Should There Be Negotiation On Wholesale Properties?

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I am proud and so pleased to see all of our coaches shiny faces. For this week's roundtable, we have first and foremost, the technician, Eric Peterson. Eric, how are you?

I'm good.

Happy to be here.

Good to see you. We've got the nightcap OG dude, buddy. Scott Bossman. Scott Bossman again. Happy birthday. How are you?

Thank you very much, Mark. I'm doing great, thanks. Good day.

You remind me of this book, this book I read a few years ago called Younger Next Year.

Oh, it's nice. I feel younger than a year ago, honestly.

Yeah. Because Eric is making us ride the freaking peloton at least three times a week. So, yeah, yeah. We've got Breathe in the mailing, breathe out the marketing. Mike Zaino. Mike, how are you, Mark?

I'm not quite as Zen as usual. Do you know why?

Why?

Because, you know, so I don't know. People know this. I have fully converted to the Surface on my. On as my portable device. But I still have this Mac and I literally almost threw it off the table today. I cannot wait to get my new Surface. So I. It really challenged my Zen state. So other than that, I'm doing great.

How much did Scott Todd pay you for that?

Nothing. I. He's a good resource for my new Surface, but other than that, nothing.

I mean, we're already starting, like 10 seconds in.

I want to see truthful.

Truthful and accurate.

You know what? Let's go to somebody who's more pleasant. The terrorist hunter. The most feared woman in the country, Mimi Schmidt. Mimi, good to see you.

Nice to see you, too. I have two announcements. Happy birthday, Scott Bossman. And two, I got my radio order in for Father's Day.

Nice, nice.

Very nice.

Sounds like another surface is going to be delivered.

Moving on, we've got. I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate Litchfield. Tate. How are you?

I'm fantastic. Happy to be on today's show.

You know what would be great is if we could just look over your shoulder and see how you work. Be great.

I think there's a way to do that, actually.

There is a way to do it. Go to landgeek.com lots of. And watch Tate work and learn a little bit about cycling as well. And last but not least, the brain, the professor, Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com you're automating your craigslist and your facebook postings posting domination.com thelandgeek learn anything about anything? Investorninjas.com Scott Todd how are you, Mark?

I'm great. How are you?

I'm great, I'm great. Are people all excited about Eric's latest geeky course in investor ninjas?

Yeah, I think so. You know, like, the response has been great. You know, I. No complaints. Like, how else can you do it, Mark? Like, literally, he shows you the entire how he manages his Facebook marketplace, ads, properties, everything all right there in Airtable. And then he kicks in with a bonus module available where he actually shows how to build the automation that goes along with it right into your mail program. So, like, who wouldn't want that?

Even surface people could benefit from this.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, literally, you know, it's device agnostic. All is good and you know, just go do it.

There you go. Well, we got a really great topic for discussion for this week's roundtable, and it's very near and dear to at least Mike Zano's heart, the concept of wholesaling etiquette. So the first part is, number one, is it okay to negotiate a wholesaling deal? And then number two is a bad form if you're the wholesaler, to charge them a doc fee. So let's just start with somebody that is a little bit more enlightened. A Mac user, Eric Peterson. Eric, what are your thoughts?

So the second part of that question is really easy to answer. If you're asking me, I think doc wholesale. No, go.

Okay.

I mean, you're working with another investor. You guys are essentially working together. You're helping each other out. You don't charge a doc fee.

Okay.

The transaction is simple, it's straightforward. You know, the price is what it is in terms of negotiation. I guess I'm not opposed to it. Ultimately, I think that when I put wholesale property out, I try to look at the market and price it accordingly so that it is a value for both sides. You know, I'm making some money and I'm leaving plenty of room for the buyer to make money. But you know, as the buyer, if you feel that the price isn't in line with the market, I think you can make an offer. You can try to negotiate. I'm not going to say you're going to get that deal, but you could certainly try. I can think of, I think, one occasion where I did negotiate on a wholesale deal. Other than that, you know, I think my pricing in general is usually pretty good. And, you know, there's not a Lot of back and forth. And I think in general, that's how most of us try to price our properties. When we put it out for wholesale, we're not looking to take advantage of the other side. We're also not looking to create a whole bunch of extra work. We're looking for a smooth transaction. So, you know, too much back and forth is not ideal.

Okay, that makes sense for sure to me. Let's hear from the terrorist hunter, Mimi Schmidt. Mimi, what do you think?

Well, I agree with Eric on the doc fee thing. I remember I bought from a wholesaler that was new in the business couple of years back, and I taught his VA how to do a deed with multiple properties on it, and then he tried to charge me a doc fee. So, yeah, no, not cool.

But.

Not cool. But I will say I definitely negotiate with wholesalers that I have relationships with. I think that's part of buying in volume. For instance, I bought two from a wholesaler last week, and I sold them before he could mail me that. He's older and set in his ways and does everything snail. Now, I sold those two properties before he could send me the deeds and then have my VA file them. So he took them to the county and filed them for me and paid the cost. And so I thought, well, I'll just catch you on the backside. So this. This was deal that we negotiated. I gave him a little extra, but I think it's all about building that relationship, Right. If you want to continue to work with that person, you don't want to irritate them with your penny pinching, but at the same time, you got to do what's good for your business, right? So I'm not opposed to negotiating at all.

Okay. Okay. I love it. Tate Litchfield, what are your thoughts?

No. On the doc fee? Pretty simple there. Just don't pay it. And I would never pay it. As far as negotiation goes. Listen, nothing wrong with making an offer. Mimi made an offer on some property recently, and it's like, no, I'm not coming down from my price. No, it is what it is. And it made her mad, I'm sure. But it's like, no, I don't need to sell them. Right? And I think that states to why we're having this discussion right now is because the market is changing all the time. Six months ago, yeah, maybe I would have been a little bit more desperate to sell it today. Nah. Take it or leave it. I got what you want. It's my price or it's the highway. As a result, she Paid it. We did the deal. She's happy. Maybe, but she got the lots she needed. And I made some money. Made more money than she probably wanted to pay for. But hey, I'm happy she's going to make money. I know she will. It's just a matter of the circumstance and I don't think there's anything wrong with asking. But me personally, I'm not offended when anybody asks for a discount. I would almost be upset if you didn't try to get yourself a little bit better of a deal. But things change all the time. And so for me, ask away. I do this all the time. I think I tried to buy something from Eric a while ago and I said he wanted four grand and I knew he wanted that. And I think I messaged him. I said, how much is this $3,000 property going to cost me? And he said $4,000. And I thought, all right, at least I tried so he wasn't upset. It's all good.

Still going to make.

No, that's good. I'm surprised you would negotiate with Mimi though.

Yeah, three and a half percent. Three and a half times my money. So I'm good.

She's making money.

No, she's making money. It's just the fact that like for your own safety, like safety is a concern. No, like you're driving around Vegas and all of a sudden you see drones. You don't know. Is this because of the negotiation or is this what is going on?

Well, I think, I think Mimi knows that like something happens to me, she's gonna have a three month old living with her and it's just not, it's not worth it for her. She's like ah, three month old and a three year old. No way. I can't handle that. You can, you can take the win on that one, Tate.

Fantastic. Scott, Todd, you have any strong opinions on this? I'm just form to negotiate the doc fee and. Or in bad form just to negotiate.

Yeah, I mean I have an opinion but like before we get to that is take kind of hiding behind this three month old. Like is he putting the three month old there first? Is that what just happened?

No.

Shield.

I'm just terrified.

Like, like a human baby shield.

Yeah, right, sure. That's not sure that's what Tate meant. I think that's what happened though. But like it's okay. So Mark, it's funny because yeah, I have some strong opinions. Like I agree with everybody. Doc fee.

No way.

That's not. That's insane. Right? Like you're out there. Look, as I shouldn't put a property out there for wholesale unless I'm really going to sell it and be prepared for it, right? What's a doc fee? Now, the other bad form that you'll see from time to time is someone saying, oh, well, you know, got to pay for the recording, too, on the wholesale deal. If I'm paying cash for the deal, just complete the transaction. Look, you're making money. You already made your money. You decided to move on, and it's time to go. I'm gonna be the one that has to sit on this thing for a little bit and, you know, sell it when I sell it. And that's just the way that it is. So I'm gonna go out there, I'm gonna buy it from you. You're going to record it. Don't send me a piece of paper.

And say, here, record it.

No, you record it. Give it to me. Let's complete the transaction and then no doc fee. Now negotiations. I mean, like, the cool thing about this business is that we all. There's not a fixed price, right? Like, the price is the price. I can look at a property mark and see one price, and you can look at it and see another price. And ultimately, what is price? Price is just an agreement between two people. That's it. So you. You and me can agree on the price, or maybe you and Tate could agree on a price, but essentially you don't get the say so of what the price of the property is. Now, that said, you may not want to sell it to me for $4,000. And that case that Tate just said, right? Like, Tate. Tate was negotiating with Mimi. Mimi made an offer. Tate said, no, move on. Like, that's it. So Tate had his price and he had his bottom line price, and he wasn't going to move below it. He doesn't have to move below it because he has buyers for those properties and he was okay with holding onto it. And like, I made an offer. I caught another land investor, I don't know, two months ago and made an offer on some of his properties. And the guy was like. I said to him, I was very cool about it. I said, hey, you want to sell any of your properties wholesale? He's like, well, make me an offer. And I said, okay, well, like, here I put a number out there. I put in like $6,000 for a property. The guy was offended. He's like, let me tell you something. Collect these things for my hobby. I don't need your money. I'm like, Listen, I'm not trying to offend you. You told me to make an offer. I made an offer, like. But, like, I got to be able to make money here too. He's like, well, why would I? And he was very adversarial, right? Like, I don't want you to make money off of the stuff that I'm going to do. Well, he's not a good. He's not a good wholesaler in that case, right? Like, okay, he just wants to start everything retail. So you might have people that you upset. Who cares? It's just the way that it is. I didn't mean it as a. I didn't mean it as an insult to the guy. I made an offer. He doesn't like the offer. It's okay. It's no different than me mailing an offer to somebody. I mean, I mailed someone an offer day, and they said, stop mailing me. You may make the same offer every three months. Stop. And I'm not gonna stop. I'm gonna keep making them. He can just throw them away. He sees my name, throw it away. I don't care. That's just the way that it is.

Yeah, no, I totally agree. And if you're a people pleaser, you know, maybe you should hire, like, a Scott Todd to help you with your negotiations.

He's very expensive, though.

He's expensive, but he's worth it. He'll save that money. The dude, buddy, the nightcap OG is having some Internet issues. Scott, are you back with us? I'm back.

Sorry about that. I was cut off.

Yeah, yeah, no worries. So what do you think? Is it bad form to charge a doc fee, and is it bad form to negotiate a wholesale deal?

So I'm with Eric on the dock fee, and I didn't hear what everybody else says, but I'm pretty sure we're on the same lines as that goes. But, yeah, I consider it kind of an etiquette thing in our community to, you know, we come across a lot of deals. I present you with deals, you present me with deals. And it's just, you know, convenient type of transaction. You don't have to work very hard for it. So, yeah, no doc fee for us as far as negotiation goes. I mean, you know, I'm open to a discussion. I tend. Where I buy and sell in wholesale. I tend to know the pricing really well. And so if I'm selling wholesale, I just, you know, my mindset is I need to make money on this deal, and whoever I sell it to needs to make money on this deal, there needs to be enough meat on the bone for them to sell for cash or terms and to make, you know, make good money over time. And I have the same mentality buying from someone. And there have been some instances where I thought, oh, wow, that's, you know, that's a lot higher than I would want to pay in this area. And, you know, I've taken that opportunity upon myself to talk to the person about it and say, you know, I've been working in this area a long time. Here's what I'm selling them for cash for, here's what I'm selling for terms for. You know, I'm interested in buying some properties from you wholesale. You know, would you be willing to come down a little bit? And I don't think there's anything wrong with that discussion, but you just have to know your numbers really well and have that mindset that there's gotta be enough meat on the bone for everybody.

I love it. And then, of course, last but not least, we should go to our resident wholesaling expert, whom it's hard to believe can even keep track of all the deals using a Microsoft Surface, but he can. Mike Zano.

Everybody's really made all the great points. I think that definitely no doc fee, that this is an easy transaction. Right? This is. You know, I often say the easy thing about wholesale is that is the selling side, it's between another real estate investor. It's just so simple. The hard part, you gotta get at a good price where you can, you know, make money by doing this. So definitely no doc fee negotiation. Yeah, I always tell people, treat a wholesale deal like an accepted offer, and an accepted offer you might have to retrade when you get more information. So sort of look at it that way. And especially if they have a bulk amount of properties, like, you know, I'll often even do that. I'll say, Geez, I got 20 properties here. If you buy one, it's this. If you buy three, it's this. You buy all, it's that.

Right?

So you could always say, geez, I like to buy them all. Would you think that I could have them all for, you know, this price? So I think that's a, that's a very fair tactic. So I think your job as the wholesaler is to facilitate a very smooth transaction where, you know, again, it just should be a piece of cake that you record the deed for them. There's no extra fees. It's a very smooth and simple process. So I'm saying if you want to be a wholesaler, I would put down here, don't be an inflator. Be a facilitator. Because if you're an inflator, like, you're taking and you're blowing those price, you see them all the time. It's like, oh, here it is. And this is the market value. And you're like, most of us know the deals. Like, that's not the market value. Right. That's what we're joking about.

Hotel, retail.

Right. You got to be careful, right? Because you don't want just one transaction. What's that going to do for you? What's one transaction? Yeah, maybe you make some money on somebody, but they're not coming back. And you want to be able to do this over and over again.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So before we get to Mimi's Tip of the Week, I just want to remind everybody that today's podcast is sponsored by flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally be transformative. Go up the mountain of land investing with Scott Todd as your Sherpa. Start creating a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations, or rodents. But do it quickly, safely, and efficiently. As Mike Zaino loves to remind me, Scott Todd can save you four to five years of your life because that's how long it took me to figure this stuff out, and he can do it in four months. So as I get over my nausea thinking of that, Mimi Schmidt. Oh, wait. Before you say, where do you go to get signed up for flight school? You got to have a call with the Zen master or dude, buddy, nightcap, OG go to thelandgeek.com training schedule, a call, talk to those guys about your situation, see if flight school is a good fit for you. All right, Mimi Schmidt, are you ready for your tip of the week? A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got? Oh, Mimi, you're on mute.

I'm ready. Simplify. I'll put out a press release about nine days ago that they've opened up 55 new counties in the south and in the east. Right. So go speed up your processes in these counties that you're in. You guys check them out.

All right. Fantastic. Fantastic tip. Well, I thought this was a really informative podcast, and it's always nice to kind of update everybody on, you know, the current market and how things are done with wholesaling. I know that currently that things are going very, very well for us in the midst of a Global pandemic and social unrest even. I'd love to know, just real quickly, has anything changed on anyone's end? Tate, we'll start with you. Any changes?

No, things are steady as she goes. Had a nice deal this morning. Closing another one this afternoon. So steady as she goes. We're grateful for that.

Yeah, great, Mike.

Still going really well. This is, again, just feeling very blessed. No negative changes. All positive changes.

Eric Peterson.

Yeah, everything's staying pretty consistent. I mean, sales are going very well right now.

Mimi.

Best month ever.

Last month.

So excited. Got a new high in my bank account. I'm so excited. I have more cash to go buy land with. I'm starting to get a little stressed. I gotta get a hold of more land.

Why were you beating me up then, Mimi?

Mimi, keep that cash. Get an investor. Help your friends out. Give them a 12% return on their money. Showing her cards.

Negotiations over.

Yeah, it's on now, Mimi. It is on.

Scott Bossman, any changes in your business from last week? You're on. You're on mute, Scott.

Sorry. We had a great week last week. Couple more sales here on the bubble. So, yeah, things are going well. I'm chasing one guy right now for a payment, a late payment, but I always chase him. I've been chasing him for six months, so kind of same story with him.

Yeah, it's not really Covid related, for sure.

Yeah.

Scott. Todd, how about you?

No, still rock solid. Still going.

All right. Yeah. Well, fantastic. Well, thanks, everybody. I thank the listeners. Remind them the only way.

The.

The only way Mike Zano is going to show up every week to haze me about being a Mac owner is if you do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, you got to rate, you got to review the podcast. Send a screenshot of that review to supportlandgeek.com we're going to send you for free the latest course, the $97 Wholesaling Course, how to Double youe Money. 30 days or less. All right, are you all ready to do this? One, two, three. Let freedom ring. Not bad.

I actually have a new word mark because of all that. It's called Mackie. If something doesn't work in my life, it's Mackie.

Really?

Mackie. I like it.

That makes sense, right, Scott? Mackie.

It doesn't work.

It glitches. It's.

I understand. The Mac.

That thing is so Mackie. That thing is so Mackie. Can't deal with that Mackie thing. Mackie.

It's so funny because I was actually listening to an NPR show and they had some.

Who.

People on CDC, people. And the way that they were naming the COVID 19 virus was they really just wanted to shortcut it and just call it Microsoft. But because, like, everyone would know, oh, gosh, we're in the midst of a virus and just, it wouldn't be so confusing for everybody. But they, you know, but, you know, look, they decided that wouldn't be very. It would be easily understood by everyone. But, you know, it would be a little unfair.

Listen, my, my surface, 18 months now of non stop powerhouse working, no issues, Mark. I mean, I'm not having to worry about. Oh man, is my microphone working or not working or people can't hear me? It just works. It just works.

It's okay, Mackie. It's not Mackie.

Look, I will tell you this though. I tried to convert my daughter the other day to. I tried to convert her to the service. Like, I. I'm like, here, look at this Surface. This is what you could be using. I'm showing her the touchscreen, et cetera. She's like, okay, well, there's one test that I have to run through. And I'm like, okay, what is it? She's like, I gotta lay in my bed and like, type. Because she's going, you know, in college, she's doing that stuff and that's what she's doing. I'm like, okay. She comes back like, minutes, five minutes. She's like, nope, the keyboard just doesn't have the right feel. And I'm like, I get it. The keyboard on the portable one, like the Microsoft Pro, the keyboard's not that great. On my big surface that's right here in front of me. I got the rock solid Mac daddy thing. And you know, I was thinking this weekend because Eric told me once I really like all the keyboard shortcuts. And I was in Excel and I'm like, hey, alt H N N. I'm using all the keyboard shortcuts right there in Excel and everywhere else. So I'm not quite sure what Eric's talking about, about no shortcuts. They're all right there. Other than the fact that he may have to learn new ones because they're a little bit different than what he's accustomed to. So, you know, if you're gonna stay behind and lag behind on technology because you like the old fashioned way of doing things. Okay, it's okay. I'm not judging.

Yeah, that was a kind of a bossman cut right there. Eric Peterson, you want to say anything about this?

No, I got nothing to say. I've been a Mac user for a long time, and I know what I have.

The thing is, like, when I'm using my laptop, do I want to be smudging it with my. With my, you know, sausage Y fingers? I gotta worry about it. I ate pizza last night, like, touching the screen. I like my things pristine.

Well, that makes no sense. You're just gonna smudge the keys. You're gonna get the grease, the pizza grease all over the keys, as opposed to the screen, which you can wipe off. But it's okay, Mark. It's okay.

No. Fine. Good point. Okay, that is a good point.

Does anybody else want pizza right now? Just not.

Not as visible.

Pizza would be good.

Boy, I really didn't think about that one before I said it. All right, well, thanks, everybody. We'll see everybody next week.