I have a question regarding contacting sellers with homes listed on the mls. Has anyone been met with favorable responses from sellers? How about from realtors? How would the commission be paid to the agent, split the option money or do they get their commision when the home sells? thanks
all of these questions are aimed at doing CA's!

The response from sellers is usually pretty good. After all, with houses not selling, who does the homeowner always blame? The Realtor, of course. If you can show them a better way, meaning more money in their pocket, (and that's easy), you'll get their attention.
As for the Realtor, they're not going to be so thrilled to have you interfering with their client. Many will threaten you with legal action, reporting you to the Realtor Board, etc. Ignore them. You're not doing anything illegal, assuming you do this the correct way and make yourself a principal in the deal.

Michael, if done the correct way (becoming a principal in the deal), will the home owner still have to pay a commission to the realtor?

Assuming the homeowner canceled their listing agreement, probably not. But the devil is in the details, and the homeowner would need to read their agreement to know the answer to that.

Every listing agreement I've ever seen awards the agent a full commission even if they didn't locate the buyer. You showing up and asking the owner to cancel their listing agreement pursuant to your signing a purchase contract is, technically, a breach of the listing agreement.

Hmm, I usually try to avoid messing with agents because they always put up road blocks but that is just me. Many of the deals that land in my lap, though, I can thank a realtor for it because the property had been setting a long time and the realtor didnt really do anything to move it.

I flipped a home... one I mentioned here before, and it was on the market with an agent for about a year. I flipped it in 2 weeks to an A+ credit buyer. The deal was completed in 30 days total.

If you are targeting a certain neighborhood for deals... its much easier to track homes that are with agents. If you let them become "seasoned" as in watch them and let the agent fail (not all will though)... after about 3 to 6 months you can start probing for the owner to respond to your creative offer. Personally, I start knocking on doors =).

I have not been on here in a long while... how is everyone?

Probably correct. But I have had many a homeowner cancel their listing agreement with their respective Agent prior to my working with them. And in so doing, they haven't been penalized and forced to pay a commission. They usually tell the Agent they decided to rent their house for the time being. Seems to work for everyone.



Dustin, how've you been? I agree that many a deal comes to me after a disgruntled homeowner blames their Realtor for not having sold their house. When I see a house listed for sale with an agency, I usually send the homeowner what I call my Intro Letter, which asks if they'd be interested in selling their house with a lease purchase. Over the years the response rate has been consistently strong.

Hi MichaelC,

I have been good... I took a break from REI for a while but always find myself back in the game because nothing can replace the adventure and, well, the freedom it brings when deals come through! I am currently working on more ways to get sellers contacting me because I hate putting out too much energy to find them, lol!

Simplify, Simplify!