Video Transcript:
Danny Lynn: Hi Danny Lynn here and I’m with Esmeralda today and actually she’s in between appointments, she’s a very busy lady but she met us here at the bookstore so we could do a quick interview. So I’m going to start off with, Esmeralda, can you tell me a little bit about your story, how you met Phill, how long you’ve been a realtor and how the RE-Volution training has helped your business?
Esmeralda: Hello, Danny already introduced me, I’m Esmeralda. I’ve been a realtor since September 2001, so it’s been nine years. So I was actually starting in traditional real estate with Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae doing all traditional foreclosures and stuff like that and I actually just recently started with Shenoah and Phill about a year and a half ago and it’s helped me a lot, tremendously. It’s given me options so that every time I sit with a seller there’s always something I can present to them depending on the situation because nowadays, everybody is in a different situation so I always have a solution.
Danny Lynn: Okay, tell us a little bit about the deals that you do. We’ve discussed the 12 strategies in our bootcamps, so probably, what do you do the most?
Esmeralda: Out of the 12 strategies, I prefer the mortgage assignments and also assigning the subject to’s, assigning the contract to an investor buying the property depending on where their area’s at. So that’s what I prefer, the subject to’s, assignment of contracts and also mortgage assignments which are basically the same thing.
Danny Lynn: Okay and actually, I think I talked to you the other day on the phone, and I had featured you in Bootcamp number 5 and I told them about your business now and how it’s changed and you kind of built a business around owner financing and mortgage assignments. Can you tell us how that’s changed from before versus how many deals you’re doing now?
Esmeralda: Well, what I did before was completely traditional real estate. If a seller wanted to sell, I would represent them and I would try to find a buyer to buy the house. Nowadays, there’s a lot of sellers who cannot sell. So the way it’s changed is, sometimes I’ll do traditional real estate, three or four deals, and then I’ll do two or three owner financing deals, so that I never turn away a seller. If there’s someone who has negative equity or who doesn’t have any equity at all, they can’t afford to pay a realtor, that would be an assignment. So I would do three traditional real estates and three assignments, depending on what was going on that month. So I mix everything together so I don’t turn down anyone and I can make money either way.
Danny Lynn: That’s what I like best too. Tell us a little bit about how much you make?
Esmeralda: With the owner financing, everything is completely different. There is standard commission in traditional real estate but with owner financing, sometimes I make $2,000 on an assignment because the homeowner’s already in the rear so we catch that out of the buyer’s money, and sometimes I make up to $8,000 because this last deal we did about a week ago we made about $8,000. The buyer brought $10,000, we used $2,000 for closing cost so I was able to keep $8,000 in my pocket. So anywhere from $2,000-$8,000 depending on the deal but $2,000 is better than nothing!
Danny Lynn: That’s right. Okay, two more questions. In regards to Phill’s RE-Volution training what do you think was the most valuable thing that you learned?
Esmeralda: From the 12 Strategies?
Danny Lynn: From the 12 Strategies or anything that he taught.
Esmeralda: The most valuable, like I said, was the mortgage assignment, and the reason why is right now, especially right now, there’s so many people right now that can’t sell. So actually that’s another marketing thing. I’d like to go out and start talking physically to everyone that we can touch because there are a lot of people out there who think they can’t sell so they just abandon their homes. But with mortgage assignment, you can sell it. The realtor or investor, we can make our money and sellers are happy because they get their house sold. That’s my favorite.
Danny Lynn: Mine too. Okay, so the last thing I want to touch on is, you’ll remember when we first met, that this isn’t rocket science, that results are typical if you do the work. So you’ve got to get out there, take the material, and actually get it done. So I was talking with Esmeralda about that and she completely agrees, so I’ll let her touch on that too.
Esmeralda: What I did to get started with postcards, we’d blanket the neighborhood, but it’s gotten deeper than that now, you really have to talk to people, whether it’s by phone or whether it’s door knocking. It takes a lot of work because you have to explain the process to the homeowner. And the best thing to do is disclose, disclose, disclose. So it’s really hard, you have to sit down and talk to the homeowner and convince them to do the mortgage assignment. Then you have to talk to the buyer and convince them to buy the house and that it’s actually a good thing and not a bad thing. So, it takes a lot of work. It’s not easy, you have to go out and get it and sweat a little bit. It’s not as easy as it used to be.
Danny Lynn: So money’s not going to land on your doorstep, but if you get out there and you do the steps, I know both Esmeralda and I have built our businesses around it and we’re very successful at it. So thank you very much for your time, Esmeralda. Is there anything else that you’d like to say that you think would be valuable for realtors in other states that you’ve learned from Phill and Shenoah to leave them with?
Esmeralda: No, just get out there and talk to people, talk to the neighbors, talk to everyone on the street that’s in the neighborhood that you want to market. And do your research. It’s not that bad. You might sweat a little bit though.
Danny Lynn: Haha. Well thanks everyone for your time, I hope you found that was valuable and we’ll see you later. Bye!