Hey guys.
My mentor and some of his associates are looking to get into real estate investing. He sent me to zillow.com to check out real estate postings for him in Nevada. We're in Northern California, so one of the associates I mentioned was going to be personally viewing the houses I found for us. I found what looked like some great deals - I ran them through a google spreadsheet file that made a bunch of calculations on how profitable a house would be and made a note of the real estate agents handling the best ones.
As it turns out, one real estate company was in charge of about 90-95% of the houses in the area I was looking at. I made a call to one of them that was listed and she let me know that she could help me out with viewing all the properties I mentioned to her. We set up a viewing appointment for 12 PM the 16th (this was about a week and a half ago) and she said she'd send some more info to my email.
After a few days without receiving an email, I figured I'd best call and make sure everything was still good to go. When I called her back, she informed me that the owner of one of the properties wasn't willing to allow me to come and view them unless I made them an offer first and it was accepted. I cocked my head a bit, and did a double take in my kitchen.
Testament: "Sorry? I have to...make you an offer...for a house that I've never been in, or seen the outside of except in pictures?"
RE Agent: "Yeah, we need an offer first. The house is occupied and they don't want to leave it without an offer first."
Testament: "Uh...I mean, I don't really know what to say. It's like I've told you I'm interested in a used car you're selling, and you're telling me that I have to offer how much I'll pay you for it before I've seen it or gotten to test drive it. Do you understand how silly that sounds?"
RE Agent: "Oh, well, that's the way it's done in Nevada. They might do it differently in California, but owners have more rights here."
Testament: "Uhm...well...alright. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to make an offer of the price it was listed for on Zillow.com. Make them an offer of 50k then."
I was extremely confused by it and red flag senses were tingling like crazy. Obviously there was something wrong with the place if they wanted to do it like that. Or maybe I was just being paranoid and this was actually how it was done...I don't know, I've never done real estate before.
Anyway, I sent the real estate agent's phone number to the associate I mentioned before (the one who was going to be viewing the properties for us) and he gave her a call about an hour ago. She let him know that she now needed an upfront offer on virtually all of the properties I had mentioned being interested in.
She also told him that Zillow.com was "very unreliable," which I'm thinking translates to, "We just use Zillow.com to post bait-and-switch offers."
But, as I said, I don't know...this might be a very common practice for all I know.
Do you guys typically have this come up when you're making deals? Or am I just caught in a scam?
My mentor and some of his associates are looking to get into real estate investing. He sent me to zillow.com to check out real estate postings for him in Nevada. We're in Northern California, so one of the associates I mentioned was going to be personally viewing the houses I found for us. I found what looked like some great deals - I ran them through a google spreadsheet file that made a bunch of calculations on how profitable a house would be and made a note of the real estate agents handling the best ones.
As it turns out, one real estate company was in charge of about 90-95% of the houses in the area I was looking at. I made a call to one of them that was listed and she let me know that she could help me out with viewing all the properties I mentioned to her. We set up a viewing appointment for 12 PM the 16th (this was about a week and a half ago) and she said she'd send some more info to my email.
After a few days without receiving an email, I figured I'd best call and make sure everything was still good to go. When I called her back, she informed me that the owner of one of the properties wasn't willing to allow me to come and view them unless I made them an offer first and it was accepted. I cocked my head a bit, and did a double take in my kitchen.
Testament: "Sorry? I have to...make you an offer...for a house that I've never been in, or seen the outside of except in pictures?"
RE Agent: "Yeah, we need an offer first. The house is occupied and they don't want to leave it without an offer first."
Testament: "Uh...I mean, I don't really know what to say. It's like I've told you I'm interested in a used car you're selling, and you're telling me that I have to offer how much I'll pay you for it before I've seen it or gotten to test drive it. Do you understand how silly that sounds?"
RE Agent: "Oh, well, that's the way it's done in Nevada. They might do it differently in California, but owners have more rights here."
Testament: "Uhm...well...alright. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to make an offer of the price it was listed for on Zillow.com. Make them an offer of 50k then."
I was extremely confused by it and red flag senses were tingling like crazy. Obviously there was something wrong with the place if they wanted to do it like that. Or maybe I was just being paranoid and this was actually how it was done...I don't know, I've never done real estate before.
Anyway, I sent the real estate agent's phone number to the associate I mentioned before (the one who was going to be viewing the properties for us) and he gave her a call about an hour ago. She let him know that she now needed an upfront offer on virtually all of the properties I had mentioned being interested in.
She also told him that Zillow.com was "very unreliable," which I'm thinking translates to, "We just use Zillow.com to post bait-and-switch offers."
But, as I said, I don't know...this might be a very common practice for all I know.
Do you guys typically have this come up when you're making deals? Or am I just caught in a scam?
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