are not just buying distressed properties, but also paying full retail from sellers. They are all over my market and across the country. They are said to have the second largest portfolio of residential single families. I know Blackstone Investment Corp. is the country’s largest who have put in 5 billion dollars and purchase 29,000. single family homes in 13 markets. The rents they are charging are well above market. For example: I have another SLO and found an Americanhomes4rent property on the same street and the house is comparable. My rent is $995. at market, and theirs is $1,200. No way it is going to move. I have had my house on this street for about 5 years and L/O some other properties around that area and I know it will not support their over market rent amount. Pricing in my market is not shooting up, although there are pockets of slight increases. But basically we've dropped another - 6.8% over all. So, when reality sets in and the returns these corporations are trying to realize in rentals don't happen then what? I know their model was to hold 5 to 7 years. So, do the big boys end up packaging these properties up and selling them off? What kind of affect will this have on the market and the smaller investor? Also, am I to assume that the lack of inventory is do to the mega corporations buying spree? My instinct was just the slow economy. Maybe it is a combination? I am glad to hear reports that these mega corporations are starting to back off in some markets, but also hear that the mid-west and north-east is next. Just not sure what the damage will be? First it was the banks, then Obama nonsense and now mega corporations. What a mess.

Well I didn't vote for (4) more years of the same, "Change". 3 1/2 to go. . .

LoL. I've been reading around that those corporations that have been buying up single families are pulling back as the returns from a lower than expected rental rates are not brining in the returns; not to mention the repair / maintenance needs.

Hey Doug, long time. It's a tough market as inventory is low. Plenty of tenant/buyers if the numbers are right.

Prepper housing is Hot.

Good article MC puts things in context.

Hope the buyer didn't get an adjustable-rate mortgage.

Thanks for the comments. I was curious about the attitudes of sellers and buyers. I have been hearing some sellers in my area tell me that the retail market has rebound because thier agent told them so. Really! Now months later I am getting a few returned phone calls for a Lease Purchase and watching the others sit on the market.

Obama is in the pockets of Wall Street and the banks, but he's cool and hip and his sheep just follow. To bad, as the average Joe was always able to build some wealth through equity in his home.

Interesting the crazy affect it is having in FL. We (my area) are always at least a year behind market trends, and about missed the '06-'08 boom. lol I agree. Maybe I am old fashioned but it takes a growing economy for a true real estate recovery; and things are stagnate at best, albeit "they" call it an economic recovery.

Seems Florida and a few other states/areas are going into a real estate boom, so to speak, with prices increasing. The prices in my state are still dropping. We're a little slow here. Just curious the market reaction in those areas? Are sellers jumping to get their houses on the market? Are buyers in a panic to find a house to buy? Or, is it more media hype and somewhere in between?

I use a release with MC's recorded Memorandum and they are great tools to stay in control of my interest in the deal. The only issue that I see in your post, and you probably have it under control, is preparing legal docs for others. Congrats on the deal!

Overconfident Sellers and buyers, now that's a combo. This year is kind of a repeat of last year. The market didn't get going with newer listing until well into spring. With new listings sellers want to wait and see what happens then consider something creative. Last year the spring season marketing brought in a lot of fall season deals. But hey, I can't just wait and only eat potatoes until then.

I think my market is in ‘equilibrium.’ Over the last several weeks, I have been making multiple offers and meeting with sellers, but just can’t get them off the fence. Sellers are ready to go, almost; and buyers are over confident. I have planted a bunch of seeds and stay in touch for when the sellers are ready. I don’t think I have ever seen it like this; stagnant, straight-line. Not sure if this is an in between stage of a buyers’ market and a sellers’ market, but something needs to happen to shake things up . . . perhaps some economic growth.