How to stand out in real estate: PLUS 4 scripts for probate real estate | Live probate mastermind

In this episode, multiple Probate Mastery students share success stories demonstrating how to stand out in real estate, in any market. With the approach taught in the course becoming the ultimate value add in their business, they’ve been able to break through difficult situations in competitive markets, impress attorneys, and have clients truly go to bat for them to make sure they get the listing/deals. Other topics include leveraging a client testimonial for impactful real estate marketing, structuring a JV deal for probate investing, and why your clients should get a trust.

4 example probate scripts are presented in this episode:

• Pitching estate planning services to your sphere of influence
• Getting through the gatekeeper at an attorney’s office
• Pitching attorneys on why you should work together/comarketing, and
• Handling objections about costs of probate services.

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Thanks for tuning in. You can get access to live coaching and become a Certified Probate Expert by taking the Probate Mastery course.

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Episode #54

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Training Topics In How to stand out in real estate: The ultimate value add | Live probate mastermind:

Get Certified in Probate Real Estate



Resources for this Real Estate Coaching Session:

• Intro to Probate Mastery Webinar: Probate Fast Track Webinar – Probate Mastery
• Take Chad’s Probate Course and get Certified in Probate Real Estate
• Facebook Group: Estate Professionals Mastermind Group
• Alumni Group (For students of the Probate Mastery Course ONLY): Probate Mastery Alumni Group 
• YouTube Channel
• Recent content:
  1. Episode 53 Live Probate Real Estate Coaching: Generating leads in probate real estate: Digital marketing, attorney referrals, and branding
• Probate and Pre-Probate list providers: Best probate lead companies and how to get probate leads online for free – Probate Mastery
• Networking with Probate Attorneys/Divorce Attorneys/Estate Planning Attorneys:
  1. Chad Corbett on the Al Nicoletti (Florida Probate Attorney) show: https://youtu.be/bJoorFQblAA
  2. Ask the Expert with Laurel Starks: Networking with Divorce Attorneys:
  3. Ask The Expert with Rilus Dana: What attorneys want
• Tips for building a cash buyers list in real estate 
• How to handle objections about cost and find pay-at-close vendors for probate services – Probate Mastery
• How to JV a probate deal with the estate as your partner

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT How to stand out in real estate: PLUS 4 scripts for probate real estate | Live probate mastermind

Closing on a 1031 exchange and triple net lease deal, and winning repeat business [00:00:00] 

 All right. We are live welcome everybody to the weekly probate mastery group coaching call on the estate professionals mastermind podcast. For anyone who looked for last week’s call after I think six years Katt deserved a day off.

 It was her birthday last week. So she took some time, had some friends in from Florida and that’s being processed. She’s working on that today. So this week expect a kind of heavy content load. We’ve got last week’s call recap. This one will be later in the week and some other exciting interviews that we’ve done as part of our ask the expert series.

 Does Anybody have anything that they need help with? Any wins you want to share, challenges? I got some, I mean, might as well. Right? Well, you got fed? 

The win is um, I’m in the middle of a 1031 exchange, and a client of mine that I’ve been working on…

so I’ve been in escrow for a year for a condo, believe it or not, whatever we’re closing this week. And we’re doing a 1031 exchange and exchanging the condo triple net lease. And this is part of your portfolio or for a client?

For a client. but it’s cool because he’s a pretty big client of mine.

And finally, after two years of helping him, he set up a meeting with me and his asset managers. So now I finally get to see how they think. They were shooting everything down and he was just playing messenger. And then I just said, Hey, I think it would facilitate things if just to be more efficient, given that the time is going to start ticking on that 45 days to locate the placement property for the four of us to just sit down and strategize together.

He liked the idea and it’s been working out well because now we have a call every other day with the asset managers. So I think that just opens up more doors, even as far as his investment portfolio and just the way they think and their clients. That’s awesome, man. Something I would like as that relationship grows, something I would suggest is that he start to include you in other advisory conversations.

So because you represent -what percentage of the portfolio, his portfolio is real estate? 

Massive. I don’t even know at the moment, I just know it’s more than half of his net worth?

If you’re the team member, the real estate team member, like, see if you can get to a point where then he’ll start to view you as a core advisor, a member of his advisory team, but not, that’s not the outcome. You’re looking for. What you’re looking for is it’d be privy to those other conversations about his other challenges, such as his tax situation.

So it’ll show you what you need to go look for. Even when his mind is so busy dealing with everything involved, and what he already owns, he’s probably missing things. He has blind spots that he doesn’t even know about. And you are in a more controlled environment where you’ve got more time to think about it, the better you can understand his overall, his comprehensive portfolio, and the better you can find assets that fit and compliment that or find assets that are problematic and need to be sold.

So if they can diversify or replace them with what’s better real estate holdings. So that’s what I would say. Good job on that. You’ve earned your way into his circle of trust, but that would be what I’d like for you.

I think that’s the next good goal is to, be in the meetings with his CPA, with his real estate attorney and have some of those conversations. That’ll give you a little more clarity on what assets you need to find. And what you need to get rid of for him. 

Yeah, it’s been, it took two years to get to this point.

I’m happy. literally drove me nuts, but it is what it is, and don’t take it lightly, man. I mean like guys like that have a lot to protect, right? Like, it’s a big deal when that guy says all right. Come on in. Yeah, no, it was great. And, he made me a cool offer.

I can’t take them up on it yet, but, he said two things. He said, look if you ever want to come in on the deal, let me know. I’ll happily let you in. If you want to put whatever amount you want to do, and then we’ll figure out something then part two. He said I would like you to overlook all of my investments herein.

Now he has other ones in other states, but he said, at least for here. I don’t know. I thought that was cool because at least it shows that he’s starting to finally see that, I have his best interest in mind and it was just nice to see that he’s trusting me more.

He sees that you’re not just a realtor, right? 

Yeah. Finally, yeah right. 

Well, that’s awesome. Thanks for sharing that. 

How to stand out in real estate [00:04:26] 

Hey Renee, where have you been all my life? Feels like I haven’t seen you in a month. She’s on the phone. Sorry. I saw Rene come in, we haven’t seen her in quite a while. No, I’m here.

I’m here. I was just, somebody just quick called me. I know now I’ve been here. I’m not the whole time, but it’s going to be bad. And I was just going to share a win. I have two probates that just the win, excuse me for the group is um, Hollywood Renee, somebody remembered that’s funny. Yes. So once I have that is a win just to, based on persistency and, or being persistent. And another one’s from a building that’s a cool historic building here in Los Angeles, in the Koreatown area that I’ve sold for their project properties in. And now this one happens to be in probate, but what’s great is it came to me from a lady who, who I keep in contact with who’s in an independent living who moved from that condo in independent living.

And she rang me up and said, oh, this one’s coming up for sale. Did not know that it was probate until a neighbor said something about the county was about to take over this property. The brother’s the only living heir he’s Canadian lives in Canada. And. Drove down here from Canada because somewhat the courts told him he needed to physically be here, which is ridiculous.

He’s 80 years old. He drove down with his wife long story longer is that I got the right probate lawyer here. If anybody else lives in LA, who has a fantastic bedside manner, she doesn’t have a whole big staff. She’s pretty hands-on and that’s who needed this attention and kind of yay for me, yay for her!

We really, I believe single-handedly I was able to listen to what he needed from what I’ve learned in this course because I could hear that. I think the county was going to take it over and if we didn’t interject immediately, that’s what was going to happen. They had already gone to the property and got in and moved stuff and moved a car and all this.

And I don’t think he would’ve gotten his inheritance and he’s due to at least have about $700,000 out of this condo. It’s a lot of money! 

So, they were making that move because property taxes weren’t paid, or because probate was never closed and they were just taking it into their own? Or, probate was never opened.

Probate was never open, but was weird is I think just cause he’s elderly, he’s not an unintelligent person, but he’s from a small town in Canada. It’s like, they don’t get LA. LA is like, you’re a number, you know, this is not good. And sometimes you say, oh, go to the county courthouse and see what candies are in the jar.

Now that’s not L.A. Like they don’t care. So I think he was having that small-town mentality in a big pool and they just didn’t care. Was, six months ago it was still COVID ish in LA. We’re the last ones to have opened pretty much. And I don’t know how to answer your question.

Can the state take property if it isn’t probated? [00:07:16] 

I just think nobody cared. And he was just a number and he didn’t have anything with him that he needed. But what I was trying to get at is just for a learning moment for everybody else, legally, the county can’t just steal property. So either property taxes weren’t being paid or the estate was outstanding for so long they made that move, which was it?

 I don’t think there are any liens on anything. I think they were just going to try to take it over. Like they didn’t know there was any family member.

They just that’s what I was getting at. So the death occurred so long ago that the county is aware of that, probate was never filed. They were going to take it by a state succession law. It was going into a general fund with a redemption period. So even the property, even if the property had been sold, he still has a redemption period.

If like, if he would’ve found out about it after it was sold. Uh, It’s great that it didn’t turn out that way, but sometimes that does happen. Heirs who don’t know their heirs find out that they were heirs and sometimes it’s too late. It’s each state has different laws, but I think it’s two years in most states where you have a redemption period if you found out the asset was sold. If you come in after that, it’s too bad, it went to the state.

And that does sometimes happen. There’s a property right across from where I’m at. It’s not usable land. It’s so steep, but within a few hundred yards of me, there’s an example of how that happened here in West Virginia. Anyway, it’s just nice to, yes, to all of that, the legal side.

It’s just nice to know when you can help people, especially elderly people. Just don’t get it. And when you live in a big town, man, you really become a number. He did not have to physically drive down here. So anyway, we’re going to put that on the market. It’s going to happen and everybody’s happy and just keep going.

You guys, we do fight the good fight. Sometimes when you’re cold calls, it doesn’t feel like that. Oh, I want to shine a light on something that I think even you might be overlooking, that’s valuable like you when you first got started because LA was such a competitive market. And we had several conversations about how direct mail was just, you felt like you were spinning your wheels, send the mail, get nothing, send the mail, get nothing.

But one thing you did is you focused on the other aspect of what we teach is building your referral network. Not only do you focus on it, but you also chose the attorney based on their personality profile relative to your client, which means you have options, right? You have several attorneys to choose from.

And I think it’s important that everybody else pay attention to that. Like Renee did the work last year or was it the year before that? Yeah. So two years. And in two years she’s been continuing to add referral partners to her referral network. And how long has it been since you gave that particular attorney a referral?

Like when was her last at-bat with. That was that one. She’s new. I asked my title rep and the title rep’s niche is probate. So I asked him who too has a better bedside manner, who has a hands-on bedside manner. And he gave me two people and then she’s this one.

Okay. So this one, you just added her to your network and immediately gave her a ready referral. Yeah, I knew that would be a good fit for this one. And it is so the point out what I wanted to show, Renee has been at this for going on three years now, is that right? And she’s still building her referral network, but if somebody is not in there if she does, it feels like she doesn’t have the right player on the team.

She went and found them. She went and found somebody with an appropriate bedside manner for an elderly international citizen. Who’s just thinking what the hell is going on down here in LA. Yeah, I know he was really sweet about it. Lastly, I’ll say, cause I know you guys have a lot of stuff to talk about today is that um, look, I’m just doing my job, but it’s always nice to hear, here he is a small-town guy, like a small, like I think 20,000 people live in his town in Canada, and it’s like, LA is overwhelming even though his sister lived down here for 40 years and he had come down here and he just really fought for me. You know, he said, “I just keep getting mailers and calls” and it’s like, us on the other side of it right, that keeps calling him. But he went to bat for me.

He’s like, “I want Renee to get this listing,” all that kind of stuff. So yeah. It’s beautiful. It just, it is like validating that you are putting the right people in the right position, not just closing a probate. And I know that, but it’s really beautiful when you hear it back from the client that they know that they’re cared for.

And that’s this niche, I think this and pre-probate if you do it right, can be that. People have a need and they are getting pinged. I mean, everybody’s getting called 15 different ways. Come at it with that empathy. That’s what attracted me to you originally.

And that’s my unique selling proposition. I do the same thing everybody else does practically, but empathy has helped me tremendously in being on the phone, especially. So thanks for letting me share. 

Awesome. I do want to ask you a challenge to you to too it’s for your benefit, but I think this is a good story to document and you can do it like a little mini-documentary, or you just do it as a testimonial, but I would recommend the professional videographer and you and this gentleman as he comes down for closing, will you be face-to-face with them?

I don’t know. I can ask him probably not. But I’ll see if I can get them on zoom. It’s not trying to get him on zoom. 

Impactful real estate marketing: Using a story as a CTA [00:12:22] 

Like you guys like get even, even if it’s a long-form, like b reel. Record this story and then get an editor to turn that into a testimonial video that you can use on your community, Facebook group, your webpage.

You can even throw a dedicated URL up to it and just redirect that to the webpage and then on your next mailing campaign, or when you’re leaving a voicemail, it’s like, Hey, if you want to see the community impact, we’ve had to go to LA probate story.com. And LA probate story.com will redirect to, Renee .com forward-slash testimonial.

It’s like 10 bucks a year to have that up, but it could be a hell of a PS line in your letter. It could be, on everything you do. But don’t let this one slip by. Like, this is a powerful story where you took control of a situation that could have been detrimental to the family.

And you’ve taken control of that, but the right people in the right places and provided a level of service that very few people can. So don’t let that go unrecorded. Stories like this are exactly how to stand out in real estate. Celebrate it, like get it out there. 

Yeah. Thank you for reminding me. And quickly, too, I am looking for somebody like a video editor.

How to find a good local video editor for your real estate marketing [00:13:28] 

So hopefully this is for other people. I need somebody local. I know I could just put things out. Do you have a better shortcut to try to get some quality versus trying to go through a bunch of people? Nobody knows how to edit videos in Los Angeles, especially in Hollywood. I don’t know. It’s quite pricey, that’s the other part of it.

I’m looking for that… Yeah. USC students, maybe that’s a good idea. Okay. Yeah. That’s what I was going to recommend. So like when people in Florida I’m like go to full sail university, grab yourself an intern. That’s what I would recommend. You’ve got film schools right there around you. They have to find work to do as part of their curriculum and they also have side gigs.

So I would just, I would pull from your local talent right there. Yeah, that just reminded me of another one that’s here. Okay. Beautiful. Thank you. 

Yeah. Awesome. Great. share, Renee!

 Renee? I have someone for you for videos. Just give me a call or text. 

Awesome. All right, what’s next? 

Probate script for handling objections: “Does this cost anything?” [00:14:22] 

Hey, I’m still getting caught up on this.

I don’t know why I’m getting so caught up on this, but if somebody was to ask me like, if this service costs something, well, how would I respond to that?

For me, it’s just like, “well, listen, Ryan, I can understand it. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But I will tell you, there’s not a single thing that we will discuss, or we will do for you where we get paid before we do exactly what we promise. So the risk is all on me. All I need from you, the only risk I need you to take, is to trust me long enough to understand what I’m offering.

And then from that point forward, I will assume all the risk until the job is done to your satisfaction. And I either did what I promised and I get paid for some services. Some there is no monetization or I don’t get paid and you fire me. So are you okay with taking a little bit of risk to get to know me better and what I can offer, and then letting me take all of the other risks until this is done and your outcome has been achieved? How’s Friday at one, or would 2:30 work better?”

And just go for it. Cause I mean, honestly, we’re not asking for upfront charges and that’s why when we had that discussion, I think it’s been two weeks ago, about ways we can monetize the network and the service, I want that to be a selling point: ” you know, listen, it’s, you have zero risk. My business is taking all the risks we take at the expense. We manage the people, we’re doing everything and we never want to put you in a position where you have to advance yet another payment or manage yet another process you’re in the thick of this as the representative, we’re going to take that burden on.

But when we’re finished, we do expect to be compensated for that. I think you can agree that’s fair.” And get the affirmation. 

Gotcha. Yeah. That’s super helpful. I think that helps me wrap my head around this a little bit more. 

Meeting with probate attorneys for the first time – they loved my pitch! [00:16:02] 

I had my second attorney meeting today trying to build out the referral network and it went well. I pitched them on that and the idea of the referral hub and they thought that was a really good idea! 

So you’re still the new guy brand new to this brand new real estate brand new to probate.

And you’re boldly walking into attorneys, offices, having successful meetings, and creating relationships. He was ecstatic. That guy was ECSTATIC. He was like, I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this before. So it works. 

I’ve heard it from thousands of counties all over the country. 

So for anyone on this call, who’s sitting there letting fear manage you and you haven’t done this.

You haven’t gotten in the car, you haven’t walked into an attorney’s office and told them what your offer is and asked them, can I give you this? There are a little there are ideas we discuss. You can always find that in. If you search attorney on probate mastery.com you’ll hear hours of that conversation, but if you’re not doing it: this is the result you’re going to get.

How to get deals and listings from probate attorneys, even when other real estate agents are asking for referrals | Ask The Expert with Rilus Dana

That little voice in your head saying, I have no credibility. The attorneys will chew me up. Like Ryan was, if anyone could say, I could have that limiting belief or justify that limited belief it’s him because he is a green as they come, but he got the same result that our seasoned veterans get: you walk in, you make an offer of value.

You walk out with a relationship that lasts the rest of your career. So good on you, Ryan. And thanks for trusting me and our community, to walk you into that. I’m glad you got the validation we wanted you to get. 

Absolutely. Thank you. Yep.

Two ways to stand out in real estate and offer value to attorneys when prospecting for referrals [00:17:36] 

Terry said, could you recap the offer of value? Is that specifically to the attorney Terry?

Yeah. So the two most common ways that we offer value to attorneys when it’s a cold introduction. One is we, if you, so Terry, I don’t know if you have a mic, you can shake your head. Yes or no. Do you have a living? Do you have an estate plan in place? You have a living trust, Terry.

Okay. So if you don’t have a living trust, you are the referral. I’m assuming as part of this community, your net worth is higher than six figures. If your net worth is higher than six figures, then you don’t have a living trust. You’re likely going to your estate will likely be probated then your estate will lose four to 7% of its gross value.

So you’re a great first referral to create a relationship with them. You can walk in and say, Hey, I’m raising my standard of service this year in my real estate business. One of the things I’m interested in doing is going back through all of my past clients and my sphere of influence and making sure that every person has, an estate plan in place.

But first, let’s put first things. I need a proper estate plan. I, I’m going to be helping more families and building wealth. I want to be a good example. So I’m looking for the right estate planning attorney to help, structure, to help handle, set up my estate properly.

And through that, you, as you work with them, you tell them a little bit more about what. And then you bring other referrals. And if you can if you already have a living trust and you don’t, and you have an estate plan and you don’t need that, then look around and your sphere of influence. So your past clients, your family your wealthy contacts even on your vendor team, anyone who doesn’t have an estate plan, you can do an email, a phone count, phone conversation, text Facebook, messenger, Facebook, video posts, whatever, but just the people in your life that have, like I said, over six-figure net worth, they need to not like they.

Should understand that its probate will cost them more than a trust or a will costs. They’re a state bar. So throw all the videos and say, Hey guys, listen, I’ve been going through some second-quarter planning and I want to provide a higher level of service to everybody in my life, especially if my business life and one of the things that I’ve come up with for the second quarter, is I would like to offer anyone in mind that work, who doesn’t have an estate plan, I want to pay for an hour of my attorney’s time to sit down and walk you through the options available to you.

For most people, that’s probably going to be a living trust that would be the instrument that makes the most sense, but it could be, just, it could be wheel wills, advanced directives, different things. I don’t want to know what your estate plan is. I just want to know that you’re taken care of and you have one because most of my friends and family do not.

So if you’d like to have an hour with our attorney, please click below to jump on. Fill out this form, jump on the calendars and an email, whatever your call to action is. If you send that out to a few hundred people, you get a few dozen that say, oh, okay. Yeah. That’s something I’ve been procrastinating about.

I probably shouldn’t do that. If it’s free, I’ll take it. Then you have a dozen referrals, so you can go around town. You decide if you give those all to one person, one attorney, or if you break them up and create multiple relationships. That’s the hard way but it’s the most effective. But it’s the one that’s most intimidating for most people.

A little bit easier to accomplish if you don’t have those individuals who you can turn into A-plus referrals to open a relationship, then the next best thing you can do is find a way to help their small business with your small business.

So estate planning attorneys and probate attorneys aren’t allowed to directly solicit for business. So you can go in and offer to co-market and you pay for the marketing. 

How to stand out in real estate and get passed the gatekeeper at attorney offices: Probate scripts [00:21:14] 

” My name’s Chad, I’ve got a social enterprise here in the community that helps families with all the non-legal aspects of probate.

And today I’m interviewing law firms to find the one that I feel would be the best fit to include in my marketing as our preferred attorney, for those that don’t have legal representation. I noticed, attorney bill Jones has done 10 cases in the last month. Would bill be available for a quick chat?”

The answer is almost always yes. And you’ll be in the conference room for a couple of hours, but there’s a couple of things you can do as far as the co-marketing piece. One of the things I like, because it makes this a learning experience, sit down and paper out every little aspect, no matter how tiny of the probate process from the time that our or the estate settlement process.

So death occurs. Everything that happens until the estate is closed and distribution is made to the family. The legal aspect should be colored in -we’ll choose a color. We’ll say red. The non-legal aspects can be another. If you want to say these are family responsibilities, these are court responsibilities.

These are legal responsibilities. You could use multiple colors. The idea is to have the legal, like flag out the legal responsibility. So for those people on your list that are pro se or proper, which is usually about 20% of your list, you include this in the letter that you send out and they see that as like, holy I didn’t know I had this much stuff to do. 

In that letter, you can explain what’s in red is as, as illegal. And this is our preferred counsel and you have the attorney’s contact information at the bottom of that sheet. So any attorney who says no to that doesn’t understand business because you’re offering to not only circumvent a loophole to allow them to direct market through your small business. You’re paying for it like it’s value on top of value. You’re using your small business to help them grow their small business. And if they say no, you were in the wrong damn office, to begin with, just go to another one. 

Don’t look at it as a bad idea if and if an attorney is too busy or too full of themselves to say no to that. Just go find a better finding attorney that does find the offer value, but there are more ways to do it. Those are two ways that we’ve been able to replicate the result and almost every county in the United States, no matter how rural or how urban that works.

 And I just now thought I pointed you back to past calls. Um, We have had a Phoenix, Arizona probate attorney, a Jacksonville, Florida probate attorney, and soon to publish, I think this coming week, a Miami probate attorney in the last bit, John Fraker is also a member of this community.

I don’t think John is here today. He and I have some stuff. So if you go to our YouTube channel and look for any of those or go to our blog and search for ‘attorney’, you’ll hear these discussions in long-form with the probate attorneys. And this is with, probate attorneys who are looking to scale their business, who are looking to work with CPEs around the country.

So go watch those videos. That’ll give you, you can, I’m sure you’ll be able to generate some ideas on what your offer of value is when you walk through that firm door. 

Renee. I see your hand up. Yeah, I just, right when you were saying that I’m wondering if the gal who I’m utilizing right now would be a good fit for your show. Are you guys interviewing, I was going to suggest that I didn’t want to interrupt the story I was going to reach out to, I think it would be cool for the three of us to tell your story in a business setting much different than the challenge I shoot.

And that doesn’t count, but let’s like when you get that deal done, please let’s put that on the calendar and let’s pull it apart and like put all the pieces on the table for everybody to see, and then talk about how you guys work collaboratively serve an international client and a pretty contentious situation where the county was in my opinion, overstepping, maybe potential that should be a really good look at what that, that good CPE attorney combo looks like.

Beautiful. And that would double edge sword for her in terms of, bringing value to her as well. Like anybody else on this call who’s in the LA area that needs or wants a good attorney or likes her vibe. That would be the sell-in here for her as well, or separately, have an interview with her like you and her.

No. I’m saying let’s do all three of us. It’ll show accomplish the same result. Okay. Okay, good. 

And again, guys, you can always find this content. If you go to probate mastery.com, click on the blog or the podcast, but it’s probably the easiest to get, go to the blog and you can search attorney or you can use a category attorney and you can find hours and hours of these conversations.

So if you’re looking to focus on any specific aspect of what we talk about, chances are it’s probably recorded and archived in long-form. So don’t forget, you can always go there and search for content. 

How to pitch estate planning services to your sphere of influence [00:25:59] 

I have another quick question. So when I was talking to an attorney today, I said that I was thinking about Recommending to people that they might think about setting up a trust or something. And he said that the minimum price for that w would be around $10,000.

Does that sound accurate? to you? That seems kind of steep. It varies. I mean, It can be as little as I’ve seen it as little as like 1500 bucks in Virginia and as high as 150,000 by. It depends on the level of the attorney, like how bad he’s looking to grow a business or how much outside of a filter he’s trying to apply to his client base.

Like when you get into international asset protection trust, even domestic asset protection trust, they’re going to drag you up into the 50 and $60,000 range, but just a basic you know, living trust, whether revocable or irrevocable. You’re starting at 1500 bucks. An average would probably be 2,500 bucks.

But if you look at it, you figure 10 grand seems expensive until you go through the accounting of probate and see that it takes four to 7% of the gross estate value. And ” Hey Mr. Friend or past client, do you have a retirement account? Do you have a 401k or an IRA?

Oh, why don’t we borrow the money from there and pay for the 10 grand with a future payment? You don’t ever have to pay yourself back. We’re giving you a zero-interest loan and just never pay it back. You’ve already got the 10 grand and you don’t have to take it out of your taxable accounts.” So take the objection off the table.

If it does cost more in your area and you get a price objection from your clients, just defeat their objection, tap into their retirement account, have them loan it to themselves. They know that the retirement account is for the long-term benefit, right? So how the hell are they going to argue with you?

Like it’s like, well, this is for the long-term benefit of your estate, just like their retirement account, but we can use the retirement account to not cut into your available dollars now. And you can charge yourself 0% interest. Why would we not do that to take care of your family? 

Is probate better than trust in some scenarios? Massachusetts state tax law [00:27:52]

So I think that I wasn’t like completely following his argument, but he was making the argument by saying that probate could be a better solution in some scenarios.

He was specifically talking about like, when it goes over a million dollars here in Massachusetts, there’s like, some high tax that’s involved that, that kind of only comes into play when there’s like trust. I wasn’t completely Following when he was talking about this, but does that sound like anything that you’ve heard of?

At a federal level, it’s when you exceed $12 million, your estate begins to get taxed. You guys may have a state law. I’m not familiar with that, but you should go down that rabbit hole and learn all of the details because until you understand it, you won’t see the opportunity. So that opportunity could be leading people toward setting up a proper estate plan. Their estate plan doesn’t necessarily have to be a living trust. If there’s something that penalizes living trust for holding assets, then we just set them up with transfer on death clauses for each of the assets in the estate.

We title the vehicles with the kids’ names on them. We put the kids in the bank accounts. We put the kids on the real estate, or we start to hold everything in different ways. 

I have a hard time accepting that a state has been able to gain the authority to penalize a trust after death.

Like, if it’s over 12 million it’s happening at the federal level, but I’ve never heard of a state doing that. So I would challenge you to dig into it, learn everything you can. There’s an opportunity in there somewhere. 

Okay. I’ll look into it more. Appreciate it. Yup. And if that’s the case, if that’s really what’s happening and you intend to work with high net worth clients, then I would push them towards international asset protection trust or bridge trust.

So it’s about anywhere between 30 and for most people, 30 and $60,000 to set up those more advanced. And that’s the same thing politicians and billionaires are using. But drive their assets offshore and the hell with Connecticut, they don’t own anything. Like if the state is doing that’s BS, you have the highest property taxes in the country already, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Good question. 

Whoa, lots of chat I missed. So Corey paid, I think he meant 6,000, not $6. If you get it. Corey got one for six bucks in Seattle. No, I think it was $6,000 for him to structure his. Brenda paid four grand in Kansas city.

Thank you guys for that. That’s awesome. The bridge trust structure that I chose is 30,000 bucks, but that includes an Arizona limited partnership and international asset protection trust, the connection between them, all the attorney’s fees, lifetime retainer, and all that stuff.

Joanne got by in Los Angeles for 2,500 bucks, which is pretty typical.

So you guys can see the price varies and it varies based on region, based on the attorney, based on the complexity of your estate, how many assets you own, what the value of those assets are. 

Don’t ever hesitate to negotiate with an attorney, either. They’re a small business owner. I mean, What do you think about the cost of their cogs or the cost of goods sold?

They’re using the same thing we are like, their value is what’s between their ears so they can, or they have costs. They have office staff, everything else. It doesn’t mean they can’t cut you a break. So if you’re sending them like a lot of referrals, for example, Ryan, if he’s 10 grand, just be like, all right, let’s what if I walk in here with five referrals, then what’s the average cost for those five people.

And see if you can get a volume discount or just say, I’ve spoken to this attorney and he’s this much tell me, and don’t say, will you match that. Be like, I talked to another very prominent attorney who seems to have a great reputation and they quoted me 7,000. What do you think?

You’re like, what, how do you think they can do it for seven? What extra value do you guys provide? So I’m not attacking his price. I’m saying, give me your value statement. And that could set the stage for a price reduction negotiation. And Winston got his done in orange county, California for three grand.

And that’s high, well, it’s a mixed net worth market, but relatively high net worth. All right. Anybody else? Anything else? Are we ready to wrap up? Go back to candy crush.

The step-up in basis, inheritance, and fixed income [00:31:47]

Yes. Yeah. I’ve got a question for you. I’m still working on probate we talked about negotiating the price and everything. And I’m wondering about it now because this lady is the sole heir. If I might offer her a financing type aspect to prevent her from getting all the money at one time, which would show excessive income for that one year. She’s on social security. She can benefit from the step-up basis. The current government has proposed that that be taken away, but right now it hasn’t been, so it won’t be a taxable event. Okay. So if it’s in California, that’s a Def, what state are you in?

Roger? Yeah, there’s the step-up basis is still there. So the day that she inherits it, it’ll have a new basis now, any gains on the asset prices from that day forward will have taxable tax consequences, but the inheritance as long as it’s under $a 12 million step-up basis will protect her.

Okay. Sounds good. Yup.

Hi, newly Certified Probate Expert Deborah! [00:32:44]

Yeah, this is Deborah Wilson. And I, the first time I came was last week. Yeah, I haven’t been able to come to any of some meetings here because I volunteer at the school from October until March. So now I can listen and get all the information. I haven’t done anything with probate yet.

I haven’t made any calls. I’m still, getting my confidence and getting some knowledge so that, when I do pay for the leads, I’ll be able to help the people. Yeah. How can we help? How can we help with your confidence or are you just introducing yourself? Well, I’ve been looking through all of your videos from the past and I am in probate mastery.

Yeah, I do have the certification. So I’m learning. So I’m curious, what do you do when you volunteer at school that’s a pretty big commitment. Yeah, well, it’s child evangelism. We teach Bible stories and stuff like that and work with the kids. We had 70 kids. We’ve never had that many children, so that was a big commitment.

Probate Real Estate Training for Real Estate Agents, Investors, and Related Professionals

And we do that every week that every year the school asked us to come. How many years have you been doing it for four years? That’s right. That’s commitment. So you’ll do just fine. You’ve got the benevolence that’s required to do well in this niche. And you are stuck with something that doesn’t directly, doesn’t pay you.

I’m sure it benefits your heart, but you’ll you, you have a sustainable career here for sure. Yeah. So just thanks for speaking up and introducing yourself, please. Don’t ever hold back, stand up and say, Hey, here’s what I need from you guys. That’s what we’re here for. No, you’ll be sick of me after a while.

Believe me. Okay. Oh, hell. Renee’s three years in and I haven’t kicked her out yet. Oh my goodness. And my tick hasn’t gone away yet. I just hide it easily.

Transaction Engineering: How to structure a JV investment deal in probate (Real Estate Investing) [00:34:27] 

All right, Donna, how are you? I just have been busy. So I am as you may remember where I’m transitioning, we’re not transitioning, but I’m doing my real estate and I’m trying to be an investor now, or I’m working on being an investor. I’d done two transactions. They were both probates. I did pretty well on the two weekends, not the two weeks we asked you to fire the one lady, and my best friend and I are definitely, we just got the actual partnership done.

Finally, it’s been a whirlwind, but we just got to tend to the final thing today, she’s my best friend out of California. She can’t invest there. So she wants to do. I and I are doing a majority of the work as we know, but anyway, she’s a really good sounding board. She’s learning the ropes with the comps and things like that.

And we’re getting ready to go to the women’s real estate investment network’s first-ever event in Dallas, at the end of April. So we’re excited about that, but I have a transaction right now, guys- All you single guys be sure and grab your tickets! I have a transaction right now. A possible transaction was referred by my attorney, one of the attorneys I work with.

 I thought it was going to be a slam dunk, but, I offered both options, retail, or we can purchase it. It’s in a very good neighborhood in Arizona. It’s an area called Arcadia, so it’s really good. It’s very solid. It’s next door to a $1.2 million property.

It’s only a 1300 square foot house. We think we like to keep it and. We haven’t done anything like that yet, but I have a private lender who’s willing to go in with us. It has a second building on it. It’s a quarter of an acre and it’s long and narrow has a humongous yard in between the two buildings that living in the house and this big, like it’s a garage.

It has its access from the alley, which I’m thinking could be another living space because that area is conducive to guest houses. So I’m trying to figure out, why she’s gotten another offer. Okay. Now I offered her both. I looked at the options she has she’s in a court hearing right now, the next two days for coming getting get guardianship on her adult handicapped niece because both parents passed.

So that’s who passed was our brother. Anyway, amaze you and outbid us again. So I, that’s where I always have to lose as they’re always kinda coming in with more. And I don’t know if this is an open door or who it is because they’re the ones that usually come in and do that. And then they charge all these fees, but they don’t know that or they reduce them later on.

So I’m just trying to figure out a way, really would like to get this. We could certainly still wholesale it. I’ve checked for two wholesale buyers. I think they’re both interested so we can make a good penny on this if we just even wholesaled it. But I almost want to keep it and rent it.

It’s such a great neighborhood. I want to be clear. You have not made an offer. I did. We made an offer six 30 last night and the cops range from 5 85. To 800 and something now they had, or something is more well more done over this. This is livable. If we just cleaned it up, it’s completely livable.

The kitchen was built in the fifties, but the kitchen was redone and the flooring’s decent. It’s not the current style, but it’s decent. If we just painted and fixed a broken window in the front yard and spruced up the yard, we could rent it as, almost as-is. Are you ever, do you have a direct relationship with the seller?

Are you in direct contact? Yeah, so I met with her in person and we had a really good rapport and she wanted to just be done with. But it’s, you still get these other offers and they’re higher and people, even if you have a report there it’s about the money. And also the court takes her along for the ride, like offering her future equity, not today’s equity.

So get in at the buyer price you want to get in at, and then cut her out on the back end as an, as a limited partner on the deal, do a JV or an LP agreement. And I make her like, you’d be set up a new LLC with your LLC as the general partner and her as the limited partner. So she has no voting rights, no control.

How to JV a probate deal with the estate as your partner | Live probate real estate coaching with Chad Corbett

The asset closes, you get it at the price you want it. And the incentive for her as she gets a percentage on the back end, she gets a percentage of net profit as an LP. And even if you hold it, even if you decide to hold it and rent it, if you wholesale it, she gets a percentage of the profit.

If you hold and rent, she gets a percentage of the profit. If you flip it, she gets a percentage of the profits. So she wins either way and you get what you want. How do you think the court’s going to see that though? Because the money is, for the guardianship of this niece, which she’s in a group home where she’s she doesn’t speak and she doesn’t write, the only air is going to be standing in a courtroom saying this is what’s best for my family and my situation, please approve this.

Like, she’s your advocate in the court. Okay. Cause she just said that she felt like they, they wanted it to have the highest possible, but she wants to be done with this. And she liked the idea of us taking it as is, and with all the stuff still in it, she tried to do yard sales herself. So she doesn’t want to do an estate sale.

So she’s just done she’s she lives in like, Wisconsin or somewhere. She doesn’t like it. Well ask her if she wants to have some cheese together over zoom, but like, Hey, you want to have a cheese night. But yet you get like, face-to-face like have a direct conversation and say, listen, I just thought of something.

And one of the groups that I’m in, where we help each other find the best solutions for families and present it that way. Cause that’s really what we’re ultimately here doing. We’re making money in the end, but we have to find a solution for the family first because they listen, I consulted my peers from all over the country and we had one, one person had a great idea and like he is the coolest guy in the country,

but no, just pitch it that way. And I went and consulted with my peers and somebody put a fantastic idea out there that I think is more, been most beneficial to you. So I’m aware that you have other offers. I don’t necessarily want to repeal my offer yet, but I do want to discuss a different variation.

And bear with me that we won’t worry about the legalities. This will all be done by an attorney. Let’s just focus on the agreement between you and me. If I do all of the work and I take all of the risks and you make the difference between what I would like to buy this house for today and what I sell it for tomorrow, I can show you how that makes your family more money.

And as, as the guardian, you’re in a better financial position, but you don’t have to lift a finger. Is that something we can talk about tonight? Okay. Because I did come up. Interesting, you say that. Cause I did tell her another scenario besides retelling. It was, I could carry it.

We could, she could carry us and we would pay her monthly, and then she wouldn’t have tax ramifications and she would get her money to be able to sustain that Denise and all that kind of stuff as well. So I did go a little bit that route, but that’s a good idea. Okay. What was their reaction to that?

To the owner financing? She didn’t react. It’s yeah. That’s a great solution because you are appealing to, so she the lenders losing, I have a small mortgage on it, but I think it’s only about 150,000, but the mortgage or the dead, right? Yeah. So it’s going to have to be probate that, that won’t survive probate.

You can take it sub2, but you have to get it refinanced before that. If anything, if the lender would find it. Yeah, because it’s already been yeah. Noted. Okay. Oh, that could be done. They could quitclaim the asset into a fresh LLC subject to the existing lane, staying in place. You are the GP on that, LLC.

They’re an LP on that, LLC. You go, you finish the deal. You either get it rehabbed or get a tenant in place. And then refinance through a DSCR loan, like a community bank loan or you flip it or you decide that you can wholesale it. Okay. And you make a decision, but where we think the best bread is, right.

And where she’s just going to be. Yeah. Like, that’s what you’re saying. She doesn’t have, she doesn’t get to make the decision on which way we’re going to go. She just gets to decide on she’s going to do it and she gets to share in the profit. Okay. Okay. So you need to know what your bottom, like, what is the price you want to buy that house?

Not even, maybe it’s the one you, maybe it’s the offer you’ve already made. That would be, I wanted to buy it for 500 but it does need, it does need some TLC for sure. Do you know what I mean? It’s not like it’s but it isn’t bad enough that you can just live in it. And my thought is there’s an electrical panel on that back building, which is almost well.

 It’s probably a thousand square feet. It’s a good size room. Have you talked with the code department about the accessory dwelling unit? No, I haven’t, but I know the area willing to know that they do have guests’ homes in that area, but they might be grandfathered. And so I have to just talk about, so call code enforcement today and ask them, or look up the ADU clause and, and your code and determine whether or not that’s feasible to turn that into, an accessory dwelling unit.

If it’s not then look at using up that space between the house and that structure, like look at estimating costs to expand the house backward. That’s the other thing is because of the size of that house and the other two people I’ve talked to the size of the area and people are buying in filling that area.

So they’ll build those, they want that area. So they’ll bulldoze those existing houses and build, and that’s when the corner from it is doing that right now. The one next door. It was 1.2 million yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. Thank you. Yeah. Good to see you, Don. 

How to submit a claim to the estate and get paid for taking care of the inherited property [00:43:41] 

Dave Gwinn, how are you, buddy?

Hey, doing great, man. How are you doing? You’re going to drive down to Phoenix and JV on that deal with Donna. Might have to say like, wait a minute. Yeah, I got it. I got a good, combo deal. I wanted to throw it out there and get your thoughts on what I may have talked to on here before.

I know, but the guy who had passed away like two years ago, his niece is the one who I’ve found through extensive, almost private eye level, skip tracing, and got in touch with her. And long story short: the deceased had a daughter who passed away also but had two kids supposedly with who they didn’t have a relationship with anybody.

So they have no idea. And the niece who I’ve been in touch with has never even talked to the kids or met them. And so she was the POA for the deceased before his death, as he was nearing death and going through all the different things at that time, she was there to help. She went in and cleaned out the house, got all the stuff out of there, and sealed it up.

He also had a condo that she’s been held, managing and keeping in kind of an estate type account that’s rented out here in the area as well. And uh, the house is vacant. It’s going to crap and code violations, tax liens. She says she’s paying the taxes, but there seems to be a couple out there that might not be fully paid, but we’re working through that essentially.

No, will. She said she saw will. However, there’s no will but she said it was all supposed to go to her. So two grandkids, supposedly that aren’t stepping forward, she doesn’t know how to get ahold of them.

And I’m trying to figure out a way how: I’m afraid if I tell her to open probate and she brings those grandkids. She’s going to lose all of her interest in all the time and money that she spent and bringing the house, working on the affairs of the estate, spending money on things like tax code violations, upkeep of the house.

Yep. No, it’s good of you to be concerned, but you shouldn’t be. So she has the right, as long as she’s the, as even just general mineral general member of the public, if she was doing that, she still has the right to submit that claim to the state as a creditor. So the dollar hourly, the dollar value of her time, the money that she’s contributed, all of that should be accounted for and submitted in the open the creditors period.

As soon as the petitioner, as soon as the estate is officially open. So don’t worry about that. She’ll be reimbursed for everything, whether it’s through cash from the sale of the asset or through, getting the whole asset she will be reimbursed. Now the biggest thing to worry about is if she saw a will, where did she see it and where did that will come from?

Where did it go? Can it be produced? Has she’d been to the courthouse as she talked to the clerk, like let’s first try to find that your concern is valid. Not so much because she’s not going to get paid back, but because if she is supposed to be the sole heir and the grandchildren are supposed to get a dollar, let’s try to find proof of that before we send up a signal flare and tell everybody else that probate’s happening.

So let’s do some legwork at the courthouse. Talk to them talk to her about what attorney he might have known or who he, who you know, like who, who might’ve referred him to the attorney. See if we can find out who that attorney would have been. Wills aren’t always recorded. That’s a good idea to record them for reasons like this, but a lot of people don’t.

So let’s see, let’s do some work on that and see if we can find that. Well, first, a lot of times people say this and they’re like, oh no, there’s a will. Grandpa told me there was. And grandpa told them that it was his intention, but he didn’t do it properly. So in the eyes of the law, it didn’t exist.

And that’s what the probate process is really about is identifying validating and executing a will or in place of that following state succession law to accomplish the same. So that’s what I would do first before you petition for probate, do as much due diligence and do as much searching as you can for we’ll give it a week or so if you can’t come up with it, turning over the stone that we talked about, then go ahead, petition.

Be there the day that she gets the letters, testamentary go to a purchase agreement to protect your interest. And then if then it’s on the attorney and the title company to go hunt down the daughters and find, and get them to come to sign to close the deal, but make sure, so petition letters of testimony.

Contract with Eagle mountain properties, like secure your position on this, because you’re going to, you’re going to push her to open probate. That’s going to send up a signal flare and anyone who has access to the list you’re in a beneficial market. And this scenario is beneficial to you because unless that person is paying $5 for record access, they’re not going to know that probate was filed until it’s closed. After all, it’s Colorado.

Or I didn’t ask cause this one is in Florida or Colorado. Colorado, yeah. 

Yeah. So that gives you a little bit of a buffer, some protection against too many people who are getting interfering with your deal. Okay. And then that ultimately she could sign, then keep it open and work out who the heirs are downstream, essentially you’re protected.

And she is subject to state succession law. Either way, if you can’t come up with a will, she can’t change the outcome because it’s a state, it’s a state law from that point. But. You can coach her through it and at least protect your position with a purchase agreement. Yeah. And it was great. Cause Eric reminded me of this, I use it as a lead-in to connecting with an attorney here in town who I actually went and saw over a year ago, dropped off my pamphlet and card, and never really connected with them.

I tried, but I called up left there curious, quick, short voicemail. And he wound up calling me back and we had a conversation about a potential client situation and how we could do some business together. So I’ve got a meeting with him next week for some coffee early in the morning. So it’s easier than you think.

Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for that day. Hope you can get that one worked out. 

Terry says it looks to me like this group has some knowledgeable JV participants. Damn right where this is, this there’s a high bar here. No, I encourage you guys to, I was joking about Dave and Donna, just to see if I can get a rise out of Donna.

If you guys are in the same market, absolutely like you’re, we’re all operating off the same value system and the same, the same knowledge and processes here. So I think you should be jiving with each other. One of the things we’re working on in the background is a CPE directory where you guys will be able to go in and fill out your profile and have full access to each other.

It’s something we wanted to do for a long time, but, limited time-limited. It’s just, there are more ideas than there are hours in the day. But that is something that’s on our plate right now. All right guys. Well, we’re at the top of past the top of the hour. I don’t see anything else in the queue.

So I’m going to wrap up. Thank you guys so much for being, oh, Winston, you got a hand up just in time. Yeah, exactly. You got me thinking here about partnering and joint venturing. What was the name of that bank that you use for your HELOCs? I know it was a pretty good bank and a pretty good LTV. I use first citizens bank and, if you have over a seven 70 credit score, they will do an 89.9% LTV Wheelock at prom plus one and a quarter.

Yeah. Are they with a good fighter score? Are they heavy into your income verification and tax returns and profit and losses and all that? No, that’s why I love HELOCs. I don’t even, there’s not even a loan application. They do a desktop appraisal. If the desktop appraisal comes back less than what you’re asking to borrow, then they’ll do a full interior appraisal.

Once that comes back, they’ll close it and they’ll give you up to 90% of that appraised value. Awesome. Thank you. I hope they’re in Southern California. I’m not sure if they just bought T bank. So like that, like, they were a $24 billion bank and they bought like an $85 billion bank. So I don’t know where they’re at in the merger, but, the deal closed.

I’m not sure if they’ve offered the same service if they’ve offered all first citizen’s products across all CIT banks, but they are expanding quickly. 

All right, Geoff Luna, how can we help you? 

How to make a CTA stand out in real estate marketing with a domain redirect [00:51:59]

Hey, Chad, good afternoon. That link that you were talking about earlier, When re you recommend them to go to the link, and then it gets forward slash to you.

What was that again? I’m sorry. I missed that. Oh, I just arbitrarily made one up. Yeah, no, I just, I had to pull stuff out of there. The point was the structure, there has built a page on your website, right? Go by a custom URL. I think I used LA probate story.com. So you would go to GoDaddy, buy LA probate story.com for 10 bucks.

Then you go into your domain settings and go daddy and create a forward for the domain. Gotcha. And then you just go to the new web press and the new Jeff luna.com forward-slash testimonial. Grab that URL, take it over to GoDaddy, drop it into the domain settings and create the forward.

And usually, it takes their servers to propagate within minutes. Like within a few minutes, you can send traffic to that domain and they’ll land on your forward slash page. It’s just a way around getting someone to type in Jeff luna.com forward-slash testimonial. There are too many chances to misspell words – LA probate story, pretty much anyone can remember and get that one type them without misspellings.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Yep. So have fun picking your domain. I have a bad habit. Some people have gambling habits. I have domain buying habits. I bought half a dozen in the last week or so. All right, guys, always a fun conversation here. Thanks for all the engagement, all the contributions, Renee.

Good to see you back, Donna. Good to see you back some old faces from the past here. You guys come back, hang out more often. You got success stories. Joyce has been in here forever too. So all right guys. Well, have a good week out there and we’ll talk to you soon.

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