In your scenario I could hire a full service broker, have the property owner sell fast well under market value, and still come out ahead of where you would leave them. The property owner would be represented by someone looking out for their interests. Who is looking out for the interests of the property owner in your deal?

In fact in your scenario the property owner could sell at the same price and still come out ahead of your scenario. Agents would not charge 15% commission, likely about 1/3 of that.

@ Doin' bpose

Look, obviously you're not familiar with what I'm talking about. You can do a Google search on "Wholesale Real Estate" and see how common a strategy this is. People pay me to coach them on this and other strategies, so I'm not excited about teaching you for free.

Let's take a look at a real life example... 3 months back I received a phone call in response to one of my "I Buy Houses, CASH" ads. The 86 year old woman who contacted me had left it up to her son to pay the mortgage on her home. She didn't know that he hadn't paid in 6 months and when we met she had less than 30 days before the bank Foreclosed on it... The house had a $600,000 ARV and she only owed about $120,000 on it. I got it under contract for $300,000 and exactly 10 days later we closed escrow. The homeowner walked away with a cool $180,000 in her pocket (enough to move herself into a 1 bedroom condo and still have money left over, along with having NO mortgage payments), I made $30,000 for the contract and the investor picked up a property with $270,000 in equity. I don't about you, but that sounds like a win, win, win to me!!

Your judgements regarding this are based on NEVER having done it yourself. Like I said, the difference is that the people I work with NEED to sell, not to mention that many of them have already gone thru the ringer with a Realtor, Full Service Brokers and just about every other licensed "professional" you can think of! I'm working a deal right now in which the property owner had it listed for over 1 year with a "broker" and nothing! I made some phone calls and it looks like we'll close escrow next week, just 31 days after having met!

Have you ever been to Hawaii?? It's an island!!! Means everyone here knows each other! If people felt I was taking advantage of them, I'd be out of business!! Sad fact is, most of them were much more dissatisfied with their Realtors!

Lastly, I believe it was YOU that wanted to remind me of the title of this thread... "What is the most easiest way to invest in real estate" and I have yet to see one solid suggestion from you. I offered this strategy for several reasons...

-It's exactly what I used to start in the business at age 20!
-It takes no money or credit (eliminating 2 of the largest obstacles for wannabe investors)
-One is not personally attached to any deal, so there is virtually NO RISK involved
-It removes the need for speculation on future markets

Once again I humbly ask, do YOU have any suggestions for an easy investment strategy?? By all means, rather than trying to diminish the information I've offered, please teach us what you know so that future readers of this forum will actually know about an "easy investment strategy"!!

I sincerely appreciate the vast array of knowledge you've shared!

In case you have forgotten how it all went down my brother from another mother, here it is....that homeowner would have been better off with a full service broker than with you. You let her walk with 10k, the broker will net her more and look out for her best interests.
You can change the example to make yourself look good if you want.

But in your 1st example, the owner left money on the table, ahem, I mean in your pocket.

In my case, I had to join a group of investors. I know nothing about home repairs. I am not knowledgeable with home values. I have no experience. I don't have the money. There was no way that I could invest in real estate on my own.

I was very fortunate to have found a small group of investors on in the internet! I met the "leader" of the group and there was instant bonding. Since it was a small group, the resources were limited so we needed one another. Some didn't have good credit scores but they had some cash. I didn't have the cash but I had the credit and willingness to take on loans and put my name on the purchase agreement.

The "leader" handled the logistics - exploring opportunities, buying homes, overseeing the rehab, selling homes, getting potential buyers ready by improving their credit scores, etc. He gets paid nicely for his work, but I am happy and so is he.

WOW, it amazes me how little knowledge there appears to be out there among licensee's about real estate investing. My brother and I started investing one week after my 16Th birthday in 1955 and what is going on now was going on then.

I became a broker in 1965 and it allowed me to help some distressed owners to pocket more money, but the majority of the time listing a property and going for FMV with a discount was not a viable solution due to the situation and time constraints.

As a matter of fact in California you couldn't list a property in foreclosure because the idiots in the capitol passed a law requiring posting a bond for three times the value of the property but there weren't any bonding companies to do it.

"Super", I definitely wouldn't post the widow story as a win-win deal with the details provided. But in most of the deals I'm familiar with, the owners are happy to resolve a serious problem with the aid provided by an investor. Again, some of these real problem properties can't get financing or title insurance until an investor solves the problems, and don't forget the time factor in say a foreclosure, so listing is out as an option and a retail buyer is just wishful thinking.