Waiting FAQs

Listing agents accumulate about 20 offers before they send the top 3 or 4 to the bank. The bank sits on these for another week. A few days after you fax me your contract, you will get requests to sign disclosures and request for your "final and best offer." Some offers go into a black hole never to be seen again - no response - no feedback. In about 20 days you will know for certain which properties are dead.

Nothing will happen for weeks and then, BAM, the bank will require us to get a document notarized, a cashier's check made out to a specific title company and a 20 page counter offer signed and returned within 24 hours. This is a major fire drill that many investors aren't familiar with. Every single time, I get an investor who will complain about having to drop everything to run around town to get this done. Unfortunately, there is no way for me to do this for you. This is pure pain and there is no way to avoid it.

About every 2 months, an investor of mine loses a deal because they left town and didn't tell me or they don't have a fax machine. Amazingly, these investors lose deals even after I warned them a million times that they need to purchase a laser/fax unit and to stay in touch. Isn't that crazy? These people spent hundreds of hours looking for properties and then lose all that effort because they didn't invest $150 in a laser/fax machine.

Let me give you real life numbers. You will make at least 8 offers x 12 = 96 pages just to begin the process. Then, you will get about 100 pages (one or 2 at a time) during the escrow process. Most UPS stores chage a $1 per page and let's not forget the amount of time, gas and frustration involved in dropping everything you are doing to fax just a single page. I had one investor get half way through the process and then lose a deal because he was too tired to go to the UPS store that was inconveniently located about 5 miles away. I had another investor waste hundreds of hours because their ink jet printer ran out of black. He had to start all over because of $20 item.... are you picking up what I'm laying down?

20% of the banks will make us sign silly little pages to make sure we are still interested even though we are not the highest offer. Any accepted offer will include a 20 page addendum that is difficult to read and includes so many disclaimers it makes you wonder why we even start with a 11 page offer. The good news is that most counter offers are focused on process - not price. The bad news is that you have 24 hours to eat that addendum, run off to get a cashiers check, get a document notarized and then overnight all this to a title company.

In 2 weeks, we will have a pretty good idea which properties are dead. By then there will be a whole bunch of new inventory to go hunting after. Most investors have to hunt about 3 times before they kill something.

You can make a full month's income by deciding in advance what you want to do with your property. Here are your solutions and frequently asked questions about renting/lease/options. You can also get your legal entity squared away so your property is associated with a trust or company - NOT YOU!!! Bonus effort would be getting a UPS mail box so that all your property and tenant correspondence goes to a secure location - NOT YOUR HOME!!!

By this time, you will completely understand my rating system and know how much repairs will be required to bring a property up to standards.

If we get an offer accepted, you will have 24 hours to respond or you will have to start over. About every 3 months I get an investor who goes MIA without telling me. I usually don't give these investors another chance because they will probably do it again. If you go out of town, just let me know. It's that easy. If you are not accessible for more than 3 days, it's not a good idea to go hunting until you get back.