My wife and I have 3 SFH rentals. Lately I have been getting numerous calls from people describing themselves as real estate investors and they want to buy my rental from me.

They dont sound all that professional and more like they may have went to a get rich quick seminar. The spiel always starts out that I can quit making payments today. The one time I tried to pin a guy down to a number, it seemed like he didnt want to pay anything up front. Like maybe he would take the property and the payments and then when it sold, pay me on the back end of the sale. I may have it wrong though.

Sounds like the latest seminar junk going sround.

They the the property up with a very low earnest money deposit them try to flip it. They always put in escape clauses like subject to my partners approval. If they are not able to flip it, they walk away leaving you with an even bigger problem.

This seminar is going around now.

I'd wager that your SFHs are in a super good area and that your phone number is mapped to your places somehow?

On a monthly basis, letters come in sometimes handwwritten on nice stationary from different realtors who ask to buy SFHs with all cash. My property taxes are listed under a different mailing address, and I'm guessing that the realtors are using the online county portal to obtain mailing addresses for properties.

I've heard the same for SFHs in Mountain View and Menlo Park near facebook's headquarters, and random realtors include hand-written pitch letters from potential buyers who advocate selling to him or her.

The market is so hot so perhaps realtors are particularly targeting those properties that haven't been on the market for decades, hoping that older owners might want to cash out and downsize somewhere else?

Best of luck if you do or don't decide to sell any properties.

This isn't a scam per se, but it's a bad way to sell houses.

What you're describing sounds like the "Subject To" method of investing promoted by gurus such as Ron LeGrand in his "Pretty Houses" course. To be clear, I'm not saying LeGrand has nothing valuable to offer--he's a good negotiator and has some decent scripts--but as you've seen his method strongly favors the Subject To "Buyer" at the expense of the Seller.

Here's how Subject To works...

I own a house and I want to move and buy another house, but for whatever reason I can't sell it very quickly for what I need to get out of it. The bank won't give me a new mortgage because my debt to income is too high. Or some other reason. Regardless, it's not going smoothly so I look for a quick way "out"...

The Subject To "Buyer" offers to take over my payment and in turn I sign over the Deed to him and move out while keeping the mortgage in my name. This violates the "Due on Sale" clause in most mortgages / deeds of trust, but people who do this shrug that off with the fact that banks rarely follow up as long as the payment are made.

So now I move out, you have the Deed to the house, and you make my payments to my old lender with an agreement to "cash me out" at some point in the future...usually at a slightly higher than market price. That's my incentive to do the deal: easy out and higher sale price. I go off and buy my other house I wanted because my new lender will see the payments received from the Subject To "Buyer" and credits that against my debt to income ratio up to 75% usually, much like they would with income from a rental property. Solves that problem.

The Subject To Buyer (aka middle man) then goes and finds a tenant to lease-option the house to at above market rent and a significantly higher than market sale price. They collect an option fee up front ($1000 - $10,000), plus get rent that is $100-$500/month higher than normal market rent, and their Leasee-Optionee (aka tenant/buyer) gets to move into a nice house with hopes of owning it one day. The lease-option term is usually as short as the middle man can get it...6 - 24 months at which point the tenant/buyer has to cash them out or move. If they fulfill the option, the Subject To buyer received 3 payouts: the up front option fee, the above market rent spread above his payment to the original seller, and the much higher than market sale price that allows him to cash out his Seller and keep the spread.

Oh, btw, typically the deal is the original Seller or the Tenant/Buyer is responsible for the maintenance, taxes, and insurance. Basically, the Subject To buyer, if he does his work correctly, only has one out of pocket cost: the monthly payment to the original lender.

As you can see, these deals have many potential points of failure. First, the Seller's lender could call the note due, which is rare but still a risk. Second, the tenant/buyer could trash the place and/or fail to make the purchase and/or fail to do maintenance, at which point the Subject To buyer cannot cash out his Seller. We know owner finance/RTO deals fails over 95% of the time, and these kinds of deals aren't far behind. A tenant/buyer typically agrees to pay above market rent and above market sale prices because their credit stinks and/or they are somehow unable to get a traditional mortgage. They are riskier than usual. Third, if timelines aren't met, the whole deal can fall apart leaving the original Seller in a world of hurt with two mortgages...remember, they kept the original mortgage in their name, and if the Subject To Buyer fails to pay as agreed, all he has to do is toss them the keys, do a Quit Claim back to the original Seller, and walk away with no obligations to anyone.

It boggles my mind how/why folks would do these kinds of deals from a Seller's side, but they happen. I don't think there are a ton of them out there like the gurus suggest, but apparently enough to keep them selling courses.

So yeah, not a scam, but definitely not something you should do when selling. From the Buying side...I leave that as a judgment call. It's legit insofar as everyone in the deal understands what's going on and is okay with it. I rarely think everyone understands it though, or they'd never agree to do it. Being ignorant and/or dumb isn't illegal, yet.

Patrick,

Welcome the wild world or real estate!

Banks and realtors have indoctrinated people to believe THEY are the only way to buy and sell real estate. There are 100’s of ways to buy/sell.

I have purchased homes where the seller ASKED me to just take over his payments. I have one right now under consideration. He came to me.

It’s legit. In real life the banks just want the payment each month.

BUT...

the buyer must be responsible and businesslike. The buyer is taking on a real commitment. Missed payments go on the seller’s credit report.

Your caller is just prospecting/fishing for takers. No harm.

BRAD

Patrick:

Welcome to the Jungle.

This aint New and it wont go away.

Kinda like the Birds that enjoy Road Kill. Dig ?

Sid, good explanation on Subject-TO deals!

Patrick, I get both letters and calls with offers--all on my C-level places--never on my 'yuppie-house.' The letters I trash and never reply to. To the callers I say:

I get cards in the mail saying local investor wants to buy such and such address. One time I responded with info on the two fourplexes and never heard from them again.

Then there is the We Buy Ugly Houses guy. I throw his stuff right into the round file.

The song would be by Guns N' Roses.

These investors are fishing for properties. Oh sure there can be scammers too. However remember these investors are fishing for a landlord who is tired of the rental business. There are times when as a landlord you are ready to throw in the towel and IF caught at the right time you may be very eager to unload a property or properties. Especially mom and pops who have been in the rental business and are ready to get out of it. I bet the investors that do this on a daily or monthly basis send out a ton of letters or make calls. IF one works out they are doing good. Some of you do landlording to supplement your income and you have your job. There are others who are full time landlords. While there are investors who prospect on a daily basis for their next investment.

HOWEVER be careful of the scammers and IF you do sale to an investor with a subject to or land contract. You do have a mortgage on the property get yourself a real estate attorney to review and check out the contract. Because now you could add insult to the mess and to the title as well. IF you are upside down with the mortgage it may be worth it to due a short sale. Yes you are going to take a major credit negative but you will get out from under an upside down mortgage. Again talk to a real estate attorney...

Happy Landlording!!!

"How to Create Multiple Streams of Income Buying Homes in Nice Areas With Nothing Down" by Conti/Finkel (1999) seems to operate along very similar lines to what Sid was describing in his awesome post. Find a motivated seller, find a tenant-buyer, and poof! Instant millions... :P

I've never understood why LLs get upset about junk mail from people wanting to buy their property.

Save the name and number because SOMEDAY you might want to sell and that buyer MIGHT take your price.

I get calls, texts, letters, and postcards all the time wanting to buy my houses. I don't want to sell, so I don't respond. But, I sometimes add myself to their buyers list so if they find a good deal somewhere, I can buy it from them.

I have a sfh in a very desirable neighborhood for young families - great schools, lot of playmates for the kids, reasonably priced homes for the area. I've been getting letters from a couple about the house, and at first thought that they were just doing what my husband and I did 30 years ago while looking for our first home (we would drive around with letters in ziplock bags with a stone inside, and drop it into the driveway of modest homes occupied by older people - my husband found his first apartment that way) - only this couple has the advantage of online records and addresses to help them.

I receive at least a half dozen of these postcards and letters every week and have for the past 2 years. They will buy your house "as-is" with no fees and no closing costs.

It is always the same people . They simply go through the county tax records looking for all NOO properties. They are offering rock bottom prices for fix and flip. It might work depending upon the person's current predicament but it is generally a really bad deal.

Brad:

I'm not sure why you have such a negative view of RE agents. Any individual in any state is allowed to buy or sell any property directly without a licensed agent.

However, no broker (in NC we are an all broker state) with half a working brain cell would ever sell a listing to an unrepresented buyer. The liability is huge not to mention that the workload is double because legally there can't be an unrepresented buyer in that scenario so it falls to the listing agent or worse dual agency which is truly the biggest hoax in real estate.

As a LL I can legally sell any property to a tenant but as a broker I would insist that they hire an independent broker to represent then even if I had to pay for their representation. The current public mindset to sue on the drop of a dime. It's just not worth the exposure.