I’ve been hearing more and more investors talk about how they buy houses using online auctions like auction.com. I’ve been fascinated by the strategy and was glad to get Paul Lizell on the show.
He’s buying 8 to 15 houses a month that he buys from online real estate auctions….all over the country. How cool is that?
Paul started in Real estate in 1999, became a full time investor in the fall of 2004. He had a background in commercial business loan underwriting and 4 years as a business development officer. He’s been a licensed Realtor since 2006. As a national real estate wholesaler, he does 6-12 fix and flips per year and owner finances 10 properties per year, mostly to investors.
You’d think that the ratio of houses to bid on to the number of deals he gets would be pretty crazy but he actually does pretty well. He’s got online real estate auction thing figured out to where he bids on about 150 properties and ends up with between and 8 to 15 per month. That’s awesome!
His favorite auction websites are:
auction.com
xome.com
hudsonandmarshall.com
realtybid.com
hubzu.com
He mentioned that hubzu is nice because you can get away with small earnest money deposits than the typical $2,500 the other auction sites require.
When looking for properties to bid on, he focuses on the smaller markets and targets in on the houses that have been listed for a long time. The houses that are for sale for over 180 days or more are the ones that he puts bids in on.
During the episode he also gave several reasons why he prefers to close each of the deals at the title company of his choosing rather than the one preferred by the bank that owns the auction property. The main reason was their hidden title company fees and lack of control over what is going on with the deal.
He was also kind enough to share with us his technique to get Realtors to tell us their BPO (which most don’t want to give out). He does this by not asking for a BPO but by asking, “what would you list it at for a 30 day quick sale?”
Brilliant!
Be aware that when buying auction houses online and then trying to wholesale them, you will not be able to assign them. You will need to double-close…yet another reason to have a title company you know that can close the deals.
