Legal Lowdown

My first attempt to learn about buying probate real estate at deep discounts was to a attend a seminar held at a local hotel. Oh, the seminar was free all right, but the actual training course—as I would learn later— cost multi thousands of dollars. Yikes!

Undeterred, I thought I’d circumvent the seminar route in favor of buying a probate real properties ebook online. The author was supposedly very experienced in buying probate properties, and, after all, $59.95 sounded a little closer to what I wanted to spend.

What a disappointment! The ebook had a real homemade look and feel about it, and for the most part, detailed the person’s life experiences including some sob story about how the passing of a relative taught them about probate real estate. You know, personal stories and reminiscences are fine if they actually teach you something!

Now, I live in California. Not exactly a small, insignificant state. What advice did I receive from this probate ebook? Well, it basically said that in California they “do things differently.” Jeeze, the author was pretty much telling me he knew nothing about buying probate property in California and that for me, the ebook was worthless! I had a good mind to get my money back.

Oh, and what about the minor question as to financing probate properties? The only suggestion was to get a “hard money” loan—which is notoriously one of the riskiest ways to finance ANYTHING!

Folks, I mention this only by way of telling you that good information on buying probate properties is hard to come by even if you have experience as a licensed Realtor® and real estate appraiser as I do.

I learned what I know through a millionaire friend of mine that told me the all of the ins and outs of the probate process. I also had to do a ton of legwork gathering information on how probate real estate is handled by local municipalities, the internet, local reporting services, and probate attorneys.

All I can say with regard to buying probate real estate products is to choose wisely, because you may not learn anything more than you know now, or worse, pay a bundle to do it!



By: Paul Johnson

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