Monday, December 21, 2009

The Sub2 Chihuahua Rides Shotgun!









T
his is my Terrier/Chihuahua mix Wolfie resting on the way home from a prospecting journey.

We checked out a new farm of multifamily income properties that look like fabulous Sub2 deals in the making.

Nobody knows these properties are for sale! YES! And the sellers are scared spit-less about the vacancy rates in the area, and don't have the courage to weather a storm. YES!

Not to mention that the unit prices are shaping up to be fantastic high cash flowing deals for a knowledgeable investor. Meanwhile, taking over poorly operating buildings and getting them turned around without any financing obstacles is REALLY nice, if not just a giggly thing to ponder.


Did you know the most cash flowing properties are the same ones the bank is least desirous to lend on, or likely to finance for a decent rate?

Yes, we can find the baby cash-cow dumps with a potential 25% capitalization rate, but because those properties are located in C-minus or D-plus areas, the bank holds its nose and says, "no thanks" to our requests for loans. How come the most secure deals are the ones banks don't like, I ask?


Here's one hypothesis. Banks are like low-return pride of ownership types of buyers. They like to plow money into low-return ["A"] projects that they can point to and say, "We lent on that!"

How nice.

Now if you ask the bank's borrowers what their returns are on those same "A" properties, they might say, "Uh, about 2.5 percent." Uh, huh.


Well, I like bigger returns. We prefer meaningful returns, not ones that can't even match the costs of rising energy. We find these juicy returns where the average investor doesn't want to shop, and the average bank doesn't want to lend. Yay!

There are so many opportunities waiting for the courageous and the proactive.
Meanwhile Wolfie, the Sub2 Dog, will ride soon again looking for stray cats and bicyclists to bark at while we talk with sellers who don't know how to turn a lemon into lemonade the sub2 way!

If you would like to know how Wolfie buys cash-flow opportunities without a credit check or down payments, click here: "Screw The Bank!"

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

"Pimp My Sub2..!"

Only in San Bernardino, CA will you find the "Pimp my Tattoo" mobile tattoo clinic and bus conversion! [well, i guess this bus actually goes 'anywhere']

Yes, friends step aboard and take a trip directly to the psychedelic express to "tat" nirvana! Or not.

I barely got this photo snapped before the bus turned left at the next light. If you notice the graffiti all over the back of the bus in white spray paint. I had to laugh at the graffiti on graffiti situation. I could barely tell which was supposed to be there, and which was not.
[It's supposed to be there! Who knew?]

Meanwhile, the bumper read: "pimpmytattoo.com" so I gleefully refer you to them, because I'm so impressed with their marketing gimmick! At their site, you'll see better pictures of the actual bus I saw (being driven in Ohio).

The real reason I post this, is because it draws attention to the cash flow opportunities that exist in these areas. These are management intensive locales, but at the same time opportunities to create an income stream that doesn't require an arm and a leg to get into.

Anytime I hear someone say that there's no opportunities in real estate anymore, I now just direct them to San Bernardino County. Owners change hands often in these places. Often the owners that knew there was cash flow, also didn't know how to manage a business, or how to market correctly. They're the same ones that become, "don't wanters," as Robert Allen describes them; those who want out of their properties. These same owners will accept very creative terms just to save their butts.

I bought an apartment building in an economically depressed area very similar to this. I got in free. All I had to do was apply my professional management skills to turn the place around. It didn't need rehabbing as such. It was just in need of some a consistent, professional, management application to create both cash flow and a substantial amount of equity on paper.

It's simple, but not always easy, however. Tenants that were used to a loosey-goosey management style from the previous owner, which created the mess for the owner in the first place, underwent a severe case of "management overhaul shock" after I pulled in.

Many tenants bailed on the situation, because they had no intention of following any "new" rules, or actually paying their rent on schedule. Did I mention my gigantic late fees?

Anyway, Sub2 financing came in so very handy for this situation, because nobody in their right mind would have tried to get financing on this failed management hell hole, otherwise. The seller knew it. I knew it.

Find a seller with a problem, not a property with a problem, and get rich solving the seller's problem with the property. Yay Sub2!

If you would like to know how I bought that property without new financing click here: "Screw The Bank!"





"Creating Money Out of Thin Air...the Sub2 Way...!"

Sub2 financing can offer the fastest track to wealth creation ever.

When my family first started investing in single family homes in the late 1960's, credit was THE most important thing to "worry" about, apart from scraping up the 20% for a down payment on a conventional loan. Of course that was for our OWN home, not for an investment property. Trying to get a loan for an investment property was a whole different animal. The rate and terms were worse, AND you had to qualify for the loan as if you were servicing the loan yourself, without considering the rent from the property.


Things have changed since then. What hasn't changed, is the practice of taking over existing loans. This method has been used to get around the qualifying process banks have required since loans were invented.

However, the government institutionalized 'non-qualifying' loan assumptions. Wasn't that convenient? Yes, one person would originally pull their pants down and expose their financials to some bank, and qualify for the Federal Housing Authority-backed loan. Then when it was time to sell, they could just let somebody take over their loan just by signing a couple of documents.

This was technically "subject to" financing, but had no name until after the "Due on Sale" clause was invented. Meantime, there was no income verification and no credit check to take over these FHA loans! Yay. And the original borrower, yes, was still on the hook for the loan...! Nothing had changed. Except...


Eventually conventional lenders stopped allowing their loans to be taken over without qualifying. They included a term called a "Due on Sale" clause. Why did they do this? Because they were losing money when sellers would allow buyers to take over their low-interest rate loans at 10% instead of qualifying for brand new 18% loans. Well, this 8% spread wasn't going to be lost to a bunch of amateurs! Nosirreee Bob!


So, banks scared off the "sheople" (who were otherwise seller-financing new buyers at 10%, instead of 18%) by including the dreaded "Due on Sale" clause in all new loans. Now this clause didn't mean that a bank WOULD call a loan that was not properly assumed, but it just wanted the right to make more money off the new buyer in the event it was profitable for them.

Well, ever since interest rates fell to the point that most seller financed deals were MORE expensive than conventional bank's terms, no bank in their right mind would call in a perfectly healthy loan.

As a result of the lower conventional rates, the DOS clause has been a flaccid threat to anyone taking over a loan the old fashion way.

Now, how do we create money out of thin air with Sub2?

There are two ways (at least), but the fastest way is simply to resell a house for a higher price, on terms to someone who "really" wants your house, who cannot qualify for the "cheaper" conventional loan. This could be for reasons including being new to the community, changing careers and employment, recently losing a house in the bubble market crash, and other reasons that temporarily keep them from qualifying for a new conventional loan without putting up 20-25% down.


So how exactly does this help us create money out of thin air, again?

Well, we're not going to sell a house to a buyer who needs financing from us for the same amount we paid. We're going to raise the price as a premium for our service. Typically we'll raise the price by 10% over retail ----- or if we got the house for 10-20% under retail, we can ensure a FAST resale by offering the house for today's retail value, and then work to get our buyer refinanced as soon as possible. Usually this takes at least 12 months.

The second way to create money out of thin air, is to charge a slightly higher interest rate than what we're paying. This isn't usually a large amount, but it all goes directly to our bottom line.

So creating money out of thin air just means that we created extra "value" out of thin air. We market our houses to a niche of potential homeowners that will pay a premium price in return for the privilege of owning their own home --- without having to qualify for a loan, or even having their credit checked, and most importantly putting up less down than any bank would require.


The value of what we offer is SO POWERFUL that we can actually create value (money) out of thin air!

Meanwhile, our buyers will beg, borrow, and 'probably' steal to give us a down payment and take advantage of what we have to offer them with sub2 financing.

For more information about a turn-key system that will allow you to do this over and over again like clockwork click here: "Screw The Bank!"

Monday, December 14, 2009

Open Wide and Say "Sub2!"

Getting information out of some sellers is like pulling teeth.

I had to laugh last week (again), when a FSBO kept answering my leading questions with "I don't know," and "no" and "yes" answers.

I mean, they were playing so close to the vest (which isn't unusual for FSBOs) that they couldn't expound on the description of their house to save their life.

It was ready to water-board them!


One answer that is always hilarious to me when I request the seller to describe his house is, "What do you want to know?" Is that the worst answer ever?


What do I want to know!!!!!!?????

Just tell me about your friggen house!

However, I used to confuse this with lack of salesmanship on the part of the seller. Not anymore. Sellers that can't express themselves are often hiding a problem they need us to solve. At the same time, "un-forthcoming" sellers often need desperately to sell, but are in denial, or exhibiting "pain avoidance."

On the other spectrum, we have the "Chatty Cathy" who cannot stop talking about her house, and expounding on every single real and imaginary (as in made up) feature and benefits of her house. Sometimes, these folks are as desperate to sell as any close-vested seller out there. However, the "Chatty Cathy" is going to be less work to close on, if it's gonna happen.

So what? Well, it's important to figure out if we're dealing with a time waster, or as as Robert Allen puts it, "a wanter," or a desperate "don't water." Either way, we NEED to know why a seller is selling.

This usually requires a 30-minute routine of friendly questioning according to Barney Zick. He said that a seller can't lie to us for more than 30 minutes about why they're selling. I agree. However, some sellers are so slow at giving information we can't tell what they're lying about for probably 45-minutes.

It's in the cases where the seller is not forthcoming that we might be tempted to walk, or short-change the negotiation process by not allowing ourselves, and the seller time to "work" on the deal.

We don't like to admit that, as buyers, we have a need for satisfaction in the negotiations just as much as the seller does --- even if the seller is not aware of his need.

So going slow, controlling our emotions, and allowing the conversation to meander across all the seller's motivational elements, allows us ti
me to naturally develop a rapport with seller, find the "becauses" that are necessary to justify what we want, and find out what we can give up in order to give the seller what he needs (and less about what he might "want") --- and achieve satisfaction in the negotiations so that all parties know they worked their butt off to get a deal struck. This is an important moment to remind ourselves why we want all the decision-makers present during the negotiations or "everybody" won't feel satisfied."

Meantime we'll equity strip the fast-talking, motivated sellers that have diarrhea of the mouth! j/k





Friday, December 11, 2009

Give Me $8,000 So I Can Buy Another House!

The following is a response to a guy who wanted to know how to Sub2 his house that had no equity. Here's the text of an email where I showed a guy how to pull cash out of his no-equity house, and come up with 20% down to buy a cheaper house for himself. [please excuse the typos, this is the exact text (me in blue), the seller is green]
**************************

[quote]
If I seller finance my primary residence the mortgage is still on my credit
report

Yes, this is true.


how does it help me purchase the REO as my primary residence?

You have to show that your old house is "sold".

You will have documentation showing the sale (HUD1 Statement) and copy of Land Trust, or Land Contract, or Promissory Note (Cognovit Promissory Note), or Deed of Trust, or whatever you use to facilitate a sale. I like Land Contracts coupled with Cognovit Promissory Notes.

This doesn't
transfer title, but the Cog. NOTE makes the Buyer personally liable for the entire balance of the note without having to get a judgment (this is a rarely used or understood document, but I use it for leverage in getting a deadbeat out of my property in the event they become delinquent).

The REO wants $88,000 cash I may be able to scrap up 10% but the hard money I contacted wants 30% down and charges 13.99%.

Hard money lenders do not lend on owner occupied properties that I'm aware
of. And their money is only temporary. As far as the price is concerned, you're talking about raising $8,000 as your total down payment?

This would equate to 10% for an FHA loan. Are you
sure you can't get conventional financing with that much down on an REO? Are you wanting to use a hard money lender to avoid having to provide a credit and financial statement? I would talk with a mortgage broker and explain your circumstances and see what he tells you.

Selling your house on terms is EASY. There's lot of folks with five to ten
thousand down and need seller financing with no credit check.
What's your house worth in this market?
What's the payment? What are the existing terms of your loan? Are the payments fixed, or is this an adjustable interest rate with a "bad" future payment?

Assuming the payment is fixed, and the loan has no balloon payment, I would advertise your house as "owner financing", or "seller financing" or whatever people will recognize and do the following to get it sold:

1. Ask 10% down (Take what they have, and finance the rest over six month
at most)

2. Say "No qualifying (and/or) No bank Qualifying" in your headline

3. "Take over payments"


4. List principal and interest payment only, not the entire payment with tax/ins/hoa's, etc. Take nice pictures of your house inside and outside.

Go to photobucket and upload your pictures.


Copy the html code from photobucket and paste that in the body of a craigslist ad. This will show all your pictures of your house with no limits in the body.

Go to craigslist and advertise your property.
List all the amenities of the house. Figure out which type of buyer would most like your home. Who would it most appeal to?

Young families that need a yard?


What is the best features of your house?

Large Yard, rural---no neighbors?


Close to the largest shopping mall in the country?

Best schools in the
county?

What?

Emphasize that to the most likely prospect. This is called
"message to market" advertising. You don't want to pitch senior citizens on your house if it has lots of bedrooms, or two story, etc.

However, a large
family would be very interested, so mention that in your ad. Put your contact information ever three or four lines in your ad copy and create a sense of urgency about the deal "This won't last long with these terms!" "Don't Snooze, or you'll lose on this deal!"

Call Johnny today!


List the schools, shopping centers that are close by including any entertainment centers, etc.

Now... Go to Kijiji and set up an ad for your house with pictures you took.

Include all the amenities in the information box they provide. List the
size, bedroom, garage size, fireplace, sprinklers, appliances included in the price, etc and every three or four lines put a call to action in the body inviting the prospect to... "Call Johnny today at (333) 333-3333 or email at "noequityseller@aol(dot)com" before it's too late!"

Repetitive calls to action get results. Answer the phone every time. Don't let prospects go to voice mail if you can help it.

That said, it's better to hold a "cattle call" for your
prospects. This means you're having an open house on Thursday at p.m., or whenever it works for you.

This may be hard if you're not getting a lot of
calls. So do your best here. But creating scarcity is a great motivating tool, if you can find a reason Buyers need to act quick. When two more Buyers show up at the same time, it creates some competition. You get it.

Make sure you've got your contracts together that you want to use.
In your case, you're not going to get a spread on the payment, so don't
worry about that. You just want someone to babysit your over-leveraged loan until the value comes back. Chances are the Buyer that you sell to will move in the next three or four years without refinancing. This will happen.

Just re-market the house for
another 10% down and see what happens. Eventually the loan will start paying down significantly. You might end up keeping the house after 10 years, when the loan balance returns to a retail amount. Who knows.

Keep the objective in mind: Sell the house to someone who can afford the
payments, so you can qualify for a cheaper house, not so you can make money off the house anytime soon. Don't get greedy, when you discover the house has some appeal. Meanwhile, if you can get $8K from a new Buyer and then use the $8k you already have...you now have $16,000 for a down payment. Could this help you qualify for a new loan easier without using a HML?

This amount would be 20% down! There's Sellers who might finance you, even
at a premium, but without qualifying you, if you gave them $16 in cash. Just saying.

That's it for me right now.
Hopes this helps.

Later!

Jay

Want to know exactly how to do this step-by-step? Click Here: "Screw The Bank!"

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Successfully Finding The Juicy Deals Without Competition

The latest news from my "MIT" (Millionaire In Training) is that he just spent about $1500 mailing out to 4,000 prospects this week.

I'm so proud. He's going to be making a bunch of money in just a few weeks. Usually, the newbies start out with such baby steps, and the results are so minuscule up front that they want to quit before they even get going.

Do you know what the average small business start-up cost is? It's around $100,000. So even if MIT spends $5,000 in postage while overcomes the learning curve, and pitches "Sub2" deals for a couple of months before he makes his first $10,000 of the $50,000 in equity he's likely to capture, he's still so far ahead of the average business starter-upper that it's sinful. Imagine if MIT just finds four deals this year and grosses $50,000 each deal. That's $200,000. Not bad for a "tiny" postage bill.

If you would like to learn what MIT is doing to make money click here >>> "Screw The Bank!"

"Screw The Bank!" - The Training Course!

Whew! Finally. You can relax now! Yes, my course is ready and coming in January in FULL FORCE.

The launch is being rolled out first as a professional training program offered to the San Diego Creative Investors Association members and friends.

I have received so much help, encouragement and feedback from them that I thought I would just give that group first crack at what I've got to offer. Plus, this is a hard group to satisfy since they didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

Meanwhile, this course has been a challenge to assemble, but very satisfying at the same time. Now, what I hope happens is that I catch a comet with this program and begin to share it nationwide.

There's a lot of folks who don't know how to start, need a step-by-step program that is easy to following...and makes lots of money for them.

There's lots of stuff to say about this money-maker of mine.

Those interested in knowing more, or are just curious about what I'm offering the SDCIA group, click on the picture of the "SCREW", or click HERE









Friday, December 4, 2009

When Spam Is Not A Delicious Lunch Item...

Pardon to any posters to my blog, but I'm now having to implement all the security checks to keep anonymous spammers off my site.

Unfortunately somebody thought they would advertise their (bogus) m.l.m. affiliate product as a "comment" on my blog (which of course broadcast to all the rss feeds to you all).

And...I couldn't remove it the normal way.

Well, that sucks because that means deleting blog entries and then re-posting them.

Not gonna happen twice.

Turkey Day In Southern California

Yes, wishing you yet another wonderful Thanksgiving from Sunny Southern California!

We don't "dress" our Thanksgiving Turkeys out here...

We "undress" them!


-----------------------


Just being thankful today for God, my family, the food, and you!


Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Incoming!

Okay, I had to use a ringing phone gif, yes!

This post is about what we do when prospects respond to our ads.

Before I illustrate a good script let me say I just read a lousy sub2 phone script. It suggested asking Sellers all sorts of threatening, qualifying questions.

Questions such as,
  • "What do you owe on your house?" which sounds to the prospect like, "How much equity is there left to steal?"
  • Or, "What are your payments?" which sounds to the prospect like, "I'm in FBI interrogation training, what's your problem?"
  • Or even, "Are you behind on your payments?" which sounds to the prospect like, "How can I take advantage of you in your most vulnerable situation?"
Nice.

Yes, nothing quite like getting straight to the point with a vulnerable prospect. Why not just wave a mirror and a cross in front of them, like we'd do with Dracula? Same effect. Everybody runs!

What good then is a script if we're not using it to qualifying leads, somebody asks. Aren't we supposed to qualify our leads so that we're not wasting time on the "curious" and/or the "unmotivated?"

No, we're not. We just want appointments. Later we'll find out what's going on with the Seller's property once we know if they're ready to play ball.

What's the point of knowing all sorts of technical information if the prospect isn't ready for our type of deal yet? We can only discover that by meeting the prospects face to face. Yes...it's that intimate.

So on the initial call, all we want is an address and the name of one of the title holders. We actually don't need the name of any of the title holders except to verify the address we have is correct when we look up the property information.

So, if we just need an address and the name of one of the title holders then, why not just get that information via a website? Why have a prospect call us in the first place?

Websites are for siphoning off the truly unmotivated. Prospects that won't call, are the same ones that go to a website because they can't overcome their fear of "high pressure" phone sales pitches, and/or they need to be cajoled, educated, and otherwise warmed by what we have to offer on the web page. That's fine, but rarely will these folks be warm enough for our purposes. So what?

Well, the phone call itself IS the screening process. "Forcing" a prospect to dial the phone and call reveals that the prospect doesn't need warming up. He's already motivated enough to overcome his fear of the unknown and make the call. That's good enough for us!

At the same time, the unmotivated will also call us. "But wait, Jay, you said that only the motivated will call on the phone?"

No, I said phone calls filter out those that need warming up, or the mostly unmotivated. However, those that are just curious, and not really warmed up also call us on the phone.

I realize this may be confusing. If the unmotivated, but just curious call, and the motivated also call, then what's the use of a phone call to sift out the unmotivated from the motivated if both call anyway?

Well, glad you asked for clarification. The desperate callers are going to call us. They just do. However, they also rarely tell us they are desperate. They are usually coy about their situations. They don't want to sell themselves out as desperate, anxious prospects.

On the other hand, the curious will often play desperate anxious Sellers, so they can pump us for information, weigh their options, and then do for themselves what we are offering to do for them ourselves, if that makes any sense. They also represent the competition. I've called many "I Buy Houses" ads just to see what they have to say, but I'm not in the least motivated.

Meanwhile, I get calls from competitors all the time that will sound desperate, but their only desire is to smoke me out as a fraud, huckster, or the competition, but not as a solution.

Meantime, the desperate and the curious can sound identical on the phone. Neither group always shows us their cards. And asking embarrassing, threatening questions sets the tone for our future negotiations. We don't want to set a "bad" tone!!! Correcting a tone is hard work, once a "bad" tone has been initiated.

So, our method then is to sift out the motivated from the unmotivated with a face-to-face meeting. Man, that sounds time consuming, huh? Well, it's not too time consuming to make $42,000 in pure profit from a forty-minute face-to-face presentation is it?

I mean even if we had to make 10 of these presentations at forty-minutes a piece, that's 400 minutes spent, or $105 dollars per minute. Or about $6,300 an hour! That's better than most any doctors I know, and better than most attorneys.

So, when do we find out if the client is motivated or not?

Well, we find out at the front door. Our negotiations begin before we even step into the Seller's house. At the porch we ask the seller, "Are you ready to sell today if we can come to terms?" If the Seller responds with anything other than a solid "Yes", I will say, "I understand." and add, "When you decide that you are ready to actually sell, please give me a call and I would be happy to come back."

I turn and walk away (slowly). However, I always give the Seller a chance to correct himself. Not all Sellers will. So, I want to know the answer now.
It's that cut and dry. I've walked away many times.

What do Seller's actually say? They often say, "We're just weighing our options." Or "We're thinking about re-listing our house and wanted to see what you had to offer first.", etc. etc.

Uh, no, thank you. We're dealing here with a tire kicker. No tire kickers for us. We don't have time to educate the curious. We only want to deal with those who don't think (or feel) that they have any options, not those who are weighing them.

So we use the phone script only to get appointments, not prequalify prospects with embarrassing and/or threatening questions. We can get the rest of the information later in a non-threatening, elegant fashion that helps us better negotiate our deals without putting the Seller on the spot.

Meanwhile, we qualify our prospects in person because Sellers can't lie about their true motivations for more than 30 minutes. After that point we can either get down to business and make forty or fifty thousand, or walk away and make the same from someone else that is actually anxious, desperate and truly motivated.

Successful sub2 negotiations are born out of mutual trust, and a meeting of the minds, not hard-selling, strong armed negotiations. As a result, we can only successfully close on the truly motivated that we've developed mutual trust and credibility.

After all, is it really possible to strong arm a person into giving us their deed, letting us take over their payments, leaving them on the hook for their credit history on their old loan? No, is the answer.

The client has to want this, and know this is the best of both worlds for him; a painless, sure, and fast closing; a fair price; and restoration/protection of his credit. This can't happen by hard-selling the unmotivated.

Yay!

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Making It In The Big Leagues!

I've got a champ in Sub-To training as we speak. I'm going to provide a real time commentary on the base running of this newbie so I can develop a testimonial about how easy it is to make money using my system.

This trainee emailed me a couple of weeks ago asking for help, and after getting a rib dinner out of him in return for some quality feedback, I realized this guy was going to make me richer if I played my cards right! He's chomping at the bit to make a go of a fresh investing career, and so I'm feeding him tools and training.


-----------------------


These posts are going to be dangerous for me. Normally I would wait until a newbie actually accomplished something before I would post anything of this nature. However, this time, you're gonna know just as fast as I do if my system works for this guy or not. Of course it works, but not everyone is willing to work it, if you know what I mean.


Meantime, let me bring you up to speed. I provided my "millionaire in training' "MIT" for short, about 300 quality leads to mail postcards to this week. These are leads I provided to what turned out to be a not-yet-ready-for-prime-time trainee late last year. Meanwhile, these are virgin direct mail prospects that have never been contacted by my marketing machine. MIT sent out the 300 postcards this weekend.


Meanwhile, just to confuse things, I've mailed to a separate, experimental group of MLS "victims," who's homes are currently listed by an agent in the same farm as my trainee. It'll be interesting to see what kinds of responses I get to compare with. I'm sure about 80% of my experimental group are REO listings by a bank, but I'm hoping I can get at least a .001 response rate from the remaining list. My experimental group is different from our normal farm niche in that we have filtered for nothing except disgruntled, tired Sellers who who will be/are fed up with their real estate agents. he he


When we get our first calls, I'll give you the blow-by-blow accounts. So cross your fingers that we get responses from a least four or five MLS victims.

Here's one side of our postcard just to give you a glimpse of how low-budget these cards are. Click for a larger view.



Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Happy Halloween!

Dad and Mom from a 1977 photo.
David my brother from the same photo.
Me from 1977 and 2008! HA!
Enjoy and Happy Halloween to you!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Sunday, October 18, 2009

My First Student! :D

I came across this video from Preston Ely, the probate real estate guru. He posted this on FaceBook and I just laughed my head off.

One reason I post this, is just to prove that ANYONE can do real estate. It just takes passion, persistence, and a program! I give this guy kudos for plugging away.

Note: The guy's wife's fingers pic at his nose --- Hilarious!

Enjoy!



f

Friday, October 2, 2009

So You Have A Problem, Huh?

God gives each of us a talent. Sometimes our talent is hidden behind a huge challenge, setback, or problem. Unfortunately, there's lots of folks who are so busy reminding themselves of what they can't do, they never discover what God has empowered them to accomplish.

After watching this it would be an understatement to say that I was reminded about how wonderfully blessed I am, and that any challenges I face are insignificant by comparison.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Rocket Test 1

What a week!

In preparation for my own product launch I've been practicing my marketing skills on a real estate related affiliate course. The course is very good, but the sales page is weak.


My "click rate" is three times better than what I imagined right off the launch pad, but I'm not happy with the zero conversion rate to date [sad face].

I'll be REALLY glad when I get that first conversion! Then I can reverse engineer my approach to see where that one conversion came from, and then focus on doing MUCH more of whatever I was doing! :)

After I get the "conversion" mechanics figured out, and I'm pulling in at least $30 a day, then I'll have to consider the next step.

BTW, what is $30 a day? Is that about $900 a month? We
ll, that's a new Vette payment.

Whoopee!


If you'd like to see what I'm mercilessly pushing as a test click here:

Monday, September 21, 2009

Which DVD Cover Makes You More Curious?

Which of these DVD covers is the most "attractive"? (distractive?)

You can post, or PM me. Any response is OK, even if you think it's the most manipulative, provocative, useless thing you've ever looked at. I'm open.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Websites are "Bug Zappers" For The Unmotivated

To be "distressed" means different things to different investors. I only want "distressed" Sellers that have new homes they can't afford anymore; that don't need work; that are easy to sell; that aren't over-leveraged; and all beckon me to live in them!

Meanwhile, I don't think there is any secret other than being chronic, persistent and repetitive in letting a targeted niche of prospects know what you have to offer. Otherwise, "one-off", or short term advertising puts the "pain" in campaigns.

I'll go further and say that ugly mail always works better for me than pretty mail. The less I explain on the piece, the more compelling the mail is. I never mention anything negative, and only pique the Seller's curiosity in solving ONE problem they are most likely having.

That said, I believe in direct mail. I profile a zip code for all homes that have been owned for a certain period of time, had "x" amount of equity at the time of transfer, have fixed rate mortgages, no recorded 2nds, are 3/3/2's or 3's, over 1,100 sqft and under 3,500 sqft and built within the last four years.

These are going to be excellent
Sub-To prospects. Now, the entire mailing list conforms to a similar profile.

So...now I know who's not going to call me. No acreage owners; no farm owners, no condo owners, no massive fixer owners, no McMansion owners, etc. These are not popular properties to resell. The buyer pool is smaller, and the resale time is LOOOOONGER.

Meanwhile, when Buying, unlike the amateurs who think they need fancy websites because guru "X" says they're the "bomb", or whatever, I only provide my cell phone number to Sellers. If the Seller is too unmotivated to call me on the phone, they'll be too cool to say, "yes" to me asking for their deed, taking over their payments, and leaving them on the hook for a loan.

I only want to bother with desperate, anxious Sellers that don't know they have any other options, and are willing to overcome their fear of the unknown by calling me directly on the phone.

Websites serve as "bug zappers" for the unmotivated, and/or the idly curious.

I encourage the competition to always rely on websites for Buying property! he he. They've got lots of time on their hands. Meanwhile, I've got too many fish to fry to screw around with either the curious or the "web sniffers".

Jay

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Walking Around In A Dreamer's Dream.

Home Movies At DisneyLand - 1956 from Jeff Altman on Vimeo.

My new friend, Jeff Alman, discovered a 16mm film made by his grandfather in 1956.

Lo and Behold! Help us Hannah!

There was his grandmother shaking hands with none other than Walt Disney himself! She's the one wearing the white cowgirl outfit and hat.

I post this because Walt Disney is a role model for me and anyone who won't take anything less than "yes" for an answer to their dream(s).


Walt stuck, and stuck, and stuck, and stuck to creating high quality animations that he hoped would become profitable...but failed; went bankrupt; borrowed again up to his neck; was ripped off...and that was just his first attempts to realize his dreams. Of course Walt finally achieved his dream of creating profitable, high quality animations. Animations that set him apart from all others, apart from being profitable.

We know, too, that Walt Disney was a dreamer. He also had goals. Furthermore, he lived with self-imposed, goal-related deadlines all throughout this life and career. And of course he understood that goals without deadlines were just daydreams. Walt was no daydreamer.

Watch this precious, previously unknown, and un-circulated video showing off the realized dream that Walt so persistently drove for. Thanks Jeff.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

There's No "Due On Sale" Jail!

Even if there was a jail for Sub-To "violators", the jail would be empty.

Read my response to a guy who was warning off about 2,500 would-be investors “that banks call loans in on Sub-To investors because they want to make sure they're on the hook for the loan."

Dear So and So,

"I admire your efforts to keep folks out of trouble. And with all due respect to your desire to keep us informed of what banks will and won't do with Sub-To, I can say from experience that banks do NOT "invoke" the DOSC to assure [that] the TRUE owner of a property is on the hook," as you've postulated.


Meanwhile, in the event of a transfer of equitable interest, subject to the existing financing, the DOSC allows a lender to exercise it's right to either call the loan due, or require the new owner to qualify for a new loan, and/or assume the existing loan(s) --- as a practical matter. However, the motivation for calling a loan due, if it's ever happened with a "current" loan, is NOT to mitigate risk, but to otherwise secure a better interest rate on the existing financing, and certainly NOT to create more REO's for itself.

The only reason the banks started inserting the DOSC was because there was a rash of Sellers in the late 1970's and very early 1980's that were seller financing their homes at 10%, because buyers couldn't qualify with the bank's 18% interest rate. As a result, the banks were losing business --- because they wanted 18%. So the DOSC, short of a default, is all about making money, not mitigating risk.

Today, the bank interest rates are very hard to compete with. Seller financing is usually more expensive than bank financing. So Buyers will look to get bank rates as soon as possible.

As an aside, I'm fairly certain that banks know that their rates are generally more attractive than the average seller is offering. So, short of a credit issue, they're attracting most of the potential "profitable Buyers" already.

There's no need to force the rest to qualify, or mitigate risk, or create REO's for themselves. It would make no sense for the bank.


Anyway, I appreciate your conservative approach, but in practice, what you're suggesting just is not happening. If bank rates climb back up to 18%, your scenario may very well become likely, but not before.”
What I didn't mention was that there is already a person "on the hook" for the loan. Yes, it's the original borrower. Sub-To financing doesn't change this.

The bank still has a person it can "go after" in the event of default. So it's not like the bank has lost anything in the transaction. What's more, there is now not one, not two, but three parties that are motivated to keep the loans "current!" It's the bank itself, of course, but also the borrower, and the new sub-to title holder. That's a better position for the bank than what they originally bargained for.

So banks don't deliberately "switch out" borrowers just because they can.


However, if the loan becomes delinquent, all bets are off.

Share this with anyone who claims banks are calling in "current" Sub-To loans.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

"Bigger League Negotiations" Let The Seller Say, "Yes."

Loon wrote [PropBot Forum - 5+ Units - 8/8/09]

"I always start at zero, assumptively[sic], and make the seller explain to me why that won't work. If I pay more than 5% I expect a real bargain price. It all depends on what your competition might be offering, but don't assume there even is any competition until your seller shows their hand."
This short post by "Loon" from
PropBot.com demonstrates tremendous sophistication. So many investors are afraid of negotiations. They just are. They're afraid of the Seller and/or his reactions to a profitable offer. Worse, the amateurs fall into a trap of offering their "last best offer" trying to achieve a clean, acceptable deal. That is usually stupid, unless there's lot of competition. If so, then I ask why am I competing with anyone over any property in the first place?

Notwithstanding, doing this undermines the ability for both the buyer and seller to "work" for a closing --- and achieve satisfaction for doing so.

Yes, we all once dreamed of making clean, acceptable, profitable offers --- where all the chips fell into place with just one offer and no "pesky" negotiating. Well, that's reserved for dreamers, not for professionals. The fact is, if there isn't some emotional satisfaction involved by both the Buyer and Seller in reaching a deal, the deal will likely not happen. This is sad.

It's sad because the essence of getting either good terms, or a good price is allowing the seller/buyer to achieve emotional satisfaction from the negotiation effort. And we do that by opening the bid far away from where the seller/buyer wants to "end up,": as it were. Otherwise, what Seller doesn't want to say, "Yeah, I finally ground that guy down until he paid me what I wanted," or a Buyer bragging about how he beat the Seller to a pulp?

I say, ahh the satisfaction of getting exactly what I wanted by "forcing" a Seller to "cave" by making me to pay 50% of retail value!" Get it?

Well, the Seller's achievement may be debatable from an objective point of view. However, the point of this post is about negotiating "assumptively" to coin "Loon's" phrase here. Loon suggested assuming that "zero" percent interest is acceptable for all parties, and unless the Seller can prove this won't work for him, (apart from his greed, and no competition), the Seller has to show his cards and/or cave, all the while put the Seller on the defensive regarding the interest rate. I love it. Why not assume things are in your favor when initiating negotiations? The post goes further...

Someone commented:
"Loon, Did I understand you correctly? They [the Seller] gave you free carry back financing?" [talking about one of Loon's four "zero" interest loan deals]

Loon: "Absolutely. You rarely get what you don't ask for. If they insist on interest, well, then let the negotiating begin!"

This is is so important. Let the Seller defend his position. But the Seller won't feel compelled to defend his "greed," if we don't put him in a place where he MUST defend his greed. That means starting low, and working to the satisfactory conclusion. BTW, the satisfactory conclusion has nothing to do with an objectively equitable position.

I've seen Seller's cave to fantastic prices just because other things were more important than price. So, if we don't know what the Seller's motivation is, it's very good that we assume the Seller wants to finance us, and finance us for free --- or.... give the property to us...because.... (he's dying with no heirs; likes us a lot; hates his children and doesn't want to give them a dime; has a lapse in judgment....etc.), or otherwise force them to defend charging us anything.

[As an aside, about 15 years ago a guy in my church made friends with a freight shipping company owner. He asked the owner to literally give him the company in his will. The owner had no wife or children. My friend ended up with the company just by asking. He simply made an offer "assumptively" and gave the owner the opportunity to say, "yes". My friend went from earning $60k a year to making $$760k a year.]

As Loon puts it, "....[we] rarely get what we don't ask for."

The moral is to ask for the moon, and expect to get it. This is precisely what big league negotiators do in the real world. It also provides a way to create satisfaction in the deal for everyone. That's how we get into the big leagues.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

The "White Pad" Analysis

It pays to know your numbers. I've been plowing through lots of operating data sheets for apartment buildings lately. When I first started looking at them after so many years of not doing that... I was hilariously rusty.

I used to be able to rattle off percentages and do mind calcs like "Rainman." However, for a while, I looked blankly at data sheets trying to remember why agents continue to pawn off "Pro Formas" on me, and never offer the actual operating numbers.

I've had agents tell me that they don't provide the actual operating numbers without a written offer. In other words, the Seller is testing the water, and doesn't want to get organized unless he's got an actual sucker on the line that would actually fall for that approach.

Normally, I would pass on a situation like this, but let me tell you a story about a Seller who had no numbers, did not know his numbers, and as a result gave me several hundred thousand dollars in equity because of his ignorance.

The Seller had just foreclosed on the building that he had previously seller-financed. He didn't have any numbers, except the taxes and insurance invoices. He also didn't have a clear idea of who was in the building, or who was paying rent. He didn't know the market rents or vacancy factor in the area.
Otherwise, I had to make my own assumptions of what the potential was. This was my first apartment purchase.

After all was said and done, I bought this property for less than 25% of it's retail value because the Seller himself didn't know his numbers whatsoever. He offered a sale price I felt was too good to be true, and I recognized the sale price as being so grossly under market that I could literally barely hold the pen to write up the agreement. To make matters worse, I didn't have a pre-printed sale agreement with me, so I had to write a "shorthand" contract on a sheet of yellow lined note paper. All I listed was the price, the down, the closing date, the loan balance, and the interest rate. I closed three months later.

Now because I knew my numbers I was able to confidently and quickly, if not
not nervously and feverishly act! :D

The Seller, meantime, did not know what he'd done to himself until he went back home and found his answering machine full of inquiries about his building. I would love to have been a fly on the wall and saw his face after listening to 30 messages asking about his apartments! he he he

I did spend 90 days defending my contract after the Seller realized what happened and wanted to back out for obvious reasons. I wouldn't back out, and we finally closed after threatening to tie the property up six ways from Sunday, or until his great grand children were dead, whichever occurred last.

This story would have never happened had I not
analyzed over 100 operating data sheets in depth, and performed forecasts and what-ifs on every one of them to see what I could do under various scenarios. I knew my farm, and my numbers.

Since I knew exactly what I could do with 30 newer units in downtown Kansas City, and the Seller did not know, I achieved a 75% discount.


The moral of this story is, know your numbers, be able to make educated guesses, and then seize the opportunities when they present themselves.

Somebody might say, "But Jay, that was a gross steal. How could you not know that, regardless of whether you had analyzed 100 other data sheets, or not?" Well, the analysis gave me confidence to avoid second-guessing myself, and flinching at the last moment. Months before, without having done hardly any analysis, I had come across other "steals," but hadn't really appreciated what I was looking at...or the scarcity of deals like this. As a result, I blinked...and lost deals to investors that did know my farm better than I knew it.

Meanwhile, the fact remains that the Seller did not know I WAS BUYING A STEAL --- from him.


Someone recommended that we, "Know Thy Numbers". I never recommend this to Sellers! :D

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Who Says I Has No Rithem? Yo!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Up A Tree?

It's just a matter of time before the bank says, "Um, your loan is denied."

Gulp. "Wait I've got 20% down, and a 720 credit score!"

"Yeah, sorry 'bout that, but the appraisal came in short... we want 25% down, not 20%... and... besides --- you're ugly!"


This is today's market. And...unless we've got all cash, and are happy doing one deal a year (or less), we've got to have alternatives.

We've got to be able to buy without banks, or cash, or credit, or a job...and by golly we've got to be able to do it over and over again!

[Cue Mighty Mouse theme song] Sub-To to the rescue!

Back in the early '90's we wanted to buy two board and care facilities in Orange and San Diego counties. But, alas, we were equity rich, but cash poor. And without bunches of cash to put down, we were also essentially credit "sunk".

Banks don't lend money to people who need it. And they don't lend money to people who don't fit their mold. Normally, the bank looks to the business operating data and history to "justify the loans", etc. Well, that's the bad part.

Only one of the two operations was actually "operating". The other one was non-operational, but had a huge upside with good management applied. Unfortunately, we didn't have demonstrable experience operating a board and care facility, and so the bank wasn't interested whatsoever in loaning us money at any price (or terms).

What to do? Somebody in our brain tank suggested just going around the bank. What? Yes, it was suggested that we just give the seller what he wants and take the rest. Well, the seller wanted cash, and we couldn't get it without selling things, and this would take forever! Also, we had to be on title to operate the board and care facilities lawfully.

Our brain tank buddies suggested that we trade properties all subject to the underlying loans, including ours...and just take title to the real esate under the care facilities. Brilliant!

What? Yes, we traded a property with enough equity for their two businesses, and we took title subject-to the loans on the board and care real estate, and the seller took our property subject-to, and later refinanced cash out of it. What's more they turned our property trade into yet another board and care facility to sell for profit.

Problem solved!

Well, we got everything running, and successfully operated two care facilities, and essentially used dead equity from our property to buy two businesses without getting new loan, without coughing up any cash, and operated them lawfully with genuine title ownership. Such a deal!

P.S. If we had been smarter and a little less enamored with our management expertise, we could have managed to keep control of our equity rich property and not trade it up front, but simply got the numbers on the board and care facilities looking good, and used the new credit from our business operation to pay off a note to the sellers. This would have been simpler, and more profitable, but alas, we made money anyway.

In my new course, you'll learn how to buy a business without credit, and very little cash, from motivated sellers.

Jay

Monday, July 6, 2009

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Kick Mutt!

There are five elements in good advertising that I want to discuss here. I'm talking mainly about direct mail pieces, and I'm offering a video clip for discussion. Meantime, many businesses fall prey to making up in design, what they lack in ad copy. That is to say that amateurs make the mistake of thinking "pretty" mail pieces produce higher conversions than ugly ones.

It's been proven time and after time that {controlled for ad copy alone}, ugly pieces are read 2 to 1 over pretty pieces. Hmmm. Regardless of the "look", here are five elements to include in good advertising copy:
  1. Clear.
  2. Forceful.
  3. Memorable.
  4. Easy to understand.
  5. Call to action.
Play the video below see how this advertiser included all five elements in the video. I'll say that this add is a bit cloying, but they sure get their point across.

Consider how you might improve your own advertising. This has been very helpful to me.


Tuesday, June 30, 2009

The Right Tool...



Of course this post will make any guy cringe. However, the point of this post is to illustrate how important it is to use the right tool for the right job (or...really not try the job at all!).

In fear of devolving this post into a vulgar double entendre, the real story of using the "wrong tool" in question was used by a young man to perform what would expectantly result in an unsuccessful effort to give his "own tool" a circumcision.

Ouch!!! No really!

After the aborted surgery, the young man was rushed to a hospital at Stevenage, Hertfordshire (England). The wound was disinfected and cleansed before he was given a bed in an observation ward.

"This is something we would advise men never to attempt," a medic said, "The results can be quite horrific and long-lasting and have quite an affect on a man's sexual performance."

Oh, really...? "advise never to attempt!" Such words of wisdom.

So, how does this apply to real estate investing? Well, for one, I've seen enough newbie investors try to create/use "one-size-fits-all" negotiations and presentations that sent them out the door in a bloody mess of rejected offers.


That's why having/using the right tools to qualify/disqualify prospects as soon as possible in order to produce successful outcomes is vital. Otherwise, we get promises of the moon by passive-aggressive, codependent sellers that want to please us more than they want to sell, or.... we get a punch in the nose. Whichever, we lose the deal.

Meanwhile, we can burn out real fast knocking our heads against unmotivated seller's skulls! So why pitch those who don't initiate a sign of motivation in the first place?

The answer is we don't want to. However, in order to avoid this we need to use another "special" tool. This is a tool that eliminates most of the Sellers that ask retail prices, have options, can afford real estate agents, are maintaining their homes, and then look forward to rejecting our profitable offers (otherwise known as "low-ball" offers).

BTW, unmotivated Sellers just LOVE to turn down our profitable offers. These are a DIFFERENT species of sellers.

So what is this "special" tool? The tool is the thing that not only helps us uncover the motivated sellers, but gets them to call us first, before they think to call anybody else.

Okay the tool is...(drum roll, please)

The U.S. Postal Service!

Yes, using the mail system to market ourselves to the most likely prospects is the BEST tool we have available. It's private, confidential and "below the radar" of nearly all of our competitors. Mailing to the most likely prospects is likely to keep us from getting bloody noses, and/or empty promises.

The challenge then is creating the best mailing list. Not just a mailing list, but the BEST one. One that has the most likely prospects. Ones that don't need extra "warming up". One's that just need to believe that we're not showing up to scalp them. Remember we can sheer and sheer, but only skin...once. So, we only do a nice, comfortable, enjoyable, satisfying coat sheering. This way the sheered will recommend us to others.

The next question revolves around the definitions of what the most likely prospect are that we put on the mailing list. That is the subject of a chapter in my new investing course coming out soon.

Jay

Thomas Paine Has It Right!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

How To Turn A Lemon Into Lemonade!

I just came away from an appointment that I would not normally have made. The seller showed me all the "wanter-itis" "sores" I could stand to look at.

However, ever a masochist and always curious, I wanted to see the cute 1 acre property anyway, and keep my sub2 pitching arm toned up, so I played the interested "wanter" role anyway and asked to see the property today at 9 a.m.

I brought in my credential book ready to "yellow pad" the crap out of the victims, er the sellers, again just to keep my pitching arm toned up.

First I knew they wanted $25,000 up front. Deal killer. They owed $19,000 more on the property than it was worth. They were asking $100,000 more than what is was worth. Really a deal killer. They told me, point blank, they weren't desperate to sell the house. Really, really, really a deal killer. And finally, if this wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back, they wanted their Realtor buddy to be present at my presentation. OK, no really?

Well, upon arrival I discovered that the agent was one I made a verbal offer through two years ago on a pre-foreclosure. I know he was desperate to sell something, but I wasn't seriously interested in that deal either. I let the agent beat the seller up with my low-ball opinion. I know how the game works. I was helping him get a closing. He sold that house for 80k less partly because I gave him ammunition to discourage the seller with. he he.

Wow so now I've got an ally, I hoped. I introduced myself again and then pitched down the center. I showed everyone the examples of houses we buy and sell, and the referral and reference letters, that we support little league and the better business bureau, and offered the "bad news" RE articles, etc.

This was my second time at the property. I already toured the house the day I called, so that part of the presentation was moot. So, we just analyzed the numbers as if, and I outlined all the costs, carrying costs (based on 23 months of inventory! wow), and finally showed them that they would have to cough up $20,000, if they waited for a retail buyer (as if the price weren't $100,000 over retail as it was). Frankly it would take them 10 years to find a buyer for that extra $100,000k in price. Actually, just one day, if they went with me! Who knew?! Lots of laughs.

I informed the sellers that I was there to qualify them for our system of buying and selling (following the "cash now" script/pitch exactly).

During the scripted presentation, I uncovered all sorts of nook and crannies of need. Problematic for me was the wife was a ditz. She couldn't quite comprehend what "take over payments" meant exactly. Argh!

So it was an uphill battle. I digressed from the script in order to come at something the sellers could understand without having to defer to my now agent-buddy.

After explaining that I could make it possible for them to buy a cheaper house in Arizona (and with the agents help in suggesting they could find a "low-down" lender in Arizona), the entire pace of the negotiations picked up speed.

All of the sudden the need for $25,000 as a down payment disappeared, the fear of having to be responsible for repairs disappeared, and the fact that they could get out of the payments on the house, move to a cheaper home with a cheaper mortgage, could enable them to continue paying on their credit cards, and protecting their credit became a genuine solution to them. Who knew?

So again, I suggested two alternatives to the sellers; 1) a lease option (which I only suggested so that I could knock it down), or 2) take over the payments (which I showed all the more benefits of doing as opposed to "renting" their house for 10 years, etc.). It took me a while to explain how this could work as a long term solution to their $100,000 over-pricing.

Here's where you sharpy's might ask, why didn't the "yellow pad" analysis enable me to knock off $100,000? Well, it did. However, I used the analysis to demonstrate that even their over-retail asking price wasn't going to net them anything. And from talking to them, they would rather have an R E O, than let someone equity-strip their perception of equity.

I could see how $400 or $500 extra a month just waiting for a gestation period would be worth my time anyhow, so I met their price, if they were willing to give me my terms. This was the crux of the negotiations.


Well, the couple can't continue paying on $40,000 of credit card debt, AND make their mortgage very much longer (of $287,000) --- and they really want to move to Arizona a.s.a.p., so the hubby can die near relatives.

Meanwhile, they wanted enough out of the deal immediately to pay off the credit cards originally. I said, in not so many words, the best I can do is take over your first mortgage loan, and promise you the extra $100,000 in 120 months. And at this price, I'm not going to put anything down, or pay interest on the extra $100,000, or make credit card payments. And btw, you'll need to leave everything here when you leave so that I can attract a decent buyer willing to pay $100,000 over retail.

They asked the Realtor buddy to confirm what I've said was true, and he backed me up 100%! Who knew?

Bottom line, they want to make sure that if they sell this way, they won't have to come back and fix anything, regardless if they lease option, or sub2, me. I said fine.

And their other concern is that one of them won't live out the 10 years, and will be stuck with the whole credit card bill and have to wait for the remaining $100,000. I said fine. No, just kidding.

I just said I can only one thing here, and give you a silent, no interest 10-year balloon for the extra $100,000.

So, now they're getting back in touch with the mortgage broker in Arizona to see if they can actually buy a "used house" with very little down, and if they can, they said they want to do the deal. That's a far cry from we want $25k, and "What the f--k does 'take over payments' mean!"

What I should have done is had them sign my preliminary Buy Agreement, and then let them do all their due diligence, and then actually force them to cancel our agreement. But, leaving the "printing out a contract" task until eighty thirty this morning, and discovering that my printer server wouldn't recognize the wireless router (which has never happened), I went without being my usually prepared self.

So, after this couple finds out that they can get into a smaller house, with a lower down in Arizona, and still qualify for a loan since they've barely been able to keep their credit card and house payments current --- I believe I can resell this place for a contract price of $390,000 in 10 years, realize a monthly spread on the payments of about $400 a month, with about $15,000 up front.

Just thought I'd share this scheme with you guys. The things that make this work are that the first mortgage has a low fixed interest rate for $1,700 mo. PI which is very marketable; I'm not paying anything on the perceived equity until 2018, and I'm able to get into the deal without any real cash, just notary and recording fees; I'm only paying $1,400 taxes on a 1988 valuation/purchase; and I've got buyers for this thing in the pipeline.

Who knew any of this would be likely had I not made an appointment and made an off-the-cuff offer presentation, on a house I was only curious to use for comparison --- and was otherwise a "loser deal".

Anyone else have a war story they want to share?

I'll let you know what happens when this couple realizes NOBODY else has what I have to offer them.