Join your host Scott Carson as he breaks down the upcoming Harris County (Houston, TX) foreclosure list for April 2021 (Courtesy of 4Closure.info). Listen as Scott shows you how to identify banks with potential note deals, private investors to target for funding, smaller investors for REO’s, and self-directed IRA investors foreclosing on their investments. Scott also breaks down how to contact them and what to say. He also shares how to use the list for hot leads to get the bank’s full list of NPN across the country. He also shows you how to leverage the attorney and trustee foreclosing as a backdoor into the bank to buy notes.

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Breaking Down The Harris County Foreclosure List: Finding Deals, REO’s And Private Lenders

Welcome to the show, the Texas foreclosure list edition. I know we’ve got people joining us from all across the United States because what happens in Texas when it comes to funding often lights the way for the rest of the country in a lot of cases. Texas is the number one state to lend in because we have the best foreclosure laws. You can do things quickly here.

Foreclosures Are Back

I’m excited about the topic. It is something that we have used for years, which has dwindled down a little bit in the last couple of years as foreclosures across the country slowed down a little bit. Before I get into the content about how we’re going to be using the Texas foreclosure list to find notes and investors out there, I would be wrong if I didn’t share and give a big shout to the special sponsor for this episode of the show. You’ll be seeing a lot of their work and I have to be a big shot at somebody I’ve used for years. I know the company very well.

I’m very excited about some of the things that they’ve been doing and develop in the last couple of years of not just a data company. I want to give a big shout-out to the foreclosure listing service or 4Closure.info. Here in Texas, they’re known as a Roddy List. You can go to FLSOnline.com. He’s the Texas king of all property lead types since 1963. I know George Roddy Sr. and George Roddy Jr. They provide foreclosure lists in over 200 counties across Texas. When I need a list here in Texas, this is a company that I turn to.

They have a variety of different counties that you can buy individually. It is an absolute great service. Whether you’re paying $45 to $75 a month, it’s going to vary by county. I highly encourage you to go over to YouTube and check out the YouTube channel. We did a great interview with Jack Zagunis from foreclosure listing service to 4Closure.info. We talked about the different things and services that they provide like foreclosure financing, tax auction, all sorts of great things out there. You’ll be seeing some list that they provide. It is an integral part, especially if you’re investing in Texas.

We have a lot of people looking for stuff in Texas. What we’re providing and how we walk through is something that you can use in the philosophy wherever you’re located. I know FLS only does stuff in Texas, but you can use county records research if you’re in California. If you’re in other states, you can use Foreclosure.com. It’s not so much the company. It’s the list that you can pull from anywhere and dive into some great content, deal flow and leads.

Foreclosures are starting back up again. Here in Texas, we have something called Super Tuesday. It’s the first Tuesday of the month and it is the first time we’re going to have a foreclosure auction in roughly a year in the state of Texas. That’s going to be in Harris County, which is where Houston is located. If you’re a borrower and nonperforming and you’re beyond three months default, the lender could go to foreclosure here in Texas as long as they publicize the list 21 days prior to the first Tuesday. It’s very quick to do. It’s not a long, expensive process like it is in other states.

All we need is twenty days prior notice. The first Tuesday is for the mortgage foreclosure but also the tax auction. Sheriff’s sale is a very popular way to invest here in Texas. You’ve known this talk with Mike Wolf talking about the tax auctions. Arnie Abramson, we’ve talked with him before. There are a lot of investors that are the best in Texas when it comes to tax sales, but we’re not talking about tax sales. We’re going to be talking about how to use the foreclosure list and leverage what’s going on.

A lot of counties haven’t had anything for several months, but the big thing about what’s going on here is the first big county in the country. Not Travis County, Austin, Bexar, San Antonio, Dallas, Collin, Kent, county up around Dallas or Nueces where Corpus Christi is. Harris County is having a huge foreclosure auction. There are roughly 600 properties listed for auction. This is a huge list. Normally, it’s 20, 30, maybe 5, 10. This is 600 properties listed for an auction taking place.

In Texas, you’ve got to have all cash to bid at the auction. You got to show up with cashier’s checks of all denominations. If you’ve never been to a foreclosure auction in Texas and you have the opportunity, it is interesting to go to. When you go to a major county that’s hosting it, you will find so many private investors there who are bidding. Many people are very armed here in Texas. We like to carry guns. There are people packing heat for foreclosure auction to protect the money in cashier checks that I have.

It’s a great place to find capital if they’re networking properly. I don’t like to go to crowds. If you’re a little COVID conscious, you don’t have to show up to the crowd. You can take the list that we’ll be talking about from 4Closure.info that you can pick up and dive into. We’ll break it down and show you how to find investors and banks. The foreclosure list is going to have the property addresses and the borrower’s information, the last name, first name, who the lender is and the legal description.

It’s also going to show the bank or the lender who is foreclosing in a lot of cases, maybe a private bank, IRA investor or somebody who owner-financed a property. You’ll see the UPP, the Unpaid Principal Balance, the rough estimate, the fair market value based off the appraised value. Here in Texas, it’s usually within 5% to 10% of the tax appraisal value is what they figured market value. I can be crazy in different cities to states here in Austin. Maybe a great example is the market’s crazy. Houston’s been crazy as well but pretty close to that.

Based on the spreadsheet that you get, you can almost figure out when the last payment was made, what kind of equity, if there is any, how far upside down they are, what last payment was made. It also has a nice column that we have tracked for years before where it says previous listing. It was listed on the foreclosure list for a previous month and it would say yes. There’s been quite a few of those have been listed for 6, 9, 12 months since they stopped the foreclosure auctions.

As things are rocking and rolling here in Harris, the states, cities and counties get back to normal a little bit. The previous listings often become short sales, which if you’ve ever seen me talk about short papering or buying a note on a short sale, it’s been listed for a while. You can often sandwich yourself between the bank and potentially cash buyer who’s got a contract to buy the property by buying the discount and approving the short sale quickly.

 

If you’re looking for investors, the foreclosure list will show you a variety of IRA investors. These people have owner-financed property that may have money to look to invest with them. If they’re having a foreclose and enough to lend money, they probably do not want to do a lot of the work. They would probably be willing to go to the more passive than something more active. It’s a great way for you to find some private money.

what are we going to do

You’ll find hard money lenders who are foreclosed and there are several hard money lenders on this list. I’ve reached out to a couple of them to find out, “What are you guys looking for?” They’re using hard money lenders are going to be at 65%, 70% of assets or After Repair Value but still an opportunity for you to pick up some assets cheap or REO that you step in, take over pretty easily and make some money on this stuff.

Most importantly, the number one thing about this list is it’s not about the property. It’s about using the addresses with the banks as warm leads for potential note lists and REO. The ultimate goal is not the properties listed. Don’t fall in love with all the details of 123 Main Street because it’s going to foreclosure. You’re probably not going to get in that list.

The list on here is to help us build a list of warm leads that we can contact special asset managers at banks and say, “I see that you’ve got 1, 2, 3 or 4 addresses that you’re taking a foreclosure. Would you be interested in selling one of those? Yes or no? Would you be willing to add or send me that list of other stuff that you’re getting me to foreclose on or starting the foreclosure process on that we might be able to buy?” Texas is the fastest foreclosure state in the country. It’s 21 days prior to the first Tuesday and you can start the foreclosure process.

The thing about the foreclosures here in Texas is once it does go on the foreclosure list, the banks have done 95% of the work to foreclose already. You’ve got about three weeks to do something. It’s not going to happen. That’s why we say this list in Texas is not so much where the address is on there and targeting those specific addresses. It’s to get on the list that the bank might have across the state or country. You’re not using to be able to buy the nonperforming note off the list.

I get phone calls all the time, “This is going to foreclosure. You want to buy the note?” Sorry, it’s probably not going to happen because the banks are already dragging it out and they’re 95% of the way there on the goal line to finish foreclosing. They’re not going to pass it off to you. It’s not saying they won’t in some cases, but it’s much rarer than a possibility. I shouldn’t have opened up that Pandora’s Box, but you know me. I’m pretty honest with you. The idea is to get the full list of that bank or lending institutions’ nonperforming notes that they have across the state or on a bigger level across the country.

An REO is Real Estate Owned. That’s a property that has already gone through the foreclosure auction. The foreclosure auction has happened. The bank did not sell it at the auction and they took the property back. It’s why it stands for real estate owned. In some cases, we’ve used the foreclosure lists and reached out to the banks. When they didn’t sell the property at the auction or they did the foreclosure but couldn’t sell it to anybody, sometimes we have stepped in and been able to pick up an REO fast and at a pretty decent price, too, versus having to go through the MLS and stuff like that.

Fixing The List

The bank will take our offering on the NPN as a backup offering in case they don’t sell it and it can often be the winning bid for an REO to get dumped. I like using these lists to find private investors for future deals, individuals, LLCs and self-directed IRAs. What are we going to do with the list? The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to narrow down the list.

You’re not going to be chasing all 600 addresses. We’re probably going to cut it down by half, if not more, because we’re going to first go through and get rid of the bigger banks like the Bank of Americas, Chase, the Citis. We’ll get rid of those because they’re not going to sell us a one-off note. We’re also going to look at those names that are on there that we might have relationships with. Maybe it’s a relationship that you connected with somebody on LinkedIn at the bank before you’ve reached out to special asset managers or it’s a relationship you’re trying to develop.

Often, you can target or take that address and use it to your warm list into the asset manager. Even if they say no, the idea is still to get them to answer and say, “Would you be willing to add me to your list?” You can also target short sales on there if it’s been on a list and goes to next month’s list if you follow this on a monthly basis. The longer an asset is on the foreclosure list that doesn’t sell or drags out the bank, the more motivated to sell that note at a big discount.

Our biggest thing is to hone this list down to turn around and start contacting banks. If we don’t get any more of the banks, we can contact the attorney or the trustee who’s foreclosing to see if that’ll help us get in the back door and they’ll make a connection to somebody to the bank. You can contact individuals and self-directed IRAs for potential funding, maybe some subject-to deals. We will see 5 or 6 names on here. They’re all self-directed IRA companies. You got to do a little bit of work to find out who the actual lender is on the ideal. That can be an easy and nice warm introduction.

This list is a starting point. It’s not going to help you if you don’t follow up. What I mean by follow-up is jumping on LinkedIn or sending some emails. It may even be dialing for dollars to call some of the banks to try to track them down, but you can do this on a part-time basis. If you narrow the list down, you may be able to identify 5 or 6 and contact directly on LinkedIn or the attorneys via email and try to make that conversation initially happen over email and then schedule a phone call around your work at lunch.

It’s all going to come in the fall. This list itself is worthless if you’re not doing anything now. What is happening with most investors in Texas is they’re taking this list. What are they doing? They’re sending out and trying to get 2 or 3 postcards out in a 21, 30-day notice. If it didn’t get on the struck-off list, they’re going to send another postcard to the borrower or try to get them to work with them. We are not going to do any damn direct mail unless you pull an IRA investor leads off of this and then contact them later on but it should be funding sources for it.

 

If you’re part of our WCN Membership, you would have received this via Base Camp. Our WCM membership is $97 a month, where you go to an all-you-can-eat training, all of our monthly events, quarterly workshops or special training and special lists like this. If you’re interested and sign up for the All You Can Learn, everybody can go to WCNMembership.com and get signed up for $97 a month.

Breaking Down The Spreadsheet

Let’s pull up the list. irst thing I like to do when I get a list like this is we have the titles across the top. I like to make sure it’s saved my title. The first thing we do is go to freeze panes and freeze them, so the top thing stays the same. I’m also going to filter. You’ve got the upload time. This list was created on March 19, 2021. I see the estimated equity and see if there’s a negative or positive.

I haven’t touched anything on this list except checking on it. Percent margins are upside-down. The negative ones are upside down. It has to be an unpaid balance. Let’s go ahead and put a dollar sign on that, so we know what we’re looking at. We see clerk number, yearly and monthly report, the city, city name, the county code, MAPSCO page, the class single-family, duplex condo, vacant land, that kind of stuff, loan type, conventional, street address.

These are the important things. Street address, address, bed, baths, garage, pool, zip code and then you’ve got the legal description, mortgagor’s first name and last name. This is the borrower. If you don’t want a mortgagor, a grantor or grantee may also show up in your county for judicial. The mortgagor’s first name, that’s the borrower’s name. That’s a borrower’s first and last name there.

Mortgagee, that is the company or the bank who financed it. Trustee, that’s the attorney foreclosing. Auction.com is handling quite a few of these. It says the auction sale time starts at 10:00 and works its way, the volume and the page number, the loan month when it was originated, the loan year, the original loan amount. We want to go ahead and dollar sign that up, change that to format the sales to a dollar sign.

This is how the spreadsheet is formatted. With the monthly payments and interest rate, you can tell when the loan expires. You can see that like this one was a twenty-year loan, your construction, the assessed value of the property, the square footage and number of units. What FLS and foreclosure does is they have somebody every month that pulls this information go down and county pull it.

You see comments and the owner’s street number if they live at a different address versus a property address. This is their mailing address, city, the tax ID number for the actual property, not the social security number, like the APN number for the property, the georeference, foreclosure county. You can see it pull the numbers off. It gets to put the Zillow listing in here, which is pretty nice.

Sorting By Mortgagee

It’s all the information on there, so that’s good. What we’re going to do is we’re going to go ahead, click on here and we’re going to sort this first and foremost, custom sort by the bank. Remember, we talked about the mortgagee and mortgagor. We want to do the mortgagee and go A to Z. That’s going to take us over here. If we go over here to the list, it shouldn’t be that much. This is the only thing I changed on here, subdivision, mortgagee, mortgagor going through this. What we’re going to do to make this very easy is we’re going to scroll through these.

When you do the dropdown menu, what we’re going to do is we’re going to highlight some of these to make it easier. The entities on here, we’ll leave those in there, 1000 Northwest Freeway, LLC. These are trusts and land trusts. Some of these are LLC. These are 2012 Cottage, 2013, Main Owners Association, Airborne Homes, AB Land Company, Allegiance Bank. We start getting the banks. If it’s a smaller bank, not a major bank, I would leave this in here.

It’s got four Allegiance Banks. That’s four potential addresses that we could reach out to say, “I see you’re foreclosing on four this month. Do you have any others?” American Advisors Group, we’ll see that American Capital Funding Corporation, American National Insurance, Anchor Loans, Angel Mortgage Income, Apex bank. It’s an individual bank. We’ll leave that in there or be true. Arbitra Capital Partners, that’s an investor. You’d see this. They’re the bank. They finance it to whoever the mortgagor is here. Argolica, LLC, these are such unique names. Do a Google search and it won’t be hard to find.

Artie Truong, this is an investor that financed a property to TN & MH Trading Corporation. The Asbury Park Condominium Association, I don’t like a ton of associations here in Texas, so I’m going to get rid of those. Associates Home Equity Services, this is probably a tax lien, but that’s okay. We’ll leave it in there. Athas Capital Group, Inc, we’ll leave that in there. Augusta 2300 Townhome Association, Bankcorp South, we’ll leave them in there.

You’re not going to waste your time trying to call Bank of New York Mellon, so let me get rid of every Bank of New York Mellon. Barry Copeland Sr. financed this. Bay Mountain Fund I, we’ll leave that in there. BMI Investments Incorporated, this is an investment company. They finance some stuff and we’ll leave that in there. Bobby Grisham, BOKF North America, I know this. I will leave them in there. Bank of Oklahoma, we will leave that in there. Briar Green condos, we don’t need them.

Bridge Capital Asset Funding, leave that in there. Cadence Bank, a smaller bank, we’re leaving that account. California Baptist Foundation, here’s the thing. Usually, what happens is this church was maybe given a note or property in a will or something like that. Churches can be in a great spot to find real estate that they don’t want to manage. Churches are in the business of God and passing the plate to collect. They don’t want to own real estate. Maybe they’ve been given a note, but this can often be an easy way to pick up some property relatively easy, so we’ll leave that in there.

 

Cam Xi Trust, we’ll leave those in there. Capital Plus Financial, Carrington Mortgage Services, we would leave them in there because I have direct contact with Carrington. I would reach out to see about them. Casas Express, Cascade Funding, Cathay Bank out of California, I’ve got direct contact with them. Center Street Lending Fund, we’ll leave them in there. Champion Mortgage Company, Charter Bank, Christina Trust. Citibank, another big bank. We don’t want to waste time with those, let’s go get rid of the Citibank. Citizens National Bank, okay fine. Colorado Federal Savings Bank, leave them.

CMG Mortgage, David Howie, David Hamer. You can see David Hamer’s foreclosing 5 or 6. Deutsche Bank, we don’t want them. They’re too big and are not going to deal on a smaller basis. Easy Street Capital, EDC Associates, okay fine. Equity Trust, I’m going to highlight that in green. Equity Trust is foreclosing on Prisca Mendoza Matus. We don’t know the borrower’s or the lender’s name.

You’ll have to do some research at the county records, the appraisal or the county clerk to find out who that actual individual is, but that’s okay. That’s a private investor who financed something. He’s probably got some money. We talked about the balance on this stuff so let’s go over it and see if we can find the balance. Whitney Britton is the address. It’s a commercial property. No equity amounts, so let’s go over and take a look.

Most commercial notes, you’re not going to see equity amount because they don’t know the value. The original amount was $345,000 in 2019. They went $345,000 on the thing. Get rid of Fannie Mae. It doesn’t make sense to keep them. They’re not going to send you there. Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, same thing. Get rid of them. Fifth Third Bank, I got a contact into them. I’ll reach back out to them. Usually, they’re a little difficult sometimes to deal with, but I do have a contact there.

Finally, Home LLC. I can see these private individuals. Finance of America Reverse LLC, I don’t usually like to deal with reverse mortgages, so we’ll go get rid of them. First Capital Interest versus Bank & Trust, they’re kind of hit and miss. Sometimes they will. Sometimes they won’t. First Guarantee Mortgage Corp., First Intercontinental Bank, First National Bank of America, I know those guys. Freedom Mortgage Corp., this is a reverse mortgage. We don’t want to waste our time with them.

How do I know that? I experienced it, so I’m getting rid of them. Fremont Capital. Frost Bank usually doesn’t like to sell, but they’re one-off. We’ll leave them in there. Golden Bank NA, Gunn Properties LLC, I don’t know. Hammerly Woods Condo, let’s get rid of that. Heritage Bank, Hillcrest Holdings, HNL Investment Group, Home Holdings, Home Pal. HSBC Bank, we’re not going to waste our time with them. We’re getting rid of them.

Icon Bank of Texas, I’ve talked to them before. They are an independent bank. Inifinity Classic Homes, JC Bumgardner and Etal, Jet Lending. There’s a hard money lender. Eddie Gant at Jet Lending, got three of them that are going to foreclosure. It’s worth reaching out. Julie Rivers Capital, we’ll leave those in there. Katy Capital Investments, Kenneth Allan, Keybank, we’ll leave them in there. You’re starting to see Kenneth Allan, Kimberly Dawson, Lakeview Loan Servicing usually are not going to sell. We’re going to get rid of them.

The same thing when you start seeing some of these bigger things. Legacy Mortgage Asset Trust 2018, it’s usually an individual bank. We’re going to get rid of those. Another private investor, Lehman’s XS North America, probably not, but we’ll leave them in there. Leightman Tax Law, there’s a tax lien. Lillith Yvonne Trewick, you see private investors. Lima One Capital, I know those guys. Little City Investments, LNV Corporation, Loan Ranger Capital Investments. We got quite a bit of stuff here to look at.

Jack Thomas asked the question, “Why don’t I like reverse mortgage?” Reverse mortgage is not a note. If you know exactly what a reverse mortgage is, there’s not a note on there. It’s reverse annuity. If it’s going to foreclosure what it is, there’s no equity and the deal becomes an REO. I don’t want and I’m not chasing REOs. I want either nonperforming or performing cashflow. If you like an REO, chase Freedom Mortgage Company and see if they have anything that they’ll sell you close to value. I’m not going to chase reverse mortgages because it doesn’t make sense.

If they’re foreclosing, it’s usually because the ball was passed on and the family isn’t going to cash out reverse mortgage company. What they are doing is they’re doing the foreclosure to clean up title so they can sell as an REO. This is an HOA. We’ll get rid of that. Markman Humphries, Markman Martinez Investments. Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, don’t spend time on it. Members Choice Credit Union, it might be a second mortgage.

We don’t need this Memorial Village Townhome. Mid America Mortgage, it’s not going to, but that might be different. Midfirst Bank usually does not like to sell. I’ll go ahead and do away with it. The same thing with Mr. Cooper, we’re going to get rid of Mr. Cooper because they’re not going to sell their notes. My First Home, Nations Lending Bank, we’ll look at that. There’s Nationstar Mortgage or Mr. Cooper. It’s the same thing. We’ll get rid of Nationstar. New Residential Mortgage Loan Trust, NewFirst National Bank, Newrez Mortgage LLC. That’s a new one, Nexbank. I’ve not heard of them.

Nickys Land Company, Oak Brook Homes. Oakwood Gardens Condo Association, not worth chasing down because it’s basically a junior lane. Old Republic FAC, I don’t know what that is. Origin Bank, they got quite a few. I’ve never seen Origin Bank. I’ll track them down. Paddock HOA, we don’t need them. Park Place Texas, Parkway Boardwalk, Payton Boomer Investments, PennyMac Loan Services, I have not seen PennyMac.

PHH Mortgage isn’t going to deal with anybody for the most part. Pine Hill, Pinnacle, PlainsCapital Bank. PlainsCapital Bank is 1 of the 2 largest banks in Texas with the most amount of distress debt here in the state. You saw us talk about the note nation top 40 that we did in 2020. We highlighted 40 top markets across the country. When we talked about Dallas and Houston, PlainsCapital bank is one of the top ten banks with distressed debt on their books, so we’ll leave them on there. PNC Bank. The Pennsylvania is not going to sell anything. We get rid of them.

Priority Investor Loans, it’s probably a hard money lender. PRW, PS Funding, then there you go, we got Quest IRA, Quest Trust. We’re going to go to highlight those. Those will require a little bit more search at the county to try to track down who the lender is on those. Quicken Loans LLC, I know them. Remington Place Owners Association, we don’t need them. Reverse Mortgage Funding, don’t need them. Get rid of that. Rushmore Loan. Ryan McCarthy, another private investor. Safe Harbor Holdings, Same Day Cash Financing. That doesn’t sound like a good thing. That’s like a payday.

 

Saramar LLC, Sandbox Investments. Scott Wizig Enterprises, there’s a couple on there. Seattle Bank has got a few. We’ll leave them in there. Sharp View Capital, Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing, there were servicing companies foreclosing on behalf of the lender. Sound View, South Houston Holding, Southwest Guarantee Mortgage, Specialty Credit, Speedy Homes. Spring Meadows Property Owners Association, no. SunTrust Bank, no. I don’t like to sell. SWE Casas, Tax Rescue, Texas Seller Finance. Somebody didn’t wrap around the mortgage there. The owner financed a property.

Texas Dow Employees Credit Union don’t like to sell stuff. Texas Funding, Texas Gulf Bank, Texas Specialty Home. Bank of New York Mellon, we don’t need them on there. The Lofts on Post Oak Condominium Owners Association, we don’t need them. The Money Source, okay. The Nantucket Condominium, we don’t need it. Veterans Land Board doesn’t like to do that as well. The Villas Master. Thomas Snyder, a private individual. Thrive Lending, Tiffany McKelvey, another private investor. Toomark Capital Partners, we don’t know that name, but we’ll take a look at them. US Bank is not going to sell those. They’re so big. We’re going to get rid of US Bank on here. They got quite a few.

Vistamont LP, we’ll have to check those out. W 13, Wells, they’re not going to sell a one-off. We get rid of Wells Fargo. Westchase Forest Townhomes, we’ll get rid of that too. Wilmington Savings Fund Society, they’re not going to sell. Get rid of those. It’s FSB. Wilmington Trust can often be an individual. Wiz Investments. Here’s World Savings Bank FSB. World Savings Bank hasn’t been around for about ten years. Somebody hasn’t filed the appropriate docs or the assignments along. World Savings Bank, this may probably be Wells Fargo. World Savings got bought by Wells Fargo or Walmart. I can’t remember but we’ll leave it in there to track it out.

Yvonne Cazares, she’s a private investor. You have ZeusLending.com, which is lending as a hard money lender. We narrowed the list down by 1/3. We’re at 393. It was about 600. We got rid of over 200. The beautiful thing about it is you don’t have 390 some odd deals. You got less than that. You got individual names. Let’s see if it gives us individually. You’ve got that on here. These are all your hot buttons on looking for stuff. All you got to do is start ranking. You’ve got it all listed by the lender on here.

How To Contact And Track Down

Start contacting and reach out to them individually. Gunn Properties, LLC is somebody out of Houston. Let’s go over here, search and see what pops up. Gunn Property Service, a professional property management company that specializes in residential single-family. Here’s the address, 1531 Sheltons Bend Court, Houston, Texas.

Fred Fusee is the director and the owner of that. We’ve got a phone number, (936) 641-2801. That’s what I would do. What I say, “I see that your guys are foreclosing on this property in Houston. I didn’t know if you’d be interested in selling the note off. If you didn’t sell the auction, let’s go back here and dive in so we can act like we know what we’re talking about.” We got this one here. Luis Grabel, Oak Meadows 1006 Gober Street. A four-bedroom, one bath, conventional single-family, they’re upside down.

The estimated unpaid balance is $128, but the estimated equity is negative $24,000. They’re upside down and they owe more than what it’s worth but it might be worth talking about buying the note. Let’s take a look at this real property, 1006 Gober Street, in Houston. The original loan amount was $135,000. The monthly payment is $862. It’s only valued at $103,000 in Houston. 1,180 square-foot on here for a while and an occupant lives there.

Here’s a street view of 1006 Gober Street. Let’s take an October of 2019, not a bad-looking one of the property. It’s a pretty cookie-cutter neighborhood, not the biggest of houses but pretty much your residential, blue-collar area there. Not too bad. A couple of pickup trucks and it looks like more trucks in there. They know it’s not so bad. They know that if they lent $135,000, it’s only worth $100,000. It might be a great way to step in and pick up something at a discount. I wouldn’t necessarily look to take the property over and keep it.

You’d probably want Cash for Keys, bought the note or even say listed for a short sale. The one thing about chasing individual listings like Gunn Properties or some of these individuals is that they may be the only one they have. It probably is the only one they’re foreclosing on in Texas. If they say no to that, then what you have to do is move on. I would go back over to your bank list. I would start looking at some of these bigger things we can buy. David S. Hamer and Scott Sitek got multiple addresses. He’s got five he’s foreclosing on.

He’s a doctor and cardiologist based on what we see. Webster, Texas is what pops up. Website directions. It would be worth making a phone call, “Mr. Hamer, I’m calling as it looks like you’re foreclosing on 5 or 6 properties. I didn’t know if you’d be interested in selling the note off. If not, you’re looking for some more deals to lend on.” That’ll be a great transition into potentially finding a private investor there for you.

The cardiologist is making some money and using it to invest in real estate. Let’s go over here. Let’s say Fifth Third Bank. This is not the biggest one, but Fifth Third bank has four and it’s got almost the same 3 out of the 4 Mason Mote. How do you find an attorney? Copy Mason L. Mote. You know they’re going to live in Houston because he’s not going to drive all the way cross country. We’re going to paste that. Mason L. Mote, partner in the real estate and land use, practices in McGuireWoods Houston Office offices. Top-rated Houston, Texas real estate attorney.

That’s what I would do. I would call him up and say, “Mason Mote, I see that you’re foreclosing on a couple of properties in Houston. I didn’t know if you knew if Dr. Hamer might be willing to sell those off.” What I also like to do is when I send an email, because you can find an email for this guy. I like to try to sort and see if he’s doing anything else. He’s not doing too many things. Let’s look at Seattle Bank. They’re 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath and 4 car garage. Let’s jump on over. I like to use Lane Guide to track and find a name of bank. I go over here.

When I had to search for that as a service, it tracks banks. Let’s type in Seattle Bank. Eight branches are found in one state. This is Washington, but they link in this property in Texas, so they have banks. Main office, REO Department. That’s not what we’re looking for here. There’s more contact information, a phone number there to call. MyBank@SeattleBank.com. That didn’t help. Let’s go on over to LinkedIn then. SVP at Seattle bank, Bruce Bailey. John Blizzard is the President and CEO. You could always go that route. Go direct.

 

Chief Credit Risk Officer at Seattle Bank, Keith McCullough. He’s third degree. He’s probably not on here very much. He’s only got 289 connections, but the most important thing is you have his name. You want to say that when you call in to Seattle Bank. You ask to speak to somebody, Keith McCullough, if he’s available. Find out which location he’s at and go from there. That’s one name. Sandeep Warrier, Portfolio Manager. Maybe Richie Fader, Sales and Servicing at Seattle Bank.

That’s okay. I got Keith McCullough. It’s worth checking out. I’d be with a phone call to dial in. What you’d want to do is try to track down. Let’s see if his contact information is on here. Chief Credit Risk Officer, we can see his title here. He’s been here since 2013. It’s probably the right guy to talk to. That’s the beauty of that. I get a name and hopefully a lead, not just for what Seattle’s lent in Harris County but everything that they’ve done across Texas.

Let’s go back to the spreadsheet. What I like to do is I’ll click in. I’m going to book Keith McCullough. I would go over here and go back to what we found in Lane Guide and try to pull the main corporate office number. (206) 568-7800 for the main office. That’s what I would dial. I’m going to go back and put this in my spreadsheet. I would copy that down. That’s what I would do, especially for those of you guys at night if you’re looking for something to do.

That’s what I would do at night or after hours. I would spend a little bit of time going through here with your bigger banks or the lenders and doing that right. I would highlight first contacting the banks, the individual names, the Origin Banks before you start contacting LLCs and investors. I would focus on the deal first. I would dive into the LLCs and go from there. Katy Capital Investments, Julie Rivers Capital LLC. That’s a unique name. Let’s copy that and take a look.

The Sugar Land, Texas private money lender, there you go. PrivateLenders.com is a new website I didn’t know about. Private Money Loan was made 9718 John Bank Drive in Spring, Texas. We go back here and take a look at our list. Julie Rivers Capital LLC, you can always contact the attorney. The attorneys usually aren’t very good about responding back in a timely fashion. Julie Rivers Capital LLC, she’s got a little bit there. Original loan amount, she has got $1.3 million on these loans tied up.

That’s a chunk of change but I hope you found a lender there who’s lent on the property and done a note. That might be something to step in. If they don’t sell it, it gets the bill to pick up some of these notes, maybe even a discount, but who knows? They’re selling fast. That’s still $1.3 million. That’s not too bad. The appraised value is quite a bit higher. If we add these up, it’s $1.4 million, so not too big a difference. Some of these are off. $1.4 million amount and these were $1.3 million. That’d be a difference. Maybe you can pick up 6, 7 or 8 properties at one thing there but maybe coming in with a decent price.

Start off with your banks first. Start looking at your IRA investors on here. Let’s look at the borrower’s name here. Quest has lent money to this home by Houston, so Nelson Martinez. We’ll do this to wrap it up. We’re going to go to NETR Online. We’re going to get public records online. We’re going to get to Harris County. We’re going to look for the clerk and for a Martinez. Martinez Nelson, let’s see what pops up there. Nelson Martinez Quest IRA, Inc. That’s it right there. Signed a deed of trust. Let’s look at the deed trust.

Dan Novosad used a couple of IRAs. There is his freaking mailing address right there. I wonder if we can find a number for him. Let’s see this on LinkedIn. Houston, Texas.” Dan, I see that you’re foreclosing on a property. Would you be interested if you don’t sell the auction, maybe someone’s REO or you’re looking to put some more money to work?” Just like that, we found that investor. We found that he’s foreclosing and that took less than five minutes to track it down.

You had to look and do a quick search by the borrower’s name and go from there. He’s only got 453 connections on here. There’s no contact info in here. He’s probably not on LinkedIn a lot. If he’s unemployed at home, not working or laid off, he probably needs some money, so maybe a cash deal might be a good way to get a deal. Cash in hand is better than two in the bush. We can’t find a phone number. We got the address, too, 15527 Stone Ridge Park Lane. Let’s try one other thing. I like to go to WhitePages.com. It’ll reverse ad research.

It’s probably him right here, Dan Novosad. Let’s do a reverse address. This is a sneaky deal too. I should probably put Stoneridge Park Lane. There it is, (281) 758-0366. That’d be the number to call and talk to Dan. “Dan, I see you got a property that looks like going to auction. Any plans if you don’t sell to the auction, you plan on taking it back or are you looking for more deals? I’m a note investor and we’d love to talk with you.” I always like to talk with investors and foreclosed on properties because they’re often looking to put their money back to work. This would be good to have a pitch video to send to them. That’s where you go right there.

Tara Novosad, you have a phone number for her too, (281) 989-2142, in case Dan does not answer. That’s what I would do. I’d be breaking down your list, contacting investors and the banks and working this list. I’m not worried about if stuff sells tomorrow. I would still be using this week before, two weeks prior as it comes out. You can always go to 4Closure.info. They sell foreclosure lists. They have a whole strike-off list that they could use. I would go take a look at it. Big thanks to them, George Roddy Jr. Big thanks to Jack Zagunis as well for providing a list.

Conclusion

If you’re brand new to note investing, it’s a great starting point to dip your toe in the water and see if it’s warm. It’s not $99 or $199. It’s a simple, low, rock bottom price of $49. That includes the replay, a 30-page manual and lots of good stuff. Lots of people get started off. They love this because it’s our basic starting point class. You can check it out at NoteWeekend.com and get signed up there. We had our three-day class on our last virtual note buying workshop.

Jim Myers, I love you. It’s good to see my Ohio friend in Lebanon, Southern California. He says, “Be careful in dealing with Scott Carson. He will seduce you with more info than most gurus charge. When Scott does charge, he massively over-delivers.” Jim, thank you so much. I miss hanging out with you.

 

If we get out of California, we got to have a beer someplace. We’ll be here some time. Thanks, Jim, for the kind thoughts there. Hopefully, you all enjoyed this. Take the opportunity to go do something. This list is awesome. If you’re using any county, it doesn’t have to be the foreclosure list. Use something that’s available to what you have.

I know you’re in some states, cities or counties that aren’t foreclosing yet. Take the opportunity for a county like Houston. There are lots of opportunities there. I’m not looking for Houston or Texas assets. I’m looking to get that list of properties that are foreclosed on to get on the bigger list of the bigger picture to see what they have, whether it’s statewide or nationwide that I can look at. That’s what I would do. Thank you so much.

 

Important Links

• 4Closure.info
• FLSOnline.com
• YouTube channel – We Close Notes
• Jack Zagunis – Past episode
• Foreclosure.com
• Mike Wolf – Past episode
• Arnie Abramson – Note CAMP episode
• WCNMembership.com
• Auction.com
• ZeusLending.com
• Lane Guide
• MyBank@SeattleBank.com
• PrivateLenders.com
• WhitePages.com
• George Roddy Jr
• Jack Zagunis – LinkedIn
• NoteWeekend.com
• NoteBuyingForDummies.com

 

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