Step 01 · the lists
Find the owner nobody else is calling
Pre-foreclosures, out-of-state landlords, tired Section 8 owners, expired listings. Public records, skip tracing, and a pipeline the machine rebuilds constantly. Grand Rapids and Bessemer both came out of lists like these, not the MLS.
Step 02 · the phone
Talk like a person, offer like an underwriter
Every deal is a conversation about the seller's actual problem: payments they do not want, a tenant they are done with, a house they left behind. The offer is whatever structure solves it: cash, subject-to (take over the payments), or seller finance (the seller becomes the bank). Both live deals are creative structures because that is what the sellers actually needed.
Step 03 · the paper
Contract as principal, protect everyone
Purchase agreement, disclosures, earnest money, review windows. On the assignment side, the end buyer takes my seat in the contract for a fee that prints on the settlement statement. No hidden anything: the buyer knows, the seller knows, the title company documents all of it.
Step 04 · the close
Let the professionals land the plane
A transaction coordinator (Gold Key on both files), a title company, and on the trust deal an experienced closer structuring it so everyone stays protected. This step is slow, unglamorous, and where deals die. Which is why nothing on this page is counted as money.