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Check out Tom, Michael and Emil's strategies for submitting winning offers. --- Transcript: Tom: Greetings and welcome to The Remote Real Estate Investor. In this episode, we're going to be talking about the offer all the way from we found a property. We like now it's time to make the offer to negotiations, to getting into contract. All right, let's do it. Alright guys. Welcome back. So before we jump into it, how are you guys doing?   Michael: Yeah, I'm good, man. I'm good. Um, I got this six unit that I'm flipping under contract, which at a full price offer. And we got a backup offer a little bit higher than that, which is always nice. So hopefully that goes smooth. We're supposed to close here in like two and a half weeks. Very excited about that and wrapping up a couple of rehabs that I got going on, which is also very exciting. So all things good and the air finally cleared up. So it's not so smoky. So everything moving in the right direction.   Tom: Nice. I'm going to tease into those, your offer, your back and forth when we get totally more into the episode, but a congratulations. Always fun to get a property in contract.   Michael: Thanks. Yeah, I'm excited. I'll be a lot happier once it's signed the wet ink on the dotted line, but we'll, we'll stay tuned.   Tom: Nice. How about yourself Emil?   Emil: I'm good. I'm a, our listeners can't see me and they never can see us, but I had to go to my inlaws. Cause my internet connection at home has been funky all week. So how do you get good internet connection went to the in laws. So I got a new environment. Maybe that'll spark some new creativity for today's episode. We'll see.   Tom: Nice at the start of the pandemic, I was always being like, didn't want to pay exfinity any more of my money. And then eventually my wife was giving me a hard time about how bad our internet was. And I like talk to a rep and he's like, you have the slowest possible program like possible. It was like bent for like, not really minimum amount of use. So I like texted and it's yeah. For those of you trying to be cheap on the internet, don't be give him your money. It makes life a lot easier.   Emil: I'm sure internet companies have been doing awesome. Cause everyone's working from home now. So everyone's like cranking up their internet before you could get by. And now it's like, nah, I need, I need the top notch internet.   Michael: And I wonder how much they're throttling people too. Right. But like, Oh you I'm sorry. Guy looks like you need to upgrade your package in order to get the best internet service.   Emil: Oh yeah.   Tom: I worked on me, man. It worked on me.   Michael: You guys seen that South park episode. Oh yeah. We're the only internet provider in town. We'll be at your house between 10 and two. Uh, so sorry.   Emil: That's true. Like I called them on Tuesday and they're not coming out til next Thursday. So like a week and a half, that is just not working. So that's fun.   Michael: Nice.   Tom: My other fun stuff is a, my baby is now walking around, which is fun. He does like an Elaine dance walk. So just like going through the halls or what's the other example? Like the inflatable balloon, man's like pretty entertaining.   Emil: Hopefully people got the Seinfeld reference. I love that   Tom: Um, awesome. All right guys, let's, let's jump into it. So we are in the offer episode and why don't we go ahead and start with the tip f the offer process and Michael, I'm gonna pick on you first. So you found a property. You like, you've done your diligence and it is go time. Where are you doing? What are you up to? How are you going about it? Walk us through it.   Michael: So I've run the numbers. I know the area I have projections lined up. Right? I've already did all that.   Tom: Correct.   Michael: So now it's coming down to determining what the offer price wants to be. And I used to not be real scientific. I'm still not that scientific about it. Let's say I like to put speak in numbers. It makes conversation a little easier. So if I found a property it's listed at two 50 and the deal works at two 50, I'll offer, you know, two 30 just to see what's going to happen. And, and we'll probably meet somewhere in the middle, which if anybody has read the book, never split. The difference would say, that's dumb. You shouldn't do that. So I've also been known to make really specific offers like two thousand two hundred and thirty thousand seven hundred and sixty three, because that shows that I put a lot of thought into it. And so I like to be very specific at times too, but I always like to go lower than I think I'm wanting to or needing to go.   Now that's an example of the deal working at two 50. And so if they come back and say, no, forget about it, two 50 or bust, I'll pay two 50. If the deal is good enough, and I've done that in the past, if I need the numbers to be at two 30, well then I'm probably going to be offering around 200, one 90. Most people do want to split the difference. And so they're going to say, okay, whatever, we'll call it in the middle, but also use that tactic of writing very specific offers. Something else that I've done a lot of in the past is I'll actually write three different offers. One is going to be an all cash offer. One is a traditional financed offer. And then one is a seller financed offer and they'll have three very different prices. So like if it's an all cash offer, we'll take the two 50 example, I'll offer 160, all cash I'll offer, you know, maybe 200 traditional finance and I'll offer 230, 240 seller financed with really favorable terms for me. And so that way it's a choice for the seller. Pick one of the three, as opposed to a yes or no decision. So that was kind of long winded answer. I know   Michael: Super interesting. The putting three offers together. I've never heard that before. Did you come up with that one on your own or did you like a mentor?   Michael: I wish I had come up. I think I heard it on a bigger pockets episode actually from one of their guests. And I was like, that's genius. And as soon as I heard that I was actually about to offer on a property. And that was actually that mixed use building that I talk about a lot of other episodes. And so I did that on that property. I was able to get, I think, a really great deal on it, I think potentially because of it. And also when you look at numbers next to one, another things often seem better than they are naturally. Right? So if someone sees Oh one 60 that's wave low, well now they see an offer a 200. Wow. That might be a great offer when you compare it to two, one 60. So I think that there's definitely some psychology that goes into that as well.   Tom: Tons of psychology and this, and we'll touch on that in a little bit. I'm curious when you do that, that triple threat offense, like when someone negotiates back, do they usually pick the same track? Are they usually picking all cash or the finance or the celebrant, or is it pretty, pretty split?   Michael: It’s pretty split, I think, cause it just goes to speak volumes about the seller. Every seller is different and every seller's motivation is different. And so if you can look to understand why someone is selling, that really gives you a lot more ammunition to go in and tailor an offer to them. Because I think too many people, myself included are just like, Oh, this is a number that works for me. So take it or leave it on the offer side. But there's so much more to it than that. You know, if I know that the seller is an older couple looking to get out of the business, but like the income, well that screams seller financing, right? That might be a really great deal. And so helping them understand what that is, can be really beneficial. So I always ask the question, Hey, why are they selling? And try to get an idea of what's going on behind the scenes, because my offer is going to change as a result of that,   Tom: On that psychology of fun Roofstock history. Uh, initially the website just had a bite. Now it wasn't, you know, there wasn't any wiggle rooms on offering. There's this huge psychology in real estate of people needing to feel like they're winning. I think both on the buyer and on the winner side. So, you know, with most deals, they, you know, there's a little bit of negotiation going on, but it's really interesting. The it's a game. People want to win the game and negotiate it. So open it up to you, Emil. So blank slate. You found a property, you've done your homework. How are you going about your offer process?   Emil: Yeah, so it's probably changed over the years. It's funny, Michael, you mentioned Chris Voss's book, Never Split the Difference. I ended up doing that same tactic on my first property. It was like I offered 80, the seller came back at 85 and we ended up at like 83, nine 71, cause I just put a random number on it. So that worked. That was cool. Honestly, when I first started out, I was probably just looking for what property can I find that meets the 1% rule and how can I just get a little bit below that? Right? Like you mentioned, Tom, it was a game. Okay. Here's the list price, let me start out 10% underneath and underneath list price. And we'll take it from there. Barring that the list price wasn't like out of control, right? Like check, just make sure that it was in line with where it should be valued.   Now, now I've, I've started to like really hone in on a specific market in the beginning. I kind of just, where could I find a deal buy it? Right. So I've floated around from market to market. Now I'm really trying to hone in on one market and understand, okay, what does a single family home in this market sell for? What does a duplex, triplex, quad all these different types, right? What are they selling for and what is a good deal versus what's an average deal. And I think it really depends. Like if you're looking at a property that the prior owner has done a lot of the work coming in and expecting to get 75% of list price, you're probably just going to keep making offers and lose, right. Which is in a way demoralizing, especially on your first property, you keep doing that, keep doing that, wondering what's going on.   Now, if we have a property that has a little bit of hair on it and has a little there's things that need to be fixed, the roof needs to be fixed. Maybe mechanicals need to be changed. Like just certain things need to happen with the property. The rent is under market. Then that's where you have some leeway, right? To negotiate more. Again, this is all just best practice. You can go into a turnkey, try to offer 20% less than list. See what you get. But I guess to wrap it up my, uh, final thought here is it really just depends on the property type. Is it a good deal for that area in that market? So summary is if it's like, do I want something that's going to require a little bit more work? Okay. I'm going after a certain property type I'm going to offer way less because I know I'm going to have to come in and make repairs. So like you were kind of mentioning maybe going 20, 25% below list price. If it's, it also just depends on what it's listed at, right? Like some people could list it at the after repair value and it needs a lot of work, but you have to just kind of figure out how much do I have to put into this and with that and what I'm putting however much I'm paying. Is that a good deal? All those things together. I hope that makes sense.   Tom: I dig it. I'm going to throw a couple of points on top of that. I think you need to be really specific on what your maximum bid is before you get into an offer and especially into a negotiation situation. So before getting into submitting an offer, having a very specific amount on what that max bid is really important and a way to get to that is looking at what kind of returns you're requiring. Um, Excel has this really cool feature called goal seek where you can back into that number based on variables, on what kind of cash on cash or IRR and all that kind of good stuff. So going in with a max bid is just so, so important, uh, going into an offer situation,   Michael: Tom, before you move on, can you say more on that? Why is that so important? If I'm going to get into an offer and man, maybe I'll offer this and maybe this will be my max bid. I know they came back with this and maybe I'll move it here. Why is it so important to know ahead of time?   Tom: Of you listening are similar to us gentlemen, as we can be kind of competitive and it's fun to win, right? And nothing gets my juices going, like getting into negotiations. It's just, it's fun. You know, you're playing a game and if you're playing this game, I say to the game, but you know, you're investing, right. If you don't have like a hard threshold, you can get in trouble by kind of continuing to go to back and go back and forth. And you know, with these properties, we spend time with them and you can let yourself fall into the fallacy that, Oh, there's never going to be another one like this. When you know, you got a good quote.   Michael: Yeah. The deal of a lifetime only comes around once a week.   Tom: Exactly. When you give yourself that hard number, it's just super black and white. As soon as that number is above. And you're not able to come to an agreement, one of the most important tools in your toolkit of negotiation is the ability to walk away. Now it doesn't work that's okay. So that's one piece is just making sure that you have that max offer in place. The other is knowing some context about the seller, which isn't always available, but here are some pieces of information that I think are really helpful. If a property is occupied and cash flowing, oftentimes a seller may be a little bit less loose to, you know, to a deal cause it's like cash flowing, it's making money. So sometimes on those types of properties, it could be a little bit tougher to get a huge discount. Once you it's still worth going through the exercise of submitting an offer.   But just generally speaking for a lot of sellers, if it's not occupied in cash flowing, they might be okay, like holding it out a little bit longer. The other metric that I like to take a look at is how long it's been on the market. That can be a scenario where you can get a little bit of a better deal if it's been sitting on the market for a long time. So that's something that I will think about on the offer amount, submitting an offer and having it taken seriously. I would not go beyond an 80%, but oftentimes if it's a new property and it's really competitive, the seller's just going to shake it off. So I wouldn't be too aggressive. When if you had know your max bid and there's a lot of wiggle room, perhaps your max bid is even over the listing price, knowing your max price and where it fits against your, um, the list price can inform where your offer price is going to be.   What can happen is let's say there's a new property. That's listed. You have a max price that is well above the list price. If you try and be cute and put an offer well under the list price, and this is a new hot property, you're not going to have an opportunity to buy it. Cause there's probably a lot of other people in there. So have it in your mind on what is the delta between your max price and what the list price is. So when you come in and submit your first offer, you're putting the offer in that gives you some wiggle room, right. To negotiate. And, but you also want to make sure that it's somewhat competitive. If it is a new property in a competitive market, otherwise you're just going to be the go through and going through the exercise of submitting your offer and just having it fall on deaf ears because those ears are getting clouded by a lot of other offers.   Michael: Yeah. It's such a good point. I talked to people all the time in the Academy about when they asked the question, Hey, what should I offer on this? How do I think about this? I said, well, what is it worth to you? You know, a property is only worth what someone's willing to pay for it. And if you're going to offer three, five, 10 grand under list price and you lose that deal, is it worth it? Or is it worth it to come in at full list and just give the seller what they're asking for? Because the deal still makes sense. So I say, figure out what the numbers tell you offer there. But also you've got to give some weight too. If it's a hot deal, hot market, you might lose the deal over a thousand bucks. Is that worth it? Especially if you're financing it. So really that's 200, 250 bucks at the end of the day that it costs you.   Emil: Do you ever just work backwards to say, okay, this is what I can offer to hit that cash on cash number.   Michael: Goal seek goal seek baby. Yeah. That's exactly what the goal seek function does in Excel. And it's amazing. It'll calculate down to the dollar based on whatever variable you're trying to manipulate and whatever target you're trying to hit, it'll spit out, okay. Based on this, this is what your offer price needs to be. Or your max price needs to be in order to hit that goal.   Emil: I said that as a like loaded question, obviously. I was rambling, but that's, that is how I make offers. It's looking at what is the cash on cash I want and working backwards from there, right? And again, there's all these factors where if it's been on market for a day and I'm coming and I need to come in like 30% under, maybe I'm not going to waste everyone's time. Right. I'll keep looking. So it kind of just work backwards from what is the cash on cash I'm looking for through the underwriting and go a little bit under there to start my offer process.   Michael: I will say to that point, even if it's been on the market a very short time, I'll still come out, swinging for the fences if that's available, because you don't know, unless you ask the question. And so if you can offer a quick close or all cash or you know, are able to fill whatever void the seller is looking to fill by selling the property, you could have a chance you can. I mean, I've made some ridiculous offers and gotten them accepted and I'm like, wow,   Emil: Right away.   Michael: Yeah. Like on that sixth unit that we talk about a lot. So bought a six unit out in the Midwest for like 90 K a, which is 15,000 a door, which doesn't exist literally. And it doesn't exist. And I wouldn't have got it if I had an ass. And so my agent told like all his buddies about it and they're like, no way. That's like, Whoa, that's not possible. So sometimes. And of course that's the exception, not the rules, but sometimes the impossible can happen just by asking the question.   Tom: A point I was making earlier. Like, you know, if you try to be too cute in a competitive market, you know, and you have a number that works for you, my advice would be like, you're looking to invest and it's early on the market. Don't be too cute and throw too low of a number if it's going to be seeing a lot of offers. Does that make sense?   Michael: Yeah. Submit strong offers.   Tom: Yeah. Submit strong offers as long as they yeah. As they make sense, but especially for properties that been sitting a lot longer, you know, then be a little more aggressive. So you had a fun thought exercise, but let's turn the tables. Okay. You're the seller, what's your strategy around negotiation on seeing offers, come in the mail. Do you want to lead us off with this first one?   Emil: Yeah. I'll lead this off. Cause I sold the property earlier this year so I can, it's fresh on my mind. And then Michael is kind of going through the process now. So it's fresh for him as well. In the beginning, when I first listed my property, like anyone else I'm listing it at, what do I think the full, full value is? Right. Like not a deal because I know someone's going to come in and try negotiate anyway. So why would I willingly just list it at like a lower end? Right. Let's see what we can get for it. And then after getting tons and tons of low ball offers slowly move the price down. It wasn't a ton. I think it was a low price. Tom started at like 71, moved down to, I think ended up being like 65, right after just getting tons and tons of low balls and it was a couple months. Right. So no bites. And then finally got something close to that. 65 K all cash a little bit less than what I wanted. But at that point, you know, the buyer, the buyer made a good move. I had been a seller that had been on the market for a couple months. I was tired wanting to get rid of this property. And so they got a, you know, a little bit of equity built in. So I think it really just depends. Like, do you need the cash now? Or like how much time do you have, if you're willing to wait, your property is cash flowing. You may not like be willing to, to yield, like accept offers that come in and they're super low. So I think it really just depends on, do you need cash now and all that.   Tom: I guess in this situation, really, the negotiation begins when you set the list price. So you'll set it a little bit higher and let the offers come in and, and manage the low balls. It will, you know, kick the low balls out of there, but slowly dripped down over time. Right?   Emil: Yeah. And we just done a couple thousand dollars in work on the turn, like new vinyl plank flooring, repainted, everything, new tenant. So it was, it was a good turnkey property. So for me, I was like, okay, let's list it on the higher end of the range that I think this thing would go for and the market will speak and the market will tell you if it's legit or not. So just adapting to that.   Tom: One of the tricky things with those listing of properties that are especially kind of the lower price ranges, valuing it off of the rent, you know, off of a cap rate, the value is probably gonna be very different than off of the sales comparable. So as a seller, you could be thinking of this evaluation off of like a cap rate buyers, especially if it's owner occupied, you know, they might be looking at it as sales comp. So that can cause a disconnect. And it just kind of an interesting, interesting point to bring up, go ahead, Michael dye.   Michael: That can cause a huge disconnect, but I was just going to ask him, you know, when you got those low ball offers, did you just flat out reject them or did you counter?   Emil: Depends. I think the first couple I countered and then they counter, it was like, I'm talking. I think I had to listen at 71. I mentioned, and I was getting offers for like 45. And so I'd counter with like 67 and they would counter with 46. So I'm like, all right, this person's obviously just thrown out lots of offers looking for a motivated seller. Right. So at that point I just declined. Yeah. So yeah, I would, I would play ball. I would see how, you know, are they just looking for a deal? Are they serious, you know, pebble back and forth and then call it from there.   Tom: I think that's a psychology to making offers and listening to a meal as a seller. Like if you're making offers, you know, if your max bid really is 48, 47, great, keep going that line of thinking. And then the offer back and forth will end. But if your max bid is really up in the sixties or in the fifties, usually back and forth happen, I don't know. Would you guys say like maybe two or three times, at least in my experience. And usually it's, it's a pretty quick, so again, to my point of not being too cute on the deal, cause you just, you won't get deals, especially when you've done an initial kind of discovery of submitting that offer. And the seller is coming back to you at like 98%. Chances are the seller is not going to find a huge movement off of that, but at the deal still makes sense for you. Great. Come move up a little bit, get a little bit closer to him instead of just slowly creeping up to your max bed. All right, Michael, you're the seller,   Michael: I'm the seller.   Tom: What's your thought process in dealing with offers coming in?   Michael: Yeah, so similar to Emil, I just got a bunch of low ball offers like real low, like real, real low. I countered a of them. I flat out rejected others because you can often tell in the language of an offer what kind of person they are, how motivated they are as a buyer, what, what it is they're looking for, or just how much of a pain in the butt they're going to be with to deal with as a buyer. And so I've told people know, even though they've had good offers because I just don't want to deal with them as a buyer, it's just a headache. Uh, so I had a seller financed offer that actually I accepted and the buyer, I don't think he really had any idea what they were doing when they made the offer. And so we countered and we got the terms, basically all the terms we asked for and I was like, great, this is awesome. This is going to be fantastic. And then it started coming down to asking for documents on the buyer because now I, as the seller needs to do due diligence on this person as a buyer and a borrower, because I'm essentially loaning them the purchase price.   And of course I can foreclose on them if they don't make good on their mortgage payments, but I'm not in the business of, for closing back on properties that I've sold to someone because I want to collect the money and I want to be done and I want to walk away. So they started getting really squirrely with it. And I'm not going to give you tax records. It's kind of thing. And I said, well, then I don't think this is going to work out. So we got a full price, offer all cash via 10 31 exchange and they can close quickly. And I said, great, let's do that. It's at the end of the day, less money than the seller financed offer, but it's less headache. It's seem it's seamless. And the buyer clearly knew what they were doing. And that was very apparent. And so that's worth dollars to me.   So I said, okay, let's, let's go that route. So as a seller, I mean, if just someone is reasonable and puts forth a reasonable offer, I'll entertain it, I'll look at it, but it all comes down to, again, what the seller's motivation is. And I try to never fire sale properties. I never want to be in a situation where I have to get rid of something where I would be the seller in that $90,000 deal for six units. These people just wanted the property gone, they didn't know what to do with it. They needed to sell it. I hope to never be in that situation. And so to be able to command top dollar for the properties, because either in good shape and B, because I don't need to sell them. And so if I get a good offer, great, if I, if I didn't get a good offer on this property, I was just going to keep it in cashflow the heck out of it. Cause it's, it's a monster, but I just didn't want to deal with it. I've got too much other stuff going on. That's it? Okay. Let's sell it, make a profit and, and walk away.   Tom: That's awesome. That's great. Having a buyer who's in a 10 31, just that much more of a motivated. So he keeps within the rules and all of that. I'm in the seller seats to the last property I sold. I wasn't too aggressive on setting the list price. I was a 10 31 seller, so I had to fund some properties. Oh man, I wasn't as aggressive as Emil. That's funny. I said that like I was surprised, but I kind of was, cause I forgot that I was 10 31 into another property and I'd already identified the other service. There was uh, some moving pieces, but I was less aggressive on the price. The property was, it was the low 100 thousands. I like maybe if I had waited it out could have got 110, but I ended up selling for 104 was the number and listed it super quick, sell, selling it on Roofstock it probably valued more on the income approach, just being in that slightly lower price band, but listed it got a couple of offers.   I personally don't care too much about all cash versus the offers with lending. I know with owner occupied, you know, there's a lot of difference in that whole, at least the psychology of, of buying owner occupied, but in selling, I didn't really care too much of a difference between all cash versus lending offers. I know there's some risk about buyers who are coming in and using financing of it falling out, but I wanted to maximize that dollar amount and I was okay. The transaction being a little bit longer doing a finance approach. So, you know, I saw offers that were cash as well as finance and I was fine taking the higher offer that was financed and yeah, a quick, quick, smooth, close.   Emil: Selling. All cash is nice. It's it's much smoother. I, that I sold my property, all cash. It was, it felt like a lot less paperwork and moving parts, which was nice   Michael: Is because you don't have this, unless there's an appraisal contingency that the buyer puts in, you don't have the bank snooping around the house telling the buyer, Oh, you have to do this, that and the other thing. And then the buyer coming back to you and says, Oh, the bank's making me do this. Will you do it? Well, no, I don't want to do it as the seller, but you can't do it as a buyer because you don't own the property yet. So it's just, you can get into this real rigmarole pretty quickly. And so I think both on the buying and the selling side, there's a reason why all cash gets the reputation it does. And because it's just such a seamless transaction so often.   Emil: Yeah. Having experienced it as the seller, I understand why it's so valuable to be in the seller's shoes, seeing a buyer who's like, I'll pay all cash close in two weeks. Like that's super nice. That's valuable.   Michael: Yeah. And I think to, to, to that exact point in mail, if you're a seller you're kicking around two different offers, one is cash quick, close one is financed. Do the math, run the numbers and see what it's actually going to cost you to keep that property and sell it to the financed offer. Even if it is higher, because there are true hold costs to owning property. And if there's a financed offer, there's a financed offer that takes 60 days to close. What are your whole cost for those 60 days versus the all cash quick, close, and also make sure to factor in your commissions that you're paying out at the end of the day. It might not be such a big difference.   Tom: I dig it. Any final thoughts guys that you guys want to add in related to submitting your offer and on negotiations?   Michael: Yeah. I think ego plays such a big part of this and I'm totally guilty of it. No one could see me, but I just raise my own hand. I'm like mega guilty. We probably all are Tom. Like you were alluding to. I was a little competitive. And so, you know, I hate losing. It's a bummer, but I've learned to get out of my own way. But I found that in negotiation, giving folks a red herring, right. Give them something that doesn't really mean anything to you, but make them feel like they won. Right. And I want the seller to think, Oh yeah, I totally got him. You know, taking him for all he's worth kind of a thing. So putting stuff in your offer as a buyer that you don't care about or put it in as a seller that you don't care about and be happy to give it up, but make it as, as a bargaining chip. Well, okay, well, you know, I'll this for you, but you've got to do that for me. And so I think when you give someone a favor or do something for someone, they feel this need for reciprocity and they want to give you something back. And if it's something that you don't care about or is free for you, I'll give that stuff away all day just to make somebody feel like they won.   Emil: So like to cover closing costs or   Michael: Closing costs are a good one or to cover closing costs, which does have a monetary value. But what I'll often do is offer to put down a really big deposit as a buyer because sellers like to see that. But at the end of the day, if the deal is not going to happen, it's not going to happen. I just have to make sure that I'm willing to work within the timelines that are stipulated, or if a buyer wants, uh, extra time for due diligence, they have to either pay more for that. They can pay us a dollar amount set fee or they have to close faster. And so if a buyer wants an extra 20, you know, whatever, five days extra for due diligence, and then they're going to give themselves an extra 10 days for financing, I'll say you can have the five for the diligence, but you got to close at the end of that time period,   Tom: Appliances could be something that you either care about or don't care about that you can use as a bargaining chip.   Michael: Absolutely. Yeah. And something I've done too in the past is just give, you know, separate yourself as a buyer from all the other buyers. And so writing notes can be helpful, just, you know, humanizing yourself. I've offered to give, um, start college funds for sellers, for their kids. If I find out they have kids and so, you know, just do stuff to be different. Don't just be another offer, another name and another number   Emil: Creative. I like it.   Tom: I like it. Michael is creative. Three offers college funds. I love it. Michael, you bring it every time. All right. Emil, final thoughts.   Emil: I think I was joking about this on Twitter once, but it's, it's funny how, as the seller, when someone makes a low ball, you feel offended, but as buyers, we go and do it all the time. So like Michael mentioned, pull your ego away on this stuff. Right? It's just numbers. And do what the numbers tell you.   Tom: Be data-driven. That's awesome. Be the numbers, be the numbers. Uh, my just last little, little bit, it might be a little bit repetitive. Uh, as I was saying, follow the numbers, know what your max bid is going into it. How does that relate to the list price? What's the competitive scene. If you're looking to buy a property, you know, you gotta make competitive offers, just make sure that they're within your boundaries. The other is the process of buying owner occupied and buying rentals. I find to be so different, especially in Northern California, just because you can't buy, unless you throw your logic out a little bit. I have a friend who's on his 15th offer that he's and he's putting in good offers, but you know, he's, he's doing his homework. He's looking at the values, he's doing all this stuff and they just keep getting denied. So if you're buying owner occupied, you know, you've got to throw your logic a little bit out the window, if you ever want to close on stuff, but buying a rental man, just be data driven and know the numbers.   Michael: Not even buying owner occupied, just even buying rentals in a owner occupant market, because you're competing with people that don't care about what kind of return they can get. They love the house. So they're willing pay for that property. So I think above and beyond, just if it's a property for you, if you're competing with owner occupants, that's something to be aware of.   Emil: One last tip I just remembered. So a lot of times let's say multiple offers are submitted. The seller will ask for final and best from everybody. One caveat. You can't always know if they're be asking you and just calling for final and best, or if there's actually a bunch of other offers, but usually you can tell and going along the ego thing, like if you know, okay, this is the max dollar amount I can offer to still get my return. Oh, but I want this better deal. So I'm going to go lower than that. Like you got to weigh those things, right? Like I think Tom, you were alluding to like, what's your max offer. So consider that when you have like the final and best, rather than just letting your ego be like, I got to get the best deal possible.   Michael: That's a great point.   Emil: But I'm going to get the best deal possible. So don't worry about, it   Michael: Sounds like a song I'm going to get the best deal possible. Do we have a fun question, Tom?   Tom: Uh, yeah. Yes. I got a fun question. So my question is what are some pet peeves that you guys have that people wouldn't normally find is pet peeves? Non traditional pet peeves. And I can go first. I'll also, you guys have some time to marinate on this and this wasn't always a pet peeve for me. I had a manager, uh, excellent boss, Eric shout out out there. So he had a pet peeve of, we would go into the markets. He was actually a boss at Roofstock for a little bit. And we would have meetings with property managers.   Emil: He was a boss.   Tom: He was the boss. Yeah. I had to be two ninjas to get to him. So we would go to meetings and we'd be like 15 minutes early. And he's like, no, Tom, we've got to wait in the car. I hate it. When people come into my office early of like going to a business meeting a little bit too, or like early, he was so strict about like, you know, not he found cause he found it so annoying in that moment. I was annoyed by that, when that happened, uh, in future references. So it's one thing, you know, obviously you don't want to be late. Right. But respecting people's time before the meeting, I thought it was really interesting. I don't care that much about it as in like, don't feel bad if we jump on a meeting early, but I thought it was just like a peculiar pet peeve that I liked showing up to early   Michael: Tom, that was the most passive aggressive thing I've ever heard you say to me at our meetings, if it's early.   Tom: Um, but anyways, that's my peculiar pet peeve.   Michael: This might be kind of traditionally you tell me if this doesn't count, but I can't stand talking to people that use like industry specific terminology without defining it. And I'll be talking to somebody and they're like, Oh yeah, I was totally doing this defibrillator K five 72. It was crazy. I was like, you know, I don't know what that means. And I think you know that you want me to ask just so you can hear yourself talk. So I think, you know, using acronyms or industry specific vernacular without defining it or explaining it, bring me into the conversation. I want to know I'm interested in what you have to say, but when you're talking so above me, it's not fun.   Tom: That's a good one. Real estate is notorious for acronyms and jargon.   Michael: Oh my gosh.   Tom: Just use ACH to pay your EMD dispositions and all this stuff.   Michael: Is it, is it a, is it an IO? And what's the AVM. Yeah, it's crazy.   Michael: Alright. And Neil, what do you got?   Emil: Oh, mine. I don't know if this one's weird, but like my biggest pet peeve,   Tom: Peculiar pet peeve.   Emil: Peculiar pet peeve. Is people singing like trying to sing well. It just after like 15, 20 seconds, I don't know what it is. It makes me uncomfortable. I have no clue what it is, but it makes me feel uncomfortable.   Michael: So what you're saying is singing and the podcast would not be a fun for you.   Emil: See you're, you're singing terribly. So it's all good. It's when people try to like actually sing. Even if they're good, I'm going to digest it after like 20 seconds. I don't know what it is. I have no clue if it's obviously, if I'm listening to someone seeing, cause it's a concert, not a big deal, but if it's just like, you know, doing everyday stuff and sing after 15, 20 seconds, something in my brain, just like, like starts rattling. So I don't know what it is. Very strange.   Tom: So there's a bell curve of quality. And if it's really bad, no offense, Michael. That was, you know, that's really good. That's okay. But all, everything in the middle, but no, it's not all day medium to good. That bothers you.   Emil: Yeah. Like trying to sing. I mean obviously if you're trying to sing and you suck, that's like I can handle two seconds of that. But even if good, I dunno,   Michael: But excellent. Okay. Like if someone was an opera singer and you didn't know that and they were just like doing whatever in the house and started singing, but they're really good.   Emil: That's okay. You know, you're just in awe. Right? If someone is just spectacular, like could be on whatever one of those singing shows, you're like, Oh man,   Michael: I would love to get you out as a judge on one of those, you would be so uncomfortable.   Emi: I'd be I'd last 10 minutes. And I'd be like, my, my brain is shaking. I'm outta here. I don't know. That's my very peculiar pet peeve.   Tom: Hating, hating singing and joy, all right, Pierre, you're up next?   Emil: Apparently there you go. I just hate joy and puppies and rainbows and all that stuff.   Michael: Yeah. I'm curious to hear Pierre’s.   Pierre: Well, I am going to roast my roommate's on this one, dude. Let me just preface it with, I love you guys. You guys are great. Except you guys trigger all my peculiar pet peeves. They might not be ultra peculiar, but one of them I can resonate with you deeply Emil. I live in a household full of musicians and they all sing.   Emil: It gets annoying, right?   Pierre: Oh God.   Emil: Thank you. Thank you,   Pierre: Lord. Especially. Yeah, especially when they're trying to..   Tom: You gotta get those, you got to get those 10,000 hours in right? Isn't that the number of 10,000 hours?   Michael: You have to do it on your own time.   Emil: That's how Pierre lost all his roommates.   Pierre: I'm going to lose all my roommates. I'm looking over my shoulder right now. One of my roommates practices by singing into a microphone and amplifying it. Dude, you have a mixer and you can channel that audio into your headphones and get the same effect of hearing yourself through the microphone. But no, he puts it on the PA system and blasts it out right when I'm about to get off of a long, stressful day of work. And I want just a little bit of quiet and okay. So, but that's so yeah, I'm just connecting with you on that. So for me, I don't know how peculiar it is, but I have a little list here. Crumbs on the counter, crumbs on the counter just make me depressed. I'm like, how am I still here in life where there are still crumbs on the table and crumbs on the counter.   Michael: That's your yogurt topper.   Tom: That's why you need a dog.   Pierre: Yeah.   Tom: Honestly, dog, solved. Right?   Pierre: And then when people use scented laundry detergent,   Emi: That's peculiar one.   Pierre: Somebody used tide. And I was like, dude, who just bought the tide. I will pay you to not use that. Like, I'll buy you a new bucket of unscented, laundry detergent. So no one ever uses that laundry detergent in this house.   Michael: Is it the aroma that bothers you or the fact that it is scent in general?   Pierre: The aroma of any scented laundry detergent kind of makes my blood boil almost as much as crumbs on the counter.   Tom: I dig it. I mean, I feel like a what's it, what's it called? When you think of fondly of the past. I think there's a word for that. Nostalgia. Yeah.   Pierre: Scented laundry detergent gives me a nostalgia of times I don't want to be back in.   Emil: We're getting a real deep.   Pierre: Yeah. Sorry that I'll stop there.   Michael: Everybody likes their own brand.   Emil: I could not see that about you, Pierre.   Pierre: What do you mean? Like every time you guys asked me a question, I'm like, I don't, I don't like pizza. I don't eat cereal.   Michael: No salad bar.   Pierre: But love you roommates.   Michael: Yeah. All right. No laundry detergent. Add it to the list.   Emil: Do you like puppies though?   Pierre As long as they're not washed and scented laundry, detergent, love puppies.   Tom: Oh. But a puppy playing and fresh laundry.   Michael: So cute. So cute.   Tom: All right guys, that's a good spot to, uh, cut us off for today. Thank you everybody for listening. We hope you the episode. And if you did, we'd love it. If you would subscribe and give us a rating on your podcast app and always happy investing.   Michael: Happy investing.   Emil: Happy investing.