Real Estate: The Flexible Seller

Installment #6

We have covered a great many topics and now we are going to move along to how to find flexible sellers, what that means to you, and how you can use a flexible seller to your benefit. While some people are fortunate enough to have enough credit, or cash on hand to outright purchase property, most beginning investors need to find those who are willing to work out special financial deals of some sort in order to actually get started. Most people do not have credit that is strong enough to hold two mortgages, not without putting down a quite substantial down payment, enter now the flexible seller.

Flexible seller does not describe a seller who is willing to sell on the weekend, or even in the middle of a football game. Instead, it describes the type of attitude that the seller has towards the sell of their property. A typical flexible seller is someone who needs to get some money out of their property quickly, as well as has no desire to continue owning the property for whatever reason.

Reasons why someone would want to quickly get rid of property can include but are in no way limited to; divorce, unemployment, impending foreclosure, job transfer, property management problems, and being unhappy with the purchase for some reason or another. The more desperate a seller is to get rid of a piece of property, the more likely they are to be flexible, which means the more likely you are to be able to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Flexible sellers are typically flexible in either the price of the property they are selling, or the terms in which they will sell it. Those who offer owner financing are flexible sellers. Those who offer to hold a second mortgage on the property to cover the down payment are also flexible sellers. These will be some of your most valuable sellers over the course of your investment career.