The Urly Bird

So many people in real estate are aggressive. When they negotiate, they are pushy!

I hate it!

So many wasted phone calls. Trying to bring the buyer and seller together to do a deal - and nothing comes of it because the other party just isn’t thinking win-win and how can we solve this problem - to do a deal. They are thinking: “How can I access this seller or buyer and cut this person out of the deal.” 

It’s nuts.

It’s crazy.

No wonder so many people are poor on the internet with few connections and trying to close their first few real estate deals. Low dollars to enter the industry. Low skill.

But enough rambling. You came to negotiate and answered your telephone. Now you have a prospect on the line and ready to do a deal.  You are for real.

How do you negotiate a real estate deal?

Type A’s can’t see closing a deal and are focused on getting what they can when they are talking to you - they don’t build relationships.

Know at the start of the phone call what you will never give up to them without getting paid when selling - money in escrow - or knowing who’s on title to the property - when negotiating to buy a property or note.

I’m sorry to say, but it’s tough out there!

This is knowing your BATNA - Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement. For me - the flock is the names of the buyers and sellers before I got mine. Never leave it on the table. I mean never leave the negotiation without it - get something for it! You know what I mean? Or you can walk.

You build a relationship with the buyer and seller and you want to leave with something.

An example: What’s the seller’s motivation?

Focus on meeting interests and not positions. For a seller that is facing foreclosure and you as a buyer coming in this can mean respecting that they are in foreclosure solving their true interest in staying in their home and coming up with a solution that isn’t based on price but solving the problem of how to acquire the property while keeping the seller in the property - possibly as a rent-to-own. Get creative when solving problems!

Don’t just battle over the price. It’s easy!

Use an Objective Criteria

If the buyer or seller don’t agree with your comps then you know that their crazy.

Unlike what most real estate articles on how to negotiate a deal this Inc. magazine article recommends not to play games even though they are rampant in the mean industry.

Some of the commissions on the big deals that are being circulated on the web are unrealistic and just not real. That said, if you were negotiating one of those deals and haven’t closed a deal before wouldn’t you offer a concession to close a deal in a collaborative way? Ya, right!

If you could change one thing with a realtor or real estate investor to make millions what would you say or do?

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Real estate investing is full of ups and downs but you want to focus on how to keep the worst stuff from happening to you. One of the key things to keep in mind to prevent bad things from happening are keeping your good tenants happy. Tenants can damage property and are notoriously known for setting up drug houses. So, let’s look at how to identify what a good tenant is and how to keep them.

What is a good tenant?

 A good tenant:

• communicates with you
• pays on time
• pays in full
• doesn’t damage the property

How do I keep good tenants?

Many sites recommend having a rewards system in place. I’m not sure how well this would work if you pick a bad tenant to begin with. Tenants can be unmotivated in their life and and not have things steady or firm roots and might not realistically know if they can commit to their tenant agreement. I’m not sure how an annual gift card is going to change things when they are having trouble paying their rent. It’s a good idea; I mean rewards for good behaviour is positive and all. Try gifts for the holidays! I’m a firm believer that the most motivation that can come to the tenant is through good communication and relationship building - if they are a good tenant to begin with. You might need to hire a good property management company to put this in place. The other thing that you can do is setup an email list in MailChimp and remind them periodically of their potential rewards along with your newsletter. If they are good tenants, try a renewal incentive - be it whatever the tenant wants in the amount you can afford!

The idea with keeping the good ones is to spend more time taking in revenue from rents and less time with turnover. I guess it does boil down to good customer service - after all, your tenant is the customer and you are running a business; You have got to keep them happy. By maintaining the property.

Some say setting a standard for punishment - a late fee - is ideal for establishing a strong relationship with your tenant. Keeping consistent communication when late is recommended. On par with setting a standard for punishment is to include in the tenancy agreement that you report to a form of credit bureau in your jurisdiction to avoid late fees.

The next thing is, balancing rents with term of lease. Sometimes it can pay to accept slightly below market rents to keep a long term tenant and avoid turnover.

So, this comes to - How to keep a good tenant? 

I think that the best way to keep a good tenant is to tenant screen for a good tenant in the first place. I heard studies show that you can keep good tenants for a long time that have been properly screened. Give that a try!

What has been shown to work when trying to keep the good tenants for you or that you’ve heard of?

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Social media sucks for real estate.

The best that you can do with social media is find a few customers and get them to land on your landing pages, fill out the opt-in forms and capture some e-mails and that’s with writing lots of great content on your blog and sharing it on social media like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, or paying for ads on Facebook.

As far as closing real estate deals, the chances are slim over a 7 year period. Yes, that’s right, a 7 year period! I met with one real estate consultant that was still working on closing his first real estate deal after 7 years - and still hasn’t closed one! Another lady had spent a couple of years working on one real estate deal only to find out that the buyer’s proof-of-funds was fraudulent. That’s his bank statement - fraudulent, made up, manifested out of thin air. You typically want the dollars to be real from your funding sources. They don’t mention that online there is an even greater proportion of falsified documents let alone spreadsheets filled with property information that try to pass as real proof of ownership like title.

I still don’t think that you need to rely 100% on the MLS and a real estate broker. I think that you can do things like direct mail to find deals - heck that’s how many real estate agents find their clients. You can also include your social media accounts on your direct mail material, but start local. You can get a following from that and start blogging with engaging content. Include calls to action to ask them to telephone you if they have cash or a property for sale and become the go-to expert. Paid social media marketing might work better, in larger volume and quicker - like on Facebook targeting your location - than by doing it organically for free.

Oh my gosh! It’s what every industry expert recommends or do they just recommend that you do social media and that’s it to get real estate deals done. I don’t know. I just know that if you aren’t famous, it takes a lot of time to get real estate deals closed using social media marketing. It can be cheap, but takes time.

The problem with trying to do out-of-state real estate deals via social media is trust. It’s generally very difficult to trust the person on the other end of the phone that you meet via social media if they aren’t from a site with a rating and grading scale and if you don’t have referrals from lots of people that this person is trustworthy. They could take your money and run if they are a contractor and you’re trying to fix up a property from a distance.

I still believe that the best way to find real estate deals is to climb over the backs of other real estate professionals in your network because you want to be the one dealing directly with the buyer or seller, cutting out other middle men and dealmakers. I don’t think it’s ethical if done on purpose, but there has got to be ways of getting there like direct mail and the online strategies that I recommend above that can make it ethical.

What experiences have you had with social media marketing strategies trying to close a real estate deal?

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In some cities it’s tough to find cash flowing deals so it’s a wonder whether Chinese buyers are only buying good deals or if markets like Vancouver, Toronto and California are set for corrections or crashes. Chinese millionaires consider foreign real estate to be the most stable investment as a way to park their cash.

Some people are angry that there are so many foreign Chinese buyers

Some people can’t afford to buy in their hometowns and are upset, as mentioned in MacLean’s. Although, Chinese and foreign buyers aren’t buying in droves in all markets. I went to the local Real Estate Investors Association Meetup and on gentleman asked me whether there are foreign buyers looking to buy in Edmonton and I said no - at the time. He wanted to sell about 15 of his properties and was excited by the idea of welcoming buyers to the market.

It’s a global market filled with international and foreign buyers

There is an argument that without these foreign buyers that the markets could not sustain their prices and would collapse. In Toronto and Vancouver it’s said that buyers amount to as much as 33% of all buyers. It’s not sure whether that is completely confirmed.

With the Canadian dollar being low, they say Canadian house prices are on 30% discount. There are many neighbourhoods in the U.S. that are heavily discounted from the 2008 credit crisis.

If Canadians and Americans can’t buy those houses then everyone is relying on an international market which benefits from low trade barriers - ease of transferring cash overseas - to keep the markets operating as efficient as possible and without a radical drop in house prices in hot markets like Vancouver and Toronto.

Everyone wants to deal with wealthy Chinese buyers

Over the last few years real estate consultants and real estate agents have tried to source wealthy Chinese buyers to do a deal by introducing them to below market value deals across the United States.

There are barriers to dealing with the Chinese - namely language.

There are some groups on LinkedIn, which facilitate doing these types of deals: 

• China Real Estate Club 中国房地产专业俱乐部
• China Real Estate Transactions (Deals +USD10Mn)

What are your thoughts? Have you dealt with or are you a foreign Chinese real estate buyer?

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A no money down real estate deal example

When I started out in real estate I had no money to buy real estate and enough money to buy a list of motivated sellers. I had to think creatively to do a deal. I took one of those Rich Dad real estate training courses and it taught that I could pretty much get an interest in a piece of property if I got in the middle of the buyer and seller by putting a deal together - by finding a deal for a real estate buyer or investor. I didn’t have the 20% down payment for a property so the downpayment had to come from the investor and the deal or property had to cash flow for it to be a good enough deal that the investor would be interested in. I found a motivated seller that was in foreclosure that wanted to stay in their house, put together a profitable cash-flowing rent-to-own contract so that they could stay in their house and took 50% share in the cashflow every month for putting the deal together. So, I had no leverage - no debt - and I owned a stake in the profits from the property. The cashflow.

Most people think of taking out debt when they talk about no money down real estate

It doesn’t have to be that risky. Especially to start out with.
Most professional, high level, well educated investors, REITS and hedge funds would argue that the use of leverage and debt increases profits. But not every investor wants to nor every investor should become highly leveraged if they don’t have their life in order to handle that kind of financial risk or have a team in place to become truly expert industry leader playing in the best markets all of the time. Think of my creative example mentioned above - no leverage.

You can also make money in real estate with no money down without owning an interest in the property like real estate wholesaling, being a real estate agent or broker, or consultant.

Investors that want to get no money down real estate deals want to get rich quick

Leverage accelerates how quickly you get rich; This is risky. Typically, if you have no money you have no experience, low skill or you would have done it already and made your money. By doing a no money down deal you can ideally use your creativity to do a truly no money down deal and without taking out any leverage. Take a look at this blog post. Most strategies that Mark outlines in his headings give the impression and require you to take out leverage. Why not try a strategy like mentioned at the start of this post when you are starting out and have little experience and proven skill.

Does it mean that everyone is poor that wants to do no money down real estate?

From my phone conversations with real estate consultants and agents over the past few years I got the impression that there are a lot of really poor people in this industry trying to do their first deal because of low barriers of entry to the industry. After the 2008 housing crisis and how there are 20% vacancies in some of the hottest US markets right now it leads me to a possible conclusion that people are poor and it’s tough out there. 
How are you going to compete versus the largest players and REITs if you aren’t finding deals that are good enough to be done? You have to do free strategies and this includes low-cost online techniques like JVing and bird-dogging like mentioned above. This includes a lot of networking, which people for some reason like David here tend to complain about doing - even though it’s the key to finding the best deals on the internet in any hot market.

Or is this just an all-time real estate trend that to be successful in real estate you need to be leveraged - take out debt - and that no money down real estate really means that you are going to be paying loans? What are your thoughts?

Share this post and leave your thoughts below.

Access The Flock is the real estate marketplace where real estate buyers and real estate sellers flock together to close deals.

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Squawk!!

Do you want to know the secret to making money in real estate?

You need to have market access to lots of buyers and sellers. OK, sometimes you don't need a lot of buyers and sellers to be successful - just one or two big ones will make you money. But you need market access to buyers and sellers to do the deal.

It doesn't matter what kind of deal you are trying to close; You need to hang around lots of Urly Birds to get the access you need to close the deal. 

Birds of a feather flock together because they are trying to make money and become Urly birds and hate being lonely.

Access The Flock Real Estate Marketplace - thanks to me - introduces you to all of the Urly Birds that you can close a deal with.

I tried closing my first deal years ago and I knew a seller and needed a buyer. I gulped when I was a young, unsuccessful Bird when I didn't know a buyer to do the deal. 

Access The Flock Real Estate Marketplaces makes it easier to access and do deals with buyers and sellers. All you have to do is the Mating Dance to attract Urly Birds to flock with you so you can close a deal together.

I would like you to close thousands of deals.

This would mean the marketplace is vibrant - full of birds.

To close a deal you need access to - and hang out with - lots of Urly Birds.

I like company.

The more deals you close the more Urly Birds hear about Access The Flock Real Estate Marketplace and flock together. I get richer.

I like company and making money. But I already made my money. I might charge some money in the future when the birds are flocking together, moving some houses and closing some deals in the thousands.

Close some deals and join the flock. Shake your tail and do the Mating Dance. Limber up. You’re going to make money if you keep flocking on Access The Flock!

I set out to host the marketplace in the skies. At first it was empty. 

To fill the marketplace I had to meet lots of Urly Birds. By using social media I got my flock. I met all kinds of birds and Urly Birds.

I didn’t know what was going on. I did lots of squawking with important and influential Urly Birds to learn how much of a headache it can be for them to try and close a deal. I became The Urly Bird by hosting a better marketplace and closed big deals.

Now to close a deal I can get direct access to all of the Urly Birds.

We can negotiate deals. Move houses. It’s so much easier now than it was in my day to close deals. The marketplace with all of the birds.

The biggest headache in my day was artificial birds. Time wasters.

I simplified the way to no longer deal with artificial birds so you don’t have to worry about it. The Urly Bird grade tells you how much of an Urly Bird the bird is that you are dealing with. No longer wasting your time.

Now time wasters don’t even flock together. You can’t access artificial birds. This makes it easier for you to close deals.

Access The Flock is the real estate marketplace where Urly Birds of a feather flock together to close deals.

Make some money.

It’s good when Urly Birds flock together!

Birds of a feather flock together to close deals on Access The Flock Real Estate Marketplace. 

Without Urly Birds there would be no birds to do deals with. It’s as simple as that. It would get lonely all by myself. 

Urly Birds like to hangout with other Urly Birds. They talk about how to move houses and do deals with cash. Thanks to the marketplace, they make money. With more Urly Birds around the more money that can be made by every bird in the marketplace. It gets easier closing deals with more Urly Birds in the marketplace.

It is easier for birds to become Urly Birds when there are more Urly Birds at the table because we can help other birds out.

I like to allow Urly Birds to go direct to my buyers and sellers. I want to grow the marketplace and have more Urly Birds hanging around together and then I’ll make even more money. I am trying to lure you in with other birds because I know it is good for you.

All you have to do to try to become an Urly Bird is the Mating Dance. Shake your tail! The Mating Dance attracts buyers and sellers and helps you close a deal. The more you shake your tail the more Urly Birds you attract in the marketplace. It will get easier closing deals the more you do it.

Access The Flock is the real estate marketplace where Urly Birds of a feather flock together to close deals. Shake your tail!

If you want to close deals then do the Mating Dance and attract other Urly Birds to the marketplace to close deals with for free.

Join the flock of Urly Birds. Squawk!

This Urly Bird seller is doing the Mating Dance. They are trying to attract a Lumberton, NC, mobile home buyer.

Access this seller!

Access The Flock is the 100% FREE real estate marketplace where Urly Birds of a feather flock together to close deals. Access The Flock!

Michael Sadler