Great Question! Agents that understand this and how it works make a lot more money. There are multiple ways we acquire properties, listed below:

1) Conventional:

• Cash and/or mortgage. We use our own suite of lenders in combination with cash.

• This is our least favourite way to acquire properties.

• This forces us to negotiate down the purchase price to limit upfront capital expenditure. This pits us against sellers and agents.

• Dr. Alshlahi: “If I had a choice, I would never buy a house the conventional way again. It’s a lose-lose to all parties involved no matter how it’s done.”

2) Payments over a period of time:

• Contract with the seller, with the property as collateral (Like a mortgage! seller gets to be the bank). A down payment (we ask the seller how much money they actually need & must have NOW, usually 2-5% of price) and the rest is broken down into 300 equal monthly payments. Balloon is sometimes appropriate as well (settle balance early, usually witihn 3-5 years).

• One of our favourite ways to buy properties. We will never negotiate down a purchase price, and sometimes offer higher price if the property had a price cut since listing.

• Seller wins by selling at a high price and gets monthly payments for a long time (sometimes we also offer balloon payments after a certain period of time, i.e. payment in full), agents gets full commission, and we get a house for a low downpayment and great cash flow potential.

• Dr. Alshlahi: “Win-Win-Win for everyone involved. How could anyone sell or buy a house any other way??? There are a lot of ways to structure this into a way that benefits all parties.”

3) Subject-to:

• If there is existing mortgage, we can do a takeover (by putting it into a trust, or using the subject-to method) and we calculate the equity portion of the price to be paid. If the equity is larger than 10% of price, then we can strucute a deal similar to the above, a down payment and a certain amount of payments over time (Hybrid).

• We pay all commissions and closing costs.

• Turn a losing situation (upside down equity, negative equity, low equity) into a winning situation for yourself and the seller!

4) half and half:

• If free and clear: Seller can choose to get large downpayment 50% of the purchase price now, and the remaining amount at a later time.

• This is for cases where seller needs the money now for an urgent situation.

You may notice that the acquisition strategy mentions the seller alot. This is on purpose. One of our core principles is trying to help as many sellers as possible get what they want.

Please note that we view all parties as part of the same team trying to solve a problem. Seller, seller’s agent, buyer’s agent, lender, property manager, and acquisition manager. We should all be working together rather than against each other.