Importance of Headlines
Particularly with newspapers you don’t have a lot of space and it’s expensive, so you’re going to have maybe a headline, one or two bullet points, and then a phone number or website. You don’t have a lot of space so you’ve got to make sure that you do it the right way. Your headline has to be appealing.
Let’s use Louisville as an example. You don’t need to put Louisville in your headline. Everybody knows it’s a Louisville newspaper. You’ve wasted your space. We see that mistake a lot.
Putting irrelevant words in your headlines doesn’t mean too much. Make sure your headlines have relevant words. If it’s a particular neighborhood or section of town, if it’s a well-known area, make sure you put that in there, but not the town.
Be Concise
Be very concise. If you can drive them to your voice mail system or your website, that’s the best way to do it. They would go there and find out if they have some interest. They would see some photos or the video and would kind of screen themselves out and save you a lot of time.
Be Careful of Fair Housing
One thing you’ve got to be careful of is violation of Fair Housing when you advertise. Remember people are going to look at your ad and claim somehow that you’re being in violation of Fair Housing rules. This is a whole subject by itself. We can spend a whole night talking about this. You have to be careful about the words you use.
You can’t use words like church – even if it’s right next to the biggest church in town, or directly across from the biggest church in town. You can’t mention that church. That is a violation.
You can’t mention any sort of family – “It’s a family neighborhood.” If you say the words “family neighborhood” in theory you might be implying that single people aren’t welcome so you’ve got to be careful.
Or vice versa, if you use “apartment designed for singles,” it might be construed as excluding families. Be careful about the words you use. Think about them a little bit.
One of the things I’m going to do on the checklist you’re going to get from me is there are a lot of things in there in terms of words to use and then alternative words to use, particularly if you want to write an ad and you want to use the word fantastic three times.
It will give you fantastic and then give you two or three alternative words to use to try and mix up your words. My template ads are on that checklist. You’re going to get those as part of this program.
Be careful of Fair Housing. If you want HUD offers, in most areas a one day course doesn’t cost much, say $25, where you can take a Fair Housing course. You can learn all about the rules and regulations of Fair Housing. If you’re a serious property management I would do that. Go and spend a Saturday or whatever day they offer that course, take it and learn those rules and regulations and keep yourself out of hot water.
I invite you to learn more about Property Management and get a free 60 minute audio titled “Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches” by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS.html.
Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service residential property management company located in Philadelphia, PA.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Learn How to Collect Rent and Deal With the Eviction Process Without Attorneys
Collecting rent is one of those situations where I have to use some rules of thumb, some feeling, some gut to try to figure out whether it's time to go and do the eviction or do we try to work with the tenant and see if they can get caught up. Maybe it's a temporary problem. We can do a weekly or monthly payment plan and maybe we can get them back on paying again.
In the same token, if I don't feel it's going to happen, we have to go to eviction quickly. There's no point in waiting and spending two or three months waiting around for something that's not going to happen. That takes some gut feel and experience.
Know the Rules for Eviction
We'll talk about the eviction process. There again, just like the rules and regulations, you've got to be smarter than your tenants. You've got to know the rules better than they do, because if you don't, I guarantee you they will take advantage of you. They will tell you things that are not accurate and if you buy into it you're going to end up being their whipping post.
Now every state might be slightly different and I recommend you go to Google and search for your sate and landlord regulations and study them front to back. Knowing the rules and then enforcing them is the single most important thing in terms of collecting rent.
Should you use an attorney for evictions? You guys can do it better than an attorney can. They will do almost nothing for you except the fact that they're attorneys and they'll charge you $250-300 an hour.
I can probably out perform any attorney in this area and I can do it for $50 an hour for my clients, probably one sixth of what they'll pay an attorney.
How to Retain Tenants
How to work with tenants and try to encourage them to stay tenants, making sure that you're resolving issues with them in a friendly and professional way so they say, "Hey, yeah, I want to stay another year, two years, three years whatever."
If you are late with doing maintenance, you drag your feet, you try to find excuses why not to do it every time they call you, you don't return their calls, they got a little drip here and there, you don't fix it, do you think they're going to stay that second year after that lease runs out? I don't think so.
Again, you want to keep at it. You want to work within trying to keep the tenants as long as possible. Also, we have little things in our lease that encourage tenants to sign a new one-year lease. They can go month-to-month but there are some penalties - I wouldn't call it that - but just some things in that lease that make it more onerous on them as opposed to coming back to me and saying, "I'd rather have a new one-year lease than go month-to-month."
We probably have 75 to 80% of our tenants come back to us for a new one-year lease as opposed to remaining month-to-month. It's hard for you as landlords and owners to manage if you don't know beyond 30 days whether your tenant's staying or going. It's much nicer to have a one-year lease and you know that for the next 12 months at least you're going to get rent, so we'll talk about that.
In the same token, if I don't feel it's going to happen, we have to go to eviction quickly. There's no point in waiting and spending two or three months waiting around for something that's not going to happen. That takes some gut feel and experience.
Know the Rules for Eviction
We'll talk about the eviction process. There again, just like the rules and regulations, you've got to be smarter than your tenants. You've got to know the rules better than they do, because if you don't, I guarantee you they will take advantage of you. They will tell you things that are not accurate and if you buy into it you're going to end up being their whipping post.
Now every state might be slightly different and I recommend you go to Google and search for your sate and landlord regulations and study them front to back. Knowing the rules and then enforcing them is the single most important thing in terms of collecting rent.
Should you use an attorney for evictions? You guys can do it better than an attorney can. They will do almost nothing for you except the fact that they're attorneys and they'll charge you $250-300 an hour.
I can probably out perform any attorney in this area and I can do it for $50 an hour for my clients, probably one sixth of what they'll pay an attorney.
How to Retain Tenants
How to work with tenants and try to encourage them to stay tenants, making sure that you're resolving issues with them in a friendly and professional way so they say, "Hey, yeah, I want to stay another year, two years, three years whatever."
If you are late with doing maintenance, you drag your feet, you try to find excuses why not to do it every time they call you, you don't return their calls, they got a little drip here and there, you don't fix it, do you think they're going to stay that second year after that lease runs out? I don't think so.
Again, you want to keep at it. You want to work within trying to keep the tenants as long as possible. Also, we have little things in our lease that encourage tenants to sign a new one-year lease. They can go month-to-month but there are some penalties - I wouldn't call it that - but just some things in that lease that make it more onerous on them as opposed to coming back to me and saying, "I'd rather have a new one-year lease than go month-to-month."
We probably have 75 to 80% of our tenants come back to us for a new one-year lease as opposed to remaining month-to-month. It's hard for you as landlords and owners to manage if you don't know beyond 30 days whether your tenant's staying or going. It's much nicer to have a one-year lease and you know that for the next 12 months at least you're going to get rent, so we'll talk about that.
I invite you to learn more about Property Management and get a free audio titled "Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Manage Your Own Investments Properties for Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches" by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS.html
Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service residential property management company located in Philadelphia, PA.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Advantages of Professional Property Management Vs “Mom and Pop Management”
One of the things we’re going to focus on is what is professional management versus mom and pop management. Now many of you may have a couple properties. Maybe you’ve read a book on property management, I don’t know, but if you ultimately want to make a business and to grow wealth and to be a serious real estate investor, you need to become a professional property manager.
That is you’re better at it than most people. You’re better at it than nine out of 10 investors. You take it seriously because you’re investing a lot of your own money in these properties, a lot of your time and a lot of your energy, and you want to get the most you can out of it.
That’s where the money is, because if you don’t manage it properly, the value of that asset declines rapidly. I guarantee you, if you’ve bought a property, put a bad tenant in there and they destroyed your property, you’re looking at $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 of damage. Not that property management can totally eliminate that possibility, but certainly professional management versus mom and pop management makes a huge difference.
Advantages of Property Management
We’re going to go through that and understand that process. We’re going to go through the advantages of property management. Why is it worth you getting on this call for two hours for a series of four calls? What are the monetary advantages of doing it? Are there monetary advantages to it? Why not just read a $12 book?
Sure, you can do that, but everybody knows reading a book is a hard way to learn. It’s not interactive. You won’t have the ability to fire questions at me. Maybe you’re pretty good at property management and you have a couple areas you’re weak at. You won’t have the ability to fire questions at me.
Again, filling a rental. Let’s say we had a $900 a month rental. Filling it 30 days earlier than you would otherwise puts $900 in your pocket. So the monetary issues here are tremendous. Keeping a tenant a second year as opposed to losing them because you didn’t treat them right or you didn’t fix the property right or whatever, reselling a vacancy is tremendously expensive.
You could be looking at two months vacancy, $900 per month, and costs you have to pay to maybe carpet in between tenants, so maintaining a tenant is again a huge monetary issue. So there are clearly some monetary issues here that can be quite overwhelming in terms of cost savings.
We’re going to talk about the importance of education, these kinds of calls tonight, the importance of doing it on a continuous basis, meaning joining your real estate clubs, looking for other resources, maybe join my coaching program at some point down the road, but continue to educate yourself further and more completely as time goes by.
Again, a professional real estate investor continues the education process and never stops. A mom and pop learns a couple things and then stops. We’re going to talk about the difference between the two. How to do things like develop contacts and network, how to work with contractors.
I invite you to learn more about Property Management and get a free audio titled “Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Manage Your Own Investments Properties for Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches” by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS.html
Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service residential property management company located in Philadelphia, PA.
That is you’re better at it than most people. You’re better at it than nine out of 10 investors. You take it seriously because you’re investing a lot of your own money in these properties, a lot of your time and a lot of your energy, and you want to get the most you can out of it.
That’s where the money is, because if you don’t manage it properly, the value of that asset declines rapidly. I guarantee you, if you’ve bought a property, put a bad tenant in there and they destroyed your property, you’re looking at $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 of damage. Not that property management can totally eliminate that possibility, but certainly professional management versus mom and pop management makes a huge difference.
Advantages of Property Management
We’re going to go through that and understand that process. We’re going to go through the advantages of property management. Why is it worth you getting on this call for two hours for a series of four calls? What are the monetary advantages of doing it? Are there monetary advantages to it? Why not just read a $12 book?
Sure, you can do that, but everybody knows reading a book is a hard way to learn. It’s not interactive. You won’t have the ability to fire questions at me. Maybe you’re pretty good at property management and you have a couple areas you’re weak at. You won’t have the ability to fire questions at me.
Again, filling a rental. Let’s say we had a $900 a month rental. Filling it 30 days earlier than you would otherwise puts $900 in your pocket. So the monetary issues here are tremendous. Keeping a tenant a second year as opposed to losing them because you didn’t treat them right or you didn’t fix the property right or whatever, reselling a vacancy is tremendously expensive.
You could be looking at two months vacancy, $900 per month, and costs you have to pay to maybe carpet in between tenants, so maintaining a tenant is again a huge monetary issue. So there are clearly some monetary issues here that can be quite overwhelming in terms of cost savings.
We’re going to talk about the importance of education, these kinds of calls tonight, the importance of doing it on a continuous basis, meaning joining your real estate clubs, looking for other resources, maybe join my coaching program at some point down the road, but continue to educate yourself further and more completely as time goes by.
Again, a professional real estate investor continues the education process and never stops. A mom and pop learns a couple things and then stops. We’re going to talk about the difference between the two. How to do things like develop contacts and network, how to work with contractors.
I invite you to learn more about Property Management and get a free audio titled “Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Manage Your Own Investments Properties for Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches” by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS.html
Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service residential property management company located in Philadelphia, PA.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The 6 Steps to Developing Your Own Private Lending Program
What do you think your real estate investing business would be like if you had unlimited access to money for profitable deals? Imagine finding a great deal and be able to call up a private lender and outlining the deal and after some discussion the person yes how much money do you need and where can I send the check? Do you think you could get some price discounts from sellers when you knew you could close and close quickly? How would that affect your lifestyle?
This is possible for you if you committee the time and energy to develop a private lender program. It is not a get rich quick plan. You must be organized and have a well developed business plan and marketing plan to meet and develop private lenders and build relationships.
As part of private lending program you must have ways to attract private lenders to call or email you to start the process. Once a potential private lender has contact you must send them some information about your private lending program and then call them and set up a meeting to advance the discussion.
Here are 6 steps to a private lender program.
1) Business Plan: You must have a solid and believable business plan that fits your experience level and skill set. If you have only bought one or two properties you cannot tell a private investor you plan to buy 12 properties this year. This is not believable and the private lender will not lend you money. Your business plan must be well thought out and when you sit in front of a prospective investor it must be believable and achievable without being a stretch.
2) Credibility Kit: Building your personal Credibility Kit is going to be one of the most important tools in your real estate investing business. Nothing speaks louder or more clearly about you or your integrity than letters from your sellers, personal reference letters, letters from your lenders, copies of ads you have run, photos of properties you have bought and sold, testimonials and references, and certifications or professional licenses. The professionalism that a good Credibility Kit presents to private lenders is very powerful and shows you as a real estate investing expert.
3) Marketing Plan: You must have a good Marketing Plan including several different types of lead generating marketing to get potential private lenders to call you and request more information or come to your educational seminars. These methods can include post cards, flyers, networking within professional organizations, and group or one-on-one educational presentations. We do NOT recommend any big or public advertising such as newspapers or internet.
4) Follow-up and Presenting Deals: Once your marketing has generated some leads it is time to present deals. You may want to meet with the potential lenders in a one-on-one meeting and lay out why your real estate deal makes sense and how the investor’s money is well protected and what return they can expect to earn. You also may want to send out a short summary to a number of potential lenders and see if they are interested by having them call you for more information and details. If one of the lenders calls from your emails it is important to follow up and send both your Credibility Kit and deal summary for their review.
5) Legal Forms and Documents: One of the great advantages of private lending is how simple the forms are for a typical private lending transaction. In fact, most private lending transactions only involve four documents including a Mortgage or Deed of Trust, Promissory Note, Insurance and Disclosure Statement. The most important document is the Promissory Note and this is where you add certain clauses that allow you to control the deal and give you flexibility down the road.
6) Closing: Once you have a private lender ready to go and your forms prepared for the deal, it is time to close. I strongly recommend to my coaching students that they always close with a title clerk or attorney and let them prepare the closing documents and handle the money for you at closing. For the small fee they charge, it takes a lot of headaches away and adds a level of professionalism to your investing business. I also strongly recommend that the title clerk or attorney record the private lenders mortgage with the local county land records office.
I invite you to learn more about Private Lending and get FREE instant access to a 60 minute audio and 20-page eBook titled “Discover the Secrets of How to Fund Your Real Estate Deals with Private Lenders!” by going to http://realestatewealthtoday.com/FREE-eBook.html .
Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE Real Estate Wealth Newsletter go to Private Lender Money Kit.
This is possible for you if you committee the time and energy to develop a private lender program. It is not a get rich quick plan. You must be organized and have a well developed business plan and marketing plan to meet and develop private lenders and build relationships.
As part of private lending program you must have ways to attract private lenders to call or email you to start the process. Once a potential private lender has contact you must send them some information about your private lending program and then call them and set up a meeting to advance the discussion.
Here are 6 steps to a private lender program.
1) Business Plan: You must have a solid and believable business plan that fits your experience level and skill set. If you have only bought one or two properties you cannot tell a private investor you plan to buy 12 properties this year. This is not believable and the private lender will not lend you money. Your business plan must be well thought out and when you sit in front of a prospective investor it must be believable and achievable without being a stretch.
2) Credibility Kit: Building your personal Credibility Kit is going to be one of the most important tools in your real estate investing business. Nothing speaks louder or more clearly about you or your integrity than letters from your sellers, personal reference letters, letters from your lenders, copies of ads you have run, photos of properties you have bought and sold, testimonials and references, and certifications or professional licenses. The professionalism that a good Credibility Kit presents to private lenders is very powerful and shows you as a real estate investing expert.
3) Marketing Plan: You must have a good Marketing Plan including several different types of lead generating marketing to get potential private lenders to call you and request more information or come to your educational seminars. These methods can include post cards, flyers, networking within professional organizations, and group or one-on-one educational presentations. We do NOT recommend any big or public advertising such as newspapers or internet.
4) Follow-up and Presenting Deals: Once your marketing has generated some leads it is time to present deals. You may want to meet with the potential lenders in a one-on-one meeting and lay out why your real estate deal makes sense and how the investor’s money is well protected and what return they can expect to earn. You also may want to send out a short summary to a number of potential lenders and see if they are interested by having them call you for more information and details. If one of the lenders calls from your emails it is important to follow up and send both your Credibility Kit and deal summary for their review.
5) Legal Forms and Documents: One of the great advantages of private lending is how simple the forms are for a typical private lending transaction. In fact, most private lending transactions only involve four documents including a Mortgage or Deed of Trust, Promissory Note, Insurance and Disclosure Statement. The most important document is the Promissory Note and this is where you add certain clauses that allow you to control the deal and give you flexibility down the road.
6) Closing: Once you have a private lender ready to go and your forms prepared for the deal, it is time to close. I strongly recommend to my coaching students that they always close with a title clerk or attorney and let them prepare the closing documents and handle the money for you at closing. For the small fee they charge, it takes a lot of headaches away and adds a level of professionalism to your investing business. I also strongly recommend that the title clerk or attorney record the private lenders mortgage with the local county land records office.
I invite you to learn more about Private Lending and get FREE instant access to a 60 minute audio and 20-page eBook titled “Discover the Secrets of How to Fund Your Real Estate Deals with Private Lenders!” by going to http://realestatewealthtoday.com/FREE-eBook.html .
Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE Real Estate Wealth Newsletter go to Private Lender Money Kit.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Real Estate Investors - Learn the Most Important Element You Must Have to Make a Successful Offer!
The first step in the instant offer system is simply to build rapport. This is a fundamental building block to any offer. You cannot develop a deal with a seller if you're not in rapport.
What is a Rapport?
What is rapport? It's hard to define. It's not necessarily being friends. It's not necessarily having a long relationship. It's not that. It's a sense that the two of you are on the same page. There's some comfort between the two of you.
There is starting to be a sense of trust that you're comfortable with each other. You have a sense that the other person and you are kind of moving in the same direction that both of you want to go.
If you don't have rapport you cannot move forward in this system. It is absolutely the most essential of the five steps. If you do not have rapport then really the process is over.
The Importance of Rapport
If you go talk to a seller and the first couple of minutes are very awkward, maybe very argumentative or you say something that the other person doesn't like - it gets their back up a little bit - the offer process is really over at that point. It really can't proceed until you come back and you develop that rapport.
It doesn't mean you can't come back and get it, but at that point you've got to take a minute and build rapport.
How to Develop a Rapport
One of the best ways to develop rapport when you walk into somebody's home is to start to ask questions and take a little tour of their home. Make comments about some of their belongings in the house.
Maybe they've got sports memorabilia and you can make a comment about it if you're in a sports town. You can talk about the great game a couple of years ago, the Superbowl, World Series or whatever. You're developing some rapport. The two of you are developing some commonalities. You're starting to understand each other.
If the person has pictures of their kids or something of that nature you can make comments about that. If there's something about a college, maybe you can make some comments about that - you or somebody you know has been there.
Basically you want to walk through the house with that individual, spend a few minutes and just chat about relatively minor things - nothing important. That is the rapport building process. You can compliment the house. If it's decorated nice or there's something you particularly like about the property, a compliment is obviously a process of building that rapport. It's important that you go through this step. It's important that in your mind you take some time.
I know everybody wants to jump to the table and start making the offer, but this process needs to take its time. Let it build and develop naturally. If this walk through takes half an hour, let it take half an hour. Don't try to force it. Again, the rapport will happen naturally if you allow it to.
What is a Rapport?
What is rapport? It's hard to define. It's not necessarily being friends. It's not necessarily having a long relationship. It's not that. It's a sense that the two of you are on the same page. There's some comfort between the two of you.
There is starting to be a sense of trust that you're comfortable with each other. You have a sense that the other person and you are kind of moving in the same direction that both of you want to go.
If you don't have rapport you cannot move forward in this system. It is absolutely the most essential of the five steps. If you do not have rapport then really the process is over.
The Importance of Rapport
If you go talk to a seller and the first couple of minutes are very awkward, maybe very argumentative or you say something that the other person doesn't like - it gets their back up a little bit - the offer process is really over at that point. It really can't proceed until you come back and you develop that rapport.
It doesn't mean you can't come back and get it, but at that point you've got to take a minute and build rapport.
How to Develop a Rapport
One of the best ways to develop rapport when you walk into somebody's home is to start to ask questions and take a little tour of their home. Make comments about some of their belongings in the house.
Maybe they've got sports memorabilia and you can make a comment about it if you're in a sports town. You can talk about the great game a couple of years ago, the Superbowl, World Series or whatever. You're developing some rapport. The two of you are developing some commonalities. You're starting to understand each other.
If the person has pictures of their kids or something of that nature you can make comments about that. If there's something about a college, maybe you can make some comments about that - you or somebody you know has been there.
Basically you want to walk through the house with that individual, spend a few minutes and just chat about relatively minor things - nothing important. That is the rapport building process. You can compliment the house. If it's decorated nice or there's something you particularly like about the property, a compliment is obviously a process of building that rapport. It's important that you go through this step. It's important that in your mind you take some time.
I know everybody wants to jump to the table and start making the offer, but this process needs to take its time. Let it build and develop naturally. If this walk through takes half an hour, let it take half an hour. Don't try to force it. Again, the rapport will happen naturally if you allow it to.
I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and join our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html
Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to
Real Estate Investing Blog.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Real Estate Investors – Learn the 5 Key Elements You Must Have to Make “No Money Down” Offers
I would like to talk about what I call the “WOWWW” formula. It is a simple formula that you’ve got to understand and incorporate into your business if you are serious about real estate investment.
There is simply no way that you can structure a truly no money down and creative offer if you don’t understand this formula. There are just five pieces to it. Four of which are “W’s” and one of which is an “O”. The five important elements to working with a seller before you can structure an offer you must know these five pieces of information.
“W” When
You must know when. That is basically when do they want to sell? You want to understand their sense of urgency, their motivational level. If they want to sell months from now, they’re not very urgent. You’re not going to get a very good deal, and it’s really not something you should be spending much time on.
I’m not saying you don’t capture that person’s name, email and phone number, and put it in a database somewhere and follow up with them on a regular basis through postcards and what not. But they’re not going to be a deal this week or next month. They’re simply not.
If they’re not properly motivated, and the when is motivation, if they are going to be doing a deal in the next 30 days because of a foreclosure, they’re moving out of state, or they’re out of state or about to miss a mortgage payment because they’ve been trying to sell it for a year and they can’t sell it and they’ve run out of money, then their ‘when’ has really shortened up.
“W” What
What is their situation? That’s kind of related but you need to understand what’s going on with them. Why do they need to sell? Is it a foreclosure or pre-foreclosure? Is it a divorce? Is it a sale where they can’t get it sold? Is it that they bought it to flip?
We’re seeing a lot of this. People have bought things to flip them, went in and rehabbed it – spent a lot of money – and they were hoping to sell it but the market turned on them and they got stuck. So you need to understand what their situation is. That’s an important element of this.
“W” What Is the House Worth
Worth is always difficult to nail down, but you should do your homework and figure this out. You should look at comps or appraisals or whatever other sources of information you want to try to figure out what the properties worth fixed up.
It may be worth $150,000, $200,000, $300,000 or who knows. You should have some sense of what the property’s worth to make an offer.
“O” Owe
You should know what the person’s owes on the mortgage or mortgages. This is a critical element and something a lot of people don’t understand. You cannot make an offer through the MLS system if you don’t know what the other person owes. It’s very hard to make a creative offer if you don’t know what they owe.
If the property is free and clear and there’s no mortgage, then that will dictate a completely different type of offer. If they’re completely under water and the house is worth $130,000 and the mortgage is $150,000 that will drive a completely different type of offer. If they owe $90,000 that will drive the ultimate offer.
You cannot make quality offers to sellers if you don’t understand what they owe. It’s absolutely critical. All five of these are critical.
“W” What They Want
Probably the least important is what they want. That will change over time. If they’re not motivated and don’t need a quick sale – one and two aren’t really in place – most likely they’re going to want a high price. They are not truly ready to do a deal. They are not where you need them to be to do a deal.
What they want first all changes over time. It’s also probably the least important of the five items. However, you do need to know what that is. If they want some outlandish number, you don’t want to spend a lot of your time and effort on it.
That is the WOWWW formula. Use it on every deal and make much better offers.
I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and join our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html
Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to
Real Estate Investing Blog.
There is simply no way that you can structure a truly no money down and creative offer if you don’t understand this formula. There are just five pieces to it. Four of which are “W’s” and one of which is an “O”. The five important elements to working with a seller before you can structure an offer you must know these five pieces of information.
“W” When
You must know when. That is basically when do they want to sell? You want to understand their sense of urgency, their motivational level. If they want to sell months from now, they’re not very urgent. You’re not going to get a very good deal, and it’s really not something you should be spending much time on.
I’m not saying you don’t capture that person’s name, email and phone number, and put it in a database somewhere and follow up with them on a regular basis through postcards and what not. But they’re not going to be a deal this week or next month. They’re simply not.
If they’re not properly motivated, and the when is motivation, if they are going to be doing a deal in the next 30 days because of a foreclosure, they’re moving out of state, or they’re out of state or about to miss a mortgage payment because they’ve been trying to sell it for a year and they can’t sell it and they’ve run out of money, then their ‘when’ has really shortened up.
“W” What
What is their situation? That’s kind of related but you need to understand what’s going on with them. Why do they need to sell? Is it a foreclosure or pre-foreclosure? Is it a divorce? Is it a sale where they can’t get it sold? Is it that they bought it to flip?
We’re seeing a lot of this. People have bought things to flip them, went in and rehabbed it – spent a lot of money – and they were hoping to sell it but the market turned on them and they got stuck. So you need to understand what their situation is. That’s an important element of this.
“W” What Is the House Worth
Worth is always difficult to nail down, but you should do your homework and figure this out. You should look at comps or appraisals or whatever other sources of information you want to try to figure out what the properties worth fixed up.
It may be worth $150,000, $200,000, $300,000 or who knows. You should have some sense of what the property’s worth to make an offer.
“O” Owe
You should know what the person’s owes on the mortgage or mortgages. This is a critical element and something a lot of people don’t understand. You cannot make an offer through the MLS system if you don’t know what the other person owes. It’s very hard to make a creative offer if you don’t know what they owe.
If the property is free and clear and there’s no mortgage, then that will dictate a completely different type of offer. If they’re completely under water and the house is worth $130,000 and the mortgage is $150,000 that will drive a completely different type of offer. If they owe $90,000 that will drive the ultimate offer.
You cannot make quality offers to sellers if you don’t understand what they owe. It’s absolutely critical. All five of these are critical.
“W” What They Want
Probably the least important is what they want. That will change over time. If they’re not motivated and don’t need a quick sale – one and two aren’t really in place – most likely they’re going to want a high price. They are not truly ready to do a deal. They are not where you need them to be to do a deal.
What they want first all changes over time. It’s also probably the least important of the five items. However, you do need to know what that is. If they want some outlandish number, you don’t want to spend a lot of your time and effort on it.
That is the WOWWW formula. Use it on every deal and make much better offers.
I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and join our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html
Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to
Real Estate Investing Blog.
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