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Level 4 Probate Real Estate Income Opportunity for Agents

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Real Estate Agent with EXP Realty

Ok, so I walked you thru what I do when we receive a lead from an estate who is interested in selling. I try to purchase first, giving the estate an option to list it and see if we can obtain a higher offer, if not we close and flip.  You don't have to do this if you are not interested in buying but you could just represent investors who want to flip or buy wholesale to hold. This is a great opportunity to find these properties if you know what you are doing and my system will teach you everything if you are interested.  Imagine working on properties no one else knows could be available for sale Plus having the option to just sell it or list it.   This has been an amazing niche to my real estate business over the last 20+ years and as a Probate Agent I have been able to help many estates maneuver through this tough process and help buyers into good homes at a discount. Win/Win/Win for everyone.  Probate Real Estate is the best kept secret and once I retire I will be making it more known.

Ok, in California we have a 2 probate court systems as I have explained.  The "Level 4" Probate Real Estate opportunity for Probate Agents come from working estate homes which are going to court to confirm the sale.  At this confirmation sale the general public has the right to overbid and what I have been doing over the years is to track these sales for sleepers (wholesale prices) or for a retail or investor client who wanted the house.  This is a tricky process as once approved by the Probate Court your client's deposit could be in jeopardy if they don't close, so you need to know what you are doing.  Again my system teaches all that you need to know and has been around since 1992 but you haven't seen me on late night television or seminars teaching what I do.  This has been my living for the last 20+ years and I was not that keen on making it known.  2010 is probably my last year of full time active Real Estate and I will semi retire.  At this time I will teach more, give seminars and coach agents who want to add Probate Agent to their business and also to investors who want to buy and sell Probate Real Estate.   I will Buy and Sell a few Probate per year as I love fixing up and reselling but my point is I will be making it more public.

Back to "Level 4".  So if you know where to look for the confirmation sales you can track sales which are coming up for confirmation and bid on them for yourself or your client.  These will require 10%  deposit at the court sale and there is no contingencies for inspections or loans so you have to know what you are doing but you can keep busy as a Probate Agent selling these overbids to your clients. These will be more retail sales but many times we have overbid for our end user buyers at a 5% discount which is good especially in today's market where there is so much competition and over bidding.   My system explains how we seek these confirmation sales out as there are no lists or database to find them. You have to know where they are located (only 1 place in each County) then we look at the file, find out the details of the purchase, reports if any, closing paid and any other information we can use to help our purchase.  I have my lender check out the property by having their appraiser do a comp check but there has never been a problem of the property appraising for less than our court bid.  I have my buyer pre-approved and we have our contractor check out the property (visual perimeter, sometimes inside) to make sure there are no major issues (foundation, roof).   

At the court confirmation sale we will have our buyer prepared but keep in mind you need a 10% deposit so if your buyer is buying FHA and only needs 3.5% down and closing this could be much less that the 10% deposit requirement, so you have to make sure this all works.  I have even bid on property where the court waived the 10% deposit because it was a low down sale, we where the only bid and we placed our 3.5% down and closing up but was less than 10% of the sales price.  Again you need to know what you are doing but as a Probate Agent working Level 4's you could do an deal a quarter and maybe more.  I have purchased many Level 4's for end user buyers and also for my investment group where we flipped for a "Level 1" profit.  The reason a Level 1 can happen is the court appraisal which is usually high sometimes comes in low (5-10%) and if we can purchase 10% less as the law permits under the court supervised sale, we are looking at a 15-20% discount. We have done this many times but you need to know what you are doing.

Also a good marketing strategy for the Level 4 overbids is to canvass the subject properties neighborhood and place a craigslist add looking for interested buyers.  Many times we find a buyer in the subject neighborhood who has a family member or friend who wants to purchase in the neighborhood and we make a sale.  This is all part of the Probate Real Estate opportunity.

If you are interested in learning more about Probate Real Estate and how you can become a Probate Agent check out my site www.probate-realestate.com or give me a call 510-728-2943.  My new book "Six Figure Probate Agent" will be out early 2010 and can help you with all this.

 

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