Lead Generation as a Probate Real Estate Agent/Investor PLUS: Handling evictions before probate property sale?!

Probate podcast episode 34: Lead Generation for certified probate real estate agents | JVing deals that need tenant evictions

Weekly Live Probate Training for the Estate Professionals Mastermind Podcast:

In this episode: Learning your local court process, leveraging probate real estate expertise in future lead generation, navigating eviction situations with holdover tenants, and using estate sales as a lead gen tool.

Episode #34 of Estate Professionals Mastermind Podcast

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Bill Gross of Probate Weekly hosts this week’s live training with Certified Probate Experts. The group discusses learning your local court process, leveraging probate real estate expertise for future lead generation, navigating eviction situations with holdover tenants, and using estate sales as a lead gen tool.

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Training Topics In This Episode (YouTube Links):

Probate podcast success stories: Johnathan Hawkins sells a second probate property for the same family

0:00 Johnathan Hawkins sells a second probate property for the same family

Probate marketing ideas: Leveraging success in probate real estate to get more real estate referrals

2:54 Leveraging success in probate real estate to get more real estate referrals

Buying probate properties: Aggressive, multiple-offer situations

3:58 Buying probate properties: Aggressive, multiple-offer situations

Probate podcast segment: Unexpected benefits of learning your local court, probate process, and probate code

5:56 Unexpected benefits of learning your local court, probate process, and probate code.

Probate real estate training: Tips for gaining courtroom presence when your local probate court is still fully virtual

12:49 Tips for gaining courtroom presence when your local probate court is still fully virtual

Probate real estate training: Making valuable re YouTube content: Networking at bar association mixers

16:41 Making valuable re YouTube content: Networking at bar association mixers

Probate real estate deals: Live-in tenant evictions, life insurance claims, and moving forward to renovations before probate sale

18:00 Live-in tenant evictions, life insurance claims, and moving forward to renovations before probate sale

Partnering up with other investors to JV probate deals with squatters

32:07 Partnering up with other investors to JV probate deals with squatters

Probate Real estate lead generation with estate sales

35:43 Real estate lead generation with estate sales

PROBATE TRAINING SESSION TRANSCRIPTS: (Download PDF of Full Transcript)

Johnathan Hawkins sells a second probate property for the same family

Hey, this is Bill Gross and this is actually Chad Corbett’s Probate Mastery call that we do every Tuesday at 12 o’clock noon, Pacific time, 3:00 PM. Eastern time. As part of it’s probably a mastery program, alumni. Chad unfortunately the personal matter has been unavailable and has asked me and Dave to take turns filling in. I’ve been a coaching student of Chad’s since the beginning of my focus in probate about three years ago, actually two years. It’ll be three years in March. And I can tell you that I took this even though I had been a real estate one time. I had decided that to research the probate niche, Picked his coaching program in March of 2019 and went all in, and he challenged me to really to be an expert, to go to court, to really learn the business. And as a result of that, the last two have been phenomenal. If you check my stats, last 12 months have closed 42 transactions, 30 sales, I think 12 double ends. Built a phenomenal business as a result of really following the plan I developed while taking Chad’s program just about three years ago, part of the process is about being a service.
And so I’m glad to help I’m located in Los Angeles, California. I’m the big market. I try not to train my competitors, but that’s part of the business too, but a muscle can establish a network of people nationally to help share ideas and network with. So when I was asked to substitute the substitute teacher, the comm honor, to help out and continue this process, I’d love to look forward to working with you guys if I can help.
And On the call, we would do some we’ll take questions. We will on the course content I’ve taken the course and I think put in practice for the last few years. I’ve also been on his phone calls, readily sense of watch them on a weekly basis. I’m able to role play and handle objections, but I’ll share with you how I do it.
And I know it’s a little different sometimes what Chad does. I can’t say I’m a perfect student, but I think I understand this come from. And the philosophy. We can talk about mindset, accountability issues. We have them love to celebrate wins, and share what’s working for you. I’m glad to show what’s working for me and anything else.
You’re on the right call for that. So we have about a little less than an hour till you talk, and I’m excited to be here. Appreciate guys being on the call today. So I see a bunch of friends. Thank you for checking in. anybody have any first off maybe wins. You want to celebrate with us or share with us?
And this is Jay Hawk here from Dallas, Texas. How you doing? Hey, what’s up? Hey, everything is good. I just closed. It’s just close yesterday on a probate property that was out by that was It was outside of Dallas. Their parents had passed away and they were selling off the properties since.
And so they tapped me to be able to do that for them. So this is the second property we sold for them.
Did you represent the buyer as well as the estate or just the estate? No well Texas kind of frowns upon that. Can’t do that. Okay. We can’t do that. Can I do that? You probably should. Most of the time, okay, good. So you’ve listed two properties.

Leveraging success in probate to get referrals for non-probate listings

It’s so fantastic. Now here’s the key, though. You’ve got to leverage that for your business. Yeah. What we don’t want to do is use the listing to get more business, but what is our success to get more business? And I’ll just share with you guys that well, all my lead generation, isn’t the probate space, half my business isn’t because as I sell probate properties, people around me see that success and ask me to help them- investors, other agents, attorneys, and such. So you leverage that success to get more non-probates. As long as you keep busy job keeping you busy, then take some time off.
One of the sibling, the oldest child has referred me to her grandchild who wants to purchase a property and another friend of a buyers. So I’m trying to leverage this for more success, like you said. So I’m getting in some referrals. Now, whether I want to keep those are you give them off for someone else depending on the distance of it and just get a referral fee is negotiable.
So I’ll count this as a win for this week. Excellent. Congratulations, man. Thanks for sharing that. Thank you. Who else has a wind to report today? Hey, Stephanie. Happy to see you on the call. You want to share with us?

Buying probate properties: Aggressive, multiple-offer situations with probate listings

You know what, the only thing I can say about probates, because I represented a buyer, but they did not get it because it was in multiple offers. So a lot of these probates that are here in LA especially for the buyers who are looking to buy something, it was so aggressive.
And they offered above the asking price. Look, it’s a challenging market. Buyer side, I will say I just closed. I don’t really work with buyers as general rule, but through my marketing, I met a guy who’s an agent. Now my team and an attorney.
He wanted me to represent them on the probate because it was a little complicated and I believe part of why we got it was I developed a relationship with listing agent and we got our for accepted. So I don’t think that the relationship is enough to get the property and that to get you closer to the property and don’t give up hope.
No. And that’s pretty easy money. I closed the deal and three days or less that I really hadn’t put the work in, like with my own listing. Part of the process, again, part of the value of that, the leverage of success. So keep at it Joanne, and just working with them and offers. I think that on average, you know, when you look at statistics, even the best part is they consider this market average three, three offers for every one closing.
And I’d say average agents are like 10-to-1. And so you’ve got to look and be somewhere in that range. Number one, number two, apply good fundamentals of real estate to make you offer more acceptable and make sure it’s complete and so on. And so that’s where I try and mention your certified probate expert experience. That’s probate and talk about the things you can do and make them make that listing agent there feel comfortable working with you. Good. I think I mentioned mine was closed deal yesterday. I’ve got a probate buyer side, which isn’t so common for me. I verified the wiring instructions today. I set up my commission wire and I will say that as a benefit of the business that I’ve got, I have a very nice listing lead this morning from another deal.
And that deal is not a probate. I gave a presentation on probate. All of you have an opportunity to establish stuff as experts in your market area. And if you do that, people will be interested in working with you and as result, you should get non-probate leads to go on with the private business.

Unexpected benefits of learning your local probate court process

Uh, Selena what we call hand that, how can I help you?
I had a question for you. You indicated that you did the work that Chad suggested in terms of going to the courthouse. The sophisticated attorneys here. I haven’t gone to the courthouse. I have legal experience in another state and I’ve gone to courthouses many times.
There’s really not that much going on. It’s a quick if it is a good attorney, full authority. What did you gain? I guess my question is going, sitting at the courthouse and watching this. Was it just that you were totally unfamiliar with going into a courthouse or. Of course, COVID has changed a lot of rules.
So whatever that means, where, we talked to people across the country on Los Angeles county, which is the largest probate court in America, as well as probably when was locked down today. So I can tell you, I did, from the time I took the training until the courthouse closed, I went every day to court. And I approached it like a real estate agent who might doorknock.
The probate court calendar started at eight 30. I got there at 7 45 bought a cup of coffee. And if you know, Stanley Moscow’s to right the intersection where the second-floor entrances and the cocky shot, I stood right there and my goal was to meet people, Until eight 30 and then I would go in one of the courts to watch a court confirmation sale
so I saw at least one almost every workday for about a year and a half, two years. So in that time period, I probably saw. I don’t know, 400, 500 court sales, more than any probate judge. They see once a week, maybe more than any probate attorney or real estate agent by far. And so I saw that for a hundred certain common mistakes and the best practices and they spend a list of all of those.
But then to your point, I’d meet people before eight 30. I would see in court. People did get authority. I would not be argumentative. I would, my experience was most don’t get approved right away. Most attorneys don’t know what they’re doing. 90%, 95% of court cases in LA county, the attorney has done one or fewer other probate cases in the last two years.
So they might be smart attorneys, but they don’t really know the probate process, they know, the law, but not the administrative procedures. And that’s where I became an expert. And I’d find also pro se people handling their own legal matter, really struggling, and I would offer to help them. I watched meet people and then I’d reach out to them afterwards, after about half the court interview 9 30, 9 45, or so having a researcher until 10 30 and eight people there as well.
I would say I just took an approach, kind of like farming. I would try to meet people. My goal was to meet one and a half people a day to get a name, address, phone number, email, and permission, stay in touch with them. And I just did that for about two years.
‘ Selina, does that answer your question. Yes. I thought you were going more or less to get familiar with court and what happens. I now see how you turned it around to help people and giving yourself visibility. And you certainly didn’t need to go that many times to figure out what happens there so much more to your efforts than just what’s court look like? I would say everytime I go, I’ve learned a little bit. And in this day when I have an investor, even though I could do it on video or have a listing to sell, I go in person because you see things you don’t get on video and you see the judge, the the judge sees you. I have gotten things approved by judges I don’t think other agents can, because number one, I knew the process. Number two, the judge has seen me around so they know, I know it also looked like an attorney. When I walk in, I always worked dark suit, white shirt. tie. Have a briefcase. I could turn these, do I look like an attorney.
So I play that as much as I can. So I looked the part to get the experience, but also get the acknowledgement from the judges, the other attorneys as well. So that’spart of the process too, I think, to.
Thank you. I love talking sometimes slate. I heard you last week talking about for closures and maybe this has been for working together. I have a few of my list to give you a couple of times. Yeah. Just opening one today in Malibu, a sheik decided not to make his payments anymore. How about that?
Okay.
Let’s see. Hand up Winston Cole Yeah. The last time, I think you reference a handbook, California probate handbook. Yeah. There’s a book on Amazon. It’s like a hundred bucks. It’s not cheap, but I have to probate code. There you go. Is it the code? The code was easy to get. This practitioners handbook for probate real estate. She goes through, she does a good job and she does it in layman’s terms. And, yeah, you can go read the code. I keep that printed. But this was an easy, good. And that’s great. I’ve read every book I can find on probate. And I think there’s going to be a probate expert. You wanna learn all of it?
This is the probate code in California. And I think that agents don’t move the rules and they’ll say something because they’ve seen it done. And to be honest, attorneys don’t know what the. The law on some of these things really, and be honest with respect to judges, sometimes they don’t. Because they’ve been doing a certain way for a long time.
So there are cases where I’ve made more commission because I was entitled to by the law. And when they argued the point, I purposely bring the books. So the attorney and judge know I have a code book and I read out a book now. Copy of the page, but downloaded online and such, but there’s something more impressive is having the book is like a previous moment, that I enjoy.
Now this, this California, but I’d recommend anybody in any state that your code book, learn it, read it, read the relevant sections, not all of it’s relevant, but the parts that are relevant. Okay. Robert asked the question, most probably courts have a calendar you can look at online. Robert, what county are you in? Lee county, Florida Lee county. What’s the biggest city in Lee county Fort Myers, Fort Myers, the one thing I would recommend any agent to do is find what is online in your county and master that just Google probate, Lee county, Florida, and whatever it is there I would check it out in detail, master that. Many have, calendars, many have notes. We can actually look into the cases. So if you subscribed to data, you may have to look it up by the court case number. In some cases, you don’t, you can find the cases and then cross reference into the notes.
Every county is different. Like in, in California LA county has software is in some Northern Cali estates, but it’s not the same orange county is totally different than the neigboring county. I don’t know, Lee county, Florida but I guess there’s some good information there. I’ll give you an example, LA county, you have the state law and then you have the county rules of the court, that the judge of the presiding judge of the county rights.
So for example, LA county, if you list a probate and as we get court confirmed, you can’t have a commission rate higher than 5%, If it’s single family, if it’s land, it can be 10%. And so that’s an important distinction to know for whatever reason, but that’s only when the court confirmation is required.
That’s not limited on regular listings, which is interesting. You can charge more if you have for confirmation, but you’re limited to 5% for the more difficult court confirmation, but that’s how it is. And I feel like that’s good to know. And I regularly see agents list at 6% of saw somebody 8%, one time. And I just watched the judge laugh because it’s right there and the attorney should know it, because it’s in the local rules.
But the answer, your question. I look, I don’t know, Lee County, Florida specifically and I’d say, come back and report back. I’d love to hear from you great.

Tips for gaining courtroom presence when your local probate court is still fully virtual

I think the name was John. If you’re so far, how would you change your strategy when the probate court is not willing to let public in due to COVID great question. So how would change my strategy and I’ll say this, whenever I’m allowed to do in the court. I don’t know. What’s like your Dallas because that’s Tarrant county of Texas, I would say whatever county you’re in nationally, I would find out what you’re allowed to do and do what you’re allowed to.
Now of course, be safe, be helpful and all those things. But if you’re the only one that goes to court, you’re the one that judge sees. You’re the only one that attorneys are going to see. To me it is a tremendous advantage. If you’re the only one that knows the process and procedure, that’s a tremendous advantage.
So I would figure out to take advantage of whatever opportunity there is to be in that courtroom. Two, I’ve also learned about the video process in our court in LA county. They used to charge for video. Now it’s free for party or related parties in the witness and so on, it doesn’t cost anything. So it used to be when I would represent buyers or sellers, I would arrange for the video and I would pay for it and give them the links and give them a trial run and make sure to do that.
I would still I still do, even though it’s free set the client up, get them, pre-registered have them log in and make sure that the software is working head time. You don’t want your client not to be able to log in. So I, again, I don’t know what’s available in the county. I got, I got some push back about trying to get into the court because they didn’t want anybody except for attorneys and the PRS in there, but they do put all the cases on YouTube. So I do have that. They come to me and I have subscribed and I see them, but I was just, I was intrigued about your method as far as making contact and positioning yourself as an authority with people who are actually attorneys and judges and so forth.
And so I was asking, how would you tweak that? That’s strategy a little bit in terms of, for P for us that are not maybe not able to get into the court to see them, but still want to, let them know that we’re experts.
So I’ll give you one strategy I use, which is I looked very closely at the properties coming up for confirmation, and I try to find the best route to bid on those properties. And those are typically two things for me. Number one, if they won the property, there was a sale.
I got paid on them and maybe it was a fix and flip and I got paid off. So that’s good business. But second. Of all kind of property. They buy one, a court was more viable to me because I’m in front of judge the trees. Whereas normally I’m not a buyer’s agent. I don’t normally look for properties to bring to investors and when COVID shut down the court, I was very aggressively doing that then as well. So I was one of the first, agents to go into court and see what it looked like. And I remember the bar association had another agent who is an expert. She’s actually very good, does a lot of business.
But talking about, what court was like, in the COVID era, she was, she didn’t know, she’d never been to court the few times she had listings, she came into via video. But I’ve been there. I’ve seen what goes on and there was a big advantage for me to try to buy some properties with these suppliers.
But I would think about building my business that got me in court as much as possible. They worked with pro pers and they allow you in I’ll tell you this. So you got to play with what you got and I’ll play the cards you’re dealt. And so I would, again, I’m looking at your county and figure out what opportunities there are in play with the bar association meetings online bar association meetings. We have law library in LA county that has classes. There are different ways. You can look to get involved with people, but going across specifically, I can’t wait to answer it. I live in LA county and in LA I would say I would look for every opportunity to get in the courtroom when I had the chance to do it.
Interesting. I had a judge. I was a witness on a case. I met was actually hired as an expert witness who said that he rather people not come to court because he could hear them better. And you could see the facial expressions, whereas in court they have to wear a mask and it’s hard to see. So it was interesting that but still I would try to get in probate court any time I can just to meet people and see people, on one hand, there’s way less people.
On the other hand, I was the only real estate agent in the building. And that was to me, good news. Does that help a little okay. Good.
Stephanie really has a question.

Making valuable connections: Networking at bar association mixers

I actually had a response to Jayhawk? So after the calls with bill over the last couple of weeks, I’m looking at his YouTube channel what I decided to do was go to the bar association mixers and try to find an attorney every month to feature on my YouTube channel and just start really building up that YouTube channel and putting myself out there as a probate expert in the area.
So as opposed to trying to get into the courts and be seen, the only way we can really be seen is virtually also like the meetup events that they have in your area that are usually zooms is a really good way. I feel like to find attorneys and connect with them that will and just feature them.
And make them want to work with you, say, Hey, I want to do an interview with you on my channel. And that really seems to have worked well over the last couple of weeks for me. Yeah, thank you Stephanie. I would agree a hundred percent. or, I’m agreeing with my twenties. That sets you apart. You add in as well.
I went from doing so much live stuff to doing YouTube, and it’s been important part of my business. And I think that, attorneys andestates see me, have a chance to evaluate, am I an expert or not? And I’d say if you’re not an expert, you’ll learn that you can be. Can’t be and talk about what you are or any new experts.
And I think the interview experts is gonna make you look better that just asking questions and being woven process. So excellent.
Okay. Who else has a question regarding probate business? What are we doing to generate more leads? We need to talk to our people and how can I help you with that?

Live-in tenant evictions, life insurance claims, and moving forward to renovations before probate sale

I’m going to share something real quick here, Bill. So I’ve been in communication with a guy who’s the nephew of the decedent and shout out to Selena. The property is in foreclosure.
She sent it over to me. I go anyway. And the situation with his it’s similar to the listing. We currently have the situation is that the occupant it’s a duplex and the occupant who’s in the property where he is now living as well. The occupants been there for 44 years. And so in her mind, it’s her house and she has gone around him and to her, his brother, to his cousin.
Saying, Hey, I, tell him I want to buy the house and she’s been telling him, I’ll buy the house. And then she said, Hey, I’ll take you when it was in foreclosure or what the foreclosure situation she said, Hey, I’ll go ahead and get you a loan to get you out of the foreclosure. And of course I explained to him, I said, He may be trying to get a back door to prevent anyone else from buying it so she can buy it by doing that in any case, he’s at a point where in all of our conversations, he’s ready to list with me.
He still needs to get his letters, but he’s pretty much, we’ve already had two conversations. We’re having another appointment because we’re talking about doing renovations and he’s just so happy with me that he’s oh, you’re it. You’re going to list it. So the, but the challenge he’s having is he wants to do renovations and he wants to out of there because he does have some plumbing stuff going on underneath.
And so he’s going to have to do, some permits and stuff it’s going to need to be vacant. And he’s concerned that he can’t get her out of. Because she technically, isn’t a tenant. The deceiver essentially is like they were sister friends, she said, yeah, come stay here. But the reason why he doesn’t really want to sell it to her, and the reason why he’s apprehensive about.
Giving her cash for keys or anything is because she is an insurance broker and wrote an insurance policy for a hundred thousand dollars for the decedent and named herself as the beneficiary and got paid out on it. And when he was trying to find out, if there was life insurance, he went to a friend of his, who was in Canada, who does insurance.
He looked it up and he said, oh, they already have a claim filed. And that’s how he found. That she’d written this policy and that she was the beneficiary. So it’s a pretty nasty situation. And I just bring this up to say that sometimes they’re just really nasty situations with other parties involved, and it can be very challenging, particularly in California.
When you have an occupant who may not necessarily be a tenant per se, they may have previously been given verbal permission to be there, but they aren’t paying any rent. So it’s not like you can evict them for non-payment or. There’s challenges with that. And it’s a very precarious situation to try to get it.
He has to do the renovations to get it, to sell for the highest price he can to satisfy the D the mortgage, but and all the airs and everything but it’s challenging. And so I just bring this up to say it’s another interesting and challenging experience I’ve been through with probate.
I think I might have listened to Chad’s calls, for years, and I’ve listed people across the country for years. And the thing that I’m really clear on is that every market is different. And we’re in LA the largest. Marginally we were Atlanta. But I also we’re the poorest county in America.
We have the highest percentage of homelessness and California has the highest percentage of impoverished people and in California, really skews, low income. And I think also our laws in California, in LA in particular really encouraged them. And so I think this is mostly not mostly or more commonly Los Angeles problem and in a California problem.
And I don’t think it’s as common. So I’m just curious on the call is your man to call outside of California. That has the same. Okay, great. It doesn’t matter who you are. You’re in that house, it is almost impossible to get them out legally without their approvals.
What’s it like stuff you’re Georgia in Savannah, I’ve been working with a girl for almost two months. And we still, without the evictions have gone to court twice, they failed. We can’t get this guy out. Sure. Her son passed away and her son had a roommate and the roommate will not move out and he’s not paying in the mortgage.
He’s not paying anything that needs to be paid. She’s on a fixed income. So she can’t hire anyone. It’s just a whole big mess and she’s about to go into foreclosure. And we’re trying to find a solution. There really, unless you can hire an attorney at this point or hire some eviction specialists.
We haven’t found one but she wants to list today or pair with an investor. And so it’s money sitting on the table and it’s a real bummer and I haven’t figured out a way to help her yet. I’m still working. Stephanie, I talked to one of my attorneys, I have this one, a great, I recently connected with him a great attorney who covers all kinds of he’s general practice with his firm in Beverly Hills.
He answered the phone. We got an appall yesterday because I’m trying to help this guy out and said, what are his options? He said cash for keys, but he also reminded me. He said, and I reminded him too. And he said, there is that one piece that if a buyer takes it with tenant occupied, they take the property tenant, occupied, a new owner can give that buyer notice if they’re going to use it as a primary residence.
So I know that doesn’t help with investors because investors aren’t keeping it as a primary residence unless they choose to purchase it that way. And they’re able to somehow finagle that, they’re putting someone in there. As making it a primary residence, because when you do that, you can give that occupant notice that they have to move and not in LA anyway.
And the city of LA specifically is a reason to justify bubbly evict someone, or it’s not just cause. I think we were saying those might be legally reason to nobody is able to anybody in the CMLA today because they’re buying a property for per private residence. You still have to. Legally, you can’t just tell them to leave and walk out the door.
You still have to go through eviction today. This is still an open one open till next year. Today, still the there’s attorneys who are sitting in eviction courts in LA, who will counsel this people. And one thing we’ll tell them for sure is requested jury trial, which there are no jury trials in eviction court now late.
So you’re talking at a minimum six to nine months. Yes, exactly. Bill. Absolutely. It is an avenue, but it still is going to take a very long that’d be finished, but also if you’re buying a primary residence and financing it, you can’t do that unless you would be in the property within 30 days, you have to have a rep back or the tenant out that lender’s not going to prove financing with a 10th there, that you’re going to go through an eviction process.
So it. Legally your rights, but practically it’s impossible today. It’s not possible to save LA to buy a property and evict the tenant. A buyer preparedness could be cash. And then you got to wait at least nine months to get the guy out. And most buyers are going to be one way at that time. But that’s the challenge we’re in today.
I see Jesse you said Chicago is pretty bad. I think this is more of a city than it is overall in the country. That’s why I’m sure some of you are like in more remote counties. What the heck are these guys talk to you about? But I would say certainly in LA, there was a war between tenants and owners and it’s ugly in person.
That’s why I would never own that property in Los Angeles. Are there contracts involved with cash for keys? So if we could come up with this lady could come up with money. How do we know that the guy’s still actually going to leave? So she said, Yeah, until it’s off the door, you don’t, and you give them money outside and change the locks and hope they’ll break back in the profit that they break in.
Again, technically that’s break in and that’s a little different situation, but there are people who are skilled at that. And I’m just saying I’ve been in business, for awhile every year it gets a little harder. Every year. I had people did cash for keys 10 years ago, and the short sale process.
It’s a different game today. These people were militant. There’s more money it’s. and I’ve made this prediction. You’re going to hear about clients where people who are basically criminals buy a property. It’s like in LA, I have a listing right now for 1.275, that, that property, if the tenant was out would easily sell for 1, 3, 5, and they might let it, if you had to sell it, you have to sell with a tenant in there for about one.
You talking about 2200 $50,000. There are people who will do bad things to you for that kind of money. It’s just a matter of time until we hear about that crime happening? I haven’t heard it yet, but that the gap that money goes up, people do anything for that kind of money. I’ll share with you. I have one right now. We have a list. I have to be careful what I say here, but if you find that what happens at times is these people who stay over they aren’t tenants, they are ex-girlfriend ex-wife ex whatever, the mail goes to thehouse. One things you would investigate is did they do anything illegal?
And if they did the, do they say take checks after the decedent passed and write checks? If they did, that’s a crime that, so there’s companies that will approach that person and use that as leverage to get them out of the property. Is one, one way there’s there’s vendors. It used to be cash for keys, people they don’t need did it.
Used to be, you just have the courage to knock on the door and talk to somebody who signed a contract with giving somebody, a friend to come back a few weeks later. It’s a different ball game today. These people are in luck. It’s tougher living in LA. It’s more expensive they’re faced with being homeless.
I have compassion for these people. I just, don’t, I also have compassionfor my estate and my client. But to answer your question, this is this the child will, I’ll say also. This is the kind of problem that if you figure out how to solve in your area, you’re gonna make a lot of money. So I’m working on this problem every day.
We’re going to find it every day to find, vendors who can help with this process would be attorneys or there’s a landlord, a representative company that does these things a little more passively than in the past, but definitely. I just wanted to quickly mention thank you bill, for sharing that it is challenging in our market.
And I’ve seen in the chat that some others are facing similar challenges. Really what it comes down to is in my opinion, there has to be something that is changed at the legislative level. Either the city level, the county level, where whatever’s the highest, most stringent jurisdiction to, to allow for there to be some ruling beyond what exists now, because with exactly this situation we’re in with, Stephanie’s talking.
It almost becomes near impossible, like you’re saying. And the last point I wanted to make Stephanie, you mentioned that she, your client, that she’s been through this a few times and now she doesn’t really have the money to pay for an attorney. Maybe there’s an investor you can bring to the table to help with some of that.
Right to move this process forward, to get someone out, to help her pay for an attorney. Maybe, I don’t know, I’m just putting it out there as a brainstorming a solution for her, but it either that, or, like I said, having the new buyer buy with tenant occupied and they carry the burden and it may take them longer.
But that to me right now, I think that tends to be the best solution. I had a. On our current listing, I had a buyer, he submitted an offer. He suggested that he said we would do it, but we’re going to come in with a lower. And he’s an investor. This is the challenge. Is that going to be fiduciary really responsible from a real estate agent perspective to the clients?
If we say we have a buyer for it, that’s willing to take a tenant occupied, but they aren’t going to pay full price. So it starts to hurt on both sides of it. Hopefully legislation will change in our market, says you got some in Fort Myers, Florida even says we have a contract that’s almost useless to people.
You can touch. The keys are likely to work with you on a contract. We had Boston and we had pushback four or five times. We couldn’t push our push very hard and they would just be petty. Yeah, it’s a challenge. Andy says the vendors, the mafia, I, I don’t disagree. I think that’s what it’s going to look like.
If you really think about where is this headed, how long can I go on? How much more can it go before people will organize criminal activity? And if I was a organized criminal and we’re about to lie, go through the MLS, look, these properties make offers, and I would get the tenant out. I don’t think it’s difficult to figure out where they are.
What’s going on is inevitable. It’s just, I think absolutely. Feel if they violate their contract shouldn’t you still be able to get them out because I have a friend. No, don’t laugh. I have a friend who had a single family detached home in Palmdale and his tenant stopped paying the rent.
And this was last year. He got them out because he drove up to the property. They had put a fence up that was against their against the contract and they also had dog. And they did a number of things. So he got them evicted. That was his home. He said it took him about what maybe about four or five months to do it.
But the, but he used Dennis block. So he successfully got them out. Dennis block is great. He’s good for standard deductions. I’ve used him for all types here’s what I tell you. There are more and more that some of you say, and thankfully you got them out. You can go to court today. And if the party doesn’t know to ask for a jury trial and get to a judge and you get a hearing, you’re going to get them evicted.
But today there are law school graduates who non-profits put in eviction courts to try to grab those tenants to say, Hey, we can defend you for free, by the way, we’re going to require a jury trial. And if they do that today, there is nothing you can do for them. The court is an open there’s no jury trials for evictions right now.
So your client got, I won’t say got lucky. Cause you know, you have to put the effort in and congratulations and some who’s smarter to try. I’d give them a shot, but once they required a jury trial, There’s nothing you can do to get them out. There is nothing you can’t call the Sheriff’s because, even with the case, you need the court order so it’s very challenging today and there’s more and more what I would call militant tenants.
And number one, number two is more and more militant non-profits who are powering engaging. This tenants become militant and it’s becoming more and more common. It was rare occasionally five, 10 years ago and I don’t know if it’s a function of politics or the time I don’t really know, but here’s what I do know:
almost every tenant now. And I’ll say this, you’ll talk to them. They’ll be reasonable, the will agree with you verbally. And then they’ll tell a friend, if I say well, you have you have to do that. You can hire some organization and they’ll, you’ll never have to pay rent again. So I would just caution. I’m not saying it’s impossible.
And if you ask, if anybody on the phone call, who’s got somebody out. uh,

Partnering up with other wholesalers to JV deals with problem properties

Eamon Yeah, just to offer some insight on this I, I had a similar situation on a nine unit in Jamaica plain, Boston. And, I found that really I’m personally not equipped to handle this kind of thing. So I guess more of a suggestion if anybody’s finding that, you know, maybe they’re not capable of dealing with the tenants themselves directly, and they’re willing to at least try to do something.
I found that for any situation, it’s been incredibly valuable for me to have whole other wholesalers and other investors in my area that are more equipped to deal with these things. I didn’t want to start chasing around tenants in my early stages of wholesaling and off-market properties.
So I called some wholesalers that I knew and what I told them was, listen, I got a really problematic property. I don’t think I’m going to be able to push this through to closing, but if you can let’s partner up in JV on something like this. Really some of these people that helped me, a couple of them that helped me on this deal.
They’ve become some of my closest advocates in all of my wholesale operations in all of my sales and dispositions. If you are personally not equipped, one avenue is finding other wholesalers in your area that are abundant. You’ll be able to find some really good ones in pretty much every major market.
And they might be able to, they might be willing to do the groundwork and partner up with you to get a deal done. Good point. There’s a lot of people who might take on that effectively. And I think as an agent now, I’m not speaking as an investor I’m here as an agent. It’s not my job to sell the property for what the majority of people think it should sell for.
It’s my job to get the best outcome for my client. And sometimes you’ll find buyers who are foolish and bite off more than they can chew. If I can get the property sold off and they take on that problem, that’s their problem. But you’re right, even that you could find somebody who’s willing to take on the challenge, whether it’d be a wholesaler or investor or as an agent, you’re able to market it and get some else to buy it that way.
Those are outcomes to look into for sure. Okay. Even questions, challenges we have regarding either tenant situations or anything else that you can help with today.
Bill. I’ll ask a question. That’s okay. Sure. Do you know, or have you heard of anyone that’s maybe had success.
I don’t know what the consequences are over there. As far as just force evicting. People wait for them to leave the house and then go change the locks. I’m assuming once you displace them from the house, if they have nowhere else to be, there’ll be under such tremendous amount of pressure to find suitable living situation that they might not even have time to try and fight you to get back in this particular home.
So obviously there’s legal implications and I’m not an attorney, but I will say I have a client who, to avoid a tenant. He used Airbnb, and had a client had a person come into a furnish EDU and basically announce, Hey, I’m not going to pay you a penny. I’m going to live here for free. And so we had this landlord representative company who said they only have right to be there.
you have the opportunity to, once they’re out of the property, you just lock them out and then take their personal property. Now, in this case it was furnished, this AirBNB was furnished, already so all the person had wasa suitcase. And, you know, you’d get back to them. And like you said, he’ll be at a pressure to find someplace and you might have to offer them cash settlement to get them out.
Obviously that’s, there’s laws about all that. I’m not advising anybody what to do, but I will say, I do think that what you’re saying is uh, People are going to do it. There’s, there are landlords who are going to be desperate to get somebody out of a property that they just spent $50,000 fixing up in this case and expect 2000 last month rent and find out the guys who pay them nothing.
And it’s just aggravating in this case, if I was just sort of plain about it, he didn’t even try to say I don’t have a job or I can’t afford the payments. So let’s pick those. But again, I think the challenge is at once, you’re going to go to court. Yeah. Every area is different, but in LA today, once they request a jury trial, you’re talking months and months,

Real estate lead generation with estate sales

Stephanie.
Okay. So I just had an idea that they’re out there for some of you guys I’m working with a couple right now. They are, they’re relocating, they’re an older couple. And I’m working it, I’m working it as probate. I’m connecting them with different vendors.
They are elderly. They can’t afford to move their stuff out of their house. They want to sell a lot of the things, but they can’t really, get them sold themselves. And I am turning it into a probate referral to set up for, to set up their end of life. But the idea that I have for you guys, one thing that I’m doing with them, and then I’m doing an open house, yard sale kind of thing.
And I think it’s a really cool way to get clients. And so we’re actually going to put a price tag on everything that we’re selling and then we’re advertising and estate sale slash yard sale. open house. And doing it two Saturdays in a row. I think it’s a really cool way to meet clients. And it’s a really good way to show people that you’re willing to go above and beyond.
It’s an extra hour of your time to come in and put some price stickers on things to make a sale and to gain extra clients. So it’s a really cool idea. I thought I’d throw it out there for you guys. Yeah, that’s a great idea. I’ve seen that quite a bit. I think probably are so many ways to attack the market.
And those are still the larger cities. There are so many ways to attach to the ginormous real estate And I think it’s one of those things where if you really learn that business and you say it’s going to be, don’t put stickers on, I don’t have stickers. I don’t really know what things could pay for it, but we did a few open houses.
I think that’s about really whatever it is you’re doing. Develop some expertise, develop some skills, get some tools to be more efficient about it. How do you advertise online to get people to come to the garage sale? Then hopefully turn them into leads for buyers and sellers property. So I just to have Stephanie and again, it’s just another way.
Work the business. There are more ways to generate business and probate. I think that you ever been to work in your life. You just have to be creative and find, I think the most important thing is find a marketing strategy. That’s authentic to you. The reason I went to court is I liked going to court. I liked dressing up.
I like talking to attorneys. I like talking from the judges. If you don’t do that. Do a, Stephanie is talking about with open houses or other methods to get business, be a defensive isn’t authentic to you. Okay. We’ve got about two minutes left here. Any last questions? Nina. This is actually a question for stuff beyond that, the state sales situation, or a state sale garage sale.
I have a client who was wanting to do their estate sale before they, get it ready for listing. And I was going to have them use an estate sale company. Of course, they charge their fee. Do you think, is it just you who’s going to be handling that or are you working with them to help them do it?
They’re like, you’re all gonna do it as a team. You and the sellers. How are you facilitating that? I’m just concerned about if I were to offer that up to save the money. How much of my time do I have to give, to do that? You’d have to facilitate doing it. I might bring in a new agent to help me with it, maybe, but I’m just curious how your facility, so the new agent is a great idea.
I’m on a team. And so our team members, we all do open houses together. So we can manage the influx. Our goal is to have 20 to 30 people at every open house that we do, obviously, for one agent, that’s a lot to handle. So our goal is to do them all together. And so what I am doing. This particular situation is over the next three weeks.
I have carved out two hours on two different afternoons that the husband and I will go through the house, just, I would say, want to sell and put a value on it. And that two hours afternoon, prior to prior to the open out, I’m going to put a sticker on it that says for sale X amount of dollars, and then my teammates and I will manage the sales as well as him during that.
So there are different ways to work that personally, I’m not going to hold up in the house. They’re not going to go to the state itself vendors I’ve worked with. And so I’m giving my. You know the name of the vendor. I’ve had success within their area. Graceland’s sentence in California does a great job. They charge a fee.
That’s what it costs. I’m not in the business. So to me, the fees reasonable, qualified can do on your own and say that money, if that’s what they want to do, there’s online versions where the customer goes around and takes pictures and puts prices on it. And they do it online as well.
Chad does a great job I think of creating the importance of having good vendor relationships and bringing them as tools in your toolbox. But what I don’t do is sign up to do those jobs. I want to assign that to vet and bring good vendors. If you help my clients solve their problems.
So different approaches. If you’re working open houses, I would imagine estate sales are a great way to hold a unique open house. So you just had to make sure you again, marking should be authentic to how you would build your business and make sure it’s is for you. Okay. I think we answered all the questions.
I want to agree with you. That’s all I was going to say is I just want to agree with you. I don’t think it’s something that you want to do with every client every time, because it’s something that’s going to overwhelm your time. Now, this particular client can’t afford for a vendor to come in is the reason that I chose to go this route, but it’s definitely not something that I would market to you that you do all the time.
Marketing is about finding what is authentic for you, what works for you and make sure it’s consistent with where you are in your business. So don’t just copy somebody else. Cause it sounds cool or interesting. Make sure it’s part of your overall plan. Okay. I think we’re wrapping up there. Again, I’m Bill Gross and I’m one of Chad Corbett’s students.
I’ve been through probate mastery training program and all these calls regularly. Chad holds this call weekly. Now we won’t have it next week because next week is Thanksgiving week. so we won’t have the call next week. We’ll be back in two weeks, tuesday noon Pacific time, 3:00 PM Eastern time call, and this gets recorded and put into the Facebook group as well. So if you missed it, you’re welcome to go there. My name is bill gross. You’re welcome to reach out to me. If I can help Bill the LA probate expert.com or bill exp on social media, my YouTube and Facebook and LinkedIn, I can help answer questions feel free to reach out.
I can help in any way. So make it a great week and I’ll speak to you guys. Have a great Thanksgiving. Thanks to those of you who participated. Stephanie Nina, Anton, a J Hawk was nice meeting you and trying to help you guys. And I’m sure I left a couple of people off. Joanne, thank you for those participated and make it a great week.
We’ll talk to you soon. Thanks so much.

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2 Comments on “Lead Generation as a Probate Real Estate Agent/Investor PLUS: Handling evictions before probate property sale?!”

  1. what is good marketing toward probates? I am hearing cold calling. 2nd, text messaging. 3rd emailing. 4th mail marketing.

    1. Hey Charlie,

      There are agents and investors who have been extremely successful doing just one marketing channel REALLY well, and others who have built out their multi-channel marketing strategy. All channels of marketing work for probate, but certain marketing channels might better suit your current business and goals better than others. For example, intensive mail marketing campaigns have a great ROI but usually take months to show it – This can drain a small business budget more quickly than the return comes in. On the other hand, cold-calling is essentially free. You can cold call until you have appointments, then deals/listings, and you can reinvest those earnings to begin scaling your prospecting, adding in another channel of marketing, or both.

      The best thing you can do for your business is decide which marketing channel makes sense to prioritize right now, make a plan for it, and commit to it. This doesn’t mean you’ll only do one thing and not any of the others – It just means you’re highly focused on doing one thing really well. For example, even if you prioritize cold-calling, you might still be sending a follow-up text, email, or letter to contacts you’ve had a good phone conversation with – This is more cost and time-effective than trying to send emails and letters to every single lead at random intervals.

      Once you feel solid about your priority marketing channel, come back to the drawing board and decide if you want to scale up in that same channel, or scale out to other marketing channels.

      This guide might help you get solid in your vision: https://probatemastery.com/7-tips-for-consistent-lead-generation-when-working-solo-as-a-small-team/

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