Flipping Real Estate
Many Real Estate investors like the idea of flipping real estate. This is where you purchase a property and before you close or within a short period of time after the close you resell for a higher price and reap the difference. Flipping Real Estate has been around for ages but what has been widely known in the investment circles is how to do this with probates.
The average investor and most agents look for N.O.D (Notice of Defaults), Trustee Sales, Divorces, fixer’s properties or some kind of distress situation where a seller would be inclined to sell for less that retail. This has been done for ages and I have done this throughout my 33 years in real estate. A niche which has been overlooked in Flipping Real Estate is the Probate or Estates home arena. I have been locating, buying and reselling probates for 20yrs and I’m considered one of the top Agent/Investors in the Country at what I do. There are so much untapped profits in Flipping Probate Real Estate that I’m amazed there is not more competition.
Flipping Real Estate did not take off for me until I researched and worked out a system to do this with Probate/Estate homes. I average in the old days (early to late 90’s, $25K-40K on our flips and in the current market we won’t touch one for less than a $40K profit. We purchase with a down payment (10-25%) depending on the deal and the investor and sometimes we even use hard money loans where we place nothing down, have the Estate carry back 30% for up to 180 days, and close with only a few thousand out of pocket. Even probate buy/sell is different plus we have to factor in the market conditions when deciding on our exit strategy. The point here is it has been an untapped market for the last 20 yrs.
I’m now semi-retired and not pursuing the 5 levels of probate opportunity I developed over the years. I was asked back in the early 90’s from my attorney at the time (John Beck) who was reviewing my offers as I was developing the probate system, to come and speak to his investment group about what I was doing. I agreed and the response was unbelievable. Flipping Real Estate in the Probate arena seemed to be a hit with the investment group so my attorney suggested I write a book on what I do. This resulted in the Diamond Farming manual on my Probate Flipping Real Estate system and students from all over the Country.
I will admit there is more interested in Probates then there was 10 yrs ago and many more so called “Guru’s” are offering their probate system which has made more investors, buyers and agents awarded of the potential of Flipping Real Estate which is in probate but bottom line, most still don’t know what they’re doing. It’s now easier to find the probate files and make a contact with the executor but what I have found is once a contact is made, most probate interested investors don’t understand how to work around the attorney, receive their targeted price, and bring the escrow to a successful close. This took many years for me to perfect but if you have general real estate savvy, a good work ethic and understand that the harder it is the more opportunity than give take a hard look at flipping real estate in probate as the profits are amazing.
With the downturn in the real estate market, and subprime fiasco, you have to be very careful in flipping real estate and in my case probates as the price you pay may be less than the property is worth when you close. Those in the know understand the current market we are in, we descending prices, short sales everywhere because of the subprime problem, that this is the time to buy. Seller have come off their high horse on pricing and understand or are starting to understand that if they need to sell they better price the home right. Executors are the same people and they are starting to also understand when an offer comes they might want give it a hard look. 20-25% discounts are around again and the smart investors are buying everything than can. Yes maybe not to flip right away but to hold till the market bottoms and heads back up as it always does. If you’re flipping real estate in today’s market, check out probates...
Probate Information
"A new law in 1987 changed everything and is the basis of my system. I teach "5 Levels" of income opportunity for investors and or agents to buy and sell probate real estate. This system is what I do every week and most investors or agents do not have a clue how this works."
