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