Its pretty easy to find contractors to give you estimates these days because they aren’t very busy and they need work $$$.

First, you need to go and look in the places these guys would advertise to get new clients.

The obvious places are:

The yellow pages

The Newspaper

Your Free Weekly newspaper (Pennysaver, Thrifty Nickel, The Flyer, etc)

The not so obvious place to look is Craiglist.org

Go to Craiglslist and click on

Your State

And

Your City

Then click on Services

Here is an example of where this page is in my area.

http://tampa.craigslist.org/bbb/

(this is also a great place to find people to help you with your deals ie: House cleaners, painters, handymen, sign hangers for your for sale signs, etc)

You will see many services here and you’ll find contractors advertising for new clients.

You are their next New Client.

Pick a few ads you like and call them to setup an appointment to give you an estimate.

Make sure you tell them you want to update the house to make it look like it’s in “like new” condition. Tell them to find anything they can that’s wrong with the house and make a big deal out of it.

There are 2 ways to handle paying a contractor for the estimate.

Option A

You can be cheap and try to get the estimate for free pretending that you are actually going to use them to do that work. (you are not). This will result in a very short relationship and you will be looking for a new contractor soon.

A Contractor is not going to continue to give you free estimates without ever be awarding any of the jobs.

Option B

Or you can establish a long term relationship with the Contractor, tell them exactly why you need the estimate and that you want it to come in on the high side and Negotiate a flat fee for providing the estimate every time you need one. This will make your life so much easier by having a contractor on your team you can rely on to get these done for you when you need them done quickly.

I recommend you go with Option B

The licensed contractor estimate is a critical part of your short sale package and your BPO package.

Just get it done and you will be happen with the results of your short sales.

Committed to Your Extreme Success,

D.C. Fawcett

The Business Building Coach to the Foreclosure Industry

Leave your comments Below:

Are you using social networking sites like myspace, facebook, and linkin for your real estate investing business? If you’re not, you should be.

Well, there’s a whole group of social networking sites specifically for real estate that can give you some great information and you can connect with local professionals for your dream team. you can easily find, appraisers, mortgage brokers, attorneys, title companies, Realtors, all at the click of your mouse.

These sites offer you a great way FOR FREE to get leads for short sales, leads for workout clients, leads to sell your properties and network with other in investors. You can get your own webpage on these sites for free.

Here are the sites you should be on and while I’m at it, I’m going to give you the direct link to my page on these sites so you can connect to me.

RealEstateInvestor.com Real Estate Network

ActiveRain Real Estate Network

FaceBook General Social Networking

WannaNetwork Online Real Estate Community

Lemme think, any more? that should be good for now.

Talk Soon

D.C.

Did you hear the news? Bush Refused to bailout lenders after he met with the US Treasury Secretary last week.

If Bush aint’ gonna do it, We have to bail out thes borrowers. The society needs you. your neighborhood needs you. Did you know that these’s at least one foreclosure for every 200 houses in our nation. With declining prices, Short sales are the best option for homeowners and investors that are facing foreclosure right now. Here’s the story that was published on Friday. 

continue reading "Bush Refuses to Bail out Lenders"

In today’s mortgage and real estate environment, people are looking for a scapegoat to blame for the Subprime Mortgage Crisis. Some believe it’s the lenders fault for offering aggressive mortgage products to homeowners.

The truth of the matter is: Its not the lenders fault. 

Homeowners and Home buyers need to take responsibility for their actions.

It’s not the lenders fault that the homebuyers didn’t make their mortgage payments.

It’s not the government role or responsibility to bail out these homeowners.

In this time of the market you need to be focusing on no Risk Strategies for your real estate investing business.

Several of these strategies are:

Options

An option controls a home and gives you an equitable interest in the home giving you the right to sell the home for any price you want creating as much profit as you want.

However it does not obligate you to buy the home so there is no risk. An option agreement can be secured with a $10 or $100 deposit.  This is No Risk Deal because you have no money invested and it doesn’t require the use of your credit. These work on all types of properties, single family, commercial, land , large, small, Ugly, Pretty, low end and high end luxury.

Short Sales

Short Sales are a strategy that only applies to homes that are in foreclosure, behind on payments or about to behind on payments. Short Sales Work Awesome in this market because there are so many of them out there right now. They’re very easy to find right now and you have nothing at risk. All Short Sales are no money down and do not require the use of your credit.

Performance Subject-To/Lease Options

 This is a deal where you offer to help a homeowner sell their home for them by taking over their mortgage payments only if you can find a lease option buyer for the home. One thing you do not want to promise to a “Subject-to” seller is that you will guarantee to make their payments on a home when you don’t know you can sell it on a lease option.

Guaranteeing to make someone’s payments and then not doing what you promised will make an unethical investor that doesn’t operate with integrity. Sometimes this is beyond your control because you don’t have the cash flow to make the payments. If you don’t promise to make their payments in the first place, you can’t get in trouble. Make sure you get this in writing because sellers always only hear what they want to hear.

What Not to do:

You should not be using your credit to buy houses on marginal deals. You should only use your credit if you have to or if the deal is grand slam deal or a commercial deal. Never put any money down on a “subject-to deal” unless you know you’ve got it sold.  

Remember You have nothing at Risk if you:

Don’t use your own credit to buy houses,

Don’t write any checks to acquire homes,

Don’t make guarantees to sellers you can’t support
I’m sure these tips will help you sleep better at night

I will be teaching a section on no risk strategies to use for today’s market at my seminar on May 8th in Tampa. Seats are filling up Fast.

To Register before they’re all gone, go to: 

Register For My Tampa Seminar Here

It’s Still Free until seats are all reserved…

Who’s Fault do you think the Foreclosure Crisis is: 

Lender or Homeowner?

Submit your Answer Below.

Here is Some good news for Short Sale Investors. The Government is getting more flexible on accepting short sale offers.

D.C.

Fannie Mae plans to roll out a new program in the next few months to encourage short sales of delinquent borrowers’ homes, a move that shows mortgage investors may be willing to make further concessions as housing prices fall and the inventory of foreclosed properties continues to grow.

As the holder of credit risk, Fannie take losses on homes that sell for less than what is owed on the mortgage, but generally the loss is not as big as it would be if the home went into foreclosure.

Many loan servicers and some brokers of “real estate owned” — properties that have been repossessed by a lender — say the number of short sales has increased significantly in the past few months, largely because more foreclosed homes have flooded the market.

Jason Allnut, a vice president for credit loss management in Fannie’s Dallas office, said the government-sponsored enterprise is looking at ways to persuade servicers and REO brokers to do short sales while streamlining the process. “We want to incentivize the borrower with a program of preapproved short sales,” Mr. Allnut said Monday at a conference in Indian Wells, Calif., sponsored by REOMAC, a trade group. That statement drew applause from the audience of about 1,700 default servicing professionals.

Many REO brokers complained that servicers typically cut the broker commissions on short sales, compared with a 4% to 5% fee on foreclosure sales. But Mr. Allnut said: “Fannie is telling servicers not to cut broker commissions.”

Kevin Kanouff, the president of the fixed-income services unit of Clayton Holdings Inc., a Shelton, Conn., due diligence, surveillance, and loan servicing company, said short sales used to be an “afterthought” for banks but are increasingly seen as a practical alternative to foreclosure.

Clayton has noticed “a significant increase in the number of short-sale liquidations in the past year” by clients, because servicers are getting more borrower requests to effect such sales, he said. Second liens that have negative equity positions are typically getting $1,000 to $3,000 from short sales after the senior liens are paid off, he said.

Servicers must reconcile the discrepancy between the original appraised value of a home and the updated “interior” value to determine the short-sale price, Mr. Kanouff said. “You calculate what you think you would lose on the sale price and what you would lose on a foreclosure, and weigh that against what a borrower can get refinanced at,” he said.

Mr. Tene said his company is seeing a 20% to 30% increase in the number of borrowers who want to sell their homes in a short sale. He found that banks are penalizing borrowers who may be current on their mortgage but want a short sale and can prove some form of hardship. One-third of I Short Sale’s 1,800 short-sale requests are from borrowers who have never stopped making their mortgage payments, Mr. Tene said.

A nationwide survey of real estate agents conducted last month by Campbell Communications Inc. of Washington found that 20% of all completed home sales in the fourth quarter were short sales or preforeclosure sales. The survey, which was published this month in the newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance, found that about two-thirds of pre-foreclosure and short sales are initiated by homeowners, the rest by servicers. In all, the real estate agents surveyed said about one-third of borrowers signed short and pre-foreclosure sale deals that fell through; the most common reasons were home inspections and property damage, a refusal by sellers to sign “deficiency notes,” and sellers’ inability to pay closing costs.

In February, Freddie Mac expanded a short-sale program to include more loans with a higher likelihood of loss, said Brad German, a spokesman for the GSE. The program lets servicers submit short sales with few documents from the borrower. Late last year, Freddie authorized its Tier One servicers — those that have shown “superior performance” — to accept short sales at bigger discounts and to pay out more to junior lien holders, Mr. German said. As a result of these changes, short-sale approvals nearly doubled last quarter from the previous quarter, and closings of such sales increased by more than half, he said.

Originally published in American Banker.

This article shows a luxury home once owned as a single family residence. In my training, I show how luxury homes are easier to short sale and generate 10x the profit of little homes with the same amount of work and no requirement for cash down or use of your credit.

You should be consistently seeking out luxury homes to acquire in your foreclosure business.

D.C. Fawcett
Get a FREE Foreclosure Investing Course

The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Classic Home, Is Fighting Foreclosure

Posted Mar 26th 2008 7:01AM by Deidre Woollard

I’ve seen a few famous foreclosures in the last couple of months but none makes me sadder than this. The organization that owns author Edith Wharton’s Lenox, Massachusetts estate, “The Mount” is fighting foreclosure. The Boston Herald reports that they recently received a one-month extension to raise the $3 million needed to save the home. So far the group has raised $560,463 from donors around the world but they have to raise $3 million by April 24 to avoid foreclosure by the Berkshire Bank in Pittsfield. The good news is that an anonymous donor has pledged to match the $3 million which would allow the group to restructure its debt. The foundation website reports that donations will be processed only if The Mount meets its fundraising goal, otherwise they will destroy all checks and credit card slips.

Wharton, the author of Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, designed and built the house in 1902. She wrote over 40 books in 40 years, including authoritative works on architecture and gardens and was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Mount is one of the five percent of National Historic Landmarks dedicated to women. It only gets around 30,000 visitors a year but is a lovely and significant reminder of a more gracious era.

Here is another Benefit for Homeowners to do a short Sale with Investors. This act benefits homeowners because lenders cannot try and collect the deficiency whatsoever.

D.C. Fawcett