6 months of intense studying and action steps

Hi Jim & Nancy, I commend you on your perseverance, sometimes deals fall into your lap & other times it may take awhile...We were featured in Dean's last book "Your Town" (chapt. 12) & have been fortunate that we have been dealing in our own town, but you might have go into a different area to find the type of deals you're looking for. Gary & Jill

Looks like you have a good action plan going on. Hang in there tough. Don't be discouraged. Your deal is just around the corner...Steve

Keep pushing don't give up. I'm so inspired just by your starting entry. I love that you are both on board with the dream. I don't have any words of wisdom d/t I am new in the area of REI myself.

One thing I can say is the word of God says we have to ask, seek, and knock - now I said that to say keep pushing/knocking - He would not have even mentioned knock if He did not know the door would be closed (we don't have to knock on an open door). Don't you dare give up or feel discouraged your breakthrough is right on the other side(wow I think I encouraged myself)

Much success to you guys. Look forward to watching your journal.

I am impressed with how you guys have set everything up. Good Job. Sometimes it just takes a little longer to make #1 happen, but after the first happens and it will, don't sit back, go right out for the next round.
This business is very unpredictable, it could be very slow and then there are deals falling in your lap. Just stay sharp and ready to move, it will happen for you I am sure...Jan

I have done everything like you guys and I'm still looking for my first deal,I even joined the sucess academy 1 year ago,but I will never give up,please do the same,it will come.

i love what you said about knocking because the door might be closed. thanks!

like everyone said, it will come. we don't always understand how all this comes to fruition, but it does. what i've found on this website is that it's all about perseverance and persistence. you have each other and that's wonderful; you can keep each other going. i have found keeping a DG journal keeps me accountable and moving forward every day. best wishes!

Are you doing anything differently than what Dean told you???

Think a little outside the box and how it can benefit your area

I know you have a realtor/agent/mortgage broker but what do you expect them to do if you also have no homes you found??? It seems like its a more wait and see "how they do before we make moves" type of thing

Where in Mass are you because you're in College Ville USA with all the colleges and universities your state has(I once owned a few spots in Worcester) so it shouldn't be hard to find a place that an owner might want to sell.

Suggestion: take a day or two and travel to all the schools near you, get their newspapers and look up the ads that are looking for tenants and see if they'd be interested in selling; you'll be surprised with the answers you might get

Have you tried Matt's 25:1 strategy of offers through your realtor? How many offers have you made so far? I'm just starting, but that's where I'm going to begin. I'm going to meet with my realtor this evening to discuss and I'm real optimistic about one property so far. The other 2 I was looking at were sold in the last few days. I guess that's a good sign, feel like I'm looking at the right areas that are moving quickly through investors. I also agree with Elix about looking near the colleges. I live in a college town as well, so that's what I'm targeting. The investors I know in my area snatch them up as soon as they are on the market. If you contact the owners of rentals, then you are already one step ahead, since they are not technically on the market.

Hi Gary and Jill, Thank you so much for your kind words. You are our first reply and the fact that you are featured in Dean's book means you are doing AMAZING things! Very grateful you actually took the time to respond to us. We haven't read Your Town Your Profits yet...but we ordered it tonight and we're starting with chapter 12!

We'll keep you updated. Thanks again.

Jim and Nancy

Hi Elix,
Thank you for your comments and suggestions. I guess we should have elaborated, our Realtor owns a successful agency and he's been an investor for over 30 years. He has a $4,000,000.00 investment portfolio and is very interested in our system. He wants to help us as much as he can. He's very intrigued with our methods. As far as the mortgage broker...she's in place in the event we secure an IEE deal, she can help our buyers, if needed. By no means are we waiting for anyone to bring us deals. We're out there looking and trying multiple strategies to connect with motivated sellers. We have called all of the college rentals...we live in the immediate vicinity of 7 major colleges and universities. Au contraire...none of those landlords are ready to part with these great cash flow properties...but we're definitely building relationships with them. They could decide to sell one day, or they could end up buying from us...they are always looking to buy more college rentals.

Hi Erika,
Great words of wisdom! I'm glad we were able to get you to encourage yourself...you sure encouraged us! We'll definitely keep on knocking.

Jim and Nancy - Studio 4

God Bless

Thank you everyone for all the encouragement and positive feedback. It really means a lot to see all of your replies. We'll keep you posted on our progress.

Jim and Nancy - Studio4

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"Your future contains far greater joy than all the sorrows of yesterday."

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To have impressed a DG Superstar is very impressive to us! We are amazed at all the positive responses. Thank you so much for the encouraging words. Can't wait to celebrate deal #1!

Jim and Nancy - Studio 4

I was wondering if most listing prices are basically what the market value is for the property? I have looked at lots of different online sites like zillow and cyberhome to get an idea of the fairmarket value but they only say what the fmv was in 2005 and some say they don't even have any values for thier website yet for my area. I was also wondering for Matt's 25-1 are you supposed to submit offers 30-50% off the asking price, market value, or tax assessed value? Thanks

We signed the contracts on 06/18/10...we haven't had the time to post since we've been working double overtime to market the property to our buyers. Excitement quickly turned to anxiety because all of them had just purchased a property and were at their limit for the time being. Then things got even more stressful as one of our buyers approached our seller and somehow found out our locked in price. We were not expecting that. But we keep pushing on and have been marketing on Craigslist and Backpage non stop. We have had several showings, but so far no offers. If anyone has advice for us out there, we could really use the tips and comments you have from your experience. Although we are experiencing anxiety, we are still so grateful that we have our first deal under contract, and it's a great home!

God Bless our DG family,

Jim and Nancy
Studio 4

How much earnest do you have at risk? Do you have an inspection or appraisal contingency? Can you lower your price?
What were your numbers, most investors will buy if the property is listed at 65% to 70% of ARV after repairs. Where are you at?

Good Luck,
Michael Mangham
MD Home Acquisitions LLC

I was wondering the same thing

1 thing I noticed was that in almost every success story I read in Deans book and on this website was that everyone took action!! Even if they were not ready, didn't feel they were well enough prepared or had enough knowledge. Everyone took the 1st step and started MAKING THINGS HAPPEN! You can't be in the game sitting on the sidelines.

"You don't have to get it perfect, you just have to get it going." -Mark Victor Hanson

Hi Mike,
We only have $10.00 in earnest. We do have an inspection contingency. We just got an offer from someone who is approved for an FHA mortgage. We're sure it will pass and the person is very interested.

The numbers are as follows:
ARV: $185,000
Tax assessed: $138,100
Asking price: $115,500
We are letting people know we are flexible with the price.

We're hoping this is the start of a lot of offers!

Thanks
Studio 4

**** and postlets.com oh and realtor.com. How about your REI club meetings..they are all investors.. Those darn signs on the road are pretty effective for us....Good luck and keep up the good work! I really admire your motivation.

Thanks for all the comments and information. We just set up on postlets.com.

We'll keep you posted on our progress!

God Bless,
Studio4

Hi there - first of all - Congrats! Secondly, I'm confused. You have this under contract and your looking for a buyer to pull a mortgage. Are you getting an assignment fee? I guess I was always thinking these would be cash buyers. How much are you potentially going to make?

Good luck either way

It's been a long journey, but we finally closed on our first deal! We learned so much through the process, all the way to closing day.

It went as an IEE deal, instead of an assignment (as originally planned). We sold the contract to the end buyer on 08/04/10. Our contract was due to expire on 08/06/10! That was pretty intense for us.

Because the deal didn't go to our list of cash buyers, we had to find a new buyer. We marketed on CL like crazy and had 50 showings in 48 days without any offers. On our last showing, feeling like our first deal wasn't going to happen, we both went to the showing with the mind set that it was the first time we were showing it. Trying to get renewed confidence.

We're sure the DG family was with us that evening. The showing went great, he came back the next day with the entire family and we signed the contracts. The buyer didn't even try to negotiate, he paid asking price.

We weren't celebrating just yet. We knew there would be the inspection, the appraisal and not to mention the buyers attorney telling him that what we were doing is illegal and would not pay us at closing. We were stressed out. But our seller didn't have a problem paying us instead of having the closing attorney pay us.

So closing day came...closing day went, without anything going through...issues with the mortgage company. We were extra stressed out...but keeping our fingers crossed for the next day.

Closing finally went through on 09/28/10. We got our check from the seller the next day.

We are finally celebrating! And concentrating on deal # 2 (we have an acre of land under contract) and looking for deal #3 to put under contract.

Our first deal was tough all the way to the end, but we never gave up. We had a lot of encouragement from our DG family and are very grateful for all your comments and words of wisdom. We are grateful the deal went through, but even if it didn't, we learned so much just going through the process that it would have still been worth it just for the knowledge we gained.

A year ago, we had not even seen Dean's commercial yet.
We knew nothing about REI. And with no extra money to invest we were able to do all this with just Dean's books and DG.com and with NO MONEY DOWN!!!

Now we have a great “Investor Friendly” Agent. It took 4 naysayer agents before we found him. Some of the agents wouldn't even put in our low offers, others said this was illegal others just weren't even trying to understand what we are trying to do. But the 5th agent is a winner! We are so grateful to have found him.

Sorry it took us a while to post. We have been working non-stop.
We also had a chance to read "Your Town Your RE Profits". Like we said we would...we started with chapter 12. Thanks Gary & Jill Ceriani. Your story has been very inspiring to us!

Thanks again DG Family!

Jim and Nancy
Studio 4

"Your future contains far greater joy than all the sorrows of yesterday."

We appreciate the compliment & support. We are just in the process of wrapping up another rehab on another foreclosure. It's still as much fun watching the transformation as it was 12 yrs ago.For the last 10 yrs Jill & I
having been working together side by side as real estate investors & can't imagine doing anything else. It is truly a great thing when you do something
that you love & are passionate about, and best of all can make a few bucks at the same time.
Good Luck in the future with all your RE deals.

Gary/Jill

Congrats to you guys!

Like I had told you in my previous post, you guys were set up to SUCCEED, not to fail. Sometimes the first deal comes along without notice and then BAM, you are in the game. It is truly a pleasure to read your posts and to see that you did not give up or cave in. Now go find another deal and post it so others can read of your success. Outstanding job, my best to you both...Jan

It is very encouraging to see someone succeed because of persevering! I'm looking forward to your future deals

We posted this question in another post, but no one responded...so we decided to post it here...I hope that's okay.
Sorry if we're breaking posting rules... )

Hi DG family! We're hoping someone can help.
We have a house under contract and a buyer lined up.
The buyer has bank financing / not cash.
The buyer already had the inspection done and is ready to move forward and has agreed to our price.

The seller's attorney does not want to disburse our investor fee at closing.
We sent him the Discharge of Agreement To Purchase from DG along with a new P&S with the new buyer information.

He states that it would be illegal for him to enter our fee on the HUD-1 form.
Has anyone dealt with this issue in the past? We really don't want to lose this deal.

Our contract was set to expire tomorrow, but they agreed to a 7 day extension.

This is the email we received from our attorney after he spoke with the Seller's attorney:

"He acknowledges that his clients signed an agreement (P&S) with you for the sale of the property at $XX.XX. He further acknowledges that you have the right to assign the agreement to your buyer. However, he is advising his clients not to sign a second agreement (P&S) with your buyer at a higher amount of $YY.YY for several reasons:

1. His clients will only recognize the original price of $XX.XX and he is concerned they could be taxed on $YY.YY. Because you are not licensed broker's, he does not think he can show a "referral or finder's fee" on a HUD;

2. HUD regulations require attorney's to make full disclosure of all financial information. He is concerned he will be in violation of HUD if he participates in a deal where you are paid a fee outside of closing.

Frankly, I understand his concerns. While I understand that you are not doing anything under handed or illegal, the HUD regulations that we are bound to coupled with licensing requirements for brokers make it difficult for you to flip property that you never acquire title to.

The regulations are designed to simplify finances for real estate transactions and to insure that everything is legitimate. A "finder's fee" is equivalent to a "broker's fee". Everyone's concerns about HUD are heightened by recent changes to the HUD regulations and by the fact that attorneys and bank have gone under by being involved with attempts to circumvent the regulations.

As a result, I think you need to reevaluate the way you are doing things. This is the second time that I am aware of where you have gotten deep into a transaction only to experience similar roadblocks.

I believe your frustration will continue in the future if you continue to do business this way.

Your option here is to assign the existing agreement to your buyer for you original lock-in price and to then cut a separate deal with them for a "finder's fee" for the balance. However, that side deal does violate HUD in my opinion and a "Finder's Fee" violates the real estate broker licensing regulations."

Our attorney keeps referring to "Finder's fee", in the DG contracts, it refers to it as "Investor fee", but our attorney advised us, it is still considered/viewed as a "Finder's fee"

We don't know how to get around this, and we've searched all of the posts and reviewed every step of Dean's IEE strategy several times and cannot find anything that addresses this issue.

We're wondering if maybe IEE is illegal in Massachusetts?

Any help, insight or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you DG Family!

Jim and Nancy
Studio4

I assign contracts all the time in Colorado. However, it is with cash buyers.

1.I get a signed purchase and sale agreement contract with the buyer.

2.I assign that CONTRACT to my buyer using an assignment of contract contract.
The assignment contract states how much I have the contract for with the seller. Then it states my contract assignment fee. The two are added together showing my buyers total cost to purchase the contract.

Example: P and S contract purchase amount $100,000
Assignment fee $10,000
Total for buyer at closing $110,000

I take both contracts along with the buyers earnest money to the title company and set a closing date.
My assignment fee shows on the HUD every time!

Notice I am not assigning Real estate, I am assigning a CONTRACT.

Hope this helps,

Michael Mangham
MD Home Acquisitions LLC