Merry Christmas

Look Mom! I'm famous!

I'm not sure if I have posted my experiences/frustrations of trying to do my own mailings back in the beginning of my real estate investment venture.

Suffice it to say that I have learned from my mistakes and realized that I needed someone to handle the mail "in spite of me."

Since Feb of this year I have used Sales Team Live to do all my postcard mailing. They are great and I just love that they take care of all the stuff that I don't have time to do. I have become friends with some of the staff over there and my friend Ken asked to do an interview with me on the last deal I closed.

So here it is. This went out to all the sales team live members and their potential customers. I think it makes me sound bigger/better than I really am, but... I know I'll grow into my role as one of "their best clients."

http://www.salesteamlive.com/dealclub/

Nice to get noticed. Better to get paid.

Here's to getting more 5 figure paychecks in 2009!

Happy Holidays,
Taylor

My Latest Auction

As you may remember, I held an auction/open bid sale the weekend of Nov 8-9.
On one hand, the auction process was super successful.

• 2100 mailers to surrounding .5 mile radius generated a lot of calls to the toll-free 11 Day Sale Real Estate Hotline. Many visitors mentioned the cards.
• 90 Auction signs posted in 1mi radius. Amazing pull.
• Over 130 groups (most groups were 2 or more) attended on both days. Huge turnout.
• 9 bidders willing to put their info on a bid card & participate in the auction.

Like I said, the PROCESS worked like a charm to get people there. This is why I favor these type of sales to sell properties.

Unfortunately, I missed the market by about $100k! My best estimate (comps, sold's, property condition etc.) was that the property had a retail value of 460k+. I bought it at $387k on an option contract & moved forward with finding an end buyer.

Bids:

1. $225k
2. $250k
3. $275k
4. $300k
5. $300k
6. $325k (eventually moved up to $350k)
7. Skipped first round; Joined at $350k in round 2, but wouldn't budge upwards...
8. Backed out once he heard the $300k+ bids (but asked me to call him with a cherry deal next time...)
9. All cash buyer. Wanted $.50 on the dollar (150k?) Hot REO investor.
   

Highest bids were $350 & $350. bummer. Taylor makes $0.00. Referred the deal to my realtor and she might make something out of the short-sale as the property is leveraged at $380k.

AND, to add insult to injury, the dirt in Paso Robles is like CEMENT! Holy Crap! I had to use a piece of 3/8" rebar and a 3lb engineers' hammer to make holes for my signs. I think I pounded 140+ holes in the ground getting them all posted. (Having the holes already there made for easy replacement though...)

Education. Expensive, but priceless.





Lessons learned?:

1. Know thy market. It is lower than thou thinkest...
2. Buyeth Bettereth.
   
3. Auction process works exceptionally well in this market. (assuming 1 & 2 are met)
4. Ingenuity and persistance are key to success in real estate investing.
5. God bless the option contract. I am greatful that the seller had no way to force me to buy this house at $387k. Option to purchase for 30 days... $11 dollar consideration. What a great way to control property.
   

Hitler as McMansion Homeowner...

I love the use of creative subtitles...

Super Legit Advice

I LOVE Mr Mortgage. Check out his blog. http://mrmortgage.ml-implode.com/

Check out this youtube video. He talks fast, but has been 'on the money' for the last 10 months that I've been watching these video blogs.

Go, watch, Learn.

Photos from my day...

I took some time this afternoon to leave my luxurious office and take some pictures. Here's a house I went to see. The seller thinks it's worth $370k. The neighbor's place has recently been reduced to $249k. Time for a reality check.

One of the tools I use in my discussions with sellers is the # of foreclosures in the area. (55% of all sales in CA are FC/Bank Owned. At this point FC's are the market.)

Here is a jpg of the foreclosures around the house above.

Interesting note on how I use this info...

I have always checked www.Realquest.com to get an idea of the foreclosure activity around a property (Free!). In the past I had to just make a note in the file as to the number of Auctions, Bank Owned and PreForeclosure properties around the property and would mention the numbers when talking to sellers.

Useful, but not particularly Powerful. Realquest doesn't allow anyone to print this graphic from their site without paying for a full report (which contains public info anyway...)

I'm not a guy that likes to pay for info that is free. However, I did want to use the power of the graphic to impress the severity of the competition in the neighborhood from FC's. Step-by-step instructions below.

1. Step 1 Push the [print screen] or [Prt Sc] button on your keyboard to copy the current screenview.
   
2. Next, Open paint (Windows/All Programs/Accessories/Paint).
   
3. Right click/Paste or if you're a keyboard user like me, ctrl-V
4. Use the Select (outline/rectangle) tool to highlight the portion of the screen you want to use.
5. Right click/Cut or ctrl-X to cut the image.
   
6. Click File/new (don't save) to create a new paint project.
7. Paste the newly edited image onto the project. Right click/paste or ctrl-v.
8. Print/save the resulting image and use to your advantage.
   
9. Wasn't that easy? Use it to create .jpg images of any screen you want to. Excellent skill to know.
   

Here is a tricked out ride I saw around the corner. Seriously, a lifted, 4x4 Nova. Nice to see some redneck style 'hood life' here in sunny CA!

Keep your hook in the water...

They say that to catch a fish you've got to have your hook in the water. Well, my hook is out there, but at times I feel like this guy. (see photo @ left.)

Last week I got to the point where I just got fed up with trying to figure out this market and started meeting with sellers. I remember having the same turning point when I was in VA. Just woke up one day and said, "Self, enough analysis. Time to get out and see some people." And things just took off from there. In hopes of improving my closing ratio, I have put together a nice little flip chart presentation (MBA guy can't resist some good charts & graphs:) and wanted to try it out.

I scheduled myself for two appointments back to back. One at 9am, one at 11am. My presentation went great both times and I got an option contract at the first house (details below,) and a commitment from the seller at the next house (no contract though, the place is hammered and she won't be able to sell it until it is fixed up.) My appointments actually ran about 2-2 1/2 hrs each, but by the time I was done with them, the sellers had an education of the market and a gameplan for what they could do 'by selling to me, listing with an agent or selling on their own...' It went better than I had hoped.

Stoney Creek Rd, Paso Robles
This 2400 sq ft house was bought by a bay area (Palo Alto) couple as a second home/investment back in 2005. They watched the price go up, up, up... and now come back down. It has been on the market for the last 6 mo's at $489k. I picked it up at about 100k less than that and will be holding an 11 Day Sale the weekend of Nov 8 & 9th. I've got a partnership with a local mortgage broker who will be there at the open house on both days to get people pre-qualified.


I've got another appointment Saturday morning and should have more next week. We're moving forward now!
-Taylor

Sold, and sold.

Adobe Ct, VB
The auction in VB (see prior post,) for Adobe Ct. went well. We got a buyer under contract and made the margin that we needed to, so everyone is happy. We're waiting on the appraisal, but inspections have been done and the buyer is FHA approved so it looks like we'll be able to get funding and take it to closing in about 10 more days. Whew!

Jeanne St, VB
Jeanne St FINALLY closed as well. I originally got this property under contract back in MAY 2008! It was a probate property and I started working with the heirs back in Oct 07. It took them months to all decide on a.)Whether or not to sell the house at all, b.) Upon deciding to sell, they bickered about the price to sell, c.) One of the heirs got thrown in jail so they waited until he got out 2 months later to sign the contract.

Once under contract we had title issues, leins and judgments for each of the heirs. One of the heirs had just been released from bankruptcy so we had a couple issues to deal with there as well. As time wound along, another of the heirs STARTED bankruptcy, so her portion of the estate got wrapped up and we couldn't move forward with the closing until the judge had time to review the case. Aarrrgh! So, 6months after signing the contract with the heirs, I finally saw some $$ come my way. At least it's done.

Virginia Beach Keeps Rockin!

HOT AUCTION THIS WEEKEND!!
http://www.postlets.com/res/1207279

Click the link above to check out the the latest '11 Day Sale' open bid sale coming up this weekend. Unfortunately there's a tropical storm rolling over the top of VA Beach today and tomorrow. In fact, I watched the poor guy from weather channel take a beating from the wind & rain while broadcasting live from the pier in VB while I ate breakfast this morning.

At least visitors to the auction will get an idea of how the yard drains water and whether or not the roof leaks!

We've got some blurry photos of the property on www.11daysale.net as well.

Working the VA Pipeline
With my acquisitions manager following up on the leads generated earlier in the year, we are starting to stack up some purchases. Between the two of us we have been able to negotiate:

• one successful quick wholesale deal on a condo in Chesapeake,
  
• get a recently rehabbed property (no repairs necessary!) under contract
• Made a follow up call to one of our previous auction success stories in Portsmouth and got a commitment to hold an 11 Day Sale in October.

Filling the CA Pipeline

One of the challenges of starting from scratch here in CA is building a pipeline of sellers and a list of potential buyers. I am mailing about 2,000 postcards a month and am getting about a 3% response rate so far. I am filling the pipeline with people who are in various states of motivation as far as selling their homes. I have talked to 3 investors that own multiple properties in the area.

• One owns 30 propts and he wants to sell 6 of them in the next year.
  
• Another has 17 properties and is a lot more motivated to sell by the end of the year.
• The third owns two 4-plexes and a single family dwelling (currently in litigation) that I will continue following up with until he "buys or dies"

I also had a conversation with the owner of a free & clear property in Pismo Beach last night that I am going to make an offer on early next week. Funny thing about this guy is he is a Former Insurance Client of mine! Small world. Hopefully he likes me enough to go for my no interest, no payments offer on his place...

Thanks for stopping by!
-Taylor

Maybe it's not that bad after all...

I'm generally not a real political guy. I tend to vote with my wallet... ergo Republican.

I do enjoy it when candidates, pundits & talking heads get their facts wrong & get called on it.

Back to Real Estate this weekend. Lots happening.

Back on my feet & riding...

As you may or not know, I started this little real estate venture as a response to being laid off from my corporate job in the insurance business. I happened to be in Virginia Beach at the time, so as a result, my real estate business was in & around the VA Beach/Tidewater area.

As months went by with no steady source of income, my lovely bride & I decided to put our awesome home (see it at 2904wilcox.blogspot.com) up for sale and keep working the Glass Doctor by day and 11 Day Sale real estate in the afternoon & evenings.

Since our house sold so quickly, (we had an offer in 4 weeks...) we had to make the decision to either stay in VA & rent, or find a job/place to live back in CA where we were both originally from.

It was a tough decision, but we decided to go back to CA.

And now we're here. We are here on the Central Coast of CA in San Luis Obispo County. We happen to be living with family for the near term, but are excited about the next step for our growing business.

You are probably saying to yourself, Taylor, what about your VB operations? Why would you leave something that was just getting going? Why work so hard to just leave it all behind?

Good questions my young reader. Let me fill you in on our growth strategy...

11 Day Sale in VA will continue. I have hired an Acquisitions Manager to continue to buy/sell homes using my contacts in VA Beach. She is fantastic and we just wrapped up her first closing on an 11 Day auction she did while I was in Hawaii last month. A nice little bit of bling to fund our operations on both coasts...

We're also looking at picking up another researcher/11 Day Sale contract employee in Harrisonburg VA. We'll see how it comes along, but things are coming along well with her training and she should be ready to hold her first auction/bid sale by mid September.

11 Day Sale in CA is just picking up speed! I have been fortunate enough to pick up a few night shifts a week at Giuseppe's Restaurant in Pismo Beach, and also have a gig with Advanced Teeth Whitening Systems, selling teeth whitening systems (light machines & supplies) to local Day-spas & up-scale salons. It looks to be a good money maker and the income should take any hint of desperation out of my real estate discussions with sellers. (never be the motivated buyer... ever...)

I have sent out 67 probate mailers to SLO county and as of yesterday have 7 responses so far. I have another set to mail out this weekend for North Santa Barbara County and will keep tabs on responses here in the blog.

Thanks for keeping up with us! Check 11daysale.net to see some of the hot investment properties my manager has stirred up in VA!

Cheers!
Taylor

I'm out there...

Beautiful sunrise today.

Gotta love this place.

Only problem is I'm on the North Shore in summer. Waves are hard to come by....


I just got a link to an interview that Dustin Matthews & I did about a week ago. I used his business credit infusion program and was able to get a solid amount of credit for my operations.

The interview is at http://businesscreditinfusion.com/blog/?p=25

I'm working on a referral link for the program, but if anyone viewing my blog buys the program, let them know I sent you & I'll get the credit.

-Taylor

ps. Geckos outside the house this morning.

Aloha

I am away from real estate for a week. I am in Leia on Oahu for a much needed trip away from it all.

I am a surfer so my first trip was to Sunset Beach yesterday. The waves were tiny, but it was great to be there and see the beach were the best in the world ride every year.

We visited Wiamea Beach today. I did one of the things I've always dreamed about doing when I swam with and got a quick tow from a seaturtle. It was truly an amazing (dare I say spiritual) experience for me.

I faced my fear of heights and I jumped off a 15ft rock into the ocean. Twice!

Surfed outer reef waves yesterday and actually caught a couple of shoulder high thumpers.

And still had time to talk a pending deal through some stumbling blocks and helped everyone get to the signing table (thanks to my acquisitions manager!)

Pearl Harbor tomorrow. It's pouring rain right now and I have nothing but time to relax with the family.

More real estate news next week...

-Taylor
(cliff jumping video of me & my brother in law. I'm the second jumper...)

Education Disguised as Failure

Recently I've been selling (attempting to sell) some of these properties using auctions (technically open-bid sales...). The most recent 2 auctions didn't go as well as I had hoped.

The first was an auction in Portsmouth which was a new area for me, but just over the tracks from Chesapeake, so I felt that I was familiar enough with the area to get the sale made. This was just days after my first 5 figure paycheck sale so I was feeling like I could do no wrong.

Wrong.


After review, I have come to the following conclusions about my errors.

• Bought it too high. I buy these pretty properties on option to purchase contracts so there is very little risk to me financially other than the $10 that I put up for the option fee (should i put down $11 since my company is 11 Dal Sale? T thinks so...) and anything i put into $marketing$ the property. Because of the low risk, I have felt able to offer more for the property. WRONG. I can offer up to .80 on the dollar (most investor offers are .65 or lower), but on this one I was at .90!...
  
• Not enough time to market the property. I generally spend about $600 on mailers to the neighborhood. My biggest paycheck to date came from one of my $1000 postcards and this auction was on short notice. This ties back to the notion that the auction strategy for selling a house creates such a buzz that signs alone can generate enough interest to sell the property. Wrong again. The combination of mail, signs and buyers' list creates the volume of lookers to find a buyer.
  
• Not getting the full story from the seller. I am eager. I want to make money. But at the same time I am also in this business to help people. I genuinely feel like I have something of a calling to use this information and skill in real estate to help people out of their financial troubles. I can't help them if I allow them to skirt the truth by taking their patty-cake answers and not asking the tough questions.
  

I came to this final realization this afternoon when, a month after the auction (failure?), the seller called to say that he was in default on his loan and needed me to come back and do another auction. This time he would take anything above the loan amount of $120k.

It turned out that he was already a month behind on pmts when we talked in May. I JUST DIDN'T ASK THE QUESTION! Now he's in a bad way and is reaching out to me to help. I'm going to do what I can, but with my own relocation on the near horizon, there's only so much I can do...

In one of our phone conversations, Dan Doran told me something that really struck home. He told me to get really good at getting to the heart of the matter with sellers. Get past the monetary reason for selling their home and find the real reason for them to sell in a real estate market like this. "If you don't" he said, "you'll never really to much good for anyone. If you don't dig deep enough you won't have the conviction to really help them, and will just end up wasting their time."

I thought I understood this when he said it. I thought it rang true with me. It still rings true, but I understand the deeper meaning after my conversation with Mr. Seller in Portsmouth. See, if I had asked the hard questions back then and gotten the house sold back in May, he wouldn't be in the bind he's in right now. I could have helped him and not just tried my best but come up short.

I guess you could say I feel educated. But at the seller's expense.

Jerry Maguire: I am out here for you. You don't know what it's like to be ME out here for YOU. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, ok?

Just Help me help you.

Help me,
Help You.

Finally. Money in the Bank...

I knew that it would eventually come together. I just never expected this deal to be the one to crack the shell & let me out.

If you checked my last post about Postlets, you likely clicked on my ad for E. Indian River Rd. I heard about that deal from a friend of mine that is a mortgage broker. The timeline is amazingly short and truly what I originally expected wholesale real estate to be like.

1. Tuesday May 27, got call from my buddy the mortgage guy about a deal that he wanted me to wholesale for him. 2. Went out to property. Took pic's of the outside. Returned to my office (ie. Guest room) and comped the property. It looked like a decent deal, but without interior photos I knew I'd have no chance to get it sold.
2. Wednesday, May 28, Returned to property, talked to seller, got interior photos, banged head on low hanging light in living room and thought to self, "That hurt! I'd better get paid for this one!" Returned to office (Guest room) and put together Postlet, craigslist ad, flyer for REIA and flyer for buyers' list. Emailed everyone. Slept.
3. Thursday, May 29, got calls/emails from interested buyers. Craigslist brought 3, REIA brought 1. Sent them all out to the property.
4. Friday, May 30, sent more buyers to property. Repeat visits from REIA guy and a Craigslist guy.
5. Sunday, June 1, REIA guy wants to make offer. Sent him to my mortgage buddy.
   
6. Monday, June 2..... crickets...
   
7. Tuesday, June 3... still quiet... (by the end of the day I just knew that the deal was dead.)
8. Wednesday, June 4 - the deal is on, closing tomorrow! (at this point I had no idea what I was making, just that I would get paid out at closing.)
9. Thursday, June 5 THE DEAL ACTUALLY CLOSED! Get check tomorrow!
10. Friday, June 6 - Picked up first real estate check!! I went to kinko's & color copied the thing and then immediately went to the bank to deposit in my account.

WOOO HOOO!!!!!

It took 11 days to go from lead to check. Stunning since I have been working on:

• Galt St since February (signed contract on April 7th! and still haven't closed!!),
  
• Jeanne St since October 07, (signed contract on April 12, supposed to close any day now,)
• Norlina Rd since Sept 07, (signed contract with seller March 27th, sold it May 5th, fell out of escrow June 1st, now a dead deal...)

I had come to expect months of waiting for title to clear, buyers to qualify for financing, delays with signatures and working around holidays & mortgage officers' days off...

I guess I'm a real wholesaler now. Quick, easy money right?

Fun, but not easy. Keep rockin! More deals supposed to close this week...

-Taylor

Killer Resource...

If you post on Craigslist like I do you'll appreciate this hookup...

Postlets.com is a fantastic service that will build a beautifully formatted page for you to cut/paste into your craigslist post. I use it for real estate, but you can use it for posting rental real estate and vehicles as well.

Turn your crappy, generic posts like this poor guy... click here or this poor dude... click here
To one like the recent wholesale property I just posted... click here

1. Go to Postlets.com and create an account.
   
2. Create a postlet (very similar to creating a craigslist ad or ebay listing...)
3. Once finished, save the postlet and then click edit to return to the listing details. On the bottom of the page is a button that says COPY/PASTE HTML. Click it.
4. Copy highlighted html in the details box. (right-click/copy)
   
5. Click post to craigslist (right below the box)
6. Login to your craigslist account and create a new posting.
7. Create your headline and initial pricing/location info.
8. Paste your html from postlets in the listing details. If you linked photos to postlets you won't need to relist them in craigslist (whew!)
9. Finish your listing and sit back and look at the beauty that you've added to the internet shopping experience.
   

Now go post that thing you've been meaning to sell for the last couple of weeks.

-Taylor

Another Successful Auction... Eventually

Charlemagne Drive Condo Sold! (Link here to photos.)

I spent all weekend looking at this view of the Chesapeake Bay. The air temps were 75 degrees, and there were beautiful people all around and potential buyers by the droves coming through my open house. I am pretty well hooked on this lifestyle of real estate investor. I had a great time and ended up with a solid potential paycheck.

Here's some of the stats.

• Total visitors: 150+ ( I started counting 'buyers' groups' instead of individuals after the first hour on Saturday since there were just too many coming and going. 52 total groups.)
• Signs posted in 1 mile radius on major roads and inside complex: 48
  
• Signs retrieved on Sunday night (in the pouring rain...): 23
• Lost/unretrieved signs: 25
  
• Complaints/phone calls from local neighborhood residents for ugly yellow auction signs: 1
• Batches of chocolate chip cookies baked for visitors: 4
• # of bidders on list: 6

• RESULTS: Final bidder ended up backing out on Monday morning. Bummer.
• RESULTS PART II: I immediately got on the phone and got 3 bidders at a price $25k below the minimum bid. Bummer. However, since I was able to approach the seller with 3 bona fide offers and even though they were below the option price we had originally agreed upon, he was willing to lower his price enough for me to make my target margin on the deal!
  

Lessons learned:

1. Condos are more challenging to comp during market downturns. I was waaay off in my estimate of how much the market was willing to pay for this unit. Even with the private garden area, private beach path gate and extra parking, the end price was $10k below what I had originally contracted for and $40k below what I thought it might sell for...
   
2. Condos have a limited buying base compared to traditional residential/single family houses. Lots of lookers, few buyers. I had 30 visitors to sell Norlina, 150 visitors to sell this condo.
   
3. Condo association rules about sales of real estate and signage tend to be much more strict than traditional neighborhoods. This can/will put a severe damper on your marketing strategy if you are relying on signs alone. I lost a large number of signs to people in the complex and the surrounding neighborhood. No city fines though...whew!
   

Lucky for me I have a multiple pronged marketing strategy using signs, the newspaper (zero responses), and the AWESOME $1,000 dollar post card. (see previous post for picture of card.)

In the end it was a successful open house, a successful negotiation with buyers and a successful re-negotiation with my seller. We're hoping to close by the end of the month.

Let's hear it for 5-figure paychecks!!!

Hip-hip HOORAY!!
-TAYLOR

SOLD!

I ended up with 2 potential buyers for Norlina.

I had 14 visitors on Saturday, 6 on Sunday.

At the end of the day Sunday I had two bidders on the sheet and my mystery lady from Richmond with a phone-in bid that was well below the other two. Thanks Richmond lady! You got the other two moving upwards!!!

The other two bidders were both interested and bid each other up about a grand and stopped. (I was managing this process by phoning each one in turn with the increasing bids.) It turned out to be a race for financing as both needed to get to their bankers for the $$$.

So, by end of day Monday, my highest bidder secured his financing and had begun the underwriting process with his bank. I picked up the signed docs from his banker today and took all the contract paperwork with deposit check to the closing attorney's office to start escrow.

Expecting 30day escrow. Cross your fingers that the bank likes this guy's financials!

Next week... Mother's Day
Following Week... Charlemagne Condo Auction. Stay tuned!

Deal Update

The Auction is on!

My first open house/open bid auction started today and I actually had visitors! I think that 14 people walked through the house and 2 said they planned on returning tomorrow to make a bid. It's not to say that things have gone off without a hitch...

My initial plan was to list the property/auction on a Fee Only MLS listing for $400 to get the real estate agent traffic driven to my auction. Unfortunately, since I only have a contract on the property, my normal fee-only guy wouldn't list it for me. I had to be the owner of record/titleholder to be able t0 list with him... Bummer. By the time I had learned this (I turned in a completed packet with photos/etc and got the news direct from the broker a day later,) it was too late to be able to find a new fee listing service... double bummer... Since I was shooting for a retail buyer & 90% of all retail sales involve an agent and the MLS; you'll understand my state of mind about not getting onto the MLS.

I filled out/paid for a weekend 'open house' listing in the local paper with a photo & 12 lines of text. Was supposed to run Friday, Saturday & Sunday... I got a call Friday afternoon that there was a mixup with their online posting and she was calling to confirm that I wanted to be in the open house section on Sunday May4th and the weekend of May 9,10 & 11. What? I scheduled to be in the paper May 2, 3 & 4 and nothing about any other weekend. Major screw-up. AND, in a grand gesture of customer service and goodwill, she said she'd cancel the extra weekend at no charge. Oh, and Mr Taylor? Would you like to stay in the paper for Sunday May4th? YES!!!!
I was successful in getting my online USPS postcard to get mailed to every business & resident address within a 1 mile radius. (How to get such a list? That is a post unto itself...) See pict of my $1000 reward postcard. I had at least 3 visitors today that had seen the card & one intended on giving it to her friend on Sunday.


Signs. I ordered 50 Yellow Auction notice signs. I originally intended on using 25 this weekend and 25 for my next auction in a couple weeks, but decided to put out about 35 instead. Good thing too, because the other 11 people who came by the auction today all said that they followed the signs to get to the house... One even said that I did a good job with all the signs. "I couldn't miss them if I wanted to...", he said.

So, Sunday is the actual 'Auction' or open bid part of the open house weekend. It will be in the paper and I expect to see more traffic due to the exposure. I am going to make up another 8 signs to replace those that will be stolen/lost tonight. (I did get a kick out of posting about 3 signs in front of a Long & Foster Realty training center. It was at a major intersection and I couldn't miss the exposure, but I did get a little chuckle at the irony that there was likely a room with eager new real estate agents learning about how to list & sell a property when at that very moment I was out front posting "Auction Today!" signs...)

Irony. Good to the last drop.

Deal Update

More hood than hood is coming along slowly. There are a couple of judgments against 2 of the heirs and it should be a couple more days to get them ironed out. I am getting all kinds of calls in response to my Craigslist ad and I think one of the guys is working on financing. Cross your fingers... One of the judgments is over $15,000 and could ruin the deal if it hasn't been taken care of already. The heir in question promised me that he took care of paying off the debt a long time ago... We'll see.

BEFORE

Norlina is really coming along. My 11yr old & I tore up carpets and took down the old school aluminum shades from the front of the house. Check out the photos! It is really looking good. I need a couple of hours to get the carpet tack-strips off of the floor and sweep/swiffer the floor and I'll be ready for the "after" photos inside & out. Then comes the open house weekend & auction and ka-ching! $$ payday.
AFTER

One more

I got a call earlier tonight from the executor of an estate that I've been working with since October of 07. I mentioned her in a post a few days ago. We went over the contract/offer and she signed while on the phone with me and put it in the mail for tomorrow's pickup.

I've already got a buyer lined up and have a sweet $5k wholesale fee. Here's the numbers.

ARV - $230k (estimated listing amount $220 fixed up)
Negotiated Price with heirs - $125k
Wholesale fee - $5k
Rehab/improvements - est $25k
Gross estimated profit - $65k

The lady buying the property is a real estate agent. She and her husband are going to rehab it and put it back on the market to retail buyers & potential landlords. Financing is lined up & backup financing is on the back burner. We're hoping to close by Monday next week if title comes back in time.

Wholesaling real estate at it's finest.
-Taylor

So Much Trouble for 2 Pages & 9 signatures...

I FINALLY got a signed contract for 'more hood than hood' (see prior posts.) I'm still cautiously optimistic with this one. Getting 9 heirs and 2 attorneys to all agree on the amount of the offer, terms of the contract and then all be willing get them to sign on the line was an amazing feat. Now if we can just repeat the process next week and CLOSE! After the closing I'll be dancing the Snoopy dance for sure!

You always read/hear about people making $thousands$ of dollars quickly in real estate. In fact, I heard one the other day about an investor in Orange County, CA that bought & sold an ocean-view house in Laguna beach and made a $400,000 wholesale profit in less than 3 hours! I'd love nothing more than to have a similar story for you, but my deal involves a little more leg-work than usual. Plus, I think that stories like that have a long, drawn out background like mine with the heirs etc... but since that doesn't make for good copy, the work/background gets brushed over & you hear about the 'ka-ching!' when the investor makes huge money in a few hours.

It doesn't come easy & it ain't cheap. But I digress...

I guess it's still quick cash compared to working the phones all day at a J.O.B.! I never got a rush like this from getting an insurance contract signed, I'll tell you that much!

We had the meeting scheduled at one of the 'neutral' heirs' house on Wed at 7pm, but only 4 showed up. I got them signed up and a straggler showed up... Got him to sign.




Then the key heir & I made a little caravan throughout Norfolk & Chesapeake to get the remaining 3 signors in the area. That left the uncle out in the country for the next morning. I got home at about 11:30pm Wed night. Beat.

Next morning saw me driving from Virginia Beach to South Boston, VA (home of the Danville VA NASCAR track!) to meet up with the final heir yet to sign. It took me 3 1/2 hours and after a quick 12 minutes in the parking lot at the Shoney's Restaurant to get my signature I headed back to VB. 7 hours on the road for a 12 minute signing... Whew! I will say that it was a beautiful drive. Rural Southeast Virginia in springtime is hard to beat. I had my window down and my eyes peeled for speed-traps as I worked my way through civil war country.

So it took about 3 weeks to go from verbal deal to signed deal on this one. Problem is, it took so $*%##%'ing long to get all the signatures & attorney sign-offs that my two buyers cooled on the deal with one headed off elsewhere with his money and one unwilling to pay me the wholesale fee I was looking to get.

So I'm off to find my own buyer and it looks like I may have one to assign the contract to on Sat afternoon. Cross your fingers!

ps. Check my website at www.11daysale.net for some of my other properties under contract. Lots going on around here lately!

Cheers!
Taylor

Teach Your Kids...

Cool link

Check out this link. Very cool info. Results as of Feb 08.
http://www.eppraisal.com/NationalMSA.aspx

Enjoy -
Taylor

New Website, New Name

I got a call about 2 weeks ago from a local Realtor who was already using the Real Deal Real Estate company name that my son & I came up with. (Originality runs in our blood...)

Since I had already been thinking about a new name for my company anyway, I used the encounter as motivation to get off my butt and get a new name going.

With this new property under contract & a 30 day deadline to sell looming, I pulled out all the stops and came up with the name "11 day sale" The name says what we do. Catchy. And, the website was available for $9.99! Bargain.

Check it out! www.11daysale.net. I've been up late a few nights over the last week trying out different layouts & formats for the site. I think I'm going to stick with the format I've got now until I start making big bucks & can get a kickin new site built. I've posted a couple of the properties that I'm working on & plan to keep it updated with more of my pretty houses that I pick up. Ugly houses are quick wholesale deals and since I'll likely have them sold within a day or so I don't want to burn daylight hours posting them on my site.

Project Update:
I'm doing way too much work on this option property. I believe that the work I am doing is going to make the property more sell-able, but tomorrow is my last day to be humping it like a manual laborer. I'm going to fill the green waste dumpster with limbs/branches and be done with the labor. Check out he snapshots of what we were able to knock out over the weekend.

On to the marketing! Let's sell this sucker! I'm still leaning towards an April 12/13th open house & bid sale weekend. Cross your fingers... As long as the dumpster is away from the front of the house & I can get the carpets up, I'm going to sell this baby quick!

Step One...

So, my little option property is a little like an episode of flip this house right now. Well, maybe more like one of the curb appeal shows since all I'm doing is sprucing up the yard a bit.

This option is a little strange because I am going to do work on the property myself rather than have the owners do the work. Since there isn't a lot of equity to work with, I need to make the place as pretty as possible for my retail buyer.

Generally an investor will only buy an option on a property if it is a "pretty house" and doesn't need a lot of work. But for a few thousand dollars I'll tear up a ramp, cut up some tree limbs & rake the leaves. No problem.


Apparently, the city of Virginia Beach will hire a contractor to come out and build a wheelchair ramp for your house when you get old and can't walk anymore. This is how the ramp came to be in front of my option house. At least that is how it was explained to me by the executor. Get old, stop walking, get free ramp. Hmmm... I'll stay young & walk often. But I digress...

My oldest son & I had the great pleasure of doing some demo work on the ramp. It was a blast. Banging, ripping, tearing wood, pulling nails, awesome guy stuff. Hammers & crowbars were the tools of the day. I even got to use my chainsaw to cut up some of the support beams. We got the job done in about 2 1/2 hours.

I placed an ad on Craigslist.com for the 'Free Wood' left over from the demo and I got 13 responses in the next 2 hours. Nails & all. People love wood.

1st Signed Contract!

My lovely bride is skeptical, but I am cautiously optimistic that I can make money on this skinny deal.

I have been working this probate lead since Oct 07. They have had it listed with a Realtor for 9 months and it didn't sell. I kept in touch with the executrix during that time and with the bank deadline looming, she finally decided to listen to what I have been telling her and let me take the property.

There is a reverse mortgage on the property and there really is not a lot of equity to speak of so I took the property on a 30 day option contract and plan on marketing it -retail- with a 9 day sale.

I'm not going to say much about the 9 day sale except I just learned about the strategy and it seems like just the thing for a pretty house in this market.

I'll keep you posted as we move along, but for now it looks like I've got something to work on!!



Pending Deal Update:
"More hood than hood" is moving along slowly. I had a contractor come by the place & give me his expert opinion on rehab costs and the number was $$BIG$$. Near $100k (I'm sure that's a retail price though. A good investor will see right through that one...)

The heirs are like a bunch of cats in a box. If this thing actually closes it will be a true Christmas miracle. In fact, it will be a true "pray for Taylor" miracle. Keep praying. I need the miracle.

The heirs raised their price on me and once I found someone to partner with & accepted their new higher price, the spokesman dropped the bomb on me this evening at 8:30pm (they were supposed to sign the contract Tomorrow...) that they want to have my contract reviewed by their Attorneys... You read that right. Plural. Attorneys. This battle for the $$ between the family has been going on for such a long time that 3 of the 6 heirs banded together to get an attorney to represent them. Another got his own attorney and the other two... well, let's say I don't think they care one way or the other.

Needless to say, I will be spending my Friday morning at the office of attorney #1 having my contract reviewed while my lovely bride and kids head out to the beach for the last day of spring break. Didn't I decide to go into business for myself for more beach time with the kids?

Oh yeah, it was the MONEY. Money first, freedom later. My new mantra. Instead of figuring out ways to hide from the man, I'm trying to figure out how to squeeze more out of each day so I can get more done.

Hopefully I can get there in time to have lunch on the beach. It's supposed to be near 80 tomorrow. It would be nice to feel the sand again.

Also, more deals on the way! I got calls from 2 deals today that I thought were dead deals. Boomerang deals. Listed with an agent and already changing their mind. It's all coming back around...