Working with Houses

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 17:44:46 +0000

Hey everybody, Frank here. And I just want to show you a cool thing. This house is just about done that we’re remodeling here and one of the last things we did is we had this shower door installed. Now I’m going to call my guy and I’ve used my shower guy for a while, but what’s interesting is this is a frameless shower door, but it’s really not because we have a little frame piece up here and I’m wondering if it’s because of the angle thing or maybe I thought I ordered frameless, but I really didn’t. I’m not sure. So, I’m going to find out about it. But generally speaking, with the frameless doors, you’ll notice there’s like no hardware practically anywhere except for here. The hinges. Sometimes you’ll see a mount on the sides. Usually if it’s just one big rectangle Because this is angled, they’ve got this tape here just kind of helps stabilize it cause there’s glue and stuff in here. That’s tightening this down as well as epoxies of some kind that hold it glass. So, this to me is more of a semi frameless and maybe I did order semi frameless. I’ll just have to see what it might have been was I said, which one can I get faster? Because we got this in about two weeks’ time, which right now glass is taking a little bit longer than usual. So that might have been what it was. But for This particular neighborhood where it is, we have hardware that matches us in the bathroom. So, it works out okay. Um, nowadays between frameless and semi frameless and even frame, there isn’t much difference in price. So, we do tend to lean more toward availability and this house is a little bit more traditional as well. So, this is okay. If this was a little bit more modern house, I would not want this bar or I would have a bar that looks a little bit more sleek. But the beautiful thing is they look beautiful, they look great, and of course the doors are two-sided doing their thing. The cleaner is here as we’re speaking, so we’re just going to take, they’ll take this tape off and make it look beautiful. But just keep in mind whenever you can add this touch, it goes a long way. Anything in particular over a frame door, uh, looks like an up break, more clarity. Just a nice touch to have. So, check these out. Stick them in anytime you can because people will pay for that. They like it, It’s really nice. See you in another video.
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https://bit.ly/3KzJjZF

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 17:33:18 +0000

Hey everybody, I just want to show you a cool little upgrade. Now we’re all accustomed to when a lot of houses have added, and you have an added door such as this. But what we love is this little thing is a cool little upgrade runs you about 20 bucks. You could probably create your own for a few dollars less, but just spend the 20 bucks and save the effort, unless you’re the creative type. But what you do is instead of having the string in the attic, you put this little hook where the string goes. And then what this allows you to do is it allows you to pull this down and voila, you’re good to go. And the same thing for going up. So maybe don’t let it up quite so fast, but the beautiful thing is instead of having a string that’s not attractive, you have this hook.

It’s out of the way, it’s inconspicuous. And then something like this, you just take it, and you stick it in a closet nearby. Or you could even put a little clip on the wall. And in our case, we just set it right there and boom, it’s out of the way, but it’s right by the attic. Is it at us? And it’s simple. It’s 20 bucks. And, but here’s the beautiful thing. If you’re selling a property, no one likes to look at a red string. So, by having just removing that little thing, it’s one less objection to deal if one’s selling a house. So, hope you found this helpful. Thanks.

Watch this video so you can see what this looks like!

https://bit.ly/3Z1kYAg

Where And How Do You Sell Your House?

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 14:21:51 +0000

Okay, a question I’ve seen come up is, should you sell your house on Craigslist? We’ve all heard of Craigslist and now also Facebook Marketplace. And the answer is maybe because do legitimate home buyers buy on Craigslist? Absolutely. Will you get people that try to scam you? Absolutely. Is either guaranteed, no. So the answer is it’s really up to you. You could put it out on Craigslist and it would work great. You could put it out there and someone could try to scam you and everything in between. So the key when you’re selling your house is make sure you know what you’re doing and if not, enlist the help of a professional. That way you’re protected. Now Facebook marketplace a little bit better in my opinion, but, you know, someone else may feel differently. It is just an opinion. But the reality is you could sell it on Facebook marketplace, and it seems like the chances of success and better clientele is higher. However, are their scams on Facebook? Yes. Are there, people are going to try to portray themselves as someone, they’re not, a hundred percent. So in reality, you could use either to sell your property, just know that there are risks that the majority of people in both venues are good people. But you just have to be aware that you could come across, someone tries to scam you, portray themselves as someone they’re not, and who knows whatever else. You know, sometimes people can be very creative, and so you just have to be prudent. Okay? And again, if there’s any doubt, just hire a professional because they deal with this every day. They see the trends usually on what scammers try to do, you know, to make sure, I mean, you’re talking about selling your property, it’s a big investment. You want to make sure you do it right and you don’t want to put yourself in any position of unnecessary risk. But by the same token, you don’t have to fear doing it. Okay? Just be smart about it wise, get the right help. And who knows either of those two avenues could be a great way to sell your property. Thanks.
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https://bit.ly/3Z536oY

Walk Through

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 18:55:38 +0000

Be sure to check out our latest YouTube video we posted on our page @workingwithhouses

Here’s the link:
https://bit.ly/3E0b3Dm

Make sure you hit that subscribe button to follow along for more posts to come! We post every week so look out for them!

All You Have To Do Is Respond

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 20:39:51 +0000

All you have to do is respond. That is all our team asks. Have you ever had this thought when reaching out to a listing agent? It is no wonder Real Estate Professionals get a bad rap sometimes. Far too often, people are simply non-responsive. It’s even worse when you win a bid and the agent is still non-responsive. How and why does this happen?

Ok disclaimer: This is a short vent and at the same time a challenge to us to keep improving ourselves!

Let’s be fair, sometimes the agent is out of town. Or their phone broke. Or maybe an emergency came up. We get it, life happens and we totally understand that. Some would argue that someone in a scenario like that should leave some kind of message stating as such however there are arguments to both sides of that debate.

BUT, what seems to happen far more often is the agent is simply non-responsive. We are not talking about getting back to you one or two days later. We are talking about not responding at all and you know they are around. Professional? We think not. Maybe they are just super busy. Welcome to the club. As professionals, we have to find a way to improve that. Especially when we are talking about offers and earnest money.

The kicker for me was when we won a bid on a property and we never, not once heard from the listing agent. We had to follow up with the office just to get addendums and after a few days of waiting we finally got them. We wondered if we really had anything but eventually they did. Sadly once earnest money was delivered, it went silent again. We ended up not moving forward due to inspections however then getting earnest money back was no less an issue. It’s one thing to be busy. It’s another to be too busy to tell people where their money is. We don’t anyone who appreciates that scenario.

Real Estate is a smaller world than many people realize. It is not terribly hard to find out if someone is around and simply not returning your call. If as a listing agent you are not returning calls or at least having an assistant return them, shame on you. Yes we are being up front however we have run into this far too many times. If you don’t have time, just say you don’t have time right now but you will get back with us. It’s not too much to ask. What makes it worse is when multiple colleagues share the same view. It is truly a small world sometimes.

If you don’t have time, please reconsider if you should be listing properties. As Buyers, we count on and depend on at least a reasonable level of communication, especially when we win a bid! With all these time sensitive addendums with REO’s, time and money is truly at stake on every deal done regardless of whether the Buyer is a home owner of investor.

All you have to is respond when we reach out to you. It’s all we ask. In the meantime, we must always look at ourselves to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes we vent about. Works both ways!

A Quick Tip for Wholesale Investors on Running Comparables for your Buyers

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 20:35:20 +0000

As a wholesaler, it is critical to put the best foot forward in the investing community when putting deals out. Buyers, especially Buyers who understand wholesaling fully understand and can appreciate you should make a profit from your work. However many wholesalers shoot their own credibility down when it comes to comparables by grossly overvaluing property. It is one thing to be ‘a little high’ or ‘pushing the market a little bit’ but another altogether when you are way off.

‘Way off’ varies per market so I will use Atlanta as an example. Adjust accordingly for your market.

In Atlanta, if an ARV (after repaired value) for a property is off by up to 15-20k depending on the area, most Buyers aren’t going to bark too much. Unless you are in a low end neighborhood, sub 50k in value, it’s not unusual to see a range of ARV’s vary by a few grand. Up to 20k may be typical as you get to the higher priced homes, approximately 250k and up in Atlanta.

So here is the example of what typically happens

Deal comes in at 50k purchase price, 35k rehab, ARV of 135 – 62.9% LTV – very reasonable
Comps are run and there are five comparables. All comparables are move in ready, finished homes with prices between 95-105k except one at 135k.
Wholesaler puts ARV at 135k yet all homes are similar.

And here is where the break down happens…why did one house sell for 30k more than all the others? The answer 99% of the time is there is something unique about that property that the others do not have. Examples in our market are:

Additional acreage
A special view
Additional detached garages for toys
Wrap around driveways
Water view or waterfront with dock on a lake
Offstreet parking if in the city
An extra bedroom/bathroom combination
The quality of the street vs the others
High end custom finishes out of character with the neighborhood that someone was willing to pay for

If you remove the special factor(s) from this one high comp, the ARV drops in line with the other properties.

Therefore, if you run comparables and find a property that sticks out as a sold, investigate further why before assuming that is the new ARV. This allows you to present your comps in a light that a Buyer can respect and appreciate and not add you to the list of wholesalers who send them ‘junk’ as I hear it called so often.

By presenting it in this light, the Buyer can decide if he wants to take on the extra risk to duplicate the high end comps and pull it off if the potential is there. Or if the extra feature is not there, it shows your Buyer you are paying attention to detail at a level that can be respected whether it is a deal for them or not.

Remember Buyers like to assume the worst case for ARV and not the best in most cases that way if we get the higher figure, it is icing on the cake. No one likes to speculate on ARV and lose.

Lastly, if you are forwarding someone else’s deal to your Buyers list, verify the comps, verify the comps, VERIFY THE COMPS! Don’t take them at face value. I tell every wholesaler that asks me to send their deals out to my list this and if I don’t agree with their comps, I will tell them. If they sell it anyway, then more power to them but putting a deal that doesn’t work for you out there is not something I think any wholesaler should do.

Be conservative and make a deal today!

Just Be Coachable

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 20:28:50 +0000

Recently did a wholesale deal in a part of town I don’t typically do much with. Sold the deal on one phone call. While we do new construction, we never had done one in this area. In doing the deal, I was reminded of a simple principle.

Be coachable by your Buyers!

This particular area was a solid area so I knew the property could move. We put it under contract with the intent to do it. As we got into it, we realized we would have to spend some time learning some ins and outs of the jurisdiction. The more we learned, the more it made sense to wholesale to someone who really knows the area. The comps were solid so there was no question there. The question was what would ‘we build’ to really ensure we got the ARV right. That would take some homework and significant time for us being the ‘newbie’ in the area.

We also saw some examples of what not to do so that helped give clarity. But even then, we still weren’t quite sure what we should do. Enter the Buyer.

The Buyer lives nearby and knew the area like the back of her hand. Talk about invaluable! In talking through a number of construction factors, we learned what we had to do. But how to know what to build that would sell fast in this specific market? That took some coaching. Our Buyer did the coaching and we did the listening about the ins and outs of this specific pocket. Our biggest take away was that we were glad to not do the deal since a) it was not in our main area and b) the education saved us a lot of time on a deal that while it would have been very profitable, also created a good bit of load that we really didn’t want to get into.

All it took was a little coaching by our Buyer. Are you coachable to your Buyers? Like the really solid ones who know what you do as a wholesaler and they know the end game.

When you are coachable, it is so much easier to get to the finish line. You get in alignment with your Buyer and when that happens, it’s truly magic to see them knowing it’s a deal for them all day long.

And if you are not sure you are coachable, ask yourself one question…do you learn something new every day no matter small? If yes, you can become coachable. And I would highly advise you do so.

Coachability is truly something all masters of their craft take seriously. We may have different goals but having a coach will get you there faster.