Choose Two Sources of REI Education at Least
Jack Butala: Choose Two Sources of REI Education at Least. Every Single month we give away a property for free. It's super simple to qualify. Two simple steps. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and number two, get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don't even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Jack Butala: Jack Butala and Jill DeWItt.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show. It's really your show.
Jill DeWit: Howdy.
Jack Butala: In this episode, Jill and I talk about why you should choose two sources of real estate investor education. At least two. Great show today Jill. Let's take a question first posted by one of our members on successplant.com, our free online community.
Jill DeWit: This is from Claire. Hi, Claire. I put a little note in successplant too, telling her when I was going to do this. Claire asked, I've got a buyer who wants escrow in Southern California. In your guide, Jack, for Southern California, you say that a buyer and a seller split escrow costs. My question is is that a law or regulation? I'm not going to pay for it since I've already given the buyer a significant discount, but I want to know can I legitimately have him pay for it all, or does the escrow company really need a check from both me and him? If so, I'll just up his purchase price. Thanks.
Jack Butala: That's an awesome question.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Jack Butala: Claire's been with us from just about the beginning and she's a perfect example of from zero to hero. Here's the answer. Please make sure that this is correct, but I'm ninety-nine percent sure it's correct. I don't think there's any laws at all governing who pays escrow in any way. I can tell you that historically everybody splits it and then stuff that gets prorated, like real estate taxes and some other fees and things like that, that's just historically the culture that surrounds it. Incidentally, escrow itself is relatively new in the whole sea of real estate. It used to be that an attorney had to close every single deal. Escrow started in California. It was a California answer to, I don't want you darned attorney to be involved in my real estate deal, and then it spread east from there.
To answer your question very simply, Claire, negotiate the deal that you want. We regularly, when this happens make the seller pay for everything, and I mean everything, so that we just get a check. All the time it works or we don't go forward with it, because that's just how we do it. Yeah, there's no law. I'm almost sure there's no law or reg. If you're using Fidelity Title, there might be a Fidelity Title rule where you split it. I've never heard of that though.
Jill DeWit: Then, Claire is the perfect work around. Either way it's okay. I'm just going to up his price because he's getting a rocking deal. It's going to work out the same to both of us in the end. However we do it is fine. That's how I role too, Claire. I love it.
Jack Butala: I've done it on house deals, SFR deals where I say, we're going to pay for everything.
Jill DeWit: That's the ting. I was just thinking, that tells me right there too, because yeah, I've heard that and known that that buyer's going to pay all closing costs, or a seller pays all closing costs.
Jack Butala: Incidentally, this is a sales tool. It's not an issue to get over. It truly is a sales tool. I'll tell you what sellers love to hear. We're all used to hearing a price, I don't care what you're buying. It costs thirty-four dollars and in the end it doesn't cost thirty-four dollars, it cost thirty-eight, because there's taxes and fees and it's all kinds of stuff that goes on. When you tell a seller, if they're on the fence about selling you a piece of property and you say, you know what? You're going to get a cashier's check on Thursday for thirty-four hundred dollars, not thirty-eight, not thirty-one five,