Nathan Miller

We just purchased our 2nd foreclosed property from the bank this year, done some additional research, and determined banks are really anxious to offload their inventory. Their anxiety is so high they are willing to offload them for just about anything (within reason) which spells a very profitable investment.

To add to this, lending guidelines are still pretty tight. While they have loosened up a little bit, the economy (for the avg Joe, not the media) continues to worsen. This means less money in people's bank accounts. The $8k 1st time homebuyer credit helps confidence, but it doesn't give homebuyers the money *today* to put down on a property. What's happening? These banks are desperate to offload inventory, they are accepting offers, but many of the "prequalified" buyers are falling through and not able to purchase.

This type of situation really puts the bank into dire straights. The bank was expecting the property sold by X date, and the buyer fell through. The house goes back on the MLS, typically at a heavy discount, and really the bank will take just about anything for it at this point.

To illustrate the point, I'm changing names to protect the guilty. ;) The Smiths are prequalified and have put in a full price $180k offer on 123 Smith St. The bank see's dollar signs and accepts and believes because they are "prequalified" they will follow through. 15 days into escrow, the Smiths find out the loan is a full point higher than they expected, and back out. The bank has lost nearly a full month at this point and has to relist the property. They NEED to sell it now. They drop the price 9% and offer 3% closing assistance. A 12% reduction in a matter of 30 days. Any investor with the dollars to put down can snatch this property up at a heavy discount.

Granted every situation is different, and some lenders will re-list at the original price; however, I'm willing to bet that more often than not they will take an offer 10-15% lower than their asking price in situations like this. Keep an eye out on the MLS for re-listings to spot these. They are a gold mine.

Of course once you have it, be sure to keep it on track and positive cash flow so it doesn't end up back at the bank again. I recommend using property management software to track closely the finances of each property. Make sure you are receiving a decent return on your down payment (8% minimum, ideally 12% or higher). And if you are renting, be absolutely certain to screen your tenants carefully. Nothing can make a positive cash-flow property turn negative quicker than bad tenants.

A couple years ago I had this question myself. At that time I visited the local credit reporting office in my town, and while they used to run screens on behalf of landlords have stopped that activity. That is also true of pretty much every local screening company. Property managers can run background screens, but only for their own clients. This leaves the question, how does a private landlord screen their prospective tenants without a huge hassle? I've been asked this dozens of times and I'm happy to say I have the answers.

If you are a landlord, it's actually quite easy. The FCRA allows "tenant screening" as a permissible purpose for running certain background checks, including full criminal background screens, bankruptsy, eviction, and judgement checks. You just need a reliable provider. This can be obtained easy enough by googling 'tenant screening'. Which ones are reliable though?

What I've found is most tenant screening companies are using extremely limited databases. None of them actually disclose what data they are using, or how they got it, or how complete it is. With that, it's more or less just a guess as to if they have valid data. Most tenant screening companies suggest you use one of their packages which include a "nationwide" search of some sorts. I've found these less than accurate as well because their nationwide results tend to only have results if they specifically have already scanned for that particular record. What are the chances? Pretty slim indeed. It often equates to a substantial investment in invalid results. I've even heard that some landlords use multiple screening companies paying two to three times what they should as a result.

Because of the guesswork, and game of chance out there, and since we have lots of landlords using Rentec Direct for it's property management software capabilities, we've worked out a partnership with a premier data screening wholesaler to be able to provide tenant screening services directly to our customers. The quality of the data is second to none.

One might ask, "how is it different than the rest"? Great question! While we offer similar nationwide and statewide searches, most of our nationwide and statewide databases are updated extremely frequently with complete records from that state. This differs from many screening companies. Additionally, and this is a major difference, we offer an intelligent search (Intellisearch) feature which at no cost to you scans the entire previous address history of your prospective tenant. It then recommends the specific local products designed to give you the most accurate results for this tenant. After all, why spend 4 times as much out there on a broad nationwide search when you can learn the specific locations this tenant has lived and run state and county level searches which produce up to date, and flawless results for as little as $6. By the way, our comprehensive nationwide criminal, which includes the nationwide sex offender database, is only $9.95 for Rentec members.

We're currently offering a 2 month FREE trial to Rentec Pro to ActiveRain members which includes a 30% discount on all screening products.

A good friend and local mortgage broker referred me to Activerain today and I, we, are pleased to be here! Thanks Paul! For a good time Rentec Direct has been maturing in the property management software marketplace and while there's a good chance the name is new to many of you here in the "rain" I am excited to announce that we don't want it to remain that way!!

An introduction. Rentec Direct is a rapidly emerging company providing landlords and property mangers an online application to manage their properties. The software is designed for the smaller to medium landlords who have 1 to 50 properties they manage. The goal behind Rentec Direct is to keep it simple so anyone can use it! This of course doesn't mean it's feature-less. We've compared Rentec Direct to many of the other popular property management softwares, including the self-proclaimed industry leader Quicken and have not only found this ourselves, but have independant confirmation, that Rentec Direct is more powerful, easier to use, and all around better than Quicken by miles!!

We've integrated all the features necessary for landlords and property managers to successfully manage and track their properties. Also, tenant screening (criminal background checks, bankruptsies, liens, judgements, evictions) are integrated right into the system and available with just a couple clicks.

One of our customers sums up what Rentec Direct does really well. Timothy from VA writes "Rentec Direct enables a family to rent their house out without going through a costly property management company. It gives me everything I need to manage my own property."

As a testament to the quality of our staff, Alireza from CA writes: "It is great to see a company cares so much to respond to enquiries in such detail. It is a rarity these days. All I can say is GREAT JOB, STAY RESPONSIVE, DON'T CHANGE."

So what do I usually hear when I tell somebody in person about Rentec Direct. That must cost a lot for your members right? Most people are simply amazed when I tell them Rentec Basic which includes all the features necessary for managing up to 10 rentals is FREE. Uh hu - FREE! We have a Professional version as well which includes some fancy bells and whistles and pricing starts at only $1 per property. Anyone can afford the Pro version and it includes lifetime upgrades.

We encourage activerain members to come try out Rentec Direct, it takes less than 2 minutes to get signed up. No strings, no costs. We provide all the professional features absolutely free for 2 months time. This includes a 30% discount on tenant screening products. For a limited time, we'll also provide activerain users with a FREE nationwide criminal search for their next tenant. Just mention activerain in your signup application.

Our web site is http://www.rentecdirect.com. We also post a blog with Rentec Direct material and industry news at http://www.rentecdirect.com/blog.