When I Call Other Agents And Make Zero Down Offers, They Laugh At Me

Read Transcript for “When I Call Other Agents And Make Zero Down Offers, They Laugh At Me”

“Dear Joe, I bought the ‘Push Button Method’ and decided to make a zero down offer to a seller who had their house listed with Re/Max. When I faxed it over, the agent wrote ‘Rejected’ across it and faxed it back to me. He didn’t even call. What did I do wrong?” – Esther, West Virginia

Joe: Well, Esther, you need to go back and listen to the audios again, because you’re not making offers to people in the MLS. What you’re going to be doing is sending out emails to generate interest to get different types of leads, e.g. FSBO’s, expired’s, for rent people, to call you, and when they call you, they’re calling you because they want to do it the way we’re suggesting it. And when we’re buying it, we’re buying it on terms – just like you’re doing, but since they’re coming to us, we don’t even write an offer.
 
Joe: This is something that we do different than realtors. Realtors know that an offer isn’t good unless it’s in writing. It’s not an advantage to a realtor to go out and make a verbal offer to another realtor because they want to make sure their client is ready to go and that it’s a serious offer and that everything’s happening; with realtors, they don’t even make offers unless it’s done in writing. Well, we don’t even make offers except verbally, and once it’s accepted verbally, then we write it up.
 
Joe: This isn’t going against the law or any of those rules. It’s because you’re not representing somebody else in the transaction. As long as you’re representing yourself, you can go out there and make offers and you can talk through it, you can get what you need and you can negotiate the best that you can.
 
Joe: You really need to learn how to negotiate properly – because it’s not what you deserve that matters – it’s what you negotiate, so make sure you learn how to negotiate and how to talk to these people, how to sound credible, how to sound like you’re going to be able to pull off what you’re telling them you’re going to be able to do so that they trust you and will give you their house. Sometimes they have to trust you for them to give you their deed.
 
Joe: They’re signing their deed over. They’re still on their mortgage if they’re doing “Subject-To”. We have people that do this with us all the time because they do trust us and they do feel that we know what we’re doing and that we’re going to be able to follow through with it. You’re going to have to learn how to build that same credibility. If you do that, people will work with you.
 
Joe: If you get them to call you instead of you calling them, it’s going to be different. If you stop sending out offers like this to agents on the MLS, it’ll also work for you, because agents on the MLS don’t understand what we’re doing.
 
Joe: Most agents don’t know what a “Subject-To” is – most real estate attorneys don’t know what a “Subject-To” is. I always talk to my sellers and they’ll say, ‘I need to talk to my attorney before I accept this deal.’ I’ll say, ‘It’s no problem. Let’s get him on the pone right now.’ We’ll call him up and I’ll explain it to the attorney and I’ll tell him about Subject-To and at first, I’ll get this blank reaction – they don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, and then I’ll explain it to him and how it works and then he says, ‘Oh yes, that makes sense. I understand that. That’s no problem.’ ‘Here’s the risks,’ and we’ll tell the risks to the seller (which I’ve already told him – I’ve already explained these other issues) and they’re good with it, and we’re able to make the deal happen. But I’ve never had an attorney tell me, ‘No, that’s illegal,’ or, ‘No, you can’t do that.’
 
Joe: By the way, I’m not an attorney – I don’t play one on TV even. So if you ever have any questions about these things, all of you who are realtors, you can go to your Board of Realtors and they always have a question and answer line that you can call and talk to the guy who’s on staff or the girl who’s on staff who’s the attorney of record for the Board of Realtors and they’ll answer your questions.
 
Joe: If you show them these contracts that we’re using and if you show them the different things that we’re doing and say, ‘Hey, look, I’m just doing this as an investor, not as a realtor. Are there any problems here? Do you see any issues here?’ then my guess is that you won’t hear anything negative. If you do, I’d like to hear about it, but I’ve never heard of them come back with anything along the lines that this is illegal or immoral or unethical. What we’re doing really works and helps a lot of folks. Alright, I hope that helps. Thanks.