Real Estate Agent MN: My Real Estate Network

I’m Ron Orr, Jr. a real estate broker and owner of MinnesotaInvestors.com, Inc. which is a licensed real estate broker.
My main job is to spend full time training myself and others in real estate. I have been in the business since around April/May of 2002. I started my training about November of 2002. Since then I have had the pleasure of meeting 600+ investors/agents and others in the industry. I have had email lists within the first few years of nearly 1500+ people. I learned a lot from emailing and marketing to people almost daily. I’ve learned what people like and respond to. I’ve also learned who the experts are in their own specific niche, and I have made a business out of getting paid by them for my marketing, and putting you in great hands. Putting you together with the right person for your goals.

I continue to network and learn from my network to better teach others about the real estate business. My niche was to train others to become real estate investors, but now it’s also to make them aware of many other facets of money, success, real estate, and investing.

If there is anything you can take away from myself or this website, you have to understand that I spend a lot of my time to find the best at what they do. The average person I work with has been working in this business for 5-10 years, so you are in good hands. Having met as many people as I have, you can imagine I can be a little bit selective and put you in touch with the best. All I ask is that you really help to make their time and your time efficient and continue to call back or keep communication open so that we can help you reach your goals.

For Example, if you have a house you owe too much on, or you are behind on payments, I have associates that can specialize in helping you sell your house on a mn short sale. I have friends who have worked on hundreds of these transactions. A lot of the questions can be answered at www.MinnesotaInvestors.com or www.OverFinanced.com When I receive some of your info, I will put you in touch with the right person.

If you need to sell your current house, I have teams that excel at listing houses, that sell hundreds per year. This is second nature to them. I will write posts on what’s included in a listing, but I provide agents that provide full listings, not flat fee listings. It’s in their best interest to help you get the most for your house in the shortest amount of time. If you need to sell, or are considering selling, even if you need to get a value check before you decide to list it, email me ron@minnesotainvestors.com. After I hear from you I can put you in touch with someone.

If you want to buy on a rent to own or contract for deed, that kind of goes into the category of Owner Financing, meaning the seller is acting like the lender and will let you wait 1-3 years to get financing. These kind of transactions are pretty easy, but not every seller wants to do it, understands it, or can do it financally. This will take some effort and explaining on behalf of the agent, so I will put you in touch with the right agent for the job.

If you just need a place for rent, you may want to contact me only if you have rent + deposit and less than 30 days away from ready to move in. This will take a lot of follow up from you to work with an associate.

If you need credit repair, I have a few people for you to work with. There is so much for you to learn about this topic and it will literally save you thousands of dollars over your life, for a pretty minimal cost. At the time we are talking $500-1000 range depending on the level of service. This may need to mostly be paid up front. Also this could talk 3-6 months to begin with and this may be a topic you wish to work on over your lifetime, that’s how important it is.

If you need to refinancing, or work with a loan officer for financing, we also know loan officers and mortgage brokers with years of experience. They have seen the up and down markets and worked hundreds of transactions, I have written articles as far as what you need to get for paperwork for these loan officers.

If you have a vacant house, if you are a landlord or can’t seem to sell your house, then you may need to just fill your vacancy. I have associates that have filled up hundreds of properties in many different price points. It’s easier if you contact us 1 week prior to vacancy or during vacancy. Typically it’s 1 months fee to get a renter for you, but this includes full service, background checks, etc. Please go to www.MinnesotaInvestors.com and fill out our form on your selection for your vacancy. We will have someone contact you back and get the property filled up.

We also have attorney’s, roth IRA, 1031, and other associates that can help you in the business. Email ron@minnesotainvestors.com anytime if you need help with anything, and I’ll answer your questions or put you in touch with someone that can help you with that.

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Real Estate Showing:Setting up Showings (Buyer’s Perspective)

For those of you that are going through a real estate agent to buy your next home on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) their will be a process, and here is how it will most likely go. This job has changed a little over the last 5-10 years. In today’s world the buyer typically does a little more viewing upfront online. This will include review details of listings, reviewing photos, reviewing any videos or virtual tours. Your agent can email you listings that meet your criteria, and he/she can even set this up as an email preference which will automatically email you when properties meet your criteria. You will just have to let the agent know what you are looking for. Now this process works best if you are already pre-approved for financing. This process may not make as much sense if you are buying on a rent to own or a contract for deed. The reason is that their is a very good chance 80-90% of all listed properties would not be open to either of those concepts. The agent can still show you some properties available on a contract for deed, their are a lot available, but you will have to be a little bit more open to properties, and less specific.

From time to time when you find a property you like that you want to go see, it’s preferred you look at a few in the same area on the same day if at all possible. You simply let your agent know you’d like to set up a showing and then they will call the listing broker’s office (that’s the broker who has the listing) and call to leave their name, number, office number, which company the buyer’s agent represents, etc. They will be given a code to enter the property. It’s pretty standard to give 24 hours notice on showings, if the house is vacant, very short notice may be possible.

The agent will bring the print outs of the various listings you chose and he/she will bring the access codes to enter the properties. They may plan the journey ahead of time and google map, or mapquest ahead of time how to get from property to property to make the most of everyone’s time. It’s not a bad idea to do this upfront. Houses with renters in them typically need a little more notice. Just remember on showings, sometimes the furniture is just staged furniture, sometimes their is no furniture. When you see the seller’s furniture in the house, just remember that doesn’t go with the house, so imagine the house without the furniture.
As a standard rule anything that’s “affixed” connected to the house is suppose to go with the house. Things that aren’t “attached” to the house like personal property, such as appliances, stoves, refrigerators, dishwashers, microwaves, etc are not connected to the house. It’s customary for buyer’s to negotiate them into the purchase agreement. The best way to handle this is to either write the appliances down on the first page of the purchase agreement or write a “bill of sale” for that stuff to be part of the purchase agreement. It’s customary that it’s part of the home loan. If that amount gets to be too much, the lender may not like that.

Just remember with showings, it’s in everyone’s best interest to do some homework upfront by looking at details upfront which school district houses are in, what size the rooms are, will it fit your furniture, etc. Then when something catches your eye, call the real estate agent, and he/she will set up some showings, and hopefully at this point it only takes 5 properties or less before you like and find that perfect house. In most cases the buyer’s agent gets paid from the listing agent when a transaction is closed with a lender. For sale by owners, rent to own, contract for deed’s will still likely be paid by the seller, but anything is possible.

Please contact me ron@minnesotainvestors.com and I’ll assign you to a buyer’s agent.

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Flip This House: Flip House TV- Shows I Recommend Are

I just got done watching channel TLC the show “Property Ladder”

I like all of these different shows, but here are some things in general I see in many of these shows that is a commonality among all shows on all networks that I don’t think is very realistic as part of your winning formula.

This idea of these buyers friends being in the business for 10 years, and now they are going to jump into their 1st one and make a big profit, that’s not realistic. This business of quick turning and selling properties takes time to learn just like anything else.

This idea of getting friends and family to work for free for 4 weeks for some beer. That’s not realistic. YOu can’t count on that as part of your formula for future properties that you buy.

Probably the most unrealistic part is how someone sells the house For sale by owner in 1 day, after showing it to a few people. That maybe was realistic in 2005, but not at this time, also for sure not in Minnesota. 6-9 months market time and the need of a real estate agent is very possible. Finding free extra material sitting around is not realistic either.

Also these people on the show are doing a lot of the work themselves, that’s fine to save money but in the long run you are just trading hours for dollars, and this habit will never allow you to make any real money.

These profits they show of $100,000 or $200,000 for someone doing their first “flip” That’s not realistic. There are a lot of numbers people aren’t factoring in. The holding costs, interest payments, need for a listing agent, and other things are not being factored.

Before starting a rehab project like this you really have to do your numbers on what’s called the After Repair Value (ARV) that means you have to see what the house will be worth before you start fixing it up, and even before you buy the property. Also in the current market these quick average fixes won’t do the job, you have to really make the place look great as their is so much inventory for each buyer to see these days to compare.

I do believe that a few of the recurring companies on these shows that are doing well, but again a lot of them are selling houses in 1 day, which isn’t that realistic.

I think a lot of the people on this show confuse “being busy” with being successful. Please keep in mind their are many things that are not worth your time and also should be done by someone else hourly for less money. Also many things should be left to the experts, sometimes trying to do it yourself costs more money.

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Experian Contact Number: My Experian Experience

I just signed up for my Experian credit score and account. For the main area to search about your credit accounts, I actually like this site the best out of the 3. This also gives you a chance to order the other two, transunion and equifax. Also it looks like it’s connected maybe to freecreditreport.com Experian ended up being my middle score, it was pretty close to my Equifax and quite a bit higher than my TransUnion. It looks like it has a monthly plus score tracker that updates each month on it’s own. I should note that these members areas say that when you pull your own credit it’s considered a “soft pull” and it doesn’t affect your credit score.

In the main area, here is kind of the categories it shows:

CREDIT PROFILE
Percentage of credit currently available
Satisfactory accounts
Now delinquent/derogatory accounts
Was delinquent/derogatory accounts
Public records
Number of inquiries

DEBT PROFILE
Real Estate debt (mortgages)
Revolving debt (bank and retail cards)
Installment debt (fixed payment loans)
Other debt
Collection debt
Your Approximate Total Debt

There is a score illustrator which will tell you how your score could be adjusted if you were to do certain things. They have add on’s upsells on how to better protect your children also in their account area. All of this is in the account summary area as of now.

The Credit Center tab will let you view mostly everything, I like this part, it’s very easy to understand. I just click view current credit report. Here are the tabs in this area that show you everthing you need to know:

Personal Profile
Credit Summary
Public Records
Credit Inquiries
Account History
Credit Score

It will show you real estate, revolving, installment, other accounts, any collections, etc. I find that the credit history part on Experian is very easy to read. At the time of this writing it reads as Experian having a credit scoring system of 330 to 830. There credit report guide says this:

Some statistics about the score distribution (percentiles):

• 15% of the US population is below 575
• 35% of the US population is below 675
• 50% of the US population is below 724
• 70% of the US population is below 757
• 90% of the US population is below 778

This is a recommended site to navigate. Years ago I use to check my credit once every couple of years, but now that I know more about credit I think it’s worth it to pay to stay on monthly service, or at least for a little while, keeping in control of your credit score, and managing your credit is very important and the $9.95 or less they charge isn’t that much.

I signed up with this site Experian

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True Credit Report.com: TransUnion 1 of the 3 Bureaus

I just tried out TransUnion 1 of the 3 major credit bureaus to see how it would size up compared to Equifax which I tried a few days ago. I personally like the interface of Equifax more, I think it’s cleaner looking, 10 times as much info and far easier to navigate. TransUnion is full of too many ads, I would say 80% of it is just ads trying to upsell you. My TransUnion score was lower than my Equifax score, but that will not be the case with everyone. Each credit bureau would provide you a credit score based on the information they have, so your job is to review it often and keep it as accurate as possible. It did offer me a free trial like Equifax that I do like.

In the member center one of the first things I noticed is it will do a check right on the spot to see if their has been an update on: New accounts, Inquiries, deliquent accounts, New public records, address change, other critical changes. My account showed none of these, so I wasn’t able to see how well that worked. It shows you your credit score right away. You can add experian or Equifax right from that same page, that’s convenient, I chose not to. They have lots of ads to offer you credit cards, etc. Much like Equifax you can set up credit alerts, I currently didn’t have any at the time. The credit score shows you a few other graphs as to where you compare to the rest of the population. Most people will tell you 700-720 credit score is pretty normal, but also good. There is a “trending” part that showed you graphs on your available credit, balance/payments, deliquencies, inquires, total debt, credit score, debt-to-income. On the debt-to-income part it gave you a chance to enter in different types of incomes you receive, rental, alimony, salary, etc. It gives a pie chart to show your DTI ratio. TransUnion let’s you put lock’s on your account to protect you from identity theft, which is a great idea. They offer identity theft insurance, fraud resolution, etc. Then they have insurance and auto scores also available as upsells. They have mortgage simulators you can also use.

It will also give you a summary of:

TOTAL ACCOUNTS:
OPEN ACCOUNTS:
CLOSED ACCOUNTS:
DELINQUENT:
DEROGATORY:
BALANCES:
PAYMENTS:
PUBLIC RECORDS:
INQUIRIES (2 years):

and the number you have of each. Like most credit reports it will tell you the number of 30 day, 60 day and 90 day lates you have, 120, 150, payment plans, lots of detail that I like here, all color coded. There is a part where it gives you creditor contacts. Also the color coding part is pretty nice, I like the way they do that. To have true control over your credit and to keep it clean all of the time, you will want to pull your credit with each bureau and report anything that’s inaccurate.

TransUnion.com You can go here to pull your credit score.

After you check your credit score please contact me ron@minnesotainvestors.com and we’ll help you find a property.

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