patrick.net

Because you don't have the address until you buy the tip.

Yeah, but I could get the address if I paid for a subscription to realtytrac or foreclosure.com.

Which I don't because

a) I'm a tightwad and
b) I am still trying to figure out what to do with the info. I would get (which I have already figured out how to get without the paid subscription)

IF I have addresses of homes that have been issued NODs, that is only the very first step. THEN track down the owner's address, if it is not their primary residence (very easy to do), contact them - politely - and convince them to sell their house to me as a FSBO or short sale.

IF the house has already been bought at auction, I would want to find the investor/flipper who bought it. Where would I find that info? County recorder's office? Then, contact them and try to buy the house before the fix and list.

And if the house becomes an REO, finding the bank that owns it is easy enough, but finding someone at that bank that will assist in selling it seems near impossible.

BUT, I could see how holding someone's hand through the above process might be worth something....once you've figured out all the steps.

And once an offer is accepted, hire an inspector and RE attorney to draw the papers up and no real estate agents involved at all.

Dsr says

The fact that the address is not shown right away wreaks of Realtor tactics and the old school. The future of 'listings' or real etate for sale will involve more information that's totally accessable and totally free, not the other way around.

It is free once you figure out how to work around their paid subscriptions (using propertyshark's free features, your county assessor's online parcel info., blockshopper.com, zillow, and google).

Where/how do foreclosure.com and realtytrac get their info? Do they pay for it, groom the data, and then resell it online as a paid subscription? Or do they get it for free?

I'm new to all this. Maybe it's as easy as going to the assessor's office in person. ?? I dunno.

One idea from my wife is that people who are moving out of a rental should list it on my site and make a little money. They obviously have the inside knowledge that they are going to leave!

Great idea!

Dsr says

The fact that the address is not shown right away wreaks of Realtor tactics and the old school. The future of 'listings' or real etate for sale will involve more information that's totally accessable and totally free, not the other way around.

There is a difference: realtors have a huge motive to lie to you, since they don't get paid unless you buy.

The tipper does not have any motive to lie, beyond $5. If the information is good, give the tipper a good review, and he can charge more for the next tip. If not good, give him a bad review and he can charge less. He has no motive other than to give good information that really helps buyers.

Totally free information would be nice, but how would it work? Are you going to go out of your way to tell people something special that you know? If so, why not just do it now?

You know, this whole thing can be summarized as "bird dog broker".

"Bird-dogging" is looking up good tips for investors, for referral fees. It's a well-established field.

So the question now is how to find birddoggers and to get them to use this service.

I know they normally make $200 - $500 if a deal closes, but for this service, they don't have to wait for deals to close.

For a seller to accept the first offer they get for a home when they haven't even listed it... you better be offering a very very very high price that they cannot refuse.

It's like strangers that come up to me and ask if I wanna sell my car. My instant reaction will be to say no. If that stranger gives me the idea to sell, I'll likely list it to see what prices I'd get first. If I don't get what I can get from the stranger, then I'll call the stranger.

Seems like anyone who uses the service will be the sucker if a transaction goes through.

It's not exactly like a random stranger offering to buy your car.

It's more like someone knows you're behind in the payments and your car is about to be repossessed, and offers you a quick way out.

Maybe you don't have time to list it, and would be much better off selling right now.

Or maybe your car is obviously in really bad shape and you don't have the desire or ability to fix it up. At some point, people just give away their car because it costs too much to repair.

Yes, but it will clearly say that it has been sold before, and how many times. Here's the exact verbiage: "This lead costs $5 and has been bought 1 time."

But that $5 is just to start. Each time you get a postitive review, the amount any of your leads costs goes up $1. So the next lead sale will then cost the buyer $6, because you have a better reputation now. That goes on up to $50 per lead, but maybe that cap should be higher?

The address and owner contact info could indeed be resold. I don't think there's any way to stop that. But as I understand classic "bird-dogging", you don't directly sell a lead for $500 on the spot. You have to wait until the person who got your lead actually closes on the property, and then you get your $500.

This is different in that the payments are all immediate.

I appreciate your feedback. What would make it worth trying out listing a lead?

The quickest way to "burn out" investing in real estate is trying to work around the system that is geared toward Realtors. If you work with the right agent, your investment portfolio will grow faster and you will make money with less stress.
Your challenge is to find the agent and lives and breathes finding good deals. They are out there.

LASVEGASWINNER says

If you work with the right agent, your investment portfolio will grow faster

Very funny. :)

LASVEGASWINNER says

Your challenge is to find the agent and lives and breathes finding good deals.

That is impossible.

Patrick,

I have a few leads, but posting them would "give away" my location. Any way you can keep the identity/ username of the lead giver anonyms?

E-man says

How much are you willing to pay me?

75% of what readers pay me. It has to go through readers so that you gain (or lose) a reputation for lead quality.

EastCoastBubbleBoy says

Patrick,

I have a few leads, but posting them would "give away" my location. Any way you can keep the identity/ username of the lead giver anonyms?

I had not considered that. But hey, your identity / username already is anonymous! None of the other users know who you really are unless you told them.

If you want, you could register with a different email and sell them that way. It's free to try!

But it really is important that some identity that you choose develops a reputation for quality leads. I don't think it would work to make all the lead sellers anonymous. Then they wouldn't have any motive to improve their reputation, because they wouldn't have any identity to attach their reputation to.

repo4sale says

I HAVE 8000 LABELS OF LANDLORDS THAT OWN LAND AND BUILDINGS IN CALIFORNIA.

Would that help buyers get a good deal?

E-man says

So you want RE leads. I can sell you 500 to 1,000 leads a week for the Bay Area. I will give you the property address, owner's name(s), owner's mailing address, and in some cases, owner's phone number. I will also give you their loan balance, how much the property is worth, how much they currently owes on the house, when they received their NOD, when they will receive their NTS, and when the house will be auctioned off, and how much the starting bid will be.

Hey, here's an idea: just give me the other info (not the address or owner) and I will post it under your name. If people have questions, you answer what you know. If they want to buy, then I'll forward the money and you enter the address and owner info.

Investing in hindsight is always very profitable.

I don't see squares or ovals anywhere on that chart...except in hindsight.

Is the current stock market a square or an oval? I cannot tell.

Is it possible to guess which direction this price chart is predicting prices to go? When a 90 day line and a 7 day line head in the same direction, you might have a really strong clue on to what to do with your investment money.

Making that graph not start from zero exaggerates the increase. There is some slight increase in Vegas prices lately, but here's a better view, from my own data service:

[...]

curious2 says

If people sign up to maintain an empty bank-owned property for five years, including paying property tax, then they get a right of first refusal on any sale price, and if no one has offered anything then they get the property free and clear.

I think it would be a good idea, but lately I've heard that the banks don't actually own a lot of that empty property.

What often happens is a deadlock, where the bank threatens the ownerwith eviction, and the owner stops maintaining the property, mails the keys to the bank, and leaves. This is the famous "jingle mail".

But the bank does not foreclose, because it doesn't want to be liable for the maintenance. The actual owner is long gone, and it takes a very long time for the county to get around to auctioning off the house for non-payment of property tax (years I think).

If someone moves in and starts to maintain the property, the bank may just decide that the maintenance caused the value to rise enough to make it profitable to exercise its option to foreclose, and then take the house and sell it.

Would you maintain a house that the bank could take at any moment, and resell? You'd be working for the bank, for free.

[...]

Would it be better if I did not require a seller to type in the address in advance of selling their lead?

Right now, you can't list a lead without first putting in the address to my database, so that I'm sure it's a real address.

But maybe potential lead-sellers don't want me to have the address. I know I can be trusted not to use the info myself, but they don't know that.

So would I get more people listing leads for sale if I did not require them to enter the address until they got paid?

There is still the reputation feedback system to limit bogus leads.

[...]