How to unlock profit, solve common transaction problems, and close more probate deals in 2022 | Live Probate Deal Analysis

Weekly Live Probate Training for the Estate Professionals Mastermind – Probate Podcast

Chad Corbett hosts episode 40 as Certified Probate Experts share their probate real estate tips and questions.

In this

Weekly Live Real Estate Coaching for the Estate Professionals Mastermind Podcast: 

Chad Corbett hosts today’s weekly probate mastermind training with Certified Probate Experts.  Probate leads 

In this episode, Certified Probate Experts share tips and insights about the probate process, creative real estate marketing strategies, cold calling scripts, team-building, and asset protection.  Probate Mastery alumni share their recent probate listings and acquisitions and mastermind together for live deal analysis, transaction engineering, and marketing strategy optimization.

Thanks for tuning in and if you’d like to become a Certified Probate Expert yourself, you can get started today.

Episode #40 of Estate Professionals Mastermind – Probate Podcast

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Join the Estate Professionals Mastermind Facebook group for real estate networking, scripts role-play, high-energy community support, and bite-sized real estate tips.

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Training Resources:

1. Probate Mastery Intro Webinar: Probate Fast Track Webinar – Probate Mastery
2. Become a Probate Mastery course affiliate and get paid for your referrals: https://probatemastery.samcart.com/affiliates/signup 
3. Join Estate Professionals Mastermind Group (Facebook)  
4. Gary Nash’s course: GIAfreetraining.com
5. How to Rent Your Land for Dry-Camping
   1. The Dyrt 
   2. HIPCAMP 
   3. Campendium
6. Take Chad’s Probate Course and get Certified in Probate Real Estate
7. READING RECOMMENDATIONS: Probate Mastery Reading List
   1. Start with NO…The Negotiating Tools that the Pros Don’t Want You to Know: Camp, Jim
   2. The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers’ Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success: Sullivan, Dan, Hardy, Dr. Benjamin
8. Learn Probate, Real Estate Investing, Creative Finance, and more on our YouTube Channel
9. Most recent content:
   1. Episode 38: Group Probate Coaching: Probate Podcast: How to monetize ANY real estate sales convo with probate leads (probatemastery.com)
   2. Episode 39: Group Probate Coaching: Stop using your real estate vendor list as a lead magnet! & Live probate script role play (probatemastery.com)
   3. Best Real Estate Podcasts for Agents and Investors in 2022 – Top 15 (probatemastery.com)
10. More Training Content:
    1. How to handle cost objections and pay vendors for probate real estate services after closing. – Probate Mastery
    2. This was the earlier episode (number 16) where Chad talked about dry camping opportunities: A SCRIPT For Every Foreclosure Lead; PLUS How to Maximize Cash Flow, Equity For Any Investment Property – Probate Mastery
11. Propstream trial:PropStream Investment Software (propstreampro.com)

PROBATE TRAINING SESSION TRANSCRIPT (Download PDF of Full Transcript)

How to unlock more profit, solve common transaction problems, and close more probate deals in 2022 | Live Probate Coaching

The house is listed, but the estate was never probated. Will a purchase agreement be valid and enforceable? (Save the Deal)

Welcome everybody to the probate mastery group coaching call. I’m coming to you live today from a beautiful Ritz Carlton and Miami, Florida, just kidding. And I’m at a hunting lodge in central Florida, but close, right? Yeah, we decided to run away from 18 inches of snow and come down to have a little mini summer temps.

 Bill gross. I’m glad to see you brought the baby as expected just on time. How can I help any of you guys today? Kris, I just saw your hand up. So you go ahead first.

Hi. I put this on the Facebook page but I have some more information. So from the buyer side, my, client is looking for some acreage. We found a property and I made a phone call because we’re looking for some seller financing. And the listing agent told me that the son was selling.

And I said, so has the mother, is she the decedent? And she said, yes. I said, so you’re in probate or you’re working towards it probate. No, there is no probate. And I said, okay, thinking maybe it already happened. Or maybe there was a trust. I hadn’t dug deep into in terms of the tax records.

And then she said something that was a red flag. Because I asked about seller finance. She goes the estate doesn’t want to, but he does. And I said estate. So, have you gone through probate? No, there’s no probate. He’s in charge. So I hung up from that call and I did some digging and the property is still in the mother’s name.

And there have been zero transactions. I had a friend of mine go back to the sixties. She had to do a deep dive, to access the original transaction. So I called the real estate agent back and I said, I’m a little concerned or confused why the title is still held in the mother’s name since she is deceased.

And it hasn’t been through probate. It isn’t written in trust. So does the seller have the legal authority to sell the property? Oh yeah. He’s in charge. He’s the executor. And I said if there’s a, will we still have to go through probate because he has to have a probate judge assign him as the personal representative to list the property.

Do you have that paperwork? No, I don’t know. And then she said well, I don’t usually ask for that right away. So, I didn’t want to argue with her. So I just simply said, okay let me know what your seller says about, the financing terms we had discussed.

And she hasn’t gotten back to me since, and that was on Friday. So I’m just wondering if I’m missing something?

No, she is.

 Okay. That’s what I, that’s what my friend in title who knows quite a bit about probate said, but I thought it, it, is it even possible to go through the probate process and still have the property in the decedent’s name?

 Not after the probate process has closed, it has to be transferred either sold or intra-family transfer. she just simply doesn’t understand the process. She needs to go through session one, if we were to if I hadn’t known what I know and I had made an offer, and this was going through escrow, it would have fallen apart, correct? It depends on your buyer’s patience level. It wouldn’t have fallen apart when the title came back, they wouldn’t be able to close the chain of title. So what that agent will find out as her client, and this is where, I’ll try to be as nice as I can be, but this is the difference between us and the other agents.

Like it’s impossible to work with them. They don’t take the time to educate themselves on how this works, but they’re proud to call themselves a fiduciary of that client, right? So what will happen? Let’s just say you went through with it. The contract would go into escrow.

They would do the title search title would come back in the decedent’s name. There wouldn’t be any record of probate, no letters of testamentary, whether there’s a will or not. Someone needs to get someone from the family needs to either read the will and see who the named executor executrix is, or they need to appoint some responsible member of the family to go petition the court for probate.

Then when they have the articles the letters of testamentary, they can bring that back to the title and they’ll get the title binder, and then you can close. It could only be like a one or two-week delay if everybody does what they’re supposed to do. So that’s what I mean by it’s really up to your buyer and their patience level.

If it’s a property they want, then they’re willing to wait, then put it in escrow and let them go fumble their way through it or say, you know what, listen, you give me a 25% referral off your side of the commission and I’ll teach you how to do your job. Okay. Because I’m assuming that he is the executor.

And that’s why she keeps saying that he’s in charge. But what I don’t think she knows is that, even with the will, you have to go through, and oftentimes families don’t know. Like in, in my little county, in West Virginia, where I grew up, I was helping a family save a piece of land. And I went in, 53 probate cases are being pushed through by the county because the families just didn’t file probate.

So they had to go through and clean up all of the estates. They had the death certificates, they know the people had passed, but the families just weren’t moving. So the state, eventually the county will move forward for them at a certain point if they don’t do it. It’s not uncommon for people to misunderstand.

Yeah, I noticed Kris, you’re in California, how much what’s the value of the land? How what’s the approximate sales price? The 300, about 300, it’s almost 20 acres. And it did have to have a property on its got some infrastructure, but the property was burned.

It’s over 167, California, which means that it does have to go through probate land is below that threshold. I was going to, what is that threshold? Is it 90 something thousand? The California 167. Okay. And add to what Chad said to you, I think that this is gonna have a probate question, but really how you wanna handle the realtor question, right?

This is working with your colleagues and I make good money. Working with realtors has done what they’re doing. And so you have to think about how do you win strategically work that the agent in their mind, they have a contract signed. The truth is legal. It’s not binding because the person who owns the property is dead.

And the person who she thinks is in control. It doesn’t have to have letters, testamentary. He doesn’t have the authority to bind that. You may not want to tell them that because it might be your advantage for your buyer to think they’re in a contract with you. Maybe you get them in a contract in escrow and then figure it out that way.

Okay. Yeah. Have you seen who’s who, what is the name, the seller name on the listing agreement, Chris? I don’t know, I don’t have his name, but it’s the family member, not the decedent. Right. So it’s, it is the son. So the s to take over the property once the mom passed away and build a home on it.

So I think they were in the process of building a home when one of our wonderful California fires struck and wiped out the property. so I don’t have any idea how long the mom has been gone has been dead. So is it depends on what data source you use or your county look up and see if probate was open or not?

Sometimes as well too. Doesn’t know, like they just don’t know to ask the question. They don’t know somebody filed it may be filed a year ago and just sat format. Maybe they filed it three months ago and the agent just is this clueless or it hasn’t been told. I’ve seen these cases where they had a probate file and they had those of authority.

Great. You can close. They don’t even know that’s the case, or maybe they filed, but they’re hearing us in two weeks. So now you’ll know. And when it got lined up and changed the strategy. So I would research the name of the decedent. I would look at either your data source, if you’re buying data, or look in your county, you might have to look up and find the decedent’s probate case and see the status.

Would it automatically be in the county where the property’s located? No, it’d be where the decedent passed. Kris what I would recommend is because the listing agreement is in the proposed personal representative’s name, I would go ahead and give them a purchase agreement, ratify the purchase agreement with his name on it because when he is appointed the executor or administrator, you can close the loop on that with the letters.

 So just so not to lose a deal for your buyer, because that’s, what’s most, that would be the worst-case scenario for you. Go ahead and go to a purchase agreement. And we both know it’s not legally enforceable until he is holding letters of testamentary. But I would go ahead and at least get that mental commitment from him that, Hey, this property sold.

And then he’s going to realize what he has to retroactively go do to get it closed. That would be my advice though, in a competitive marketplace, if it’s not easy to replace. Go ahead and go to a purchase agreement and get him on the realtor wound up in it and then go do that stuff to call the county clerk, ask if probate has been filed, if not send the realtor a detailed email saying, here are the steps that we’re going to need.

I’ll go ahead and open escrow, but I’m going to let them know that’s this needs to be probated and by the way, go ahead and prep your buyers and just say, California courts are delayed right now. Are you guys like a short sale? Let’s talk about the worst-case scenario. What if it takes us six months?

Are you guys a buyer for this property six months from now? And if they say no, then you might go find another deal, but prepare them for the worst, the longest timeframe that you think it might take. And then they’ll be pleased when you close it in two months. Okay. Yeah. This is Nina.

If it’s in California, that’s probably the best approach that Chad is recommending because. As soon as you open escrow is going to need proof of who was the PR. They’re going to need proof of who has letters. They’re going to need all of the who’s the estate attorney that’s handling the probate case.

So it’s going to force the listing agent and the PR to get this thing processed. Okay. All right. Thank you. Hi, my name’s Evie wanted to tell you too, Kris that in California, it is delayed. I’m going through the same process now, and it’s taken us probably about two and a half months, but the buyer wants the property, so they’re willing to wait.

Okay.

Kind of like the short sale conversation. This could take some time if it takes three to six to nine months, are you guys patient enough to stick with me through this? And if they say no, then just go find them something else. But they say, yes, you get a purchase agreement and move forward with it.

And maybe you can train that realtor and it’ll be a good relationship. What I said before, like it’s a little bit crass, but it’s frustrating sometimes that people, call themselves, you know like I don’t know how to do a probate deal and they get their sellers into the worst position because they didn’t understand what they were supposed to do.

So it doesn’t have to be hostile. You can, it can be collaborative.

Selling a probate property with a HECM reverse mortgage in New York (Save the Deal)

 James, you’re patiently waiting. How can we help you? A quick question had a property under how to reverse mortgage. And the PR reach out to me. I guess they are waiting for the letters of testamentary, should be coming down within the next couple of next weeks or so.

So, she’s trying to prep the property. Most likely it’s going to be a listing engagement. However, I just want to know what’s the relationship between someone who had a property under a reverse mortgage and the PR is asking me that I have to talk to a HUD representative. Cause she’s not telling me much. It’s asking me to speak to this, Mr. I don’t know. I don’t know what his name is going to give him the contact, but I gotta speak to HUD, I don’t know what the relationship is. What was the date of death? Sometime in January of 2021. Oh, wow. Okay.

So chances are that the lender is already in the period where they can recover the asset. So they could foreclose at any minute. Usually, it’s a six-month clock. If they find out that the borrower’s deceased, which I’m surprised they haven’t already. But when they find out they’re likely to start the foreclosure process.

I haven’t had a whole lot of luck stopping those. So you want to make sure you get it on the market as soon as possible, as far as the connection to HUD. I don’t see any reason why you would have to make a connection with HUD. You need a payoff statement from the lender and you need the two parties to agree to, a contract and you can close.

So most likely just talk to go through our investor, listing it and waiting for. I guess we might not have time for that. Is that… 

Do you have a relationship with a title company that can do a preliminary and just tell you if there’s a notice of default?

Yeah. I have a relationship. I’m here in New York, so isn’t the foreclosure takes a while. Yeah. So what I would do if you can do it without having to pay for title, just call your title company and say, Hey, can you check and see if there’s any notice of LIS Pendens or notice of default against us this property and that the answer is no, that’s great because you have a long fuse.

You have plenty of time. Okay. But yeah, they have to follow the normal foreclosure process. If they haven’t initiated that, then you probably have 90 to 120 days. You should be good. I see. Okay. But if they’re in foreclosure, then what would be my next step?

Then you probably need a cash buyer to come in and get it done quickly.

If you see that, you’ll see that the scheduled sale date is correct. And you’ll know what your timeline is, but it could be within the inside of 30 days. Do you think it’s a retail or a buy-and-hold rental? Or what do you think is the best to use the property in mean condition?

It’s suitable for retail. So I was trying to get the listing agreement, but before she did, she decided to sign to say you got to speak to the representative from the hut. He knows everything. He’s handling everything. He’s the one giving them all the counseling. So in my mind, I’m like, so why should I speak to someone in HUD there’s probably no reason. It was probably just, they found somebody in the housing authority and they were just being helpful, but I’m not aware of anything that would require you to have to make contact with HUD.

If he or she had been talking to that person, go ahead and give him a call and just get yourself caught up on the conversation. Yup. Okay. But yeah, if it’s a retail deal, do you have any idea what the payoff is? Do you know what the outstanding balances are? So I think the house could easily go for 600, I think outstanding balance based on what my conversation was heard.

It’s about 350, we’re talking about 200 of equity. We talk Okay. And do they, how did they expect 600? I know she, she’s not being realistic. She was expecting 800, but that’s my job so bringing, like bringing an investor in at an attractive price is probably not possible.

Correct? Yeah. You don’t have to come up with an end, the buyer who has cash. Correct. And see reality yet, but that’s fine. I could work with her on that, but yeah, I’m just more concerned about how this whole talking to HUD and when to see where they should go list it. But now, yeah, I guess I need to figure out the foreclosure deadlines before I do anything and get a payoff.

All right. All right. Thank you, Chad. Okay. Thanks, James. All right. Yeah, Katt made a good point. There might be a HECM counselor that would fall under HUD. So an advocate that is there to answer questions mainly for senior citizens about reverse mortgages and HECM loans, so that could be who they’re talking to. 

All right. Who else? 

Success stories: Latest flips, listings, and acquisitions from Probate Mastery Alumni (Real Estate Motivation) 

We got lots of lots of active deals on the table today. That’s good.

. David Pannell, I haven’t talked to you in ages, brother. How are you? I’m good, man. How’s your year going down in Texas, we pretty much took the last month off, so I’m just not getting back to it. We found two properties that were expired on MLS.

We got ahold of that did pretty well. Did you flip those? Yeah. Did you get your own house done yet No, I’m almost done? I’m sitting in it right now. That way I bought a house in October and I haven’t touched it. Like I used to flip, my average was 71 days, key to key, like sold to sold, and now I’ve had mine for three months and have barely opened the front door on the damn thing. This thing’s going on for three years, but we didn’t touch it for the first year because we didn’t know what to do with it.

When the temperatures are single digits, it’s hard to motivate yourself to do construction. Yeah. That’s tough. It goes from 80 to twenties right now in Texas yep. , Gary Nash. Good to see you. Sorry, you’re not with me. I just took off and left.

I didn’t have time to invite you on this trip. I’ll get you next month.

I’m in central Florida nice hunting lodge where while we’re helping control the wild boar population duck hunting, bow fishing, just a little run from the snow vacation.

Yeah.

Right. So whoever is sold. I like your zoom name sold. They were able to buy two homes since being affiliated with the group. So that’s awesome. I appreciate it. All the info has been great. I’ve had an admin run the whole thing and can buy two and hoping to make, you know, 70, 80,000 between the two of them.

So it’s been a worthwhile deal. So you’re doing fix and flip. Yeah. So far. Awesome. How many flips do you do per year? Two, two, or three usually. Okay. So you’ve been able to do a year’s worth of business and just a couple of months. Yeah. The cool thing was I was able to find one that my daughter was able to, I was able to fix it up and give her a property she could have never found because of the market. So dang hot. Not included in the two. So it was a great equity position to put her in her life started. So like I said, I just really appreciate it. That’s amazing. And when did you get started? When did you take the course?

 Last maybe the middle to the tail end of last year. November. So we got all the letters starting to go out for 13 months and bought three properties. And that was really what I was looking for, but I’ve had, somebody else sending all this stuff out and I really didn’t see anything for six months, and then everything just like a fire hose now. So it’s been great.

So don’t let off the gas. You’re like you’ve built the snowball, and I see so many people like they’ll spend six months and they’ll do all the things they’re supposed to: they’re diligent. They understand it, but they give up and they never hit that momentum. And what I love is when I like, I love these stories like you showed up here and if you look, Bill Gross and David Pannell like we all have that.

There’s a ramp-up period where it just takes time to get it rolling. But once you get that momentum, they seem to just find their way to you. So for anyone who’s listening, who’s getting discouraged or frustrated, keep on keeping on as this works everywhere. I’ve never been. The toughest market in the whole country is around the Denver Metro area.

The opportunity in haul-away services: Branding and value-add with free dumpster offers. (Marketing Ideas)

But I don’t know if Dave’s here today. Dave Gwinn. He stuck with it and the Denver market took him probably six months, but when he finally hit it, he got momentum. Then he opened up markets and Florida as well as Colorado. So for anyone who’s feeling frustrated or like it’s not working, listen to the story that will work and you can replace all of your other strategies with this.

I was able to, okay. One thing I added was I started sending a business card and on the back, it offered a free cup of coffee and I was cool. And also somebody wants more information and they have me out. I’ll give them a free dumpster for emptying the house. So that’s grabbed a little bit of attention, it’s almost $400 in our area for a 30-yard dumpster, but it’s got some good conversations.

I like that as an incentive, I’ve never actually seen anyone do it. So my brain just went crazy with that and took it to a whole new level. You can buy a roll-off dumpster on a, like on a roll-off trailer for about $30,000. So anyone who’s doing this at scale, what a hell of an incentive.

If you had a big branded roll-off dumpster and you actually, you have one of your staff members just take a gooseneck trailer over, drop it off at the house. You’ve got a fricking 30-foot billboard the whole time the family is cleaning out the house and it’s $30,000. Write-off you’d appreciate over probably five years.

I don’t know where it dumpsters fall in, but you can depreciate that as a business expense and on all your flips. You’ve got your damn roll-off. Like you’ll say 400 bucks every time you do a house. So if anyone has the budget for that, Panell, you should do this man.

 He paid for 30 dumpsters or 40 dumpsters to get that done. That’s a great incentive. That’s something, include that in every letter. Listen, we know that personal property is one of the biggest challenges, and put a picture of it in your marketing and say, this is free for each family.

We help. That’s amazing. Last thing. I added in, maybe this is good or bad. You can give me your advice, but on it, I had a couple of complaints. People said, Hey, this is so insensitive. I can’t believe you’re sending all these letters. So now I added something. Please shoot us a text if you don’t want any letters or if you want any more information. So hopefully people that are going to be offended would just text us and say, Hey, take us off the list or whatever. I liked that too. I think that’s a great ending for the PS line. Like I always say PS if you’re not ready to talk right now, be sure to learn more about us here.

And then another sentence. That’s a great way to thin out your list. I might mark them not interested, but not lose them because a lot of those are not going to be interested now, but they’re going to be very interested after sitting on their hands, doing nothing for three to four to six months.

 It would be a way to prioritize your list for sure. That’s a good idea. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That’s amazing. I’m proud of your results.

Probate Webinar and Probate Mastery Referral Program (Probate Mastery News)

I’m just going to ask if you might when you’re looking for questions, you might explain the Grant Cox program being done tomorrow. Yeah. grant is I don’t know, you guys, haven’t seen a lot of grants. Grant’s a good friend of mine. He’s a CPE and he’s building his business in Northern Virginia.

This will be his second year in brokerage. And so he’s going to be doing webinars, just introducing folks to probate who might not, who might be like the realtor Chris was working with they want to be in the space and they want to do a good job, but they just haven’t found the right source of information.

So it’s just a brief introduction. For you guys, anyone that you may have met at a conference or bill and your insurance, like someone in your part of your exp network I don’t know that Katt has sent this out, but for all of you guys, for anyone who’s alumni if you would like to become an affiliate Katt can send you a link where you can register and we’ll pay you a commission for any of those folks.

If you have a big eXp team all over the country, if you want to bring them into the community we’ll pay you an affiliate commission on those. 

But it’s mainly to get the right people into the community, just so we can reach more without having to take 40 hours of calls a week.

And Bill if you want to come and co-host and contribute, you’re welcome to, or if you want to bring in your exp people it’s a basic introduction to probate. It’s certainly not going to be over your head. Like you’re a veteran at this point.

How to sell a burial plot, and how to donate burial plots and get tax credits for the cash value (Good to Know)

Stan, you’re up next. It looks like. What’s going on, Chad? How are you doing today I’m doing great. I’ve been really busy. I haven’t had time to keep up with or respond to anyone’s messages. And the reason is that everything is starting to work now, all the work that I’ve been putting in with probate mastery and reaching out.

So I have a question a personal representative if he called me because I sat down with my letter. He gave me a call after checking out my website and there are two things I’m helping him out with right now. The first one would be, he has some burial plots in Laurel, Maryland.

And he does not know how to sell it. I know there are three options. He can either sell it online. He can try to sell it back to the cemetery and the cemetery does not buy back those plots or he can just donate them. Do you know of any other way? Does he need the money? He would like to have the money. It’s not a need.

Okay. So you might get more of a cash benefit out of donating them because if they paid X and they’re now worth X times five, he may be able to get a tax receipt for X times five and the 30% of that as a cash benefit, the tax savings may be worth more than he’ll get out of them is my point.

I don’t know what values we’re talking about here, but donating isn’t a bad route to go, and it will be easy to offload them. Just make sure they’re donated to someone like a church who can give you a nonprofit tax receipt. So you could, for example, you’d claim a value of a hundred thousand dollars and get a $30,000 cash benefit off of your taxes.

Does that make sense? Again, please. If he could validate a hundred thousand dollars value for the plots and donate them to a church, then the church could give him a tax receipt as a nonprofit for a hundred thousand dollars donated. Then he can take that to his CPA and it will be worth 30% be a $30,000 tax credit.

Okay. So I’m showing you a way to get a cash value for the donation through tax credits. Okay. Did you track with that or do you want to talk about it some more? Yeah, actually, yeah. Just talk about it some more. Okay. So let’s hypothetically, let’s say we can support a value of a hundred thousand dollars for two cemetery lots.

If we donate that to a church that is a not-for-profit entity they can give us a tax receipt just like Goodwill. When you drop something off at Goodwill, they say, you want a receipt and you can fill in whatever value that bag of clothes was and hand that to your CPA. Typically, for most people, it’s going to be worth about 30% of that.

So if it was a hundred thousand dollars donation and they have a 30% effective tax rate, then you could get what’s equivalent to a $30,000 tax credit. So if he doesn’t need cash and he has a tax liability for 2021, then he could erase his tax liability and get rid of the lot.

Awesome. Awesome. You can put them on the open market and that’s probably going to take some time and conversations, negotiating, and haggling. It would be a lot easier to just donate them to the church. Somebody, some family in need, we’ll get a cemetery plot and a high net worth area where they wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

And you get big, your client gets the tax benefit and you don’t, and you can get it done very quickly. Yeah. He was pretty wary of, going online and selling with Craigslist or marketplace.

So maybe it is he a member of a church? I’m not sure. Okay. I mean, I would look for, look for a church that’s well put together that’s well established. They should have no problem writing your receipt for those. And then he hands that to the CPA. Great. Great.

The second question in this case, since probate is still open, right? Yes, sir. So in this case, the estate’s final tax return would receive that credit. It might not be a great idea if the estate didn’t have more than X, whatever that number is more than X of the tax liability, it might not be the best strategy.

It just depends on his situation, but it’s certainly an option. Okay. All right. 

Great, awesome. Awesome. Thanks for the feedback. 

I offered value, so they want to hire me to sell their probate property: Disposition or Acquisition? (Investment Strategy)

The second question I have for you is he’s entrusted in me as the probate expert because any questions he has, he comes to me and I direct him either to a probate clerk or an attorney, and he’s trusted me.

So there’s a property that he wants to sell as well. And I’m getting it under contract tomorrow. I just have to fill out the contract, which I haven’t done. So the dilemma I’m having is this will be my first, the home has a hundred percent equity. The only thing it needs is a new bath. Probably upgrade the kitchen and just paint and that’s about it. I just don’t know how to dispose of this property. I’m not sure if I should wholesale. And it’s also zoned as a multi-family residence with three bedrooms two full bathrooms and an unfinished basement, which can be turned into another living quarter.

Not sure if I should wholesale this one or just hold it for myself. Depends. Do you want to be a landlord? This is my first. I had no experience and I don’t know what it’s like to be a landlord. I’m not afraid of it, but I would like to do so to learn more about it. I usually ask the question like this is making quick cash or building long-term wealth, more important to you.

Long-term wealth. I remember the conversation we had prior. You mentioned you regret wholesaling most of the properties that you’ve had. Yep. So if you’re looking to build turn the house into a bank, it’s a free and clear asset. Get it, do your rehab, get a tenant in place and then go do a cash-out refi or put a home equity line of credit against it and move on to the next deal.

And it’ll pay you forever and don’t ever sell it. 

Cash-out refi vs. HELOC (Funding Investment Deals)

And I just want to throw it in there if it’s zoned. Multi-family how big is the lot Stan? It is 1350. Oh, that’s small. Okay.

What Chad said then I was going to say, if it’s a big lot, you might consider trying to see if you can, build it out to a duplex or do some added footprint. You can then potentially put two tenants in there and realize that long-term wealth that you’re trying to achieve.

But it sounds small, Nina. Yeah. Do you know what the market rent is? Have you looked at that? I haven’t, I’ve just been, I’ve been receiving an influx of visitors and people I need to reach back out to it’s overwhelming now. That’s a good way to be overwhelmed. Do you have good credit?

Can you refi your cashback out of the asset if you buy it? I can look into it. And I also have a relationship with a hard money lender. No, not on long-term buy and hold it’ll eat you alive. You need to go to a community bank after you have a tenant in place. Do the kitchen, do the bathroom, do the paint, put a tenant in getting at least two months of rent, and then take that, take the proof of all that to a community bank and ask them for a cash-out refi just for the amount you have in not a dollar more.

And you’ll get it right now. Rates have risen because bond yields are the T-bills are moving up, but you’re probably going to get it at, four, four, and a quarter four and a half will be the rate on that of the portfolio loan. And as long as your monthly rent is at least 125% of the debt service, you’re asking them for they’ll approve it.

It’s an asset-based loan. It doesn’t even matter if you have. If you have really good credit, then I would say go to somebody like first citizens bank. If you have above a seven 50 credit score just do a home equity line of credit. So you’re not making a payment, you just set up a line of credit.

It’s a $750 fee. They’ll take you up with that credit score. They’ll you go all the way to 90% loan to value and that’s prom plus one and a quarter. So you’re going to be probably at I don’t know, you’ll be at probably three and a quarter on that. Or probably three points. I think it’s 3.49 is what I have with them right now.

So you can turn that this one into a piggy bank for, to have strike money for your next deal. Or you can get in with your cash, refinance it just for the amount you’re in it and then get your principal back and let the tenant pay off that. But right now is a really good time to take advantage while rates are still where they are.

They’re going to be moving, not a whole lot. They’re going to collapse the equities market if they try to move too much. But they’ll, there’ll be a whole lot of talk about that, but this is ridiculously cheap debt and inflation is paying it off for you.

Investing in Baltimore rowhouses: How to unlock equity and make more money long-term (Live Deal Analysis)

 And Gary Nash has something to add to a kind of stepped over you to Gary.

Sorry. Oh, no worries. Hey, I was just hearing, what city is that? Where the property’s at? Baltimore, Maryland. Yes. Oh, you just found a buyer? All my advice just went out the window. Okay. And how big is the house? It’s really hard for me to find the exact square footage of that house. The only thing that’s on the record is the lot size

and the lot is a thousand square feet, 1350.

It sounds like the house they might’ve just missed appropriately. How many bedrooms and bathrooms is it? It’s three full bedrooms upstairs and a full bathroom upstairs. And there is a living room on the main floor with an additional room that was converted into another bedroom, as well as another full bath.

And then there is a basement.

Sounds like it might be a row home. Yeah, it’s a row home. Okay. So there is no land. The land is 1,350 square feet. So it the first floor. So you’ve got 13, 50 times three, probably as your home square footage. Oh, that’s how it works. Probably. That’s what it sounds like. Okay. But you might have an Airbnb on your hand.

 It’s in a development area, so it’s okay. Yeah, I, if it zones multifamily, it might say that because it’s in a row house type of dealio, but I would call the zoning, give them your address and ask them what you can do with the property.

Because if you can convert that into a duplex or multifamily and why you got them on the phone you might want to ask them about Airbnb. I do that before I made any decisions because you want to figure out what your most profitable exit strategy is going to be, and, and also factor in your current situation, what it is that you want to do right now with the way that the market is, I like to, create the most value I can because that way I can pull a lot of my money back out after I improve it, with the lender and put that profit in my pocket and not be taxed on it until I sell it, which I never intend to and then have a nice monthly income.

But honestly, done, right. You’re only 10 deals away. Gary, you haven’t introduced yourself in a while. Tell Stan who you are and about your course. This is what you teach, like knowing what, what disposition strategy, best suits as most profitable and best suited to what you’re trying to accomplish. Gary covers this one, his course, and teaches you how to do that.

So if you want to tell him how to find more about you.

 Before I forget go to GIA free training it’ll take 12 minutes out of your day and that’ll tell you everything about the course. But I have an extensive construction background. I was a design-build contractor voted as one of the top 50 in the country by Remodeling Magazine.

And I broke out into the investing world and I apply what I’ve learned on how to add incredible value to properties, how to create space within the space, and get a lot of value. For example, I have a house under construction right now that, by putting another $15,000 into the property, I escalated the value by 75,000. Who would not invest 15 to get 75? This is one of the things that you want to take into careful consideration, because if you can add significant value and you don’t want to miss out and you don’t want to pass that onto another investor, because if one of my investor friends said, would you turn down 40,000? I’d say, yeah, because 40,000 after taxes, like 26,000 and 60,000 in your pocket tax-free times 10 you know, that’s some serious point. So anyway, that’s you need to, throw those, factors into whatever your deal is.

And do the background check

with the city to find out if you can convert that into a duplex because that will be a huge cash cow and raise its value exponentially.

Thanks, Gary. Gary, can you drop the link that you mentioned in the public chat? I’m sure someone will have to ask for that. Frank had a comment for you Stan to make sure you check RPR, which is realtors, property resource. If you don’t have access to that, talk to your realtor. But check that, see if you can get the property details there.

That’s good advice. Nina suggested checking the Airbnb site itself. They now posted the city licensing requirements and policies for Airbnb. You can realize three times the rent rate doing Airbnb and you don’t have to deal with tenants.

 James had asked, what is the name of the bank that I suggested for a home equity line of credit? So I use almost exclusively now first citizens bank before last week they were a $24 billion bank that still acts like a community bank. Now they acquired CIT bank.

So they’re now a hundred billion dollar bank that still acts like a community bank. So I do a home equity line of credits at 90 LTV. If you have over a seven 50 credit score, they will go up to a 90 LTV $750 in closing costs and prom plus one and a quarter. That’s the terms. They also do, and this is what I’m doing with the house that I just bought.

I looked at doing HELOC and then that I saw in the lobby, they had this home improvement loan, typically only do FHA rehab loans and those are such a pain. But they now offer a loan. They’re calling it a home improvement loan. That program’s 75 bucks origination 3.49%, no underwriting, a $50,000 loan closed in a day. They’re a really good healthy bank that’s eager to land on real estate right now and they have some great loan programs. And they do have a commercial loan department. For example, the last quote I got from them on the commercial was for a log lodge that I was going to buy and convert to a short-term rental and ag prop campground on that it was a $380,000 acquisition, 150 in cap-ex.

They quoted me on a 20-year amortization five-year rate adjustment. 3.75 on a half-million bucks, basically from the commercial side at first citizens bank. So I’m sure they’re I know they’re in Washington cause I’ve gone to them.

They’re there. They were in 11 states before they bought a CIT bank.

 And the bank in Florida first citizens is here. They’re a great bank to work with. 

Investment opportunities in dry-camping, #VANLIFE, and Harvest Hosts. (Investment Strategy)

I had a follow-up question, about what you just said about the campground. Did you put, did you follow through with that, the seller flaked on that deal. I’m playing cat and mouse with him now because he lied to me. So I’m trying to prove a moral point and I’m letting him sweat some bullets through the winter because he ate up to six months of construction timeline for that.

Do you know what that info are you putting in full hookups? What I was doing with that one was because I had to go over a septic drain line. It’s only scheduled 80, so I was only doing a light sprinter van campground. So I was going to do a small solar, like a small bathhouse. And then just common area amenities, you can make much better margins and a lot more profit by doing just this light campgrounds with basic amenities.

So you can use apps like Campendium, the DYRT, cam Panda, hip camp is the other. Hip camp compendium. If you put them on there, those are essentially the Airbnb for campsites now. And you can get like I’m here in central Florida, you look on it.

Even on Airbnb, people are in the middle of nowhere, renting a spot behind their shed for 60 and 80 bucks a night and you don’t have to do full hookups and all that. So I would recommend in most scenarios, you’re going to be way more profitable. If you leave the sewage out of it.

Just give them fresh water and give them at least a 30 amp hookup. And you’ll be good to go. But what I was known as I was going to build a bluegrass stage, have a bar that a local brewery could come into, like when we were playing shows and then put like a thousand-gallon underground propane tank and then put gas lamps out through the woods.

And then higher have local artists exhibit their art pieces, their sculptures in the trees, like in the woods. So it would be an artisan’s trial. It was right on the river. It’s on the green river trail. There’s, there’s a town, six miles down the trail. So I was just kinda making it like an outdoors person, a nice hip camp for everybody. But for those, I could get about 50 bucks a night for sites like that. And then on weekends when we have bluegrass shows and things like that, we can charge more. But I would say lighter is better when it comes to campgrounds unless you’re going full scale.

If you want to make money on campgrounds, you make sure you can get over 60 pads and you do your hookups on the back, make a single run of sewer and water across the back and then bring it up to your dump. So people are never going across your plumbing You can make real money with them, but really when you get above 60 pads is where you can afford a manager and it won’t be a job, it will be a business.

Hey, Chad, to that, what do you think about lots for van lifers? One thing that I’ve found in the van life, world, is people who live in vans, there are many vans out and they’re doing some crazy outfitting of vans these days. Yeah. And yet, yeah. But the biggest challenge they find is being able to find a place to park for the night before they go to their next destination or to park for a few days.

Have you, do you think that might be a good opportunity to invest? I have several mobile home investors who were excited about mobile homes still. I had, we had this conversation once when I was back in, it was when I was standing on a riverbank. I think it was in May. When we talked about this, my friend Codie bought four acres outside of Joshua tree national park.

It’s just a barren desert, no water, no electricity, nothing. It was paid off in three months and they make about $1,500 a month off of that. Now in perpetuity, like they’re just they’re overflow because people can’t get sites on Joshua Tree. So if you’re near employment centers, like one of my friends he helped build Twitter, Facebook, and Airbnb.

He was one of the lead programmers on all three of those apps. He lived in a van the entire time making $450,000 a year living in a sprinter van. And he finally moved to Austin and rented a house. So if he can get near those employment centers in California, people are dying for stuff like that.

And they can be very wealthy people. They just choose to opt-out of conventional life because they’re aggressively building their net worth and investing like Gabe. So I think it’s a great idea. If you can come up with affordable land, especially if you can add amenities like a bathhouse, or if you’re close to a gym, like one, a lot of the van lifers their trick is to sign up for planet fitness so they can go there every morning and workout and take a shower.

They don’t have to take up, half of the back of our vehicle just to have a shower. So planet fitness or build your bathhouse. If some other tips, make sure it’s on a public sanitary route, so you can have a dumpster and you don’t have to go empty trash cans or pull them out to the curb, bought something that where you can have a commercial dumpster on-site and they come up to the truck and dump it without you having to call anyone.

 But these can be some of the best real estate plays, right. Period. And there is a, there are a ton of people buying sprinter vans. And a lot of people don’t realize this. When you see one of those camper vans going down the road, the cheapest you can get into one is about 40 grand. Most people are spending a buck 25 to a buck 50, if you buy one that was commercially produced if you get a Mercedes diesel that was built by Winnebago, that’s a $150,000 van, even if it is just a 24-foot van.

So these folks have money. And they’re saving a lot. They’re not spending they lived very, very affordably. So they’re not afraid to pay for camping because they don’t pay for the house.

My broker thinks probate is for ambulance chasers and doesn’t support investing. Should I create an LLC? (Business Structure)

All right, so Victoria said, I just completed. Your course. Should I keep the probate business separate from real estate?

I’m an agent under a brokerage here in Florida. My broker is not thrilled and relates probate services to chasing ambulances. I’ve considered creating an LLC. Is it better to market yourself as insured and bonded? Victoria? Do you have a microphone so we can talk?

Okay. So what I would say is I have a question when you say, should I keep my probate business separate from real estate? Do you see your probate business as exclusively investor business? What I would say is you should always keep your investor business separate from your brokerage business, because if anybody, when you were acting as an investor, they accuse you of not serving them as an agent. You have a clear separation, separate bank accounts, separate credit cards, separate LLC. As far as the activity, like talking about both options I don’t think they should be separated. My advice would be to go find a new broker.

There are a few million of them. So if your broker doesn’t believe in you holding yourself to a higher ethical standard and educating yourself and likely his other agents aren’t and he thinks you’re an ambulance chaser, I would tell him to kiss your assets. And I would go find a new broker. Thank you, Chad.

I finally figured out how to work the buttons. Yeah. So I believe in separating the investor of business from the brokerage business, just in case anything ever happens, there’s a firewall, but as far as talking about it, I’m Chad, and Chad is going to talk to you about everything from selling the house today for cash to selling the house in six months and it’s in top shape, fully renovated condition…

And I don’t know what hat I’m going to wear until you until I understand, what’s going to be best for you. Then we’ll have the agency conversation if needed. Otherwise, we’ll have the, I’m a licensed realtor. I’m buying this house to make a profit conversation. But my broker shouldn’t be the one that dictates who I talk to and what services I offer.

 Your brokerage can’t tell you what you can and can’t do in terms of investing. You know, some brokerages, my previous brokerage had a requirement that they would earn a commission on my private sales, my private purchases.

And I said, no way, not under my LLC. I’m not. I’m self-representing as myself, an individual of my LLC, not as an agent, you don’t get money on that and they kept enforcing it. And then I said, bye-bye, it’s common. I had to interview 12 brokers when I first moved to Virginia before I found the one. And I’m still with her.

I no problem at all. What are your thoughts on getting insured and bonded? I don’t think it’s necessary. You have the protection of an LLC and you have E and O on, on the investor side and potentially also on the brokerage side, but you have Eno insurance on the brokerage side. So I don’t think that’s what’s here.

You would suggest getting an LLC. Yeah, for your investment business, you should get an LLC it’s super cheap insurance. So what I recommend, and we haven’t talked about this in a while, so I recommend you don’t, you might need an LLC for your brokerage business. Need, in most states, you need to move your license over to the LLC if that’s how you do it.

And that can sometimes not be that beneficial. If you’re making more than $140,000 a year on the brokerage side, then it can be very beneficial. You set up an LLC, a single member, LLC, and you take the escort designation with the IRS. So then you pay yourself a W2 salary and the rest of it comes to you as distribution.

There are big tax advantages to doing that if you have a brokerage that is yielding more than $140,000 a year of revenue. As far as the investor business, it’s a hundred bucks a year to have an LLC and you get all that legal protection. So I would recommend you do.

And then you should purchase an umbrella policy. So if you purchase a million-dollar umbrella policy on yourself, that covers your let’s just say, hypothetically, you’re a sole proprietorship of Victoria, the realtor, and then your LLC is Victoria buys, houses, LLC. That umbrella policy could protect anything that would get through your corporate veils. Thank you. 

Kris. Had mentioned harvest hosts. So harvest hosts are awesome, but it’s not money-marketed. You volunteer. Typically I stayed at a lot of harvests, but they volunteered to give you the campsite for free so they can tell you why or beer or museum tickets.

I just met as a model to take a look like a model. For sure. Some super cool campsites are free. So they, they, it’s a marketing play for them and a harvest host member you pay. I think I paid $60 and $58 a year. And then I can stay one night is typical.

But if you get to know the host, a lot of times they’ll let you stay longer. But look at some of those, just browse for inspiration, browse through their site and look at some of the ways they’ve set up their space. Some of them are just like a field or a gravel parking lot or brewery, but some of them are pretty cool.

All right, and I’m going to jump or just the top of the hour. So as all it guys, this was a great conversation. We had a lot of fun, fun topics to cover today. Thanks to everybody who showed up and participated Gary Nash. Uh, Thank you for being here, John Fraker, always. Nice to see you, Dave. Now I think you’ve already left. Uh, Good to see you. Nina. Lots of familiar faces a few new ones, but thank you guys so much for being part of our community and we’ll see you next week. Have a great day.