Hyperlocal real estate marketing at probate court | How to buy a probate property sub2

In this episode, Certified Probate Experts discuss hyperlocal real estate marketing and strategies for how to buy a probate property. Successful probate coach and real estate agent Bill Gross describes how his first visit to the probate courthouse transformed his real estate career.  Ele shares a hot lead and the group transaction engineers a way for her to purchase the probate property live on the spot.  Additional discussion on the probate process, the effectiveness of lumpy mail marketing for probate leads, and partnering for a ‘you call, I close’ business model make this an episode you can’t miss! Watch the shortened restream live below. 

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Episode #58

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Training Topics In Hyperlocal real estate marketing at probate court | How to buy probate property as sub2 deals

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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 56 Live Real Estate Coaching: Need inventory? Try this approach to cold calling probate leads (probatemastery.com)
  2. Ask the Expert with Probate Cash: 12 ways to get real estate listings, deals, and referrals with a Probate Cash advance – Probate Mastery
  3. Pre Probate Leads vs Probate Leads: How do you market to them and why cold calling isn’t the best: Watch on YouTube
• Probate and Pre-Probate list providers: Best probate lead companies and how to get probate leads online for free – Probate Mastery
• Relevant content to topics in this episode:
  1. Ask The Expert with Sylvana Rosende: How to prospect lawyers and build a referral-based business in probate
  2. How to JV a probate deal with the estate as your partner | Live probate real estate coaching with Chad Corbett – Probate Mastery
  3. Chad on Beau Eckstein’s Investor Financing Podcast: What is the best way to get started with probate real estate investing? Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbWbIqZ3KnU
  4. Tips for building a cash buyers list in real estate 
  5. 7 things to do at probate court besides pull probate lead lists

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Hyperlocal real estate marketing at probate court | How to buy a probate property sub2

How to network with attorneys at the probate courthouse and finance the purchase of a probate property with creative financing/sub2 terms

Hyperlocal real estate marketing at probate court | How to buy a probate property

Creating a probate checklist/probate timeline with attorney partners (Probate Marketing) [00:00:00] 

Welcome, everybody to the weekly probate mastery group coaching call for Estate professionals mastermind, lots of, lots of familiar faces here today. I don’t have anything to get us kicked off. So we’ll just jump to how can I help you? What can I do for anyone? Does anybody have anything they want to share?

Any wins and the losses? Any challenges you need to overcome?

Okay, this is when you approach an attorney, you go to their office to get a meeting with them, and you’re there to talk about your probate attorney marketing that you want to do and have them involved in it. Are we asking them to, well, yeah, they’d have to provide they’re part of the marketing, right? So that we can put it on.

The most common piece that we co-developed with them is a probate checklist or a probate timeline. And the reason that’s a, you have a good excuse to be asking an attorney to help you with your marketing is that it’s a very, we have 3,149 counties and four different court jurisdictions that.

Across the country that handles probate. So there’s a lot of like for example Josh fosters here and he’s in Louisiana, so they have parishes, not counties. They have, I think you guys have Chancery court and it, like, I know in Tennessee it goes through a Chancery court. There’s very little consistency across the county.

So for me to try to say, here’s a probate checklist that will work in your market is nearly impossible. I’ve tried it for almost six years and there are just nuances. Like someone in California will have a massive checklist compared to somebody in Iowa. So it’s a good excuse to sit down and get a hyper-local relevant hyper-relevant checklist to that model.

And it doesn’t show poorly on you because you want to make, you’re just making sure that you cover all the bases. So you could even have it prefilled, like the non-legal aspects, such as locate the will locate the utility bills, things like that, no matter how small they are. And then with the attorney to say, Hey, from the, from the date of.

Until the probate closing and final distribution, can you please walk me through each of the legal aspects? Those will be a different color than the ones I’ve already got listed here. And then at the, at the footer of the page, your, your company and from your firm information will be in the same color as, as the league.

Checklists or illegal points on a timeline. So that’s, that’s the piece that’s most commonly co-designed with an attorney because it gets you to get two things. You get multiple things from it. One, you, you get to fill your blind spots and make sure you fully understand the legal process and your market.

Do you show an attorney, a how-to, you show them a non-solicitation loophole, which solidified, which creates a strong relationship or solidifies an existing relationship. Three you’re putting something valuable. It’s an actual valuable piece of your marketing that lands in the hands of the family.

Like they’ve been talked to by the probate clerk, the probate attorney. They may have read a book or done some good but they don’t fully have their head wrapped around the probate process either. So it’s unlikely anyone else was handed them like a literal step-by-step list. One of the things we’re working on providing for you guys is a piece of software that does that.

So they, you can imagine attorneys have software on, on the firm side that, that they use to manage all of the different cases they’re working. There’s a company that provides software for the consumers. That has all of these checklists. They have done the work and gone through over 3000 counties and done this with attorneys.

So what, where we’re headed as, as we move to, more of a community model than just a single course, what I’m very, very interested in doing, and, and we’ve, we’ve already the CEO and I’ve already agreed on a white label relationship. We just have to figure out all the logistics and how it gets through to you guys.

But what I’m ultimately looking to do is provide. Piece of software to you to provide to, your prospects. And there’s even a potential that we could have the attorney sponsored within that software platform. So you could take that a step further and say, Mr. Attorney, if you’ll sit down and design this with me, we’ll make sure that my version of the software matches, the checklist that we co-develop.

And then eventually we’ll display your information on the electronic version of this checklist when we offer them a free trial and the software. So that’s kind of the next version of this, is rather than just telling you to go out and make a checklist with an attorney will hopefully, your, your membership in the community will include the software that, that matches that.

And you can make that offer to every prospect So imagine sending a postcard that said, there are a lot of steps in the, and settling in the state. Step one is getting organized click here or go to this URL to get to access our free tool. So you can get the estate organized from the beginning and reduce stress and make it a faster process.

So that’s where it could be going or it’s I think it’s going as well. Take the exercise you did with the attorney will apply that in the software, and then you push that out to your consumer through direct mail and email or Facebook marketing, however you reach them to doodle it. That’s fantastic.

Thank you. Other ideas. So, Deborah, I mean, that’s, that’s one like the in-person idea that you can execute on a day. Other ideas would be inviting that attorney to be part of your weekly call that’s part of your community Facebook group. So if you start, the. Dallas family transitions, Facebook group.

And then you get that. You, you walk in and say, listen, I’m looking for experienced and trustworthy estate planning and probate attorneys to be part, be an admin and a community Facebook group that I’ve I’m building. And every Wednesday night we’ll have an expert that is. Dealing with people with families and transitions and you can decide how big that gets.

You could do divorce. You could do trust, you could do probate, you could do all the above. You could do elder care. Like you could have a ton of like, I mean, ideally, you want to do all of those things. So you’re appealing to all humans in transition, and eventually, we all come up with, so, we’re, we all find ourselves in probate or death of probate or trust or situation.

So that’s the other offer would be, you could approach these attorneys and interview them to be the expert in your community. Facebook. Now that’s, that’s longer term. That’s not something that you’re going to accomplish in a day, put into a letter, and be using tomorrow, but over a two to four-week period, you can have that attorney in front of a captive audience.

And that’s what they’re using. So they’re not unlike us, they’re unemployed every day, and they have to go find their next deal. However, they have restrictions on how they can find that deal. So historically they have relied on referrals predominantly, but, their marketing is just broadcast marketing.

It’s, a radio commercial, or it’s a seminar at the Holiday Inn on Tuesday at 7:00 PM every month in and out for the last 10 years of their life. So you can give them kind of a virtual platform where they can, not have to have a seminar in catering and rent, hotel space and these things.

And that’s something, I find a lot of attorneys, don’t have the time to sit down and put these inbound marketing strategies in place so we can invite them to be an admin in this group. Instead of having to reinvent the wheel. We just allow them to step in, do their part as an expert, and we do the rest.

So that’s another really strong value point, something very valuable that you can do for them and execute on for low cost or no cost, but it’s very high value to the consumer as well. Boy. That sounds great too. I like that. And that’s, I’ve got a mini-course trapped in my head. It’s probably a two to the three-hour course on exactly how to do that.

That’s something we’re working toward probably in the next few weeks is getting that, course out to you guys. So how to build a community Facebook group to attract referral partners as well as prospects.

Okay.

Lumpy mail for probate letters and Frank Patrick letters (Direct Mail Marketing) [00:08:12]

Hi, Derek. Hey, I seem to remember about lumpy mailing, I shouldn’t remember a video probably a few years back that you did would with all the leads about an initial mailing and, lumpy mail, that sort of thing you suggested. I think, having a blue pen with maybe your logo on it, type of thing that and I was curious if that’s something, what your results were with that.

And. Whether it’s something you would suggest practicing today or. Oh, those are Frank Patrick’s probate mail pieces. He’s, he’s been using that for years and Frank and I are we’re friends and we’re looking at he and I, we spoke last week. We’re looking at doing some collaborations. So Frank has had a lot of success with lumpy mail.

For anyone who’s not familiar with that, you take it as a lightweight object that makes the envelope kind of stand out. The challenge I have with it is your mail cost is so high. And there’s so much competition in the mailbox right now. So as much as I respect Frank and the work he’s doing and has done it doesn’t work for me because it’s, the fulfillment at best is about $13 for four letters.

And, we can accomplish that for $6. We can send the same letters if they’re in a flat envelope. So for me, it’s more about differentiating yourself through copy and making sure it gets read. The lumpy mail is to make sure it gets opened. What do I do to make sure it gets opened. As I use a greeting card envelope, usually in pastels, a blue ink, handwritten font, and I usually leave the return address off of it.

And what I find is, I mean, you can never prove exactly how much of your mail was opened, but I’ve had those come list me calls two years down the line from people who I thought always threw my mail away, but the mail is the majority of those types of letters are being opened. So there it comes down to copywriting, like, is your letter different enough that you’re not perceived as everyone else?

And is it compelling enough that they will save it or take an action and reach out to you? Join a Facebook committee. Get on your calendar, call you directly. You go to your website, any of those things. So for me, and in this current environment, I think that the market has shifted direct mail has become very competitive, especially in the probate space.

I don’t see a 13 to $18 in value for three or four letters. There are just other ways where you can spend that time and energy and get a better result. Good.

If anyone feels differently if you have a unique mail piece that is doing way better than just a standard letter and a greeting card envelope, please share.

Can you sell inherited property before probate is closed (Selling Probate Property) [00:10:48] 

Hey Chad.

So I was just kind of wondering if you could like dumb down the process of like, how it works. Like if somebody wants to sell before probate’s finished. I know there’s like kind of some, some nuance in there. I was wondering if you’d just like, to clarify that for me, a little.

 So it’s only possible to sell before probate is over when the property is in the name of the decedent. It has, it has to be sold inside of probate.

If it doesn’t sell inside of probate, then it will transfer to the heirs and then it can be sold with the heirs’ name on the title. Gotcha. Every state, not every state, there are a variety of different ways it’s done. And in some states court confirmation is required. Or court approval as required to sell the asset.

California is the most complicated California and Hawaii and Nevada are probably the three most complicated states bill gross. He’s like, it’s simple, but for those of us in the easy states where you simply the heirs can do what they want, like here in Virginia. We would, I mean, if, if somebody passed away yesterday, they got the letter, they petitioned the court and got the letters of testamentary.

Today. We can sell that house. We can go to a purchase agreement. And even to close this week, we don’t need court approval. We don’t need anything. We just need to connect the chain of titles and make sure we can convey the title clearly and sell it in Florida is kind of, a good example of that, that next level of complexity and Florida, you can put the house on the market.

As soon as you have letters, testamentary, they can sign a listing agreement. They can sign a purchase agreement. But then we have to wait for the next court session to happen. We submit the contract sometimes with evaluation to the court, the court approves a sale or disapproves, which rarely happens the only time it’s usually it’s disapproved as if it’s.

Just blatant, misrepresentation and intimidation from whoever the purchaser to the, to the family. Very rare that it’s rejected. I’ve seen houses bought at 25 cents on the dollar in Florida, and the judge had no problem with evaluation because if he felt like it was a transparent deal and being done with integrity.

The next step up would be California is a good example of that. So when, when the letters Testament are issued, then they have the authority to list a property, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re allowed to sell it at the price they agreed to. Unless so in those states you have, what’s known as limited authority and full authority by default, unless you petition the court to have full authority by default, you’ll be.

The letters will be issued with limited authority. Now, what that means for real estate is you get the purchase agreement and you list it, you get the purchase agreement in your hand, then you take that to the probate attorney. And this is where it becomes really difficult. And this is what bill gross has mastered.

And, and it’s, it’s, it’s easy for him and. They live with this. This is, this is, their version of it. But for most of us, it’s like, oh gosh, because that’s what starts the overbid process. So the court orders are referee, which is a BPO and that referee will get an evaluation for the quarter on a neutral third-party evaluation that comes back to the court, and then they have an overbid.

So they’ll call. The public to overbid the current purchase agreement price by at least 10%. And at that point, it’s similar to a trustee sale. You have, you have to have a cashier check for a 10% down payment and you have, I believe 30 days to fund the whole deal. But your buyer, like if you’re the buyer and a state like that, you can be overbid.

It’s uncommon. Like if you have full authority, none of that applies. It’s a lot more like Virginia. So with full authority, they can make decisions and proceed without court approval. So it’s stated by state. I’m not, you’re in, are you? 

How to learn your local probate process and network with attorneys at probate court (Attorney Networking) [00:14:35] 

You’re in Boston. You’re in mass. I’m not sure. I haven’t done a whole lot of these in Massachusetts, but that’s the kind of thing you want to drill into.

Like, I, like I encouraged bill gross four or five years ago, go visit the probate clerk, go sit out on a session of the probate court and go meet a probate attorney in your mind. And, this will fill in your blind spots. The same thing as you know what the, we began this conversation with Debra talking about the checklist or the timeline.

7 things to do at probate court besides pull probate lead lists

That would be a really good thing for you to do is approach an attorney with that offer. Hey, I’m already incurring the cost to market to every family and probate in our county every month. If you can help me fill my blind spots and create a checklist with legal and non-legal aspects, then I’ll make sure you’re included in every letter I send.

That’ll be great. A great way for you to fill in your blind spot. So do the attorney first, then go introduce yourself to the probate clerk, asked her to walk you through the production process. As a petitioner asked her to take you to the record room. So you understand where that data comes from. Don’t get in the habit of gathering it yourself, but it’s good while you’re there.

It’s good to know how to pull the data. And then when you have. Let’s look at the court dockets and go attend a probate court and get a feel for what’s happening in your market. Specifically, what’s going to come from this for you will be a level of confidence that none of your competitors have.

It’s highly unlikely. Anyone else has that? You’ll have a personal relationship with an attorney. You’ll have a personal relationship with a probate clerk and you have people that you can reach out to if you feel stuck, if you have a blind spot, or if you just need to connect with somebody to get something done quickly.

And in the case of bill gross, he took this challenge years ago, went to court, and he, he developed kind of a very unique model where he was able to earn a heck of a lot of business because he kept going to court. He made it a habit. He went regularly. So developed, he developed a reputation in that courtroom, and people were used to seeing him, and eventually, he came to them for help.

Sometimes they were heirs, sometimes they were attorneys. So you never know what might come from that, but if you’re not 100% certain about the process and your market, that’s the, something you could have at least two of those pieces you could have done by the end of the week. You can go meet with an attorney and co-design that, that checklist.

And you can go set up an appointment and do a walk-through. As a petitioner with your local probate clerk. And I think if you do those two things, that’s the advice I’m giving you. It’s, it’s what I’d made myself do. I didn’t want to do it. I was intimidated. I didn’t want to look stupid and I’m sure I probably did, but I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and I learned very quickly.

And it, it was, it wasn’t contentious. It was easy. They, they’re public employees, it’s their obligation to serve you as, as a taxpayer. Right. So it’s no secret process and it’s not a room you’re not allowed to be. But that little voice kept me from donuts for a bit, maybe three or four days.

And finally, I just woke up, put on, put on a jacket, and went to the courthouse and I learned so much, like, it was like, oh, well I’m not intimidated by this anymore. It’s not that complicated. So by the end of the week, you could, just put that behind you and have a new level of confidence if you do those things.

Full vs. Limited authority and Bill Gross’ success with Hyperlocal real estate marketing at the probate courthouse (Probate Business) [00:17:51] 

And Bill, if you have any advice, if you want to add anything, please. 

Well, I would just, just from a motivation point, say, I, you kind of discussed this when I took probably mastery three years ago, when I was relaunching my business in, and at the time I was 60 years old in pre-pandemic, my options were cold calling three hours a day, or door knocking, three hours a day.

You challenge us to go to court. I went one day just to learn what I was going to be involved with. It was fascinating. I went back a second day and a third, and I came back into the week and wrote a business plan and I made my lead generation happen at probate court every day. Now I’m in LA, which is the largest court in the United States.

We have nine different courtrooms, smaller areas don’t have as much as we had also more competition too, though. I’ll just say it was certainly an amazing learning experience and took away all of the mystery and the process. And I would urge anybody in. Whether you’d never want to go to court again, or you want to just lest or sell property in the appropriate space knowing those mechanics is very empowering.

So I, and I thank you for that all the time, but that’s the one thing that launched my business. Yep. And Ryan and Terry had some feedback. One of the things we talked about was limited authority versus full authority. When we’re operating at our highest level of service, we should never have a client that has to go through the process with limited.

We can work like in California. If you understand that process, you can work with the attorneys like John Fraker. Hasn’t been here for a couple of weeks. He’s in Northern California. He’s I think in year 27 of his legal career in probate he’s never had a family go through probate with limited authority because one of his checklist steps is to petition the court for full authority.

Get that power back to the family, let them make their own decisions, and make the process way more efficient. So you’ll find that’s one of the things Terry said that he’s done. I see he had to take a call, so I was speaking for him. But anyway, there’s a little, there’s like by understanding the finer points and the mechanics of bill put of your local probate process in there, you’ll find opportunities.

So in California, a compelling offer is, Hey, why don’t we use. Bring the control of this estate back into your family, by helping you find, and be with the right attorney to get full authority, to make this a more efficient process. And that’s something you can legitimately offer in California, Massachusetts.

I’m not exactly sure. I would be curious, if you take the challenge and you go do this, I’d love for you to come back and share what the result was and what you learned and help, inspire others to do the same. Because as much as I wish, all 5,000 people are part of this community, I’ve been through.

As much as I wish they would have all done what bill gross has done, I would say less than 10% ever have, because it’s intimidating. It’s easy to put aside. It’s easy to say, I’ll do that next week. I’ll do that next month. And most people never make it. So if you take a challenge and you go do that this week, between now and the next call I’d love for you to report back and share your results as the bill has in this community.

So many times, if I could add something to that, I took it so seriously that I started a meetup at the court because so many people would ask about it and they would say, oh, that sounds great. I’d like to come too. So a couple of days a week, cause I was going every day, I set up a meetup at the court meeting where I would show them the room.

The research room and the process, and then afterward do a little huddle and explain what happened. And it was just a way to meet investors and real stirs and so on. And people see me all the time. Oh my gosh. It’s downtown LA it’s so far. Yeah. There’s downtown LA. Oh, cost. A lot to park. Yeah. It costs a lot to park there.

It’s three in the morning. Get to be there. Eight, 15. Yeah. It’s only the morning you got to get there, but it was amazing how few people that signed up would show up. I didn’t, I wasn’t selling it, so I didn’t. I was being of service. But to me as an entrepreneur, we get paid to solve problems. If we do things other people won’t do, that’s where the money is.

So I didn’t avoid that because it was hard. I knew there was less competition. That’s why I went there. So in general, that’s what my experience in this whole world of probate is looking where there are problems and trying to solve them. Absolutely. Yeah, that sounds like a good next step for me, I’m always looking for like an actionable thing for me to do.

I don’t think I’ll have a problem getting that done within a week. So, I appreciate it. That’s awesome, man. Look forward to hearing, hearing your report, right? Unfortunately, I would love to strap a camera to you to take into account. We don’t, we don’t have that luxury in my courthouse.

Like you leave your cell phone in the truck or you go back to the truck like you don’t get through with any electronics. So it says. Yes, sir. I am just following up on the bill. I was just curious bill, when you went to the courthouse, how did you meet attorneys and get in that circle?

I get asked this a lot and I say, just go and figure it out. I mean, and everyone’s a little different then, in LA county, the eight 30. Was most crowded that kind of run through the calendar of the day, but I’d get there at 7 45, buy a cup of coffee, and stand there. The most populated area and people, anybody who was there early was going to kill time.

Anyhow. So if you’re an attorney and you drive, let’s say from orange county, which is an hour away, but you don’t know traffic, so you get there early. What else you can do, but talk to me. And I’m a real estate agent I’m in the meet the people business. So I’d say, hi, I’m bill gross. I’m a real estate.

Especially as a protein or you are appropriate. Are you here as an attorney? Are you, if they’re dressed like an attorney, are you an attorney here? Yeah. Great. Where are you from? And I would just ask questions and just try to meet people. It wasn’t complicated. And then when it broke up around 9 30, 10, 10 30 to go to the research room and look up different cases.

But while I was there, I w you know, it was meeting people and just being a friendly guy. So it wasn’t much different than door-knocking. I was already meeting people. Now I did in the courtroom. Listen for leads deals that fell apart. And I would maybe text the attorney or email the attorney from the courtroom about a case and offer to help them.

And I got a couple of leads as a result of that, and I can explain it to you. It was an hour-long discussion, but I was just in the right place. It’s kind of like standing in traffic and getting hit by a car. That’s just where I wanted to be. Deals are going on. And I was there, so I may be different than other counties, but I would check it out on the, where you are, Kevin, but I would just check it out in your county and just see what’s.

How many people would days are most populated and be there on those days. I take that a step further and point you guys back and the course and session two, where we talk about I think it’s in session two, we talk about building your referral or building your team during that stuff. But that part of session two, one of the first things I did when I came to this brand new market and I had no experience in residential real estate, I started going to every trustee sale.

Foreclosure auction. And that’s where I met a lot of cash buyers, but I also got the nodes and substitute trustees. And it’s no different in most areas. Like the majority of foreclosure cases will come through a handful of substitute trustees. And once you get to know them, if you need information quickly on an asset, you have a direct relationship with the guys who are there every Tuesday at three o’clock on that auction, you can call and be like, Hey Sam, in this market, it was a law firm all the way over in Norfolk that came here once a week to run the foreclosure auctions.

But I, if I. References deal often on the deal that I closed and two and a half hours end to end with the date in my hand, had I not had that relationship with Sam white, I wouldn’t have been able to get the information I needed as quickly as I did, to be able to buy a house in two and a half hours.

So there are other things like what Bill’s saying is show up and just see what works You can do this and then divorce, you can do it in probate. You can do it in REO. You can do it in code violations. While you’re at the courthouse, just like he said, he was already there. You’d already gone through the pain of getting up early, driving through traffic, getting there, going through security.

Why not make the most of your time there. Why not go to the record germ? Why not drop by and give the clerk the clerks, a dozen donuts and get that recognition so they can see them. So when I went to the courthouse, The first time I went to Starbucks and got one of those office size boxes of coffee and a stack of cups.

And I came through the front door, handing out coffee and smiles until I was sitting in front of Kim summons, the probate clerk. And they just, every time I walked in that office, they’re like, oh Chad, you’re still here. You’re still doing this. She’s still helping families. So there’s no rule book or anything.

Just, go and be yourself and try to provide value to everyone you encounter, but also get the most out of it. Like you’re, you’re stepping out of your comfort zone and going down there and taking time out of your day. See what all you can learn, pull a foreclosure record, pull probate records. See if you can pull a divorce record, like do some research while you’re at your courthouse, and you’ll feel less intimidated about all those things just by spending one day on a field trip.

So. And Kevin is good to see you, brother. I haven’t, we haven’t spoken in months and months, maybe a year. 

I call, you close referral agreement with probate leads (Probate Business) [00:27:04] 

Good to see you, Zack, you have your hand up patiently. How can we help you today? I’m just wanting to take a second and say thank you for last week. Linked up with Hollywood who is not sitting in her chair right now, but she’s already making calls and helping out.

So thank you very much. Very nice contact. Yeah. And forward to sharing a little more success, very poorly timed Renee.

Well, that’s great. So if you don’t mind sharing and you don’t have to, I’m putting you on the spot, but I mean, what’s, what’s the agreement between you guys? Is it a referral agreement or a fee-based agreement? So it would be a referral-based agreement. We didn’t finalize a percentage or dollar.

We kind of talked. About numbers. And I think we’re right there with each other was more just looking to make sure on her end, that there was a little concern that the numbers, and the quality of the numbers. And on my end, I’m just kind of like a trusting guy, I guess. You endorsed her. She called me right away.

She jumped on it. Those things are all very positive in my books. So, it sounds like we may have a few things kind of in the works already, so. Oh, that’s awesome. I mean it’s yes. And that’s a beautiful thing about this community. How many guns, how many times have you got, ever seen anyone in this community?

Like of all the thousands of people that are in our groups? How many people have seen a poison pen? Like even one, I can’t. How many of anyone’s you, have you seen criticisms or teardowns in this group? So we’ve got the reason I’m so trusting and like extent, like say yes, I endorsed Renee is we’ve got a culture here.

That’s pretty damn rare to be in a virtual environment. So it was nice to see that come together last week. And I mean, Al made this a private message to me on this call, but. L is now connected with the attorney that I interviewed a few weeks ago in south Florida. So like actually using this as a community.

It’s nice to see that and we can trust each other. We all do kind of. Subscribe to the same set of values. So I’m not worried, you guys will figure it out. And I’m glad that you took action. And I always tell people it’s easier to steer a moving truck. So once you get it moving, then it’s much easier to determine the direction of that and see where it goes.

So I think you found a good solution and I’m confident you guys will come to fair compensation. Just like I’ve said to others, like it, when you guys get it worked out, it’d be awesome. If we could maybe even do an interview and say, here’s what it looks like. If you need to call on help from your community, not bringing somebody brand new in and training them and trying to get them up to speed, but we all have, we’ll find that times we have our dry spells or we’re on the low end of the cash flow roller coaster.

So it would be nice to capture that experience as, as this takes shape for you guys to kind of say, ah, we didn’t know what we were doing, but here’s how we did it. There are probably a lot of other people, watching this that, that could do the same that could get to their leads versus not getting to their leads by partnering with somebody out of the market or potentially even end market.

So if you don’t mind, maybe we can do a follow-up on that saying maybe you would have been in class last week. You wouldn’t know what the hell we’re talking about. So what, so Zach is Zach is killing it down in south Florida. And he’s, I think you had, what’d you say 18 transaction sides or 18, 18 probate deals last year.

But he’s only getting to 10% of his leads. So Renee agreed to do his prospecting when, what he’s not getting to because you did how many you did, 71 deals all together last year, Zach was that right. Or 81, 84, 84. I gotta get my numbers straight. So he did 80, 84. So he’s got a busy business.

So he was, he was marketing. He was, getting the mail out, but not getting the calls out to 90% of his list. And Zach, I don’t know if you know Dave, Gwinn he’s in Colorado working Florida market, he’s working in Denver and Florida. He’s been doing virtual business and probate in Florida as well.

And I think when you started Dave, you didn’t know a damn thing about Florida. Just to spend there to visit, certainly not anything about the probate process in Florida. Yeah, so they have so Rene and Zach connected, and have she’s helping him get to that 90% of fruit left on the tree. Awesome.

How to buy a probate property: Deal analysis and financing (Probate Real Estate Investing) [00:31:23] 

All right. Who else? Elle, I’m really glad to see that you’re reaching out and you, so you guys, I got kind of tough with L last week because of her little voice, but she took action on that too. She’s going to visit Sylvana the probate attorney that we interviewed, and more importantly, she said in her direct message to me, that she’s taking her a referral.

So L let’s hear about that. If you want to talk to. Yeah, well, you guys lift me last week 12 times, but we’re also hustling, which is the most important point question in this is on a reverse mortgage case. Not probate. I don’t know. I’m picking someone’s brain in this session and referencing reverse mortgage.

Got proper the owner didn’t pay the mortgage. So basically it accelerates the note itself rate. So basically had taken over this property, but it’s not in public records in his be months. Do you guys do anyone in the group has any knowledge? And I thought about contacting the guy. The reverse mortgage guy in Palm beach.

That’s it right there too. Yeah. My question is, is there any possibility for this. It’s still seller on pull my breakers to get to sell this property. I’m sorry. So there’s a lot of D like a lot of detail, a lot of questions I have. So, I’m gonna operate on some assumptions here that the lender is moving to foreclose.

That probably means that the, whoever the mortgagee was is deceased or has moved out of the house, is. And has that been more than six months ago? Yes, that’s a killer. Okay. Then they have the right to foreclose. Is there equity?

Okay. And the person, the mortgage, he, the one that moved out, are they alive? She’s alive 80 years old. I’m meeting with her on Thursday. Okay. So there are two people that you could get involved with. And based on what you base this on your relation, your existing relationships your only real play here is to attempt to get an.

And you can do that by the attack, contacting a real estate attorney. Or potentially an elder care attorney.

So Sylvana Rosende, is, I mean, she even does pro bono work in that space. So she would, she’s fierce, she’s hungry. She’s got a new phone. And if she, and she’s got, an affinity for the elderly population and to make sure people haven’t put in positions like that. So I would, I would say she might be your best bet.

That’s a fresh relationship. And you’re kind of bringing her a challenge right off the get-go. But I think she likes, she likes the. But I mean, you’re only your best chance here is to try to get an injunction argue, and argue to the court that the family is going to suffer a significant loss of equity.

She got cancer. This person got cancer. Different situations are just very scary. Yep. Well, the defense that you know is going to argue on behalf of the mortgage company that, Hey, this is a business relationship. Life happens, things happen. We took a risk and now we have to recover the asset because that risk has come back on us.

So it’s a matter, of arguing what’s right. From a moral standpoint, what’s right from a business standpoint. So it’s not so black and white. That I can say, I promise if you do this, this, the sale will be stopped. I mean, the quickest way to stop the sales is to go sell the asset. Mike listed, get it under contract and get it, get it closed as fast as possible, but oftentimes you need to do that with an investor adolescent retail price.

So if there’s enough equity you can do that and sell it at 70 cents on a dollar or a price that will motivate someone to close within the next. Within the timeframe, before it’s scheduled for sale, then the best thing to do is blow it out for a discount price and get it done. There’s like 200,000 equity on this property.

So I mean, you could, you could drop the price a hundred thousand, put it out to the market and, as is where it needs to close inside of 14 days. And you’re going to run away from most of your conventional buyers, but you’ll find an investor or a conventional buyer who has been sitting in cash, not finding the inventory they’re looking for.

So that’s the easiest way out. If she wants to try, to retain all $200,000 in equity, then you might need to slow things down. She said, I just want my name clear, I’m tired of this. You’ve ruined my life. This is a very sad case.

I think we have like two months. Oh, hell’s bells. You can take this probate sub2 and refinance it and that’s. Yeah. I mean, honestly, go to an investor who’s who understands, their risks. You need to understand the foreclosure timeline, but you could come in and buy it for cash and be done.

And the whole situation is resolved. You can also come in and buy it subject to the existing lane, staying in place, and get the 200 that purchase. For the risk, they’re taking to get $200,000 in equity. What’s the property condition. Is it bad or pretty much?

Well, she told me that she was at the property two months ago and it looked okay. She got new appliances, but there’s a. There’s an unpermitted issue. The HOA the homeowners association, it’s like not even 10,000, that is old. And this is also interesting. The attorney does not contact her anymore and it’s confusing.

And, talking to an 80-year-old on the phone. It’s not the same thing as getting in person and getting all the documentation, which I will be doing this Thursday. But I’m just trying to understand who has the right to take this property. She is, she’s a victim of fraud, literally. Well, when you’re arguing from that, that moral side that I referenced earlier, it’s easy to say that, but if you were the lender, you would have a different perspective.

If you were owed that money and you agreed to something knowing I know the possible risks and the other person should have known their possible risks too. Maybe I get cancer and I don’t have life insurance or I don’t have terminal illness insurance. So should I take on debt that I might not be able to repay without having proper insurance to cover that debt in case the worst-case scenario happens.

So don’t forget that she had an obligation to assess her own risk and plan accordingly. And the lender had this. It doesn’t make them the devil because they’re looking to recover an asset. It’s, it’s an, a liability on their balance sheet. And they’re trying to do something about that. it’s, sometimes seems unfair, but it’s, they, they both agreed.

They signed paperwork and they did it in the presence of an attorney. So demonizing them all hell. The play I see here is you have a 60-day window for an investor who understands the subject of investing to come in, pick up the asset, get a tenant, and pay the $10,000.

In addition to the closing costs, if she doesn’t want anything, he can get into this deal for the closing cost and 10,000 bucks, let’s round-up and say it’s $15,000 is all it takes to take ownership of $200,000 in equity. Is there anyone on this call that wouldn’t trade me 15 grand for 200 grand in?

Dave Linn. Did you accidentally raise your hand or you

play here? L is, have the, have the investors step back and take the asset as is whereas subject to the existing lane, staying in place. They immediately do whatever rehab they need to do. Get a tenant in place, which should take like a day to get rented. And then they go to a debt service coverage ratio, lender, a DSCR lender.

Usually, they could go to the commercial side of a community bank and just say, Hey, I got, I got a tenant in place. Here’s what, here’s the rent they’re paying here’s proof. I’d like to, and as long as that debt service coverage ratio is more than 1.3 or something. Every bank, not every bank is different, but it’s usually between 1.25 and 1.33, which in today’s market with rents where they are almost every house quote.

But worst-case scenario, lenders will ask for two months of rent, but there are hard money lenders right there in your state. I can introduce you to two, lenders that do DSCR loans. Bo XDS. It’s not on our YouTube channel, but if you search Chad Corbet Bo X, Dean B a U E C K S T E I N. We had, he is a lender that I was on his podcast recently and he can do DSCR line like that.

Then all 50 states, I believe. So he can refinance your investor out of that deal. Without two months of rent history, he could do it the day. There are I’ve, other friends are right there in Florida that like up in them, in the Jacksonville area CA if you’re on here, could you please drop a link to the Bo Eckstein episode for, for L but I think that’s.

You go out to your investors, you got to, you got a $15,000 outlay for $200,000 inequity and cash-out refi or, or, a cash acquisition. What’s a hilar application inside of 60 days. And you’re clear. You’re good. Yeah, I thought about doing subject to now, big, big points, and you didn’t know this isn’t a senior community and it’s in a nice area.

So as an investor, as a Florida investor, perfect, because I’m going to get a higher tenant profile with less of a pain in the ass, and I’ll be able to rent it in a day because there are at least 47, 47 new Yorkers a day are trying to move to that county rent something. That to me, that’s just a bonus.

It’s just, do you have a good, I mean, you, I know you go to real estate investor events and you have a pretty good network of investors, right? Yeah. I will need some in the new process right now to be an investor. So finally bought my house last year on my own.

I think that I can pull it. Okay. You’ve done the work and she trusts you to do this. She’s told you she doesn’t want anything other than away from the problem. As you can, this is your opportunity to turn 15 grand and the 200 with very little risk. In my opinion. What’d you say when crazier about this case is that she knows my youngest daughter.

And she knows some history from my other side of the family. So she’s thrilled to meet me. Let’s see how that goes. Thank you, guys. When you meet with Sylvana, one thing I want you to talk to her about is you being the principal and this deal and her making sure she covers your assets. So like, I want you to be comfortable.

She’ll, she’ll make sure that you, you don’t steer yourself into unnavigable waters. But I think you should do this deal yourself. You’ve got a rapport with the seller. You’ve got 15 grand and I mean, just think about what if you, what if you did this deal and did a refi 90 days from now and yet 185,000 in cash from this conversation.

Yeah. My biggest concern is the unpermitted issues, which I deal with that in the past. I got to get more of the ugly part of the whole story on Thursday. Then I guess I will make the move but appreciate the investors that you have friends in the area I’m willing to share this.

Yeah. Well, let, let me know if you need help. I mean, I have people who would probably step up and do that deal, in the Miami market. And they’ll have the liquidity to do it with, today if you need to, but I’d rather see you not pass on this one. I’d love to see you step into this one and be a senior landlord for long enough.

You could hold it forever and just enjoy the cashflow and then put on a commercial or either depending on how you buy it, you could put a home equity line of credit or commercial line of credit against the asset to get access to your, the majority of that 200,000 and accurate. And you can also begin to cross-collateralize like that becomes that, that 200 grand books on your balance sheet the day you closed.

So this could be a good springboard for you to come into investing with $185,000 net on your very first deal. That’s a fun story to tell. Well, it’s much more than that because for her to, to her age, she plays cards and I know that’s going to be spraying, so let’s see how that goes. I’m excited.

Awesome. Great job. All right. Katt must be multitasking. Oh, we’ll try to drop in the show notes. We’ll drop that episode. It’s Beau Eckstein if you want to just search YouTube, you should be able to find that, but he is, he can do DSCR loans, and they have long-term loans. 

All right. Well, I think this is a wrap for today, guys. Thanks so much like these calls are, it always surprises me how interesting, how we always, burned through an hour. It feels like it was two minutes ago we just started this. Thank you guys for being here and being part of the community and always being part of an engaging fun conversation have a great day.

And we’ll see you next week. Same time, the same place. 

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