It can happen that on a single property many offers arrive at the same time offering even more than the bank originally asked for. So you need to be flexible and fast in locating your deals and ready also to move outside of your backyard if needed.

You have to weed through many bad deals, that’s true and you need to have a system that allows you not only to find good opportunities but also to fund them and then to market them as fast as you can.

Five ways to find properties and their pros and cons:

1. You can consult the MLS if you are also a Realtor or with the help of a friendly Realtor who can make daily extracts of what comes up in a specific area. This is fairly effective if you are dealing in a limited zone and if you have somebody who can do the work for you. The list tell you the up to date situation of the property (listed, under contract, sold) and you have most of the information you need about the house, including picture. Sometimes the Realtor can use an automatic system to send you daily e-mails so you are kept regularly updated. The problem here is that you are limited to one area and you cannot tell which is a good deal from a bad deal upfront. You need to do research on every property and it can be time consuming.

   

2. You can go on the many free sites maintained by different banks. The advantage here is to span the whole nation, but the disadvantage is that you need to check every single deal (no selection is made upfront) and you need to look up many different sites: both for covering the different banks and for collecting all the information you need about a property, including pictures.

3. You can purchase a “ready made lists” of foreclosure or bank owned properties. Here you often have some kind of value associated to the property so that you can make a general selection upfront and you can operate in many different markets. These sites sometimes also provide basic information about each property. The drawback is that these lists sometimes are not updated and therefore you waste time on properties that are already under contract or have been sold already. And you need to pay for the list.

4. You an use a software that pulls data from the MLS and let’s you make offers in an automatic fashion. MLS Gorilla is one of these software, for example. The drawback is that these software have often an high price tag attached to them, they get locked in specific areas if one of your competitors decides he wants to have exclusive access and you need to take a shotgun approach by making low offers on everything, which can lead in getting acceptances on junk properties that you then need to discard and missing the houses that are in better shape and where you could afford to make higher offers and still get a nice return.

5. You can finally subscribe to a search engine specifically designed to locate bank owned properties. In this can you can access directly the bank database without relying on MLS and any error that could be in it, you can access the private databases of major wholesalers and you can make a search for properties with a defined discount ranges, while also getting all the other properties in the area in a separate list from which you can pick and chose freely. The only system I know that is capable of doing this right now is REO Goldminer (http://budurl.com/reog) which I have been using now for 3 months and that has kept improving the quality of their leads.
   

   You can still get properties that are already under contract sometimes because it takes a while for the bank to update its own database, but you can span the whole US and pick and choose only those area where REO’s ARE available. Additionally they are providing an outstanding training support for using the system and marketing deals and they have also developed a community for wholesale exchanges. The main drwaback is that the system is not available to everybody: you have a limited number of subscribers that are allowed on it.

Pick and choose the system that fits you best and have success with it.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. REO Goldminer is reopening its gates for a few days starting today at noon. Last time they sold 500 memberships in 2 days or so. This second and last offer will stay open until Friday June 5^th and then it’s gone! http://budurl.com/reog.

]]> http://landwriting.com/international-real-estate/five-ways-to-find-bank-deals/feed/ 1 http://landwriting.com/international-real-estate/houses-like-wine/ http://landwriting.com/international-real-estate/houses-like-wine/#comments Thu, 21 May 2009 13:28:47 +0000 Roberto Mazzoni http://www.landwriting.com/blog/?p=411 I have been focusing on bank owned properties for a while now and I have some experiences that I want to share with you, as you might find them useful in your own investing career. It is observable that banks now are a better grasp of the market and therefore list their properties at prices that are very close to their current real market values.

That make the properties more attractive right off the bat for end buyer users who will be competing with us investors on the same ground snatching away some deals. It is pretty common in the area where I operate, Tampa Bay, that some bank owned properties get sold within one week of their listing.

Maybe they still appear to be listed because the bank takes a little of time to process the final contract, but I do find several times that the home is already under contract when I put in my offer. That is fine because it helps keep the market moving and because creates a strong contrast with those properties that instead have NOT been priced right and have been sitting on the market for a few weeks.

The old rule is always valid that end buyers prefer to have homes that are ready to move in and shy away from the so called “handy man specials”.

They often don’t know how do deal effectively with the rehab or they just plainly don’t want to mess with it. This leaves room for lower offers to be placed and accepted and for a profit to be made as investors.

Banks will lower the price of the property by themselves after it has been on the market for a little while and usually are ready to let it go at your price, or almost, when the listing has been going on for 3 or 4 months. You need to be on the watch because you must be quick in making the offer just after the price has been reduced otherwise you might lose the opportunity.

I have seen that a good approach, that might be working also for you, is to place offers as soon as there is some change in the status of the property. That includes also placing offers as soon as it is listed: you will get several rejections since you’ll be coming in much lower than the first asking price, but other investors will be doing the same and so you’ll have a pulse of your market as well as you will accelerate the price reduction cycle on the bank side; unless some end buyer purchases at full price or even higher.

It is quite a satisfaction when you hear back from the listing broker that you an another investors have come in with very similar proposals: that means you are estimating the property correctly. It is even more fun when the broker tells you that you have beaten your competition for a few hundred dollars and the bank has accepted you offer.

Persistence always pay off.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. My friend Mark Jackson dropped me a line yesterday evening on Skype chat telling me that his REO Goldminer launching program is going to be over much sooner than expected. They opened the gates yesterday at noon and by 5 pm it was almost sold out already! He and Sam Bell have been doing an amazing job, the platform allows you to keep track of all REO markets and network with other investors as well http://budurl.com/reog

Through training on Virtual REO techniques he has gotten familiar with how you locate, acquire and market virtual REO deals and how to perfect his Internet Marketing skills so to become more effective in all of his real estate deals. As he is getting older he doesn’t want to retire. He wants to keep on going and make a whole new career on Internet Marketing leveraging the skills he has already acquired ion the real estate world and the experience he will be making in Virtual REO deals.

Learn for the story of this senior citizen how you can improve your odds in any type of investment by keeping abreast with market changes and leveraging what new technologies can offer you.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. For those who sign on my newsletter today I have reserved the special gift of a Guide on how to build your marketing presence with Twitter!

Vivian Hooton is an experienced investor from California who has sees many more other ways of investing before coming to the web and more specifically to virtual investing as taught by Mark Jackson and Sam Bell. She is the living example of how also experienced investors can transform themselves fast and leverage the enormous potential offered by Internet, while not leaving their key investing strategies and the markets where they are accustomed to operate.

She went on the training cruise with Mark and Sam and she learned how to make offers to banks, and do that from a ship! And she had the chance to network with people much more closely and talk about many things. Her plan now is to buy as many REO’s as possible and to sell them to as many people as possible. And she can do this with very little of her own money.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. We run the interview on Miami Beach, just in the front of the shore, shortly after Vivian had landed from the cruise ship. You can see my few hairs lifting under the blow of the ocean breeze. I do look funny

P.S.S. I am exporting this system to Italy, so join my newsletter if you want to follow this amazing adventure.

Working as a wholesaler includes selling more and more times to the same buyers and therefore one must make sure that he provides deal that make money also for the next investor stepping into the deal and that the second investor is able to get them sold fast enough.

The general rule is to NEVER offer more than 82% of the asking price, no matter how low it already is, and rather try to close deals that are in the 15 – to 25% range of current market value, if you plan to wholesale the deal, even to overseas buyers.

Sandra Negron has been operating so far on the Florida market, which is pretty rich of bank owned properties anyway, but now is ready to move also to other states using the system learned from Mark Jackson and Sam Bell on their Virtual REO course.

She is one of the top students of Mark and Sam and she has been invited to the special investing cruise to the Bahamas where she has refined her skills in virtual investing to the point of being able to locale properties and evaluate them directly on the ship and then make offers.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. This interview was done for the benefit of my Italian investors who will be using and following VREO. IF you want to know more about the system and its application to international sales, subscribe to this site!

She has been a part of a lot of mastermind groups and she says that this was exceptional. So much clarity on the thing that she has been learning that she is just ready to go and become the best REO investor in her area. It was the best ever experience for her.

Virtual REO is a method for locating the best bank owned properties on any market, to evaluate them a compared to their market and to make offers that will produce the lowest possible acquisition costs, while have the maximum upside potential in selling. The whole process can be done from a computer via the web and, as demonstrated in the cruise, anyone can perform the selection, the evaluation and even the first steps of negotiation while being on the sea, far from the location where the property is.

I am personally studying the system right now, so to make it available to Italian investors who want to operate in the US, and I find it very easy to understand also thanks to the availability of 16 video lessons that show every aspect of it in a simple and direct way. And Mark Jackson and Sam Bell are simply the best: very easy to deal with, very responsive, very, very competent in their field.

Roberto Mazzoni

Here I am interviewing them just as they stepped down from the ship, inside the port of Miami. And they give their personal experience on this very unusual type of training and coaching initiative. how to really do this new investing strategy. They have learned how to structure they work so that they concentrate on making offers and delegate the research activity to a personal assistant that they can train for the purpose by using the automatic research systems and the training materials offered by Mark and Sam under InvestorCompsOnline, Virtual REO Investing and REOGoldminer.

The interview is translated to the benefit of my Italian investors.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. Join our mailing list so that you can also tap into the potential of International sales and have access to my programs for finding buyers and private lenders in Europe.

P.S.S If I am using the systems of Mark and Sam while being a foreigner with no previous experience on the US real estate market, and I use them for supporting many other investors in Italy, so can you!

Here you can see the interview I did for my investors in Italy with Rick Dove who has been the winning investor in the team and who tells us his experience just after having disembarked from the ship. He comments on how much concerned and involved Mark and Sam have been involved with their students, showing not only competence but also personal interest and care for the student’s success.

Dove is looking for partners in the Atlanta area where he sees very hot opportunities right now.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. In the next few days we will meet all the students that were on board of the ship who will tell us their experience and what they got from it.

Virtual real estate investing applied to REO’s (Real Estate Owned properties) is the new successful wave and the two prominent experts in this field, Mark Jackson and Sam Bell, just made a live demonstration by bringing their top students on a cruise in Nassau and having them invest directly from the ship.

Listen to Mark Jackson and his wife Lynn telling how this surprising project has worked out.

Sam Bell, the Web 2.0 real estate guru and Mark Jackson’s partner, tells us how the students have applied his techniques from the sea and how anyone can apply them, from anywhere, anytime.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. The interview are also translated for the benefit of Intalian investors that will use this system from abroad.

I have finally had proof that not only the concept I have been working on personally can be expanded greatly, but also that it has a far wider potential than I had myself anticipated. Old Europe is looking for new ways to invest and is definitely quite interested in the US which, by the way, has opened itself a great deal to foreign support in all directions: the case of Fiat and Chrysler is just an example of it.

Italy is my own country and one of the fastest in Europe to catch on new trends, so I have been blessed twice by the circumstance of being able to connect the two best suited nations in this very moment and by being supported by some of the best people: Mark Jackson and Sam Bell.

Look at the video where Sam Bell 3rd, My wife Maria Mazzoni, myself and Mark Jackson introduce our project to investors in Montecarlo. It is both in Italian and in English because of the mixed audience.

The key concept I got from all these meetings with all the different investors is that professionalism pays. People trust those who are able to substantiate their offers with real data about the market and the properties and who are also able to explain in simple terms the different mechanisms and documents that go into the action of purchasing from a distance.

Every meeting I had lasted at least 3 hours, during which I was literally pounded with questions on how it would all works and how they could profit from it. Many technical as well as practical questions: all indicating a very, very high level of interest.

I have been blessed in this project by having teamed up with two of the finest investors in the US. The first one is Mark Jackson (alias MJ in my PJs) who is by far the greatest expert in property evaluation (see www.knowyourarv.com) and who has been able to transfer me in no time all the know how I needed to be like a “seasoned” evaluator. The second is Sam Bell III (http://sambell3rd.com) who is the top expert on how to use Web 2.0 strategies for buying and selling real estate in the US.

They both came with me in Montecarlo and Mark held together with me a long presentation to major investors in the Principato di Monaco that jump started my tour in Italy. Listen to a snippet of it live in this post.

Roberto Mazzoni

P.S. I will be briefing you more in detail as I roll out this project. If you want to keep up with it just subscribe to this blog updates.