Buying Off-Market Properties

Speaker 1: [0:09] Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Awesome in Seattle podcast. This is your host, Christian Nossum, with the Awesome Nossum Group at Wilson Realty, and I am joined today with my co-hosts Jason Saldarriaga-

Speaker 2: [0:21] What, me?

Speaker 1: [0:22] Yes. Yes, you. And the dog whisperer, Mr. Les Cutting.

Speaker 3: [0:29] Hola. I don't know what that was, sorry.

Speaker 1: [0:32] I don't, I don't know either. That's a, that's an interesting one there, Les. Um, all right, so today's episode is all about off-market properties. How to find them, what they actually mean, if those letters that you get in the mail if you currently own a house, if they're legit or if they're just a marketing ploy, um, as well as a bunch of oth- other stuff. So first, let's, let's define an off-market property just so that we're all on the same page. Basically, an off is something that's just not listed for sale on the Northwest MLS, so, or any other place that's a, that's an MLS. So this might be something that's like a for sale by owner, or maybe a property that was for sale at one point, but then the listing expired and it's no longer listed for sale, or it's, you know, it could be, you know, a landlord selling to the, the tenant that currently lives there. Uh, there's a lot of different ways that this could work. Basically, it's when a buyer purchases a house or a condo or any property, and it never actually hits the open market for sale. Sometimes there's agents that represent both sides. Sometimes there's an agent that only represents one side. It just kinda depends, and we'll talk about that a little bit more later. So Les is actually, he has done a ton of off-market deals, so, uh, really we're gonna bug him a lot today about all of this. So Les, why don't you first kinda explain where you find these deals at?

Speaker 3: [1:56] Oh, man. So there is a bunch of places that you can find these deals. So let me just go down the list and I'll kind of explain them all. So for one, maybe there's an agent that knows there's something coming up, AKA a pocket listing. So basically an agent h- like I said, knows a seller that's about ready to sell, and they have it in their back pocket, and they tell other people about it, or they have relationships with other agents and they say, "Hey, I actually have somebody getting ready to sell. Do you have a client that it may fit for or that work for?" However, with pocket listings, that is illegal in Washington State. Washington State and the Northwest MLS, they want everybody to have a fair opportunity or a fair shot at these homes. So if you do pre-market a listing coming on before it actually hits the market, there could be a fine for that agent. So a lot of agents in this area don't do it, but for example, in California and, um, you know, places like I believe in Minnesota where I know agents, just random states, but you're allowed to pre-market your listing. So what that mean is you know of a listing coming on the market, you can start doing marketing for it and say, uh, stuff like, "Coming soon, coming to the market soon." That way it builds up anticipation and then, you know, for that seller it may, it hopefully drives the price up. So that's one way. Um, there's also new construction. So maybe you drive by a plot of land and you see a bunch of new houses going in. Often the builder doesn't put all the homes that are available or all the different styles of homes available into the MLS. Maybe one may be in there, maybe none may be in there. But some people, sometimes people drive by and they're like, "Oh, you know, new construction's coming up." And they look it up in the MLS, they see one style of the house, but then they actually get to the, the plot of land itself and know that there's like three different versions of the house. So that's another way of finding off-market properties. Actually, I wanna point out, there's a lot of homes that we've sold in the past where they're brand-new construction, and we didn't get the credit for them in the MLS because they weren't listed in the MLS. Yep. Um, so that's happened before. Maybe- And what

Speaker 1: [4:03] we mean by, what we mean by credit is, you know, if other agents or really anybody tries to look up how much business we've done, if it's not listed in the MLS, it's not necessarily… We don't get the credit for it. We don't get shown that we sold that house.

Speaker 3: [4:18] Right. So maybe a client or somebody knows somebody at work that's selling a property, so you may have a personal connection. That's an off-market property because it's not active or in the MLS for the general public, just something that you know internally. So that's another way people get off-market properties. Maybe sometime there's a renter wanting to buy their landlord's property. I actually had a… Actually, one of my good, good friends, he just did this. There's for sale by owners, and it could be… And for sale by owners could be a little bit tricky, and here's why. Sometimes a for sale by owner, the owner may think the property is worth a little bit more than it is, and sometimes, you know, you may bring them a, a legit buyer. But as an agent, you know that this house will never appraise, or the price is just way above market value, and it just won't work. So sometimes you have to walk away from that. You do have to have a seller that is willing to work with you and really understand what's happening in the market in order for you to get that process moving. And for a buyer, it's very hard to put it together because, um, you don't know how to approach a seller as far as asking them to buy their house. So you may need an agent to help facilitate that transaction. But, you know, I've done a multiple for sale by owner, uh, transactions. They can be a little bit tricky, just depends, but you do have to bring, you know, extra data, extra negotiation skills in order to make it a fair deal for all parties involved. There's also expireds and canceled. And what an expired is, so when we list properties in the MLS, there is a listing term. So the listing term is typically six months, and if a listing exceeds the six months, then it becomes expired. And what expired means, um, so once a listing is with one particular agent, there's no other agents that can go try to or attempt to get that seller to list with them. It's not free game. However, once it expired, like, it's free game for all agents. You can attempt to get that seller's business. So usually properties go expired because they're either really overpriced or there's something wrong with the property itself, and it's kind of up to you to reassess that or really dig into that if you do move forward with an expired property. Oftentimes, once it's expired, there's hundreds of agents calling that owner to get their business and to, to relist the property, and a lot of these owners are frustrated with the process in general, and some of them even go for sale by owner.

Speaker 1: [6:41] Expireds, they happen less and less right now. That's true. Uh, and that's just because the market is so hot that even something that's overpriced, it might sit for a while, but eventually in this market, buyers will make a low offer. There's not a ton of expired or canceled listings. Uh, canceled's a little bit of a different beast just because it didn't actually expire. Something generally happened, uh, with the seller or the actual house, and they needed to take it off the market for something, some other reason. Right. Often they're unforeseen kind of things that happen, and, uh- And then, you know, usually they do come back on the market at some point in time, not always, but usually they do, and they'll usually come back on the market with the same agent, 'cause, you know, they did a lot of work to get it on the market initially, and then for whatever reason it got taken off the market, so.

Speaker 3: [7:31] Right. Um, I actually dealt with a canceled last year. One of our past clients, he listed his house and he had a tenant renting it out, but the tenant made it extremely difficult for … I mean, tenants still have rights, but he made it extremely difficult for me to get in there and he made it extremely difficult for uh, showings to happen. So one, I couldn't market the property the way I wanted it to as far as getting the, the types of pictures I wanted and, and really highlighting the property itself, and two, he wouldn't let agents in at certain times. So it just, it had really low marketability, really low visit- vis- visibility as well. So, um, the seller and I, we came to terms with, "You know what? Hey, we're just gonna go ahead and cancel this for the remaining of his lease term." And that ended up being like two months or whatever it was, and then we came back on two months later, got the place cleaned up, got the pictures that I wanted, and sold for the price that he wanted, maybe even a little bit more. That's with a canceled listing. You just never know what's happening there. There's wholesalers. Wholesaling, I haven't done too much of, but I'll rely on you guys to kind of explain what wholesaling is.

Speaker 1: [8:33] Yeah. So wholesaling is basically there's a whole segment of real estate investors, quote unquote, and really what they're doing is they're trying to find off-market deals, and then they turn around and they try to act as the middleman and sell them off to investors. Generally, they're buying these off-market deals that are, most of the time, underpriced, and that's how they're able to turn around and, and resell it to… for a higher price, and then they get a little cut. It's almost like they're real estate agents in a sense because they're the middleman. They connect the seller with the buyer. But they're not licensed. If they are licensed, they have to disclose that, and there's a whole set of things that they have to do. But their whole job is they actively find off-market properties for sale, and then they have their own list of potential buyers that they then market it to. So that's what a wholesaler is. Mm-hmm. If you're really interested in wholesaling, I mean, I'm on a few of their lists just 'cause I'm an investor as well and always looking for a good deal. And there's, there's occasionally, very rarely, deals that are actually good enough to that make sense, but, uh, you know, everybody has different criterias, so.

Speaker 3: [9:42] Right. Another one, just to piggyback off of wholesaling, is, um, you can go to the auction. So every Friday, I believe… Well, I know in Snohomish County. I believe in King County too, but every Friday at the court- Yep, it's Friday. Yep … courthouse, e- there's a, there's a big auction with foreclosed properties, and you have a bunch of hard money lenders there and just a bunch of investors. And I've been to a few of these when I was kind of interested in it, but it's a really cutthroat way to get a house. And one thing about auctions, you really have to know your comps and really know the areas, and you have to know… You have to think quick. So it's- Yep … you can't, you can't go back home and think about it overnight and sit down and talk about it. Like, you just have to know right then and there. So you really have to know the market. And, and they're pretty cutthroat. I've seen some crazy things happen at the courthouse. A lot of fights almost break out Because somebody may bid the house up too much, and it just doesn't, it's not worth it to the other people because they don't know what they're doing. So you really have to be seasoned, or you really have to know your numbers with auctions, um, as far as my personal experience and what I observe. And there's also, you know, agent or, uh, buyers mailing letters to properties in neighborhoods that they like, and I will hand that off to my partner Jason, and he can talk to you guys about that. Yeah.

Speaker 1: [10:52] Before we do that, though, I wanna talk about the foreclosure auction. Oh. Because one big thing that people don't realize about the foreclosure auction is you actually have to have cash- Yes … in hand at the auction. That's a huge thing. Most people don't know that. So you have cashier's checks that you have to have in your pocket ready to give right there on the spot for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it's quite the dichotomy when you're in downtown Seattle a- outside, it's not inside, like, a room or anything. You're literally outside under this little overhang staircase area, and there's random people just walking by, and little do they know there's literally millions and millions- … of dollars in cash sitting in people's pockets at these auctions just there, and they have no clue. It's, it's crazy. Uh, the other thing, too, to point out f- about foreclosure auctions is you are not allowed access to see these homes before you're buying them. Mm-hmm. Good point. You're buying them sight

Speaker 3: [11:49] unseen. Good

Speaker 1: [11:49] point. So it- it's not like they're, they have a key box on there, and they, like, allow access, and you can do an inspection or anything like that. Now, I've heard stories where investors will, you know, actually break into the home and, and look at it that way. Uh, that's, that's breaking the law. We don't recommend that. Right. But I have heard stories of that happening so that, you know, that investor knows what they're buying. But I mean, it's… You have no clue what you're buying. There's tons of horror stories of going in there after someone bought it and finding out that all of the plumbing is gone, all of the electrical wiring is gone. It's full of junk- Mm-hmm … 'cause squatters have been in there for years or months, and I mean, there's all sorts of horror stories about that. So you gotta really know what you're doing. You gotta be extremely… If you don't know what you're doing, you gotta partner with someone that knows what they're doing because it's a, it's a whole 'nother world doing foreclosure auctions. So I apologize for jumping over your, uh,

Speaker 3: [12:46] explaining

Speaker 1: [12:46] letters. Oh,

Speaker 3: [12:46] that's a good way to talk about auctions, Christian. Um, how about Jason, why don't we get into letters, and why don't you explain into detail what letters look like to sellers?

Speaker 2: [12:54] So it's not uncommon. A lot of y'all listening might have actually gotten these letters already. Whether you own the property you live in or you even rent sometimes, you, you get these letters on occasion. Basically, they can come in many forms and come from different types of people, whether that be like a buyer or potentially a real estate agent. And basically they say, "I have a client," or, "I am interested in living in this neighborhood. Are you in any way entertaining selling your house?" Sometimes developers send these out Particularly if they're thinking of, you know, maybe building something in its place like a townhouse or duplex or, uh, remodeling the place. So a lot of y'all have gotten these. How do you tell if these letters are real, if they're just spam? I think what it really comes down to is the content of the letters. So if it's filled with specific details, you know, most likely it's more relevant and more likely to be a, a truly interested buyer or party. So if it comes straight from the buyer with details about the buyer specifically and their names, you know, that, that is likely representative of it being more real as a letter. If an agent's sending it on behalf of a buyer, pay attention to the details that they include. You can always reach out to the agent and sometimes get a pretty clear idea as well. Sometimes it's very generic. "I have a buyer who would love to buy your house." If it's something that you could easily pass off to another homeowner and it would apply to them, it's possible that this is just almost spam, and the agent or the person sending them is sending hundreds of these letters just seeing if anybody takes the bait, um, and it's not that somebody's very serious, interested in buying your, your u- your property or whatnot. But regardless, if you do get one of these letters, which again, it's not uncommon, I've gotten many of them myself, even before I owned. If you get one of these letters though and, and you're interested in selling, what you should do is contact your agent. Show them the letter. Speak to your agent as well about selling in general, but show them the letter, and let the agent represent you and really inquire on your behalf to see if it's serious or not. Um, that's usually the best bet. Otherwise y- you might go down a slippery slope and not really know what's going on and end up feeling, uh, like you made a mistake or, or that sort of thing. It's good to have representation.

Speaker 1: [15:31] Yep. And a lot of times agents will send these letters out saying, "Hey, I have a buyer for your house," and it's actually just a marketing tactic to get a listing to, to represent the seller. So just be aware that that is definitely, uh, a, a way that agents do this. What they'll do is, you know, you'll get this letter, it's pretty generic. You'll call the agent, and they'll be like, "Yeah, so tell me about your house again. I don't know… I don't remember what it was." And then you'll say, "Yeah, it's a three bed, two bath, 1,600 square foot house in Phinney Ridge." And the agent's like, "Oh darn, yeah. Well, my client wants a four bedroom at least. Well, it doesn't work for them, but so you're interested in selling? All right, well, let's talk. I, I could, you know, represent you in selling your home." I mean, it's not gonna be that direct, but that's essentially what they're trying to do- Mm-hmm is whatever you say the house is, they're gonna say, "Sorry, that doesn't work for my client, but I'd love to represent you in selling your house." Yep. So Just be aware, that happens. All right, let's talk about the agent's role in off-market deals. Like, an agent should at least represent one, if not both sides, uh, of a deal. And I'm not saying that just because we are real estate agents. I'm saying that because we've seen numerous cases where inexperienced sellers and buyers have kind of gotten screwed, uh, one way or the other, and we don't ever wanna see that happen. One thing too that people think is a good idea and a way to potentially save some money is to rely on an attorney to potentially write up the contract and, you know, walk them through the process. Now, I can say this With certainty, because my wife is an attorney. She doesn't practice right now, her license isn't active, but she worked at an attorney's office, is licensed in the state of Washington, and she worked at an office that dealt with real estate. And there were very experienced developers and builders that would use attorneys for off-market deals without using an agent, but they, there were not usually, uh, very informed sellers that would come in. And there would be some that would come in, but the, the attorney would be like, "Hey, I'm not gonna turn down this work, but you're not doing a great job in negotiating here." Like, sometimes they would just be point blank with them, especially if they represented that client on other aspects of their life, not just this transaction. So again, an attorney, their job is to make sure the paperwork is correct. That's their job. They don't necessarily negotiate the transaction. They don't know necessarily what comps are, meaning what the price is or should be, and whether or not you're getting a good deal. They don't know all that stuff, so generally that's not the best idea to go down that route. If you were to hire an agent or have an agent represent you on one side or the other, you might be wondering, "Well, how does the agent get paid?"

Speaker 2: [18:18] Well,

Speaker 1: [18:19] uh, most likely the same way they usually get paid, and that is the seller generally pays the both sides of the transaction, the seller's agent and the buyer's agent, also known as the listing agent and the selling agent. So the seller generally is still the one that's gonna pay. Now, if for some reason the seller just balks at that and, "There's no way in hell I'm ever paying a real estate agent," you know, you can always wrap that cost into the purchase price or just pay your agent out of your own pocket. There's ways to get around that so you don't have to pay out of pocket, but there's, uh, but that's one way to go about it. And remember too that agents' roles aren't usually just for finding the house. I mean, that's part of our job, but with the internet now, that's not as big of a job, uh, on our part anymore. We don't need to find the house for you, per- the perfect house for you because everything's online. Often, our clients will get an alert to their specific criteria and their search, and they'll be like, "Hey, this just popped on the market. We'd love to go check it out." So then we go from there. The agent's role really is to negotiate the best possible deal for you and protect your interests. That's our job as your agent. The actual house-finding part is a pretty small part of the total job at, in this day and age. It's also to make sure that the transaction actually gets through to closing. There is a lot of moving pieces between the day you make an offer to the day you get the keys, and the agent's role is to really manage that process and make sure that everyone's doing their job. And there's a lot of moving pieces in there that as a first-time buyer or second or third or fourth time buyer, you may not know what all those pieces are, 'cause that's not your specialty. So that's part of what agents do and how they, you know, what their role is in off-market deals. Let's, let's go over a little bit more like for sale by owners and expireds and canceled and stuff like that, 'cause I know you have some… Well, you have a vast- Mm-hmm … array of stories that you could pull from. Right. But maybe, maybe explain a few of them.

Speaker 3: [20:16] Well, um, I mean, it, it just depends. So like, let's just talk about if you're in the seller's position for sale by owner. A lot of times the mentality of sale by owner is, what I find, like personally, they've had a bad experience with agents. Mm. And they don't see the value in having agents, and then sometimes, you know, they may think their house is worth a little bit more than it is, as we often all do. We… You know what I mean? As we think, uh, our properties are. But anyway, you know, they just, they just want help. That's really what it comes down to. They just want help, and they just want to sell their house. You know, my first two weeks of being licensed, I got my first for sale by owner listing, and just came from just me just calling for sale by owners, and it just so happens to be this one last call, um, happened to be this lady You know, her parents were sick, so they moved out of state and they were paying two mortgages essentially. And I just started talking to her and, I mean, I guess she can probably sense that I was a little more sincere 'cause I really had no idea what I was doing. I was brand spanking new at this time. But she, she heard the sincerity in my voice and she says, "All right. Well, you know what? I'll list with you." And I was shocked at that point. Like, literally a 10-minute conversation she was saying, "We just need to get rid of it. Please help us." And, you know, so I looked at the comps, I went to, you know, seasoned agents in my office. They helped me comp it out and I said, "You know, based on what you told me, actually, I think you're way underpriced and, you know, you should price your house here, and I think confidently enough I can sell your house." And she was shocked because she was trying to cut commissions, trying to cut agents out of it. But in the long run, the money that she thought she was saving, I actually ended up making her more money. Her house ended up selling for well over what she thought she was gonna get for it or what she had listed it for, and that was after paying commissions and, you know, the excise tax and all that stuff, and they walked away with a little bit of money. And she was really ecstatic because she didn't have to pay two mortgages anymore at that point in time. So that's one example of how as a, as an owner, a for sale by owner, using agent could benefit you because, you know, we just know what's happening in the area, and oftentimes we end up making you more money than you think you would make on the back end, so it works out in your favor even after commissions. Another experience that I had with expireds… Actually, this is really funny. Their agent took terrible pictures and it was a custom-made home, and this was a beautiful home that they had made and it was overlooking the sound. In the distance you can see whales breaching and, and orcas breaching and all kinds of beautiful things around, uh, around this property. And their, their agent that they had prior to it expiring, he just took iPhone pictures. And I know this because literally he takes a picture of the view that they had of the sound through their window on the inside- … and you can see the Apple, you can see the Apple logo in the window. Oh, man. So you can see the reflection. And I said, "Well, at bare minimum I can get you better pictures." Um, so I, you know, ended up talking to these folks and, um, you know, I worked out a deal with, with a buyer within, uh… They tried to sell this house for a year. I think I sold it maybe… And this is a very unique property, a unique location, but I think I ended up selling it within three or four months after this guy tried to sell it for a year, and that worked out in their favor too. So, you know, just adding extra care to it, going above and beyond for this property and doing things like that, you know, those are definitely things as an expired listing you, you want when you're hiring a next agent, you want them to go above and beyond and give you insight that your last agent may not have thought about or may not have done. That's an experience that I had with an expired. As for sale by owner buyer's side, I had a buyer whose budget was really tight and they were really adamant that they wanted to be- At a certain price point. So at this point in time, I previewed a property for them, and as I was previewing the property, set the appointment, literally the second I got there, the property went pending. So I was like, "Dang, what am I gonna do?" And just so happens, the exact same house was available across the street, but it wasn't listed. It was for sale by owner. So I said, "Hey." I, I went over, knocked on the door. I said, "Hey, um, Mr. Seller, do you happen to know if your layout is similar to that one?" He's like, "Yeah, it is." And I'm like, "Okay, square footage too?" He's like, "Yeah." I was like, "Hey, I actually have a client. Do you mind if I actually preview…" And this is days before pr- COVID, so I can just walk in there, just give my business card. He let me walk in there. I did my thing, looked at it. I was like, "Actually pretty good condition." He was the only person to ever own the house, him and his family. So brought my clients there. We ended up working out a deal. I showed the seller some comps. We dropped the price just slightly. He wasn't too overpriced, but he was overpriced. We dropped the pr- uh, price slightly, and it was a deal that worked out for, you know, my buyers and sellers. They didn't have to get into a cra- my buyers didn't have to get into a crazy bidding war because their budget was so tight, but at the same time they were able to live comfortably and not overpay for something or overspend for something and then have more work to do on top of that. So I mean, those are just small examples. I have a couple more, but I won't take up too much more of the time. Um, and that's pretty much it for sale by owners and expireds.

Speaker 2: [25:12] Yeah. So as you can tell, there's a lot to this whole realm of buying off-market properties. I mean, this is the basis on which MLSs were created in order to facilitate the purchase and sale of properties because there's so much to it. And so in areas with a really well-run MLS, you see less off market because MLSs are doing their job right. Also, geography does play a role, and the market itself, if it's really competitive, you see You're, you're potentially less inclined to list off market like we see in Seattle. But in summary, pros and cons of buying or selling properties off market, let's start with the cons really quick. You know, like less inferred in some of the stories, you might end up with a lower price at the end of the day. So if you're a seller, that's clearly not necessarily the best thing for you. And the re- reason for this usually is because you get less market exposure. One of the benefits of going through an, an agent and having your property listed on an MLS is that it… You know, the MLS is like the database that all property listings go through, and so a lot of sites, applications, and platforms tie into this da- these databases, and so your house, your listing will pop up if somebody searches. Otherwise, they might just look on Craigslist, or maybe you put a sign out front saying, "This is for sale by owner." You're not gonna necessarily have the exposure that you would if it was on a, the true MLS database. Now, of course, if you don't have the right team or have a good agent on your own, you can have a tough time here and end up not making the best decisions because you might not necessarily know the game you're playing. Especially if there's dual agency or no agency on your side and the, the s- the seller or the buyer on the opposite side of you has an agent with knowledge, you know, it's easy to get kind of, uh, taken advantage of. So it's important to know that going in. And, and that's why we encourage Uh, getting representation when you're p- making a big purchase like a… or a sale like a, like real estate. But there are pros, of course. This is why people still buy properties off-market. First off, it's convenient. Sellers don't necessarily have to move out. You don't have to deal with staging and photos, packing up the house, maybe fixing up the house in various ways, things that you were holding off thinking, "I'll just sell it." And then when you go to list it, it's like, "Actually, I do need to take a, uh, take care of this issue because it's, it's gonna impact the end result, the end price I get." During COVID, a benefit potentially is that it, it could be safer because fewer people are gonna be going through your property. Right now, Seattle as a whole is pretty competitive, so if you put your property on the market, you, you're probably gonna get a good amount of traffic coming through your property. During COVID, you might not want that. And then lastly, you know, it can be quick and, in a way, reliable because you don't have to worry about listing your property and under- and not being certain on what you'll sell it for. If it's off-market, you get an offer on the table, now you didn't have to worry about putting money up front for various things like staging and that sort of thing. So those, in a nutshell, are the overall pros and cons. And with that, again, we can talk for hours about this. I'm gonna shoot it over to Christian.

Speaker 1: [28:46] Yeah. I mean, as a buyer, as a, as a pro, I mean, you might be able to get an underpriced property because the seller generally doesn't know what they're doing. So, um, that's, that's a big pro i- in terms of buying that, um, that we really need to point out. Yep. Uh, and that's why wholesalers have… You know, that's how they make their money. They know that sellers don't always know what the best thing is. They know what they don't always know what their property's worth, and they could take advantage of that and, and tie up the property, get it under contract at a really good price, and then, you know, turn around and sell it and still make a profit. That leads actually to a personal story that I wanna share, and it's not necessarily the most fun or easiest story 'cause it's a little personal, and, uh, but I'll be a little vulnerable and, and share this. So when I, uh, sophomore year of college, came back home for the summer to live with the family and, uh, my parents dropped the bombshell that they are getting divorced and, "Oh, by the way, in addition to that, we're losing the house to foreclosure." I, uh, being the weird kid that I was, I mean, I used to watch "This Old House" and "Hometime," and this was all well before HGTV was a thing. So those are the shows that I liked to watch instead of cartoons. And then I'd also, like, uh, that led to getting interested in real estate investing, and I would get books from the library, and that would lead to me buying those late night infomercial How to Buy a House with No Money Down programs, those tapes and VHS tapes and cassettes and stuff like that. So as a kid and as a teenager, that's the stuff that I was doing with my money in my off time-

Speaker 3: [30:24] Damn,

Speaker 1: [30:25] how old

Speaker 3: [30:26] are you? … uh, from school.

Speaker 1: [30:26] Cassettes? I know. Yeah. Sorry about that. I had a Walkman and everything. It was awesome. And yeah, I would, I would learn that stuff. And so when my parents said this, I was like, "Okay. Well, I'll put the house up for sale by owner. First, I gotta fix it up 'cause it needs some curb appeal, you know, and I think I can do this." I know a lot, at least I thought I knew a lot about real estate at that point. And granted, I'm, like, 20, 21 years old at this point. So I, I kind of knew a lot. Maybe compared to the average seller I knew a lot, but I'd never done it before, so I wasn't an agent or anything like that. I used my savings, paid off their back mortgage payments, and then fixed up the house. And at that point, I put it on the market for sale by owner, and I took the photos with our camera, our digital camera. Thankfully, we had something that was somewhat nice. And, you know, I, I wrote the description, I did all the stuff, and I, I put it on as a for sale by owner. And thank God the buyer had an agent that represented them Because I, again, I thought I knew what I was doing, but I really didn't know the details or the ins and outs of it, and I could not have done it without that agent's assistance. That agent wrote up the contract. Uh, thankfully, they just used the normal MLS forms, and I negotiated it on behalf of my parents. Again, I wasn't an agent or anything. This was a for sale by owner, and I got them what I think was a good deal. Looking back, I definitely know that we could have easily gotten screwed. I would never recommend to anyone, and that's-- this is not just because I'm an agent now, but I would never recommend selling your house for sale by owner. It's so easy to get out-negotiated. All you have to do is have the other side check a couple boxes, and that could cost you thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars just by them checking a couple boxes on the contract that you don't understand or you think you understand, but you don't fully know the ins and outs of. So thankfully, at the end of the day, long story short, they sold the house. Uh, they each got enough money to pay me back, to pay off all of their joint bills, and they each made 2,500 bucks to start a new life. Um, so it all worked out at the end of the day. But again, looking back, I am just so thankful that that agent didn't screw us over. They could have. They kind of did in some regards, just, just because they knew that we didn't know what we were doing. Uh, but it could have been so much worse. Um, and I would never, ever recommend that someone do that unless you're extremely, uh, experienced in, in buying and selling homes. So, um, that's it for my crazy story. I'm sorry to bring that up, guys, but I wanted to just share that since we were talking about for sale by owners. So with that, we will wrap up today's episode about off-market deals. If you are thinking about potentially selling or buying, again, as always, don't hesitate to reach out. We have free consultations all the time. There's no pressure. We don't make you commit to working with us, uh, just by talking with us. Like, it, it-- we're not gonna force you to do anything. It's just worth chatting with us, um, just to see if we're a good fit. Uh, you can do that very easily. You can just go online to our website, awesomenossom.com/schedule You can quickly schedule a time to chat with us. That could be virtual, like via Zoom, it could be a phone call, it could be whatever you're most comfortable with. So that's very easy to do. And then if you're a buyer, you should probably attend one of our Beers and Home Buying classes. They are basically every month we have one. And if you're ever interested in seeing when our next one is, just go to beersandhomebuying.com. Our, all of our classes are listed on there, all of our upcoming classes. And again, those are free. They're only an hour. They're all via Zoom at this point until COVID's done and we can meet in person again. But they're super informative, very laid back, very no pressure. It's really just educating you on the process. Uh, we get a lot of great feedback from these classes. So, uh, if you are at all thinking about buying, definitely go check out beersandhomebuying.com. That's it for today. Please, if you are, uh, liking what you got out of this, please subscribe, follow us. We release an episode every two weeks. And yeah, please give us a rating. We would love some reviews. Uh, that definitely helps. So I know you already know this if you listen to podcasts, but we would appreciate it if you would do that. So that's it for today. See you next time and, uh, yeah, enjoy and stay safe. Bye.

Speaker 2: [35:04] Bye,

Speaker 3: [35:04] guys.