Got Contract. Now What? - Posted by Robin

Real Estate Investing Real Estate Law
1

Posted by Gerald-DC on July 02, 2001 at 23:44:47:

Robin,

First off, I am not a J Kaiser fan or hater. Have read one of his How to articles and found it useful. I think his reaction to getting 25 full contract offers in two weeks after the realtor could not get any is understandable but maybe a bit more tact could have been used in expressing it.

As you know, many of the posters on this board have been in this real estate game for a while and have seen a lot of deals. As such, given their reaction, I would give pause to this deal and maybe get a second opinion from another lawyer or another investor.

My guess is that Michael is offering 100% financing with little money down or something along those lines at a very high interest rate. (Am I warm)? If so, he may wind up owning your house after all not far in the future.

As long as you get your purchase price at the end of the day then you have really lucked out. I just keep hearing in my mind the old saying “that if it sounds to good to be true…”

I truly wish you the best.

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Got Contract. Now What? - Posted by Robin

Posted by Robin on July 01, 2001 at 14:42:21:

Got Contract. Now What?

Some History First
I had my home listed with a Realtor for 5 months. No One came and looked at the house for the whole time. I finally got fed up and fired my realtor. I decided that I could do a better job myself. I put an ad in the paper on Thursday. It runs through Sunday. I got thirteen signed contracts with earnest money on Saturday and I am well on my way to getting that many, if not more, today. (I am writing this during a slack period.) I have already pretty much narrowed my choice to one buyer. She has already given me earnest money for 15% down.

My question(s)
What do I do next. I know that I have to take the paper work to a title company. I think I need to give the buyer some type of lead paint information and a disclosure telling everything I know about the house. Is this true? If so where do I get these things? The one title company I talked to said that they don?t know anything about these things. Can someone clarify this stuff for me?

Thanks – Robin

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Now What? - Posted by Bud Branstetter

Posted by Bud Branstetter on July 03, 2001 at 11:03:54:

I hope you found your lead based paint disclosure and other required disclosures forms. I thought that since you have a distaste for Joe Kaiser I would explore the subject. When most investors get a contract they ask for earnest money to take to the title company. You indicated that one gave you about 15K as earnest money. Either the idea this guy has an incredible idea or you are extremmely fortunate or this is all a fabrication(yes, a lie). While I don’t think you would take me up on it, I am willing to pay for the confirmation of all these contracts and earnest money checks. Copies of the contact and the check will suffice. What is your price? terms? Your choices are to ignore me and lose any credibility because it is fabricated, call me names, decline with more infomation, or produce the documents. My firiends that know me know I only bet on sure things.

As incredulous as it sounds you could be for real. But the questions you ask just don’t jive. This is what Joe was probably keying on, along with the number of contracts with earnest money, and full price.

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Re: Got Contract. Now What? - Posted by Travis (Dallas)

Posted by Travis (Dallas) on July 01, 2001 at 16:20:04:

What State/City?
Texas requires the seller fill out a disclosure about the property (Seller’s Disclosure Notice Pursuant to Section 5.008, Texas Property Code) & there is also a Federal law (Seller’s Disclosure of Lead-Based Paint and Lead-Based Paint Hazards) for a Lead-Based Paint addendum if the property was built before 1978.
You might check your State’s website for a form & the EPA web site for the lead info. REALTORS have the forms.
Make sure that your buyer is pre-qualified with a lender before you accept anyone’s contract. If they don’t qualify for a loan they may waste 30 days of your time & you’ll have to start over. If they can put 20% down, they can probably have an easy time getting qualified.
Good luck.
Travis

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Re: Now What? - Posted by JoeKaiser

Posted by JoeKaiser on July 03, 2001 at 16:36:00:

Bud, I’ll go half . . .

I’d like to see the 25 or so earnest money checks between $5k - $15k. That would be one for the record books.

Joe

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Re: Got Contract. Now What? - Posted by Robin

Posted by Robin on July 01, 2001 at 20:43:58:

Thanks Travis,

I am in North Central Florida. I didn’t have any luck at the EPA website. And I don’t know where Florida’s website is.

I can’t very well ask my realtor since I fired him ;-).

Anyone know where I can get the forms? I am surprised title companies don’t have them.

Thanks – Robin
PS I don’t accept “anyone’s” contract. It is my contract. Right now I have over two dozen contract all with 5% or more earnest money deposit. I am sure one(or more) of them will be qualified for a loan. I’ll know Monday.

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Re: Now What? - Posted by Mike

Posted by Mike on July 03, 2001 at 17:04:18:

What seems odd to me is that this investor didn’t want the information given out how he finds these buyers like this. He was also upset that Robin posted a question on this board. BUT! If you want his phone number you can e-mail Robin for it and you call this investor directly!

Could this possibly be a new form of advertising for business? Make sound to good to be true, creating a lot of responses and then innocently offer out a phone number to all those interested and would like to call??? I dunno.

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Re: Got Contract. Now What? - Posted by phil fernandez

Posted by phil fernandez on July 04, 2001 at 18:11:15:

Robin,

You must be new here, but congrats, you’ve found the best creative re site on earth.

Here’s my take. Your guy is hiding something. I hate to see a new investor get hurt. Some of the responses that you got are from people that I have a huge amount of respect for, Joe Kaiser, Matt, David Alexander, Mark. Those guys know their stuff. They are not trying to burst your balloon. They are trying to help you.

If your investor buddy is legit let him post on this forum so the REAL experts can pick him apart or applaude his creativity.

I think that’s a fair tradeoff isn’t it.

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2 dozens contracts . . . come on! - Posted by JoeKaiser

Posted by JoeKaiser on July 02, 2001 at 02:27:26:

You’re telling me you have 25 contracts from buyers, along with 5% earnest money on each one? If that’s really true, you’re selling way too cheap.

Joe

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Old Bait’em and Hook’em!! (nt) - Posted by RSteadham - Houston

Posted by RSteadham - Houston on July 04, 2001 at 17:28:53:

nt

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Bingo! -nt- - Posted by Michael (tejas)

Posted by Michael (tejas) on July 04, 2001 at 07:19:05:

nt

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Re: 2 dozens contracts . . . come on! - Posted by Robin

Posted by Robin on July 02, 2001 at 09:12:45:

Nope, I had an appraisal done first. The house apprasied at 97,000 and that is what every contract is for. An experienced real estate investor in this area showed me how to write the ad and show the house, etc.
–robin

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Re: 2 dozens contracts . . . come on! - Posted by Robert

Posted by Robert on July 02, 2001 at 09:51:08:

I am curious. What did you ad say?

Thanks,
Robert

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Re: 2 dozens contracts . . . come on! - Posted by Robin

Posted by Robin on July 02, 2001 at 11:57:33:

I was given “direction” by a local real estate investor. He has been trying to buy my house for a couple of months. When it became clear to him that he and I could not come to an agreement he told me, “Look, you and I are never going to agree on a way for me to buy your house in a way that makes sense for both of us. So… if I show you how to sell your house for full appraised price will you write me a reference and recomend me to anyone you know who needs to sell? I might be able to buy thier house.”

I said sure and he did show me and it is working so far. I talked to him a little while ago and he answered the questions in my original post. (Something that only travis has done so far. Thank you travis!)
Then I get a post from some guy who puts “Come ON!” in the title. Like I am lying. He didn’t offer any help. But he couldn’t wait to tell me I was or had done something wrong.

When I talked to Micheal(the investor) he explained a little more about how he is making money on my deal. He is supplying the financing. He is also going to take all the contracts and credit apps I have. I guess he is going to try to sell them a house.

He also does not want me to tell anyone how I sold so fast. He was kinda of upset when I told him I posted to this board. He said I can give out his phone number and you can call him so email me if you want his number.

Thanks – Robin

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My Guess Is… - Posted by Mark-NC

Posted by Mark-NC on July 03, 2001 at 07:46:02:

Robin,
I have seen this type of sale before. You advertise with owner financing, no bank qualifiing and get your buyers to compete for contract at an open house. Good job on getting that many people there.

But my guess is, if this Investor friend of yours is so called financing the Deal he is just a Note Broker. That is why he wants all the applications so he can pre approve them with a note buyer and sell the financing at closing.

I would also guess that when he told you about it that the game plan was for him to qualify all your buyers and use the best one that will net you the most money from the sale based on the credit of the buyer. Then once you have a qualified buyer for the deal his fee along with the note discount is going to be taken out of the proceeds at closing when he sells the financing to an end note buyer.

My other guess is, if in fact this is the case of how he is doing this he could get in trouble because he does not have a brokers license. As a note broker you do not need a license. But if you are Qualifying buyers for a seller, pulling credit and representing it as a loan to qualify them that makes you look like a Broker amd this may be the reason he didn’t want it posted.

It’s no big secret and chances are that out of all of those applications very few will qualify for a decent rate or discount unless you decide to take a big hit on the sale of the note or you decide to hold a second mortgage.

Am I right?

Good Luck on your sale I wish you the best.

Mark

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Re: 2 dozens contracts . . . come on! - Posted by JoeKaiser

Posted by JoeKaiser on July 02, 2001 at 12:55:58:

TWENTY FIVE people, in one weekend, made you 25 full price offers on your house? This, after the realtor didn’t produce a single looker? All attributed to Michael’s million dollar ad?

Do we really look that dumb to you?

Joe

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Re: 2 dozens contracts . . . come on! - Posted by Matt B

Posted by Matt B on July 02, 2001 at 12:21:54:

Let me get this straight. This person got upset with you for wanting to share information about your deal on this board? That’s what we do here! Why would you post at all if you don’t want to share the details?

The guy who posted “Come on!” was Joe Kaiser. Joe is someone who shares plenty of ideas with everyone here. I can’t remember him telling anyone not to tell anyone else about how he helped them. I am the same way. I like to share the details of how I do deals in order to help other people.

Is there a possibility of this “investor” who is “helping” you doing something shady? Is he trying to make sure that you don’t find out that he is doing something unethical by posting about it here and getting a response from others? Or is he so convinced that he has figured out the only and best way to do real estate deals and is afraid if someone finds out about it, he won’t be able to do deals any more? This sounds awfully weird to me, but then again, the world is FULL of people who think that there isn’t enough to go around (money, deals, etc.) and think that sharing ideas is bad.

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Re: 2 dozens contracts . . . come on! - Posted by Robin

Posted by Robin on July 02, 2001 at 21:53:31:

I don’t know who you are, but I do know that you are an ass. I posted looking for information. Only Travis responded and I thank him. You on the other hand seem to have some kind of reputation to uphold. You sound a hell of a lot like the loser boy realtors who have been coming by and telling me in front of buyers that I must be doing something wrong.

I got an appraisal, my lawyer set it up. I priced my house at appraisal and advertised it as such. My lawyer looked at the contract I was given and talked to Michael for about 15 mins on the phone. He signed off on it… I placed ads in 3 papers and my son and I handed out 100’s of flyers in the neighborhood.

I don’t know what you look like and I don’t care. But I do know you are no gentleman and you act like an ass. I was asking about lead paint and such. It seems the depth of your knowledge consists solely of how many offers someone can get in a weekend.

When I was in school there was a kid who never got any attention. He was always jumping up and down in his seat with his hand raised, just begging the teacher to call on him so he could show everyone that he was the smarted and brightest and nobody else knew anything. Only thing, he was just an arrogant little snot who really knew nothing. A lot like you.

Funny thing is, if you just would have nicely asked what I was doing instead of jumping up in front of everyone and shouting, “she’s wrong!” I probably would have told you exactly what I was doing.

Rest well, you need it.

Robin

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Re: 2 dozens contracts . . . come on! - Posted by Robin

Posted by Robin on July 02, 2001 at 22:50:07:

Hi Matt,

First off I’ll assume that you are neither a Joe Kaiser groupie nor a Joe Kaiser hater. My email seems pretty evenly split between the two. Right now those who dislike J. Kaiser have a slight edge. People who dislike tend to be more rabid and motivated. So I would have to draw the conclusion that more people here like Joe than hate him. Be that as it may, I haven?t exactly gotten a warm fuzzy feeling from my interaction with him.

Now, as to your first series of statements/questions;
“(This person got upset with you for wanting to share information about your deal on this board?)”
Upset is too strong of a word. He doesn?t, however, want me making a broadcast of things he has shown me.

“(That’s what we do here!)”
I thought so and that?s why I asked the questions. However it does not seem that ?WE? really do this here. Only Travis made a stab at answering my question.

“(Why would you post at all if you don’t want to share the details?)”
Fair enough, I would share the details, but some of the information is not really mine to share. Further more, given the way I have been attacked, I am even less inclined to share.

On to the next paragraph,
“(The guy who posted “Come on!” was Joe Kaiser. Joe is someone who shares plenty of ideas with everyone here. I can’t remember him telling anyone not to tell anyone else about how he helped them)”
Like I said, I don?t know Joey except from his replies to me and the bountiful email I have received about him. It seems that more than one person knows of a ?private? Joe Kaiser web site. Where it seems that one of the conditions of membership (besides a ton of money) is confidentiality, because Joe figures that there is no reason to let the competition know what he is doing. Even though you can?t remember Joe telling people not to share it does certainly seem that other people do.
.
“(I am the same way. I like to share the details of how I do deals in order to help other people.)”
I for one think that is great and salute you for it.
.

Now to the end;
“(Is there a possibility of this “investor” who is “helping” you doing something shady? Is he trying to make sure that you don’t find out that he is doing something unethical by posting about it here and getting a response from others?)”
Again a good point and one that had crossed my mind. Frankly, I was convinced he was trying to ?take me?, but he wouldn?t go away. So finally I told him OK, BUT I am calling my lawyer. He said fine, gave me lots of material to show my lawyer and said to have him call anytime. That shocked me because when I asked for references he wouldn?t give me any. He just flat said, ?I don?t do that.?
My lawyer said it all was well and he even seemed impressed. But he toldl me not to go to closing in case Michael tries to pull something at the last minute, instead my lawyer would go for me… Well I am going, but I?ll have my lawyer at my side.
.
“(Or is he so convinced that he has figured out the only and best way to do real estate deals and is afraid if someone finds out about it, he won’t be able to do deals any more?)”
You are probably pretty close on this one. Of course I can?t speak for him and it is worded as a no-win question. Many companies and individuals keep their business practices and methods private. There is nothing wrong with that.
.
“(This sounds awfully weird to me, but then again, the world is FULL of people who think that there isn’t enough to go around (money, deals, etc.) and think that sharing ideas is bad.)”
Well so be it. But he did say he would talk to investors, when he has time and on their nickel. Could it be that you are maybe just a little bit upset that he won?t play by your rules?

Take care – Robin

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Re: 2 dozens contracts . . . come on! - Posted by JoeKaiser

Posted by JoeKaiser on July 03, 2001 at 16:44:28:

Ouch, no rest for the wicked, I guess.

Still, 25 full price offers in one weekend, with over $135k in earnest money checks? Must be a heck of an ad.

We are talking about a house on this planet, right? I’m not sure how things work on Mars, but here on earth . . . it ain’t gonna happen.

Joe