March 29th, 2013
A real estate investment mentor is the secret to investing success. Every great achiever in history has had mentors. No one is “self made”. Behind every extraordinary person are extraordinary mentors. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. But how do you decide on which real estate investment mentor is right for you? Ask yourself these 3 questions when choosing a real estate investment mentor: Read the rest of this entry “
1 Comment "
February 15th, 2013
Is flipping illegal? This is an extremely misunderstood topic among newbie and veteran investors alike. The legality of flipping is swirling with myths and half truths and although I am not an attorney, I will lay out the facts that my experiences have taught me about it.
Read the rest of this entry “
1 Comment "
January 7th, 2013
While most of the buzz surrounding bank owned properties involves investing in foreclosures, what if you are looking to purchase a home yourself? Is buying a bank owned REO/foreclosure a smart move when looking for your primary residence? Absolutely! You can get more bang for your buck by purchasing a distressed property and perhaps, even get an incredible deal that provides you with instant equity the moment you buy it. But there are some pitfalls as well. To avoid making a big mistake, follow these 4 important steps when buying an REO/Foreclosure to live in as your home: Read the rest of this entry “
2 Comments "
December 7th, 2012
Is joining and attending the meetings of your local investor club a productive use of your time? I get this question a lot. Local REIA clubs (as they are referred to) have been around for decades and most are non-profit associations whose members gather together monthly to share ideas and network.
Read the rest of this entry “
1 Comment "
November 5th, 2012
The devastation caused by SuperStorm Sandy brought back memories of the 3 day thunderstorm that caused a freak flood in Nashville, TN in May of 2010. A common late spring rainstorm became a serious natural disaster when, for no apparent reason, the clouds never pushed off to the East like normal, but instead, hung over Middle Tennessee for several days and dropped more than 14 inches of water. Rivers and creeks rose to levels never before seen in Nashville history. Cars, houses and buildings flooded.
Read the rest of this entry “
No Comments "
October 1st, 2012
How do you currently negotiate a real estate deal? Studies have shown that less than 40% of signed real estate agreements consummate with a successful closing. Why so few? Many buyers and sellers are negotiating their real estate deals all wrong. Many assume that if you get the best of the other party and the deal is heavily one sided to your direction, that you have won. That may work with other businesses, but in real estate, the opposite is true. If a deal is too lop-sided, it may never get to closing (which explains why the success rate is less than 40%). To successfully negotiate a real estate transaction, you should create the best outcome for all parties in the deal. Here’s how to do that, step by step:
Step 1: Posture
To successfully negotiate a real estate deal, you must be willing to walk away. Too often, I see investors act like a “dog in heat” when talking to sellers. They are so anxious to make a deal happen that they try to convince the seller to sell their property to the investor. This is a huge mistake. Instead, you want to play the role of the reluctant buyer (or seller if you are selling a property). You want the other party to try to convince you why you should do a deal with them. This is what I call “posture”. You want to have the posture, or position yourself, as the reluctant party in the deal. That way, whether you are buying or selling, the other party is doing the convincing and you are sitting back and doing the evaluating. From the very beginning, you must have the mindset that you don’t need the deal to happen and that you can walk away. Don’t be a “dog in heat”, have the right “posture” from the onset.
Step 2: Decision Maker
A real estate deal can be very confusing when there are multiple parties involved, such as agents, managers, representatives, siblings or spouses. In order to successfully negotiate a real estate deal, you must have direct communication with the decision maker(s). My philosophy on profitable real estate investing involves connecting directly with property owners, as opposed to having a real estate agent represent you as the buyer (who in turn submits your offer to another real estate agent representing the seller). Too often, real estate transactions are negotiated by agents who aren’t the final decision makers. Instead, when buying real estate, I preach the concept of working directly with sellers who are not represented by an agent. When selling, even if an agent is representing the buyer, I still request the buyer’s direct contact information.
I can already hear the real estate agents reading this, strongly disagreeing with the idea of having the buyers and sellers communicate directly in a deal. My response to that is that I am an agent myself and have been a part of more than a 1,000 real estate transactions in the past decade and the bottom line is that having people in the middle of a negotiation usually creates miscommunication. If a buyer’s agent is involved in a deal, I will keep the agent up-to-date on what is going on so that the buyer’s agent can advise their client wisely, but I don’t want my only communication with the buyer to be through a buyer’s agent. Direct communication with the decision maker(s) is essential.
In addition, make sure you connect with all decision makers, as in the case of a husband-wife situation or an inheritance property that includes several heirs. Not connecting with the decision maker, or all decision makers, is a surefire way to fail at negotiating a real estate deal.
Step 3: Discovery
Ready, aim, fire should be your approach to negotiate a real estate deal. Most people “fire” first and hope for the best. Discovery is all about figuring out the other party’s situation so that you both can put together a deal that works for everyone. The main question you want to get the answer to is, “Why”? Why is the person selling? Or why is the person looking to buy your property? Take special notice that I didn’t bring up “how much” as the most important piece of discovery. The reason is because why someone wants to do something will tell you far more than how much they want. For example, if you are trying to sell your property and a very low ball offer comes in, if you don’t know why that prospective buyer is making an offer on your property, you have no way of knowing how to counter. What if the buyer is an investor trying to steal your property for a song? What if the buyer is making ten offers on homes in your subdivision and is going to move into the best deal they get? Or what if they love your home, want to move in, but simply want to throw out a super low offer to see if you are stupid enough to take it? Discovery is mandatory to negotiate a solid real estate deal.
For real estate investors, one of the biggest mistakes I see made over and over and over again is trying to do deals with unmotivated sellers. The fact is, successful real estate investors target highly motivated sellers, which encompass a very small percentage of the overall selling population. Perhaps 5-10% of all real estate sellers in a given market can be categorized as a motivated seller. It is only through discovery that you can determine if the seller is truly motivated.
Further, you also want to determine all the details of the deal and the seller’s situation so that you can determine the other party’s options. If the other party is unwilling to share important items, such as how much they owe against the property (which is public record, by the way), this may indicate that you’re dealing with an unmotivated seller.
Step 4: Options
Real estate transactions usually take a minimum of 30 days to close, sometimes longer, and involve very large amounts of money. Plus, for many, it is among the biggest decisions they’ll make in their lifetime. Therefore, the best way to approach a real estate negotiation is to explore all the options. If you’re dealing with a seller, explore the options of the seller renting the property out themselves, or if it doesn’t sell in 6 months, what then? The beauty of this approach is that by exploring all options, the seller will be able to make the most informed decision on what to do with their property.
Step 5: Presenting Your Offer
When you have completed the first 4 steps, presenting the offer is usually a matter of simply clarifying the best option that fits for both you and the other party. Most importantly, when you negotiate real estate in this fashion, the seller is part of the creation of the offer terms. And people support the ideas they create. Rather than a straight line price based negotiation, the deal could be structured so that the seller gets the price they wanted but you get the terms you wanted. In order to get to the point of a deal that wins for all parties, you must complete these 5 steps. Otherwise, you’re left with less than a 40% success rate of getting the deal to closing.
When you apply this 5 step formula, you will successfully negotiate each real estate deal you do and most importantly, you give yourself the highest probability of getting the transaction to closing.
1 Comment "
April 26th, 2010
A very reputable publication, the San Francisco Chronicle, recently posted a story on their website that is a true sign of the times; “Your Mortgage: When It’s Time to Walk Away.” Wow. Only in America.
Read the rest of this entry “
2 Comments "
March 19th, 2010
ORLANDO, FL – It was quite an honor to be asked by the folks at Rich Dad to speak on the subject of Short Sales and Foreclosures at their Annual Forum a few weeks ago. It was four days of 12 hours a day intense real estate investing education. I feel like I met and spoke with just about everyone of the more than 1000 people in attendance in that 96 hour period. What I learned from interviewing all of these different types of investors was quite interesting and I wanted to pass it along to you. (Plus, in case you are wondering about my experiences with hanging out with Robert Kiyosaki himself, I’ll touch on that as well.) So onto what I discovered that I think you will find quite intriguing.
Read the rest of this entry “
3 Comments "
February 19th, 2010
Actor celebrity Brian Austin Green (Former 90210 star and now dating screen siren Megan Fox) is selling his home on a short sale. He purchased the home at the height of the market in 2006 for nearly $2,000,000 borrowing almost the entire purchase amount which created a monthly mortgage payment of nearly $70,000 per month. Can you imagine servicing a debt load of that size? Apparently it was too much for even a superstar to handle. Sources say that the economic recession has hit Green hard and his Rep explained that the house is being sold on a short sale for “strategic investment” reasons.
Read the rest of this entry “
1 Comment "
February 12th, 2010
You’re not going to believe which organization just had to sell their headquarters building on a short sale. This is so embarrassing. Ready for this?
Read the rest of this entry “
1 Comment "
Recent Comments