Group Coaching #9: Unsure About Creative Finance? Don’t Be.

All right. Welcome everybody to the weekly probate mastery group coaching call. Lots new names here. What’s familiar faces. Before the recording started, Alan and I were just talking about as brilliant brand think outside the house. So now he’s trying to transition from law and the more investing in brokerage and his kid, his brokerage partner to transition kind of from brokerage into crossing that divide and Don investment and brokerage.
So we can continue that conversation or cover anything that anybody needs help with. So raise a hand on me, jump in. How can we serve you? Yeah

[00:00:32] Alan, I’m going to come back to you. I’m curious. What area of law are you practicing on right now? Is it real estate law? Yes, it was primarily real estate LAR done a little bit of everything over the years, but it’s always primarily been real estate focused. So it’s not a huge transition such as starting from scratch to get into investing.
But there’s definitely a learning curve. It’s not a simple transition. Okay. Anytime I see like folks with other professional designations or licenses, my mind goes through, how can we turn this into a USP for you? Right. So tell me what you’re thinking about. How can you leverage your law license to gain credibility in this space and make starting the conversation easier?
There’s no doubt. It definitely gets me in some doors that other investors find more difficult. I can’t deny that it definitely gets phone calls, returned and indoor picked up.

[00:01:22]So that, that is an advantage because then you run dozens and dozens of titles a day, right? At times, yes.
In a given week or a month, yes. What does it cost you to run title on a property? Oh, for me, if I’m doing it myself. Yeah. Virtually nothing. It’s really just the time where everything’s automated or online today. It’s rather simple. That is one value add I bring to any group as well as skip tracing. I’ve been skip tracing for years, so that’s not foreign to me at all. I don’t, I mean, Yeah, none better like that database, just because they have a double match point. So here’s what I, where I’m headed with this. I think that. To really differentiate yourself. And you could also do this to the attorneys. You could go, you could proactively run title on the probate lists. So that run probate.
Plus, are you a subscriber to probate data from all the leads? No, not yet. Nope. Okay. So all the leads I built a, an augmentation over there called probate plus. And what we do is we take all the county probate data. And then I, we built a system that goes out and it’ll bring back all the real estate.
They are, even if it’s held in trust or entities. And it’s all based on double match points. So it’s about 93% accurate and all of my testing, but it can cut your market marketing costs drastically. But what you could do with that, imagine if you were to get the probate leads already with real estate owned information, and when you reach out, you actually send them.
Maybe it’s just a preliminary title report, but your offer is, Hey, I’m an attorney. And you know, serve families and probate. One of the biggest issues that we see families go through are title surprises. So I’ve, as you know, being proactive and to show you that I’m here to serve your family enclosed, please find the title report and chances are, they’re like they don’t review title reports a lot, and they may just say, you know, please call with any questions you might have, but that’s something you can do to really differentiate yourself.
And it’s going to show is like a $450 value, right. And you can present it that way. Like we charge the value of this. Sure. every estate pays 450 bucks for the title on each parcel. And this is something we include for free, because we realized that, most of states don’t have a lot of cash in the bank account.
We want to make sure that there are as few surprises as possible, but it’s something you could do. Like you’ve already got the law license, you’ve got the systems in place. You can do it. It’s a low cost, no cost, but a very high perceived value. So think about that. Like, how can you use your current profession to really differentiate yourself from a marketing standpoint to start these conversations?
Once you get the conversation started, this is pretty fun and easy. The hard part is getting that conversation started, and that might get you a lot more attention than anyone else that might be mailing or calling. Yeah, that’s a great idea. Now, of course, in Massachusetts, I’d probably be obligated.
Professionally to reach out to the other probate attorney if he’s been appointed, but outside of mass just be another investor. Anyway. So you said that, cause that was going to be the second part of this. You should also on that letter, say enclosed preliminary title report, copied the attorney name and just send them both.
So you can tell the attorney, you know, listen to understand you’re probably going to do title or whatever, write a letter attorney to attorney B2B and say, you know, this is something that, we do. We’re looking to serve families in this space, not as a probate attorney, but I just happened to be a real estate attorney.
And I’m not sure if you have these systems in place. So here’s something free. Let me know if you have any questions or need me to run title and anything else and start those attorney conversations. Yeah, that’s a great idea. Yep.

[00:05:05] Could you expand a little on that? Did you call a double match
let’s say it’s John DOE in St. Louis. There could be 16 different John Does so we’re not going to match just on first name, last name. We have to have another variable. So we want to skiptrace first name, last name match, but also an address match. And that might be a tax mailing address that may be a residential address.
It may be an LLC registered agent address. It could be a phone number, an email address, whatever of all those data points we have. We want to make sure that no less than two match. And that greatly increases your likelihood of having an actual match, like the correct skip trace results or in the case of probate plus the correct property record.
But that’s how LexisNexis does their database. That’s why I ask if you have that. So they, they have at least two matching data points. That’s why they’re so accurate. So they’re looking for John DOE at St. Louis that lives in zip code one, two, three, four, five, and has a phone number, you know, a matching cell phone number to what the, what you had or whatever.
So you can start with the one data point, like first name, last name and as long as you can match, or you can start with two data points, as long as you can find two matches, there’s a highlight because it’s the right job though. Keeps you from chasing a lot of red herrings too, with a single matches, yes. Great. Thank you.

[00:06:22]Hey Chad, can I ask a quick question? Yeah. So he’s already aware that there is another attorney involved.
Is that correct? In most cases. Okay. I wasn’t clear on that. I thought he was going to try and be the attorney for them as well. No. So he’s in real estate investment, real estate law. And so he shouldn’t be a threat to the probate attorney.
He’s trying to earn the real estate conversation, not the family, you know, the probate case. However, 20% of those are not going to have legal representation, just statistically,
so those are the ones that he can still turn into attorney referrals, and that’s how he can really show them that he’s not competing with them. He can actually deliver probate referrals to their office to help build some of that trust. Okay. Thank you. And do you think that will be beneficial to the rest of us to employ this kind of.
Tactics, or this kind of value add if it’s easy to get title, because title is easy to get, I think in cheap more, most places. Yeah. Anything that’s, you know, low cost, high value, perceived value is a really good thing to do. Like every once in a while we have appraisers come through the class and I’m like, you should issue an appraisal report for every single family.
Cause they can knock it out, you know, and in pretty short order and they can present that as a $500 value. So it really shows that, you’re leading with value. That’s the mantra provide value first. Anything like that, that if you’re in a unique position to provide things like that, that competitors might not be able to because it’s too expensive or they haven’t figured out how to do it.

[00:07:53] Affordably is a great thing to do. Awesome. Thank you. So some of the ideas, you know, we’ve discussed in the past, you can buy blocks of services, right? So even if you’re not an appraiser, but you wanted to offer that, let’s say you want to budget for 10 free appraisals a month and you go to a local appraiser and be like, Hey man, you charge 500 bucks.
I’m going to prepay you on a monthly retainer. I will prepay you, but I want a $250 rate. And then those 10 are going to be your prime lead. Like the ones that are in that high price or. That really fit your buy box. Like I really want to buy that house and you could offer them those things, whether it’s an appraisal or title work or anything like that, but you can negotiate with other vendors to get basically bulk pricing by pre-paying them.
And last week we talked about the cashflow roller coaster appraisers. Aren’t immune to that either like everybody has that those feast and famine times in their business. So you’re basically giving them a cash advance for a discounted services in the future. So you can, even if you don’t have the skill set or the systems in place, you can negotiate that at a rate that your competitors can’t or haven’t,
for example, you could offer free personal property appraisals by partnering, having your estate sale company. Do that, and they shouldn’t charge you to do it because they’re going to have an opportunity. You’re setting them up for an a plus appointment. Right? So the biggest challenge, you know, Mr.
Mr. Seller, the, one of the biggest challenges we see most families go through early in the process is they’re not sure exactly what heirlooms are worth, if anything, and oftentimes a lot of people end up disposing of things that are another man’s treasure. So what I’d like to offer for you, I know you’re early in the process and there’s probably the seems overwhelming right now, but we find that, you know, any little any step toward progress is usually.
You know, helpful. So we reach out early and we’d like to offer you a free pro personal property appraisal, and you get your estate sale company to commit to that because they get to go have that conversation and get the auction business or buy bulk, buy everything. But that’s another example of something that’s not going to cost you a ton.
You’re spending social capital, not dollars, but they’re getting something in return. So it gets a high perceived value for your part.
Awesome. Great ideas. Thank you. Yeah. What else we got guys?

[00:10:12]Chad what’s up, man. This is Eric. How are you, buddy? Hey, good. How you doing Eric? Hey man. I don’t know. I don’t have any wins to report, today I’m three for three of disappointing turnouts one that goes 15 months back. That there’s not much, we didn’t help this family get resolved.
Come to find out last Thursday, they just listed the property for double what our offer is. So I’m not an agent strictly here to buy. Although I do have a partnership agreement with a brokerage that will take care of those services until I gave my my license in order. So met this family about 15 months ago.
The brother and sister were in major cahoots with one another. The brother led me on to believing he was the one in charge come to find out four months ago, it was the sister who was in charge, help them take care of all the contents of the property gave him an estate sale referral had a their dad was a motorcycle collector.
I probably should have called you first. But I contacted a local appraiser that sent them out there to appraise the bikes, help them get them, get sold. Kept in contact with the sister, just to let her know what’s going on with the market, let him know we got a project going on nearby. We’d like to try to make a move on it.
Communication was going great. Just before mother’s day, she kind of went cold. No, we were kind of texting back and forth every week, just went cold out of nowhere. I’m trying to figure out was there some, she has a really low rated attorney that represented the estate. So I don’t think the attorney really had a strong influence on saying, Hey, list it with this person over here.
The only thing I can think of, it was just a matter of timing on that one where an agent happened to call or text or reach out at the right time and ended up getting that listing. Now I still have my offer in with them. I’m just trying to figure out where did I go wrong?
You know, it feels good that we’re able to help them, I can’t run a charity for a living.
Yeah, no, I understand. That’s a tough one, man. So I think only she can tell you where you went wrong and I bet you’re right. Someone in brokerage with the skillset in this space probably took your deal. Okay. That’s a really good teachable moment. Why everybody on here, if you don’t have a license and you don’t want one, you better have a right-hand man that does.
So you can, you could have been having that conversation all along and it would have been an options conversation versus an acquisite just an acquisition conversation. So with a slant toward the acquisition, like we, you know, you would be talking more about that, but letting them know that if you do decide to go a different route, we’ve still got your back and they, I think they would have trusted you to do that.
Let me ask before, I assume, did you ever talk to them about brokerage and you providing that your team providing that service? I did. When I first met with the brother, I gave them all the options of what they can do to help displace the property. And when I finally converted over to talking with the sister, who’s the personal representative.
She said it over and over. I just want to sell this place and be done with it. I don’t want to have to list it. I don’t want people marching through my dad’s property. You know, looking at belongings. I just want to sell it and be done with it, sell it and be done with it. So why don’t you put a purchase agreement in front of her that day?
They have it, but she wasn’t given. She hadn’t been she hadn’t received her personal representative authority at the sign on it. They’ve had a, they’ve had a purchase agreement in their hands for the last 13 months. Now when the sister converted over, she had the same purchase agreement, just updated and revised a little bit.
So I would pay more of their tax prorations just to make it a little bit cleaner. They’ve had a purchase agreement in their hands since the very first time I met brother and sister. And did you follow up after you knew she had the letters when she had the authority? So it seems like she almost went dark on me at the point.
Cause I was following up with her every week, just keeping in close contact, anything I can do to help anything. You know, she lived about 90 minutes away. I live right around the corner. So we offered to take care of anything she didn’t want to deal with. And I followed up with her weekly and it seems like right about the time she might’ve been getting those letters of authority is when she kind of disappeared.
You got your competition, man. Okay. Okay. A realtor. Got ya. I mean, I would almost guarantee you as soon as those letters were issued, like it came, you know, it was public record. someone used the strength of the retail market and it’s pretty hard to compete with that.
Sounded like she had a super high level of motivation. But money, like money must have been more important than whatever it was creating that urgency for her.

[00:14:28]So last Thursday I woke up seeing that the property had been listed center, a texted about seven 30, you know, she’s I really just wanted to be done with it, but I told the agent about your offer.
I’ll have them reach out to you. 12 o’clock Thursday came around. I still haven’t heard from the agent, send her a text, never responded. I called her at one 30. She literally said she just woke up one 30 in the afternoon. This is your listing agent. You know, how do I even, how do I even go on the attack for somebody like that?
I’m like, man, here we are armed to the teeth and helping you guys, you know, through and through. And then you’ve got to, you’ve got an agent who’s who slides in at the last minute and is sleeping at one 30, trying to, you know, your listings fresh on the market. If somebody wanted to schedule a showing, I can’t get ahold of her.
What was your acquisition price? 80,000. What’s the list price one 19. And it’s a blade job. The house needs to be bulldozed with a new house going though it’s literally dirt value. Yes. Did they tell you how long the listing term was? 90 days
and I drafted an offer giving the agent both sides of the commission to and sent it right over there, her office. Cause I knew she wasn’t going to get on it that day. So I drafted the exact same offer that I sent over to the family, gave the agent both sides of the commission. You know, the sellers are going to get the same thing minus commissions.
At this point, you put an expiration date and the offer on the offer. I did today. Never heard back from anyone. Okay. I’m to the point now where I don’t even, I don’t even like filling in prices until I know I’m ready to get a signature. I’m really, to that point, I’m just getting shopped around so much. Is she the prince I’m guessing she’s not the principal broker.
She is not, I actually know her broker very actually her brokerage is the one that I have a partnership with to do my listings, her broker. It’s the actual broker, not the office. We’re going to get off this call at four o’clock in the business. Does your offer expire at five? It does. I would. I would call him between four and five o’clock and say, listen, man, you know, one of your agents is supposed to be acting as a fiduciary, but I haven’t heard back.
And this offer expires in an hour. Can you step in and get him involved? If she’s trying to sweep your off under the rug and you know, there’s something, there’s some details we’re missing here somewhere. Right. And I would use her broker to hold her accountable. Okay, perfect. That you’ve done everything right, man.
There’s not a suggestion that I could say you should have done this differently. Like you, I would have done exactly what you’ve done. Even up until this point like seeing the listing and putting the offer out there with the terms you had agreed to that’s exactly what I would’ve done.
Yeah. So I would just use her broker to hold her accountable. And you know, if the family, you know, they may have been expecting 10 offers and they haven’t gotten any, so they might see your name and be like, ah, crap. We should have just taken it, but I think that’s what I would do if it doesn’t work out.
If they don’t accept your offer definitely put that one on the calendar. Cause it’s likely to sit for 90 days. You can call. All you have to do is call before one o’clock and 89 and 82 days. Right. You don’t even have to get up at 6:00 AM. They call that?
Would it be wise for me to start mentioning to these families that maybe you want to exclude me from the listing agreement? So in the event, my number nets, you higher than what you might get on an offer from the market. You can just say, Hey, I’m going to, I’m going to go with this other guy here that I asked to be excluded from the listing agreement.
Yeah, that’s a great idea. Okay. And at that point I can’t contact the agent to get my sec, my backup offer there because then I’ve got a relationship with that agent regarding the property. Correct? I don’t necessarily, I mean, as long as, you don’t negotiate price and terms, you know, if you’re just talking to them, there’s not necessarily an agency relationship
okay, perfect. Perfect. You can gather some information, but when you get into price and terms and it’s at least implied. Okay, great. Awesome. What about the other two? Like where are they? Are they as surprising as this one?

[00:18:10] You know, so the other one was a is a gentleman in California. Who’s the personal representative for his nephew.
I submitted an offer to them for three 40 for a lakefront property. He really wants to do the offer, but there’s an ex-wife that still has a portion of the estate under her control. And she’s fighting it very heavily. And some she’s here in the state and the personal representative is down in Texas.
He’s not really wanting to raise much of a fuss about it. So he won’t really put me in contact with the ex-wife. She’s pretty adamant about just listing the property on the open market and they’ll get an ex-wife as a step-mom the ex-wife would be his let’s see it’s his nephew was the one.
So he is the uncle of yes. Yep. It is his nephew’s ex-wife. Who still lives in the upstairs of the home. So when they divorced 19 years ago, they never moved out. He took the downstairs, she took the upstairs, they lived totally separate entrances. And he said she is not releasing anything until that property hits the open market.
And she will even go as far as contesting the court. On the open market that property would probably sell every bit for, their asking price of four 25. We’re only at three 40, not much room for margin. And then the other one I haven’t been totally told no yet.
She gave us a net number that she really wanted, but she also wants us to take care of all the contents. There’s a barn full of literally just scrap metal that needs to be hauled out of there. I could probably have my scrappers get out of there, but there’s a lot of cleanup that has to be done. She told us she wanted to net 200 grand.
We offered her one 65, plus we would take care of all the contents. Now I do know that we’re the highest offer that she’s got so far, but I also know that she really is going to struggle to get that place cleaned out, and then she’s going to want to list it for two and a quarter. So we haven’t fully lost out on that one yet.
We are the highest paying bidder. We’re still a ways away from, you know, that when we really had to put our best foot forward and there’s not a huge margin on that one, it’s just kind of a wind to make me feel good about,
what’s your disposition strategy on it. So we’ll just rehab that property, you know, we’ll clean it out, renovate it and probably listed for around the two 75.
Mark.
No, I’m thinking of how to get her to a $300,000 net and get you a better margin. Are you opposed to selling it with owner financing and taking your money over time? Yeah, it’s not my preferred way. I’d be bringing a lender in on this one. So I’d rather just do a quick flip on it. Okay. Are you saying like doing an owner financing and keeping her included catching her out and us holding the financing when we sell?
That would be ideal. The other play could be okay. Bringing in a lender for the acquisition on this one, right? Correct. One of the few. So you’ve heard many talk about partnering with the stage. So you establish a basis value today. What’s your opinion of that as you say one 65. Yes. So if you can agree that one 65 is the basis value, you take all the financial risks.
You rolled the home into a land trust, or a fresh LLC. You’re a 50% partner gen general partner. There are 50%, 50% limited partner. You do the work you bring in the construction and the capital and your broker lists and sells it. And you split the net 50 50. So you get a free house and she gets a higher net than she would have.
Cause she gets the one 65 plus whatever gain you put into it. So it’s a way for you to do a deal, to get a free acquisition and just defeat her price. Objection. No one else is beating your offer. You’re the highest offer. So it’s going to show like, you know, listen, this there’s no way this will ever there’s one way, that’s the work and that’s all I got like it, you saw what the other guys offered, right?
So I pushed myself up to where I had a razor thin margin and what the market does. If the if the fed raises rates and the market shifts I’ve lost my assets. So here’s what I’m willing to do. And I’m willing to take additional risk if you’ll share it with me. And what I mean by that is, you know, if we can agree that the home is worth one 65, which is what I think it is, that’s I gave you my, the fairest offer.
I could, if you can meet me down there and agree on that as a base, as value, I believe it’s worth two 75. Once we do X amount and construction and we’ll split, Y will be split 50 50 between the family and me. So it’s a way for me to get what I want this home as a project. But it’s a hell of a lot of work.
But it’s a way for you to actually walk away with the family to walk away with more equity than you would, even if I gave you 200. So we don’t fork out the acquisition, we just put in the rehab. Do they get any interest on that? Or, I mean, or is that just something totally left up to B to the, I mean, primarily we don’t want to have to give them interest on that one 65 or is that something we put in there?
Oh, you’re not going to pay interest. You’re literally like, like you can use an Allen Knowles, jump in if you want. Like I’ve used land trust. You can use a Siri though, like a fresh LLC. You can address it in the opera operating agreement or your trust documents. It really just, you know, you guys hammer it out, shake hands on it and then get a savvy attorney to actually structure the deal.
And the trust is a good idea because you can make the attorney, the trustee. If you go with, if you go with the LLC route, you need to make sure you can control sale. So you need to be the general partner with decision-making power, because the last thing you want to do is clean all that shit out, rehab this house.
And then cousin Jerry comes by and he’s and then you’re stuck with cousin Jerry and a house you’ve got a hundred grand sunk into, right? So you need just make sure you can control the sale of the asset. Yeah. And I fortunately, I mean, I’ve helped put a lot of these together. Never seen one go sideways because it’s a win-win for everybody.
And how many free houses have you ever flipped? Very few. I can remember off the top of my head. Yeah. That’s your best acquisition and disposition play on this one. Do you have a copy of a land trust? I can review an operating agreement. Just Virginia. They’re all thumbprints, man. Everyone’s different. It really just, you need to sit both of you should sit down in front of an attorney, address your concerns, your fears, and your needs, and tell him to write an operating agreement accordingly.
Perfect. Now, should I wait for her counter before I give that, give her that option? Or do you think I should do it before she even should I call her now and say, Hey, I got another idea or should I wait until she comes back and says, you know, what if she does consider my offer? And then are you expecting a counter from her?
Did she say, I’m going to get back to you with my number? You know, and she said she needs another day to think about it. So I just sent, I don’t know if it would be wise to reach out and say, Hey, I got another idea. You know, maybe that’s just going to make it more. Maybe that’ll make it so complicated.
She’s gosh, I really should just consider this cash offer and get it done and out of the way. So here’s what I would do. First, call her back and say, Hey, you know, just wanted to touch base and see what you’re thinking. Gauge where she is. If you think she’s going to come down for 200 to one 65, keep your damn mouth shut.
If you’re at an impasse on price, then put this gambit on the table and say, you know, listen, like you, here’s exactly what you ask. It took me a day or so to figure it out, but I can give you exactly. We can both get exactly what we want and then don’t get off the phone unless you like, make her hang up on you.
And if you can do it in person, do it in person. Perfect. Awesome. I love it, man. Go get that one. Yes, Alan. Yeah, I think the term of art, if I caught all of that conversation was a novation agreement. I think that’s what you’re referring to, where you’re working with the the homeowner. Okay. I learned something today.
I think that’s what it’s called. And that’s part of my learning curve too, because it’s a bit of you know, the creative financing realm, which that’s one of the strategies that I’ve heard of employed in situations like this. Novation agreement.
There you go. Eric, we’ll look into that. Thank you.

[00:25:55]Hey Chad. It’s Anton. Hey, so this sounds really intriguing. What you just mentioned. It almost feels like it will be something that for me would make a lot of sense to be my go-to. Strategy right off the bat.
I mean, if you can acquire an asset for zero, my, my ROI is obviously going to be infinity. Right. And it sounds like I’m giving up a little bit on the flip, if I were to do a flip, but I mean, it’s so easy to present to a seller as, Hey, I’m definitely not going to be making as much as I would if I were to buy from you and then we have it and resell it, I’m willing to do this kind of thing.
Right. I’m trying to poke some holes in this right now and the objections on the seller side, but I can come up with anything. But, I mean, you’re gonna have a hard time poking holes in it. It’s just people don’t do it because it’s different and it’s scary, right? Like one of the first guys I ever coached in this space, he unfortunately passed away at 50 years old.
Thanks. COVID but he did this with family farms and central, he would get in the path of progress. He would find probate homes that were near major highways or employment centers. And he would take a farm, you know, that might have an ag value of 200,000 bucks. Do exactly what I just said and turn it into the $2 million subdivision.
So he was on one or two deals a year making over a million and he mainly just legitimate, I’ve got friends in the bay area that have done this, like most homes in the bay area. Like the mid-century ranches that would be half a million dollar home. You just go in partner with family, establish the basis, value, tear the house down, put it back on the market as a shovel, as a pre-construction project with plans and permitting in place.
So it’s, I mean, it’s a legitimate strategy that the family ends up making a ton more money and you share the they share the risk with you. And the one thing I will say, guys, like a caveat to this, if you’re new and you don’t have proven system for flipping homes, if you don’t practice with other people’s assets.
So if you have a system, like if you’ve done this before and you know that you’ve got, you can get in and get out on a timeline, you can get contractors, you can trust. This is absolutely something you should add as part of your strategy. If you’re, if you’ve never flipped a home and you’re doing it alone without a mentor, don’t practice on someone else’s asset first.
Because if you, if it goes sideways on you. Then you’re likely to, they’re likely to be pointing all fingers will be pointing at you and they may come at you, but the people I’m talking about it wasn’t a concern. They had experienced developing land or tearing down and building houses. So if you’ve got, you know, even if you have a mentor, I’m not saying don’t do it.
If you’re not, you know, if you haven’t flipped a hundred houses, just make sure that you have contingency plans in place. If, and when the surprises come. So the families, you know, you don’t drag them into a mess.
More of an advanced strategy, but it’s, like I said, it’s when all the time,
thank you.

I’m just getting started in this. And I went up and talked to the personal representative and he said, I, our court date is mid June, so he’s not really the personal representative yet.
I don’t know if you guys hear, I can’t hear myself. Okay. Court date, June 22nd, right? June 10th. So I bought a list. He already signed a listing agreement, but he may not even be the one I don’t, I’m kind of up in there until the letters are issued. Your listing agreements, not really valid.
So you should prepare an amendment and have him sign that on the 10th. Okay. All right. Cool. Just so you know, I mean it, right now, it shows his intent, but it’s not an it’s not enforceable. So when he gets the letters, testamentary, just to be safe, I would recommend having him sign a listing amendment with June 10th as the, at the act effective date.
Okay, cool. Thanks. W when do you go to market? Are you, is it ready to go to market? It’s not ready. He’s been slowly clearance stuff out. He’s got a church group in there, cleaning stuff out and hauling it away and trying to get it ready. And it’s still going to take a GC to get up there and get it finished.
I’ve got a date with them this weekend. Cool. How’d you find that one data mail? Was it an inbound phone call or outbound? It was inbound ILS from all the leads, pick out a letter and call me back. Cool. And this is your first one? Yes, it is. Yep. That makes sense. Awesome. I love the early success. Those are always the best man.
Create some good momentum. Yeah. I’m looking forward to that. Awesome. How many leads a month are you getting about? 30. It’s incredible. That’s all I can handle. I’m just one person. Yeah. What market are you in? I’m in Texas. I’m in north, Texas, north of Dallas. Okay. Congrats. That’s awesome. I like to hear those early wins.
You hear that day from now. Okay. I don’t think I’m going to be any competition for David he’s a long way from me. I’ve been tempted to go down and just hang out with him a little bit though, just to kind of get some pointers. But yeah, he seems like a really nice guy. That’d be awesome. All right.
Good. Dan, let us know on that one. How that one goes. That’s a good thing about the Nova agreement. I didn’t know the name of that, but I’ve done quite a few of those deals without any written agreement. No, I know a lot of people who have, and I’m like, what happens if they move in? Oh shit. That’s when the Marine comes out.
Yeah, the Marine and the Texan. Hell, I got to go put my boots on. All right. Who else has anything? Anything you want to cover? Any questions guys?
Justin. Do you have your hand up? Sorry. Yes, sir. That’s all right.

[00:31:16]On that deal I’m trying to look for ways to secure my entry as if I were the investor to secure my interest a little tighter. And so one, one way would be to ha if you have the innovation agreement, should Eric put successive liens on the property as he is rehabbing it so that even if things do go sideways, he can recover it.
Worst case scenario, he’ll be able to recover as we have costs. What I’m proposing is he transferred title and to an entity that he holds 50% of whether that be a trust or an LLC. So he would be placing a lien on his own property, which wouldn’t really serve him. Right. Got it. Okay. Right. Okay. All right.
And then the second potential spin on this is if he were to try to maybe buy a hundred percent of it, could he also pay her the one 65. For a hundred percent ownership, then extend a note for half the profits when he sells it. That’s actually a really good suggestion. Yeah. That would work. So it would be the same result.
Right? He would just be taking on more risks. And what I was trying to do was really sweeten the pot for him since he knowingly overpaying for the asset. Okay. But as a third, as a contingency to the contingency plan that would be a way to keep yourself in the deal, okay. Okay. And I’ve thought about, this is the last thing.
I can’t imagine that I can’t believe I’m making, I’m going to say this, but you know, I’ll cut you in on the back end anyway. And here’s the, here’s your protection to make sure that, you know, you have, you’re entitled to it. I liked the way that this is Eric. I liked the way that, that sounds better, but I.
W what do you initially propose first Chad, where I wouldn’t have to put up the money costs the acquisition price that is surely appealing. That definitely makes it a lot more intriguing to me, but I do like his proposal. I’m just giving her a note for any kind of balance. It could be very easily explained.
Yeah. But if you’re paying hard money rates, this probably isn’t the deal for that, right? If you’re working with your own capital, that’s probably, that would be the number one, the, you know, the primary offer, I’m assuming we’re paying 8%. So it’s not that bad. No points that 8% you got to golden tongue.
Eric started here. We’ve paid plenty of high interest rates to this guys. So it’s it’s nice to get some reciprocity. Yeah. That’s great. How many private lenders do you work with? So we have four that we’ve used pretty we’ve used the same four guys. Actually, a lot of these people started out as buyers of ours agents and buyers.
Only one person was a complete, like just a peer lender. No other business interests at all. But our two best lenders that we have right now started off as buyers. And then we just kind of stopped wholesaling properties, ideally. And you know, they’re like, we just want to try to find a way to make some money with the money that we have.
So why don’t we just start lending it to you guys? So they’ve been around for a long time. That’s awesome, man. My money doesn’t lend off that cheaply. That’s pretty great.
David, are you using private lenders or do you just use your own capital all the time? Yeah, just, we got away from doing well. I’ll still use a hard money lender, but I’ve been wholesale and mainly everything cause it’s this market is just the same for investors here. So it’s the assignment fees are really nice right now.
Yeah. Barely find re I can barely find rehab fees, let alone wholesale fees. Yeah. I mean, that’s the beauty of probate is to prospect these people. I don’t know. Everybody’s success is different, but I’m still buying things really cheap. So yeah. I mean, I have the same issues everyone else does, but it’s just having more opportunities to go on appointments.
I wonder if I should start playing in markets that aren’t you know, I like to renovate and I’d like to play in areas where I feel really inspired, but I’ve made a lot of money in war zones and borderline war zones and places that are just uninspiring. You go down and you’re like, gosh, this area just sucks.
It’s so draining people are so backstabbing down here. But I’ve made a lot of money in lower end real estate. I just hate playing there. That’s all I make more money and more assignment fees on those areas that I could buy a house for 30, 40 grand, and then sell it for 75. It’s not where your planet is that where your planet largely it’s kind of in that lower end spectrum.
I used to not call the people with the lower price ranges. I sold one house and I was like, holy shit. I bought it. I bought it for a $28,000 and sold it for 56. Oh yeah. I have plenty of those. So it’s there’s plenty of room for an investor to sell for one 50. It’s crazy for a 13, sold it for 58. And the buyer walked away from the closing table with another, I think he had 28.
He had the title and 28,000 and that brought it to an 85 LTV. There’s so much room and a lot of these. David, I’m going to connect with you outside of the group, if that’s okay. I’d like to I think I might have to make the decision to get back into some lower end, which I’ve really been avoiding.
Yeah. We just spoke it when I see a lower end on certain zip code. You know, those just stay on the list of high park. Okay. Yeah. I need to get back into that. My missing link. They’re not, they’re usually the nicest air’s deal with. They just want, they want something out of something and they know they’re not going to make a million bucks and it’s so easy helping them out.
Yep. And a lot of times they’ll be ready to go. Like the second that you connect with them and lay out a plan. They’re like, all right, let’s just do it. Like it’s not let’s wait two or three months and get the church to come in here and clean this out and do that. It’s they go that’s right. More I’m back in the low end territory.
Yep. That’s where probably the most success I’ve had is below a hundred thousand dollar purchase agreements. I can agree. I couldn’t agree. I band was, that was pretty much, my band was 50 to one 50, where were the certainly the easiest deals to get. And they were easy to work, very low maintenance very grateful clients and customers about that is when you go into one neighborhood and go on an appointment, there’s another 50 houses that are distressed.
Oh man. So you can put it into deal machine or these prospecting machines and just call them for cash opportunities. It’s nuts, man. I’ve added properties to my deal machine and that’s just another list to call on. Absolutely. Yeah, it seems like every house on the street needs to be tagged and called.
I’ll be more than happy to call him. Yeah. One of my friends in Austin bought a whole block. That way literally bought a block. I don’t remember. I don’t know. He bought, I think it was 40, like 44 houses, all contiguous and he was retailed them out one at a time. I love that.
So now we’re making progress guys.
Yeah, mostly we’ll do they, I mean, forever. I was building up my website to be a million dollar listing agent and I was going on that trajectory since 2010 to, until probate took over and now I’m in my shorts and a t-shirt hanging out with my, I got two appointments today, later this evening, you know, it’s just, it’s incredibly switched of opportunity.
It’s just crazy. So I had, when I first came out of, you know, I moved from malleolus. My median was like 1.35 when I left them there, double that now. But I have this, you know, always had really super high end marketing collateral and nice websites and always driving the price up. So I kind of brought that into the residential with me, like that standard.
I’m like, oh, I need to be a luxury agent. I’m only going to do luxury or commercial, but it represented such a small section of the market that I moved into. I was just spinning my wheels. And when I really started to have fun and started to make good money, I found myself in workforce housing. It wasn’t necessarily as an investor, like on, on the buy and hold end of the spectrum in that strategy, it was the rougher neighborhoods where you get the 18 to 24 cap, you know, whole buy and hold.
But for flips, I tried to, I did a deep analysis on the market. And I actually found that 80% of the volume was in that price band. And so that ended up, it was my vision of what my residential career was going to be ended up being way different or the reality ended up being way different because over 80% of the opportunity was in that band of workforce housing.
And that’s where it’s at. And I hope that the 10 31 exchange doesn’t get I hope it comes off the chopping block because if it doesn’t every hedge fund in America is going to be coming for those workforce housing deals. Because they can’t make gains over half a million and play any of them that are playing for 10 31 game.
A lot of them are, you’re going to see a lot of investors move down to those lower priced assets from multifamily down in the single family, because they can’t play the tax game anymore. What potentially. But right now I still think it’s one of the safest asset classes, all asset classes and in America is workforce single family homes is a great place to, to specialize.
It might not be sexy, but it’s lucrative. It’s hell and easy. Yes.
Yeah. I mean, it’s been wonderful. It’s and we have a lot in our market in Dallas Fort worth there’s I mean, majority of the houses were built from 1960 to 2000, now they’re really building outside the loop, but, and that’s a, most of these houses are within a five to six mile driving radius from where I live.
So it’s not like those poor guys in Phoenix and I have to drive seven hours to get to the other side of town. Oh wow. Yeah. Maricopa county is like massive. And some of our folks there, I mean, they’re literally four hours from an point, but most folks will kind of just refer that one out. But
So what’s the future. Moving forward with your groups I’m going to show up on a riverbank somewhere in Michigan next week.
Talk about Walla fishing. So I have, I actually made it, made a choice to kind of come home and just be with family for a bit. I have aging grandparents that aren’t going well, and I quite honestly, I’ve just taken a bit of a break. But it’s interesting. I guess we’ve had these conversations. They really deviated from the conversations we used to have over at all the leads. Just what we’ve discussed on this call today. It’s a lot more fun, like whether the more creative things the higher profit things, and I’m really focused on getting clear on, on what that is.
I mean, I would ultimately like to give you guys the systems and the training so that this isn’t just a five minute conversation. It’s the how to, for anybody on here, that’s what are they even talking about? And I’m also talking to some other gentlemen who we may be doing some course collaborations.
So like Chris Prefontaine, who does, I’ve been sending you guys to him for creative financing knowledge. We’re you doing some stuff together and potentially. Maybe doing classes together. So I’m trying to sort out the, we focused on this and all the you know, death, divorce, downsizing and you know, the one I’m missing there, but likedistressed do we have a general conversation on that and I’ll show you how to get those leads for free or hardly almost free.
Or do we stick with, you know, with just the probate conversation and the quality of people is what I’m really focused on here. So quite honestly, whenever you guys need I’ll build so that if you want to offer feedback you know, the beauty of this is we’ve got a really good group and a really good culture and a broad diversity of skills and expertise here.
So I thought I was moving, going toward estate mastery and had it all laid out as a 24 hour master class. But it was all really specific you know, on, on the probate stuff. And I just feel like now, maybe we needs to be a little bigger conversation.
Yeah, I agree. I’m open to it. I mean, I could get on the Thursday, all the leads call and this should be complete cause everybody else is on there too. So talking about the lower end stuff, you know, I mean, we all make the mistake of thinking those are where the money’s at and it’s really in the rehab businesses, you know, the smaller, the deal, the more profit normally it’s faster.
So what’s your market, median data.
What’s your average acquisition price below a hundred. I usually it’s between that one 75 to 180 range. And they’re reselling them for two 50, a 300,000. I just bought one in Hearst. For one 60 and they’ll sell it for 300. So there’s plenty of room for investor. How big is your buyer’s list? Now? I just, I keep it real minimal might have 42 people, 50, 52 people, but you trust them all.
I’ve met them all at a coffee shop or somewhere, or had long conversations with them and qualify them. I don’t want people taking my deals for me or telling me they’re going to buy something and not buy it. So I do keep it small. And I know a lot of people will say, get the biggest list you can. But I disagree with that.
Like I, I mean, mine, I had 138, but that it was curated in the same way, years ago, by looking at them in the eye, right. I have 14 that are buy and holds and they get priority. They get the house 24 hours before everybody else. I’m sure. Cause they’ll pay a 20 or 30% premium over your flips guys. The 92% ARV and I’m buying them at.
60 and below.

[00:43:47]So right now I have $78,000 in assignment fees and escrow, you know, it’s amazing. Great, man. So I want to hear anybody on here inspired by this, but you’re scared to death to step into that space and buy a house. That’s a good question, Dana. Let’s unpack that, like you got we were all scared shitless the first time we did it, but then it’s oh my God, that’s a twenty-five thousand dollar check.
Nope. I want to do it. And I have threatened. What I have not had is I haven’t had anybody to bounce it off of. And now I do not know plum excited, but let me tell you how much risk you have and trying it
amazing. Or you have contingencies on your offer. And you know what I would say that to raise your confidence level, go build your buyers list first, go get that first relationship with a landlord that you can really trust. You know, he’s in acquisition mode, he’s looking to buy and then you’ll have confidence when you look a seller in the eye and you’re like, listen, you know, I can pay, you can sell this home right now and close in a week for now.
You’re going to sign it as you know, my LLC and or assigns. And you’ll call the seller back and say, you know, listen we came up with a capital shortage or I’m bringing a partner on the, on this one. We’re going to assign the contract to ABC, LLC for my LLC. And it’s a smooth transition. I’ve never lost a deal on an assignment.
Have you David? Nope. If you’re just transparent with the sellers and you’re honest and be like, Hey, listen, you know, I take advantage of every opportunity I find, but I bit off more than I can chew. I’m going to let this one go to my partner. Nothing changes for you. Bottom line will be the exact same at the closing table.
Are you okay with that? All right. Perfect. I’ll have the attorney contact. You call the closing attorney and say, okay, I spoke to the seller. You take it from here. And I’ve never, ever lost one. And I’ve had, you know, $50,000 gains and they don’t care. Say if you know, they get, they got what they want, but you can always double close it to if you’re making an absurd amount and you don’t have a good relationship with the buyer, you can double close or you’re going to patients, you know, higher fees, but you really don’t have any real risks to get into the space.
That’s one of the highest profit, lowest risk ventures you could ever do. Dana, are you a real estate agent to Keller Williams and McKinney? That’s perfect, man. You have an LLC set up Dana? I do. Okay. And is it, does it hold assets or is it, you just have it there to be ready? It’s there and ready to fill.
Okay. There’s nothing in there. Yeah. Dave, I want to get down and see you sometime, but I really feel like I need a little bit more. Experience. So I can kind of know more about what I’m talking about before I come in there. And you know, I’ll, I won’t even know the right questions to ask. Yeah.
I’ve just always been the guy that jumps in and then ask questions. So I jumped in, I mean, I listened to all the leads calls forever before I bought the leads. But after that, it’s just, I just jumped in and wished for the best. And you know, it’s just, now, it’s now it’s 90% of my business. Wow. I love it. I bought 30 real estate yard signs and I think I have 20, 25 of them still in the box.
I don’t use them anymore. I’m down to four supra boxes. I just don’t use them anymore. It’s crazy. probate stuff. Wholesaling just changed everything, man. Yeah, I’m up in Grayson county. So I’m way up there by Oklahoma. That’s the county I bought. And so that’s where I’m really working.
But it’s it’s been really neat and I’ve, you know, I made it because zillion phone calls and I’ve talked to a lot of people, but I really didn’t have the scripts down until the probate mastery came out. I really didn’t know what to say. My whole demeanor has changed because of what I’ve learned.
And you’re the, how far are you from LA, Oklahoma? I have no idea. I don’t know if I’ve ever even been to Lawton, Oklahoma. Closest thing is a casino up in I don’t even know which one it is, but I don’t think I’m very close to Lawton. I think it’s like due north of Plano, like an hour and a half.
Right. Aren’t you northbound? I guess I’m close to him because I’m about probably 45 minutes. Not 40, probably 30 minutes north of Plano. So the reason I ask, so Jay Kender friend of mine, he’s an exp guy now, but he cut his teeth in the lot in Oklahoma. And when I first met him, like that market was so similar to mine.
Jay was done. He’s done as much as 600 deals a year. And that, that, and it’s one of those bread and butter workforce housing markets. So if you’re looking to, you know, to expand, I was thinking that’s. It’s gotta be fairly close to you, even if you found the partner on the ground up there.
I’m on Joe. When I first met Jay, I was in mastermind like probably 2014, 2015. I think his market median there was 116,000 bucks. So it’s, that’s what made me think of it. It’s that sweet spot like that workforce housing band is basically that whole market. So if you do get into acquisition, look that up and that, that could be your next step, you know, to move into a bigger, it’s not going to call it a Metro, but a bigger town.
Okay, cool. I appreciate the heads up guys.

[00:48:45] But if you’re like this guy at the bottom, Rodger Lecy you can take 30 leads in terms of the five deals a month. He’s in one of those markets. Yeah. I love that. That’s amazing. You’ve got to get a pair of you. You’ve got to be swab. They like him. Roger. You’re wearing a colored shirt today.
You look nice. I had radio show today and we had a Washington county judge on and it turned out to be a great visit. And then And then I did a a telecast on Bella Vista T TV a couple of weeks. It was last week and they did a a YouTube video on it and they said, it’s all messed up.
We’re going to have to reshoot it. And it was a, basically an introduction into a retirement community about about probate trusts and stuff like that. I don’t know how to S I just got the link in, on what I did on that show. And now tell us how you tell us how you got that set up. Did you go looking for that, or did someone come to you because of your reputation?
My reputation. And as a matter of fact, I got another one from my reputation from some, one of my past probate clients that is. He gave a rookie agent started doing it and it’s all screwed up. I mean, we got the title back title back on it and all kinds of judgments and liens and stuff like that.
And there hadn’t been any probate filed at all. And so my investors said, Roger, I’m going to pay you $5,000. If you can take this to closing. And I said, okay, man, you know, so it’s a consultant fee for it too. UN unravel, I have another word to, to unfuck it well. And so I’m in the middle of doing that one and but my reputation’s getting out there.
And one of the, one of my clients asked me to do a 15 minute video for Bellavista TV. And I went up there last week and we shot it and I think the lighting’s bad and some other things that we need to redo it. And after I looked at it, I went I got the content. I need to smooth it down.
And make it a little more presentable. Yeah, just drop it in the chat and everyone that’s here can get it right now.
And then Kat will grab that. But at the show notes. So anyone else who wants to see it can come there? So you’re now testifying and courtrooms got a radio you’re on a radio show. You’re on TV. What’s next for you, Roger?
I don’t know. I’ve got a couple of opportunities coming at me and they’re flying at me and I’ve done some commercial stuff in and like in a, I’ve got a business broker that wants to pull me into his stuff. And I said, look, I spent seven years getting my probate stuff going. And he said, I love probate.
And and I sit there and I went, ah, it’s a good opportunity for the group as a whole. And by the way I think of within. Within the context of real estate agents making it purchase. I think I’ve got 90% let me make it about a 75% answer for real estate agents on buying or real estate agencies buying within the state of Arkansas and what what I’m doing right now.
If I find an investor who is interested and it could be, if I find somebody that I’m partnered with in another brokerage, I’m with a Weichert brokerage, and they’re pretty regimented. In a, in their approach and everything and going out going out, doing stuff like probate, just almost unheard of for those guys.
And cause they’re busy finding a building sphere of influence and I’ve built quite as fear of influence with within my business since 2008. And but the The the solution that I think I’ve found is get the get the probate on a permission to show if it’s a short if it’s a smallest state, if it’s a smallest state satisfy the court with the BPO and get another agent to augment our or verify what we’re doing and on the permission to show, to make the seller a lot more receptive to to selling it in this way is I’ll tell you what permission to show is normally a 3% commission.
This is what I’ll do. I’ll ask the investor to pay one and a half percent commission and you pay one and a half percent commission. It gives more net to the to the The state and and all of a sudden I’ve had two people look at me, go, I’m only going okay, one and a half. Do you know how many, how much air to some people we’re asking for 10, some people are asking for four, a six.
And I said, yes, I know, but I’ve got an investor who’s really to do this before it gets on the market. And then I’ve got to navigate the navigate the process with court. And the court doesn’t mind as long as they’re getting what they, more net than what they would have normally gotten. And I give them tell the investors, I’ll do it for you at this point, but you’re going to have to give me the back end of it.
When it comes out of the flip, I’m going to get to sell the flip. And there’s a good chance that I can get both sides of that because I’ll have an advance marketing word of mouth marketing with my other buyers and the likes. So it’s just another way of keeping it within the agency, satisfying the broker’s okay with it, but I think I’m sitting there going, what would I do with a, if I had a, if I had an investor in an, a business brokerage behind me doing that, I can probably do that. And Dana, as you progress under this guy’s wanting to watch for you. I called him out for a reason. You know, you guys are in similar markets, even, you know, in Arkansas, you’re in north Texas, but it’s I think probably similar price points, somewhere markets, similar lead counts.
And you hear what he’s doing now. So with just a few years of focused effort, he’s, you know, and Roger you’re paid when you testify in court, right? As a, as an expert. So he’s a paid expert. He gets the divorce listings just because the probate attorneys trust him and his expertise so much. He’s invited to radio shows.
He’s invited to do TV spots, and that’s what can happen in small town. America. You know, it’s because you’re not in LA or Phoenix or somewhere else doesn’t mean you can’t make a damn good living assess with very little competition. Roger is somebody that’s in a very similar market to you. And if you feel like you’re behind the eight ball, this guy wouldn’t even pick up the damn phone.
The first time we talked, he was not a prospector. He said, oh, I don’t do prospecting. But he has, it’s really been fun to watch him grow and the amount of pride he’s picked up on. And so he’s somebody that you should connect with. I actually interviewed him before I started with all the leads oh, is that right?
Did I lie? He did not. Yeah, it’s been good. Yeah. He landed a deal on his first campaign. That’s amazing. But glad to see your face. Dana, give me a shout. Anytime you still got my phone number. I hope you bet. I do. Thank you. If I can help you any way, don’t hesitate to give me a shout all well, thank you. Nice.
All right.
I will say this guys, anyone I know most of you guys have been through the course anyone that, you know, that might be interested in this space, obviously, probably out of your market. We did make the decision at Katt’s suggestion to actually open up session one. So kind of the understanding of demographics and the motivation, like the pain points and the motivation of the personal representative.
So if there’s anybody that you’ve thought about, maybe mentoring into the space, like to add to your team, or if there’s anyone in other markets that you think could benefit that might even might not know about probate, but want to, they can actually get a couple of hours. Like what most courses charged for is pretty much covered in session one.
So if there’s anyone you can think of you can send them they’re able to sign up for a free preview on probate mastery.com. Maybe you guys are adding team members or ISA or anyone that might want to get certified, but.
Yeah, I get a taste of probate first. And so anyways, if anyone, if you know anyone anyone in your brokerage or anyone in your F your masterminds or Facebook communities, that’s something we’re trying out just to see make sure we want to make sure that we get the right quality of people. Not the discount crowd, because these are refreshing high level conversations.
We’re having a lot of fun with them all right. That’s all I have for today, guys. I’m going to jump, thank you guys for being here and we will see you next Tuesday. Same place, same time. Have a great day. .