The Science of Flipping - Why Every Investor Needs To Be Doing Probate Deals | Al Nicoletti

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

Today I sit down with probate attorney Al Nicoletti to discuss the lucrative yet often misunderstood realm of probate real estate investing. Al delves into the complexities of probate deals, sharing a detailed case study to highlight common pitfalls and the importance of thorough analysis and having the right expertise. He emphasizes the need for investors to partner with knowledgeable probate attorneys to navigate these deals successfully and unlock significant profits. Throughout the episode, Al provides practical advice, underscores the potential financial gains, and encourages investors to explore probate opportunities while offering his professional services for those operating in Florida. -- Connect with Al! Instagram - @attorneynicoletti Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/ @AlNicoletti Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/al.nicoletti.7 Phone - 904-999-0053 --- BIG THANK YOU to 10x TV for sponsoring this week's episode."Use TV Commercials to reach 10X More people, 10X Faster and 10X Easier, with 10X More Credibility."To learn more, go to https://10xtv.co --- The #1 training and coaching system to launch, grow, and scale your investing business! 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞: http://www.thescienceofflipping.com Turn cold real estate leads into engaged motivated sellers on auto-pilot using the power of A.I! 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞: https://www.rocketly.ai/ Have a question? Ask me anything at https://www.askjustin.ai/ 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧: After graduating from UCLA in 2003 with an English degree, Justin went directly into business for himself. He has never had a W-2 job. In 2005 he got into real estate by co-founding a brokerage in the Northern California area. Quickly he realized that being a realtor was not for him. In 2007 he got into real estate investing full time. 16 years later, Justin has flipped well over 2600 properties, accumulated millions in rental properties, and is an active investor to this day. His success in real estate led him to start The Science Of Flipping podcast and education company, where he has coached and mentored over one thousand aspiring and active investors. He is a nationally recognized speaker and is on a mission to educate as many people as possible on becoming a successful dynamic real estate investor.  𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒉𝒆𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒔𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆𝑻𝒐𝑺𝒂𝒚𝑨𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏: “Justin is one of the best trainers in this space. He really gives everything to his tribe.” – Brent Daniels (TTP) “Justin’s ability to connect with people and help them understand what he is teaching, is unparallelled” – Kent Clothier (REWW) “We have been in the trenches flipping homes in Phoenix for over a decade, he is one of the best to do it.” – Sean Terry (Flip2Freedom)
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As we continue throughout the years of the baby boomer period, these deals are going to come up more and more. And so, before me, a lot of people wanted to shy away from it. Once I explained what was going on, a lot of people want to start getting into this. But it takes finding the right expert, the right team, the right people, and get your pieces together now. Because you can make some really good money off these deals. It is totally possible. And I've seen a lot of investors do their first deal. And from there, they are all in on probate. What is up science flipping family? I'm back with another hot guest probate attorney Al Nicoletti is here. What is up my man? What's up, Justin? Thanks for having me here, bro. Excited

to have you. This is a subject I've been wanting to pound on because I think people are way misinformed. They're not doing it right. You are a licensed probate attorney. Yes. Let's get into it. We were just talking off camera about a deal, a case study that your client was currently working, trying to figure out. Let's talk about that on camera so people can understand why it's so important to find an Al Nicoletti. By the way, go follow him on all social media, Attorney Nicoletti on Instagram and Al Nicoletti on Facebook. But if you're doing anything with probates, listen to this. If you find motivated sellers and you're going after probates, listen to this, watch this. All right. So let's talk about that case study. Yeah, let's dive in. So Justin, what we're seeing out there are a lot of investors that pick up distressed deals, right? With any type of distressed deal, you're probably

going to find some kind of probate situation. You bring the contract to the title company, title runs a report. They say, Hey, we got to do probate where a lot of investors get tripped up is they hear that, Hey, we just got to do thisate. Where a lot of investors get tripped up is they hear that, hey, we just got to do this one probate. I have these two people locked up under contract. Like, let's get going. Let's do it right now. Where everybody's got to back up is where with probate, you got to do an analysis, right? With any type of situation, you have to find the flow of the title. So what I'm doing in my profession is we're analyzing what the title says, what's on the deed, what's the story. It's all about the big picture and figuring out the

puzzle to this. So when we just had this recent case, they found out, hey, we got to do probate. We all hopped on the conference call, investor, the heir. And during the call, we always find out what's the story, any will, spouse, kids. Well, in this one, we found out there were four kids ever. And so, first of all, they only had three under contract. I said, well, where's the fourth one? And that's where we dive deeper to find out, well, they died too. And when you find that out, now we're like, well, what's the story with this person?

Do we have to start it all over? Drop down to the kids, find out they died after. Triggers another probate. Double probate. Right. Double probate. What does that mean? That means now there's more heirs. So when we found that out, we said, hey, we got to reschedule this. We got to get it back on. And by the way, you have two more people that you need under contract. And what a lot of investors don't realize is you need all these people to come into play to get this deal done. And in my profession, what I've been able to really think through as a probate lawyer is I don't think about it just on the probate. I think about it on the end of how do you get the deal closed? And I'm thinking way far ahead than just

the two people under contract and it's so important to get these people on because if you go to the closing table and you don't have the right people in play and one of these people don't sign the deal's not happening yeah so i i we were discussing a lot before we started recording i don't love when coaches gurus right push their students their their community members into probate lists the reason being is i've done a lot of probate in my career but i have a version of alan nicoletti i literally have a probate lawyer in phoenix because i was doing the predominant and i pay him my fee every single time because I shortened the gap from contract to actually getting it closed. The challenge I see is too many of these gurus are saying hit motivated lists, probate being a great one.

What I also don't see as a follow-up to that is it has to get all the way through probate to get to the inheritance or the executor for it to actually fund so you can actually close the deal and so there's a missing connection and this is such an important episode for you motivated or for you investors because you need to find out you need to work with out anytime you're dealing with a probate or else what i have found people especially newer type of investors they get caught in this pro I'll got my deal. It's a probate deal is a great number and it dies on the vine, right? Cause they don't know how to navigate through this. The, the, the children are saying one thing, the spouse is saying another thing,

the ex wife is saying another and they can't figure it out. Yes. Good. So let's, let's go over a couple of points. First point is you got to have the expert, right? Number one, no matter what market you're in, you got to have the right experts to be able to do this analysis because these probate deals can be massive deals. The kind of deals I'm seeing, Justin, are $50,000 spreads. I've seen some investors make $100,000. Which is why coaches say, go pull the probate list, right? Right. Exactly. So keep going. So I'm not saying probate list is a bad list. I'm saying if you don't have the follow-up or an Al Nicoletti in your corner, you're fucked.

You are in a completely different position because you don't have the right expert. And we work a little bit differently because in my office, we're able to defer the payment till the closing. So that helps a lot of the investors. My guy didn't. Hey, you see, that's a different model, right? Where there's the risk really is ends up being of course on us. Right. Exactly. So first thing is get the right experts. Second thing is there's, there's good and bad with the probate list, right? The good is there's definitely opportunities because they're distressed. They may not have a buyer. They can be some of the biggest spreads you've ever seen. With the probate lists, a lot of those are active cases in the courthouse. Well, what does that mean,

Justin? That means that it's public record. When it's public record, everybody's going after it. One of the things I talk about at presentations, at some of the REIA meetings, is you've got to find the probate leads that are not out there. Do you want to get inbound motivated sellers calling you and become an authority in your market? Look no further than Tony Javier's 10X TV. Tony has been doing TV commercials to find consistent, motivated sellers

for over a decade for his business. It is the main reason he has been able to purchase over a thousand properties. He will use his proven formula to get high quality leads calling you and even setting it up for you. Get in front of 10 times more people, 10 times faster, 10 times cheaper, with 10 times more people, 10 times faster, 10 times cheaper with 10 times more credibility than any other marketing channel.

Surprisingly, TV has little to no competition and get you a steady flow of motivated seller leads. If you want to see why over 100 real estate investors use Tony to run their TV commercials, go to 10xtv.co to see if there's a spot available in your market. Again, go to 10xtv.co. And it's not going to blink probate, but you're going to find distress leads like pre-foreclosures, tax delinquents, code violations, anything with the sign of distress that may have an indication of probate is going to have something in there. It's funny you say that because I would tell you, I used to, years and years and years ago, call it a decade, I bought probate lists. Funny thing about that is because I understand the runway for probate. People don't want to deal with the death usually.

So it's like not the hottest motivation in terms of response from sellers typically, right? Right. Because usually those lists give you the brand new probate deal. Well, that wife or husband or child is mourning and grieving and going through emotion. But it's funny because I would do vastly more probate deals through all my other motivated seller lists that I would pull or target to your point is usually when you have some of these other flags that are blinking saying, Hey, something's up with this property, right? It's right. Whatever the case may be. A lot of times you find out it's a probate deal, right? So I've done hundreds of probate deals and very little of them. I couldn't give you the exact number came

from an actual pulling of a probate list and targeting the probate people. It was from all the other signs of motivation. Right. And what I'll tell you is a lot of these deals, a lot of these investors don't realize that you may not be targeting a probate and find it all of a sudden. Right. Right. So a lot of people, whether it's students, coaches, or other investors out there, they'll just be doing their regular marketing, not necessarily to a list, and they'll find it because the title company says we have to do it.

And so many, Justin, so many investors I know before pre-owl, like we have like a thing where it's like pre-owl and post-owl. There you go. Pre-owl would have passed on the deal because they didn't know where to go, what to do, who to look for, the right questions. And it's all about qualifying and being able to ask the right questions so you show confidence to the seller that you've been there before, you know what you're doing, and there's so much motivation behind it. And to go to your point about the probate list or the distress leads, a lot of these leads aren't recent deaths. Neither.

Some of these people, there's like a story of this one guy where they bought the property, the father bought the property in the 80s and decided that they were going to eventually build a house there. Well, they didn't. And it's still a lot of land. They never cleared it. And the guy's been paying the taxes. One of the years he's been paying the taxes for 30 years because he wanted to do what his father wanted to do. Still hasn't. Yeah.

And so now he's motivated. So these people end up holding onto these properties for years. And it's not about the death. It's about, hey, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to pay the taxes. I'm tired of getting these letters and all the investors are mailing us. And there's so much motivation there's no tenants. Like they're having a hard time getting tenants. So I asked another neighbor who's been in the neighborhood. So I've only lived in this neighborhood three years. The other neighbors live like 20.

Like, Hey, what's the story with this home? I'm thinking like, I'm going to try to buy this thing. Right. Right. He basically said the same thing you said, mom and dad passed. Child doesn't want to let it go. They've been trying to rent it here and there, whatever. They keep up with the property taxes. They keep, you know, there's no mortgage on it. So they kind

of just keep it. If it gets rented, they're cool with it. If right. And I'm like, right. Yeah. They're just not motivated. There's not enough pain to it yet. The death already happened and they're, they're okay with it. There's no pain. There's no like, okay, I just want out of all this shit. So those are hard people to deal with until there's enough pain. Right. You know, until this roof collapses and it's a $40,000 ticket that they got to go pay, then they're like, let me just sell this house. Right. And some of them are just dying to get rid of it.

I mean, there's some deals we've seen where they don't even want to deal with the realtor. They don't want to deal with having to do a listing. It's so distressed and it's such disrepair that they just want somebody to buy it, get the cash and move on with it. And they just want to go and live their life. And so many of these properties, what's so great about probate is there's no real connection with the property. Many of these probates are vacant. They've been just sitting there for years. Maybe there's no real connection with the property. Many of these probates are vacant. They've been just sitting there for years. Maybe there's renters and they're just tired of dealing with the tenants. And these people live out of state. Like the out of state owner list for probate

ends up being one of the hottest because there's no deep connection to that property anymore. They moved on, they got kids, they got a family And they just, hey, we found your property. We want to list it. And also, so many of these out-of-state owners and heirs don't even know that their parents own property. Sometimes they are just finding out for the first time that you found the property sitting in Miami and they may be able to inherit it. And it's amazing motivation. Right. And so what's your role in the whole thing? So they understand, first of all, where can they start contacting you? I'm sure you're going to get a bunch of questions. I'm going to be paying the questions, go to him, right? But how can they contact you for these questions?

So best way you can find me on social media at Facebook, Instagram. I have a YouTube channel under Al Nicoletti and my phone number is 904-999-0053 and just leave a voicemail and we'll get back to you. And that'll all be in the notes on YouTube for sure. So where was my question on that? Oh, so what is your process in this whole thing? So my process is to do the evaluation and to perform the analysis and basically qualify what's going on. So we'll start from the beginning. Anytime an investor says, hey, let's just, we'll use just, just advise a deal needs probate, right? Hey, Al, I got one title company says we got to do probate. What's the first step?

Well, one thing we've implemented in our law firm has been a probate checklist. And it's really key that we have that now because before we were just doing, hey, let's figure it out. Just do the call. It was all over the place. The checklist qualifies the deal. It qualifies the seriousness level of the heirs and their willingness to participate and do this. So that checklist has things from the address, the heirs contact info, the will, a trust, very basic documents, death certificate. And so once we... But by the way, just, I got to clarify this again, is basic to you. It isn't basic to the newbie investor.

That's why I hate when people are saying, go after probates. A newbie investor has no fucking idea what you were doing. To you, this is your business. It is as basic as it gets. So again, I can't emphasize this more. If you're targeting probates or even have a deal that is becoming like, get a hold of Al. Because all of the things that are so basic to him will take you months. And you probably won't even finish it because it's such a pain in the ass. And what happens, Justin, is a lot of these

investors, they'll find the deal and they'll think they know the answers to the story that they just need one person or, hey, we got the right document. And as I see these every day, all day. I mean, we're on pace this year to do 400 probates alone. I mean, we've done over 800 at least by now, and we're just seeing the same rotation of they think they know, but until we get it, we have to be able to do the analysis. So my end, we're performing really the analysis. And the analysis is what is on title? Who's on the title? Who are we talking to in relation to the person on title? Are they the child? Are they the spouse? Are they the cousin? We have to know that relationship so we can figure out what do they know in the line? And then how many of the kids did they have ever? How many of them are alive? How many of them died? What's the

story? Are they all on the same page? Is one living in are alive? How many of them died? What's the story? Are they all on the same page? Is one living in the house and doesn't want to agree? Is everybody out of state and wants to sell the state? So my role is to really dig deep and something either with my voice, with the way I ask the questions really pulls out the real story. And from there, I'm able to say, okay, either you're missing these people on contract, I can't do it until you get these people in contract, I'm waiting until closing, or we need these additional documents, we need this to get going, because I'm thinking about everything with these counties, Justin. Each county in Florida has all these different nuances

and requirements. If you find a deal in Miami, it's not going to be the same requirements that they have in Brevard County. And because we've been able to do this at such a high volume all over the state of Florida, that's the knowledge we have by knowing these nuances. So during the consult is we're really picking this apart because I'm thinking ahead on how do we do this in six weeks. You're only doing the state of Florida for clarification.

Yes. So only for Florida. If you're in other states, find a similar Al Nicoletti in those states. You'll want them. The thing that you do really, which is impressive, you take all the risk. Right. I'm not paying you until the deal's done. Correct.

That is so unique, by the way. And I appreciate it because, you know, listen, I pay, they're not massive fees, but a couple thousand dollars, a couple thousand dollars. And, you know, you don't know if the deal is going to go through. Right. And so sometimes it's just another risk, not to mention EMD and whatever else. And one of the students, or no, none of the students, one of the children of the heir, I don't feel like selling. I want to hold out. And you're like, yeah, I just paid this lawyer, whatever the fee is.

And now we're getting nowhere. Well, let's talk about a deal that I just saw. There was a deal that just came in. Mom owned the property and had the consult. And the lady at first, it was just all her or her, her. Well, I get on the phone. I start asking my questions. I find out that it's not just her.

There's all these other siblings. Two died after. And then of their line two more died and so when i did the whole puzzle we ended up finding out there were total five probates well you tell me who's gonna pay for five probates have any idea if the deal goes through because one of them doesn't sign right and so on this one we're we're taking all the risks we're doing five probates that's the same waiting until closing i mean it's a juicy deal though, too. I was just going to say, if I was consulting you,

would I advise you to take all the risks? Like, is there a medium ground that like, hey, dude, there's five probates on this. I usually take the risk. I don't mind getting not paid, but I'm going to have to have other people work on it. Like, there's got to be some, can we split a fee or can we get paid on two of the five?

Like I was just thinking like, well, I don't know if that's brilliant for you. Totally on a like macro, right? I mean, it's work though. Yeah, bro. Trust me. I want to give you every single point of this right now. Like what deals do I have going through probate in Florida? I'm not even kidding because of that.

Right. And then you do good. You get the deals done. You're just going to get referred, right? you're just going to get more of my business i'm just going to keep pumping into you know al because you don't cost me anything until it gets done right we had another deal this investor made over two hundred thousand dollars on both lots and what happened at first is he had one heir thought he had the deal in the bag. We do the analysis, find out two more died after, total three probates. He said, hey man, whatever we got to do, I said, to make sure we can do this

the right way, all of them need to be under contract, signing the contract, not on board, signing the contract, done. Got three probates done in less than six weeks, all three. Wow. Simultaneously, he got it listed, done, made the money. And so a lot of people just think that it's going to take forever. It's going to be a lot upfront. That's our model. Waiting until closing to get paid. And we're doing these things in a very efficient and timely manner. Well, they think it's going to take long because when doing it themselves, it's going to take long. Yeah doing it themselves, it's going to take long. Yeah.

I mean, it could take six months, nine months. And again, do the people have the stamina to keep figuring out, oh, there's another error and I got to figure out how to get a hold? No. And so you give up on that deal that could be a quarter million dollar deal

because it takes forever because you don't know actually what the fuck you're doing, but Al does. So you call Al, pay the fee, right? I think people are so sure side oh i don't i was gonna have this fee and i'm just gonna do it and i'm like bro get the deal done move on to the next like don't have any headaches they're blown away every

single time i love it that that's the model because it really helps them it helps the seller right one of the biggest pain points for a seller is what well i've gone to every lawyer and every lawyer wants money up front and i don't and so it's like it takes that massive pain point away because sellers all they want to know is how much and how long yeah and when you're able to find if you're able to explain and find somebody that can wait till closing and do these things in a timely way it's it's a win-win how often you get the dual heirs or multiple heirs and there's one asshole of the group that just says, nope, I want $30,000 more. I want more. Does that happen pretty frequently?

It doesn't happen as much as you think. And eventually, sometimes those people do end up coming around because they're able to figure out the purchase price. They're able to figure out that nobody else is coming to help them. So we had one deal one time where there were six kids and the investor got five out of the six under contract, had the analysis. And that's when I found out, oh, there's one more. I said, well, what's going on with this one? Oh, he won't sign. And I'm like, why? Oh, he's got issues with the other family members. I said, well, what's going on with this one? Oh, he won't sign. And I'm like, why? Oh, he's got issues with the other family members. I said, okay. And in this particular case, Justin, there was a way that I was thinking about how do we get around this guy?

It's hard to do. I was like, how do we get around this guy? And so when I asked my questions, I found it out. They said, oh, yeah, no, no, no. Mom didn't live there. And so that triggered a thought in my mind with my knowledge. I said, oh yeah, no, no, no. Mom did live there. And so that triggered a thought in my mind with my knowledge. I said, oh, perfect. We're going to find a way to get around him. The lady picks up the phone and says, we're going to get around you. And in 15 minutes, signs the contract,

done. So when you're able to have these strategies and see so many hypotheticals over and over and over, even the ones that don't end up working out. Because as many probates as I've done, I've seen at least double, triple hypotheticals. And by seeing all the hypotheticals, eventually a same or similar situation is going to come along. So you're able to plug that in and say, well, can we do this? Can we do this? What is the reason that something doesn't get done besides the asshole kid who doesn't want to sign? Like what other things come up? Money in the deal.

So that really comes down to the money in the deal, right? The payoff is too high or the payoff exceeds the ARV or purchase price. And you're talking about the bank payoff. Bank payoff, right? Or land deals. Land deals are always really tight deals. There's like, you know, somebody's going to buy it for five, then assign it for seven. And then you find out there's three probates. Well, it's, you know, not really that, that, that's going to work even for one probate. Um, but the money spread, and then you find out that

you were going to make a spread of 20,000 and now it needs four probates. It's like, is that even still a deal? You know, what's your end buyer coming in at? Are you taking down the deal? Does that even make sense? So it's always the spread. And sometimes it's situations like, you know, maybe you have that one guy that doesn't want to sell and it ends up being homestead and you absolutely need them. You know, are you ready to play the game of partial interest and forcing a sale? Are you ready to get into that that game or do you want to take it down and assign it out and maybe that's not the game so there's so many different things that you have to think through each one of these on how does this end up working out and how does this go down

do you have everybody do we need everybody um and that's just something i've understood because it's not just about the probate it is about what is title gonna need how does this get closed because i'm thinking about the closing so at all the deals that you see how many of those become wholesale deals oh has to be over 80 percent of the deals that you actually end up getting closed or i guess like so could it be getting closed or whatever but 80% of the deals that you actually end up getting closed, or I guess like, so could it be getting closed or whatever, but 80% of these deals that come to you is usually a wholesaler bringing you a deal that they're going to sign it. High percentage, high percentage. Got it. How do you tell them to give me the deal? Cause I need to buy way more.

That's the relationship we need. I love it. I love it. They're already locked up with a B2C. Oh, already. So that's how you're going down the need. I love it. I love it. They're already locked up with a B to C. Oh, already. So that's how you're going down the train. I got it. Right. So they're already,

they're already in the deal, but they already have a, somebody on the B to C. And so they're already ready to rock and roll. See, it's just, you got to get through all the mayhem to get there. Do you ever come into a,

a, a, again, I'm just using an air in terms of a kid, but whether it's a spouse or whatever do you ever get there and like they're a hard no and you're the one that turns them into seeing the light to say let's go ahead and get this done there was and it's funny you say that that's happened more recently sometimes i feel like i'm the investor. Yeah. Right. So there was something recently that went down and at first

the air was really hesitant to doing it because it was going to require them to get with the sister or start ordering documents in another state. And that's where I really took control of the conversation. I said, listen, I've been through this a lot, done this many times. This is what we got to need. And by the way, if you don't do it, it's only going to stay there and it's going to be the same situation. By us offering what we do, we're helping you not have to do anything. We'll order the documents in Oregon and Michigan. We'll figure out how we do it. And we're waiting until the end. So when you're able to explain some of these things to them, it helps. And there was one the other day that it really got

me off my chair. It was the third time we had had a consult with them. We found out at first, first the probate was, it was just going to go to the four kids. Okay. Ready to rock and roll. File the probate. Court kicks it back and says, oh, by the way, Al, there was something that was opened in 2004. I thought, where was this? Nobody said anything about this.

We looked at it. Very messed up. There was some kind of will, but it wasn't executed right. They couldn't find the kids. So I was like, okay. And then it was weird. I looked at who it went to,

and funny enough, I had already done the probate for that person. No kidding. So I said, huh, wait a second. We already have the people. We just got to get eight of you back all on the same page. Because the first time they weren't on the same page. And I told them, I said, if you're not on the same page, it's not happening. Went through it. Eventually, they came to the on the same page, it's not happening. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Went through it.

Eventually, they came to the table, found out they're ready to go. We just had the consult the other day. And I said, this is the third time we're meeting. We ready to go? Yes. Told them my price, told them the double probate. Well, why do we have to? And I said, listen, everybody has taken their time on the call to speak with you.

The investor, me, the assistants, and scheduling. It doesn't matter if Bob the builder, Susie the investor, or anybody else comes along. You are all going to be in the same position that you were before this person came in. And the investor's done a great job. I'm doing a great job. And all of a sudden it got really quiet.

And it really made them think about the position that they were put in. And I think the wheels started turning. And I said, by the way, we come to another call. This is going to get even more expensive than what I just quoted you at. Right. So the ball is moving now in that direction. So the point is that we get these ones where it really takes me to have to get in to keep the gears moving. And that's how I always felt about the one we used in Phoenix primarily is because I was like, man, I feel like he does.

Like to your point, like he becomes almost the investor. Like these they get squirrely right like whether it's a spouse or kids one kid wants one can doesn't whatever the kid and things get to like oh fuck it's too much work i'm out but somehow i'm like bro this guy is worth his weight in gold right now he was charging me up front so i'm good for that but like my point is like that caught these deals done yeah yeah it's because of him yeah How do you introduce yourself when you talk to the, so it's my deal. I contract with the, the, the, whoever I think is the person. Now I hire you.

I say, great, here's a probate deal. How do you introduce yourself to that person and talk about your side of things? So what we end up doing is once we have the checklist documents, items, and we have the title commitment. Do you get that from me or do you get that from the checklist documents, items, and we have the title commitment. Do you get that from me or do you get that from the seller or seller? Kind of both. Like a combination.

Hey, whoever has what? Yeah. Let's just say you already know the title company's got the title commitment. Hey, the seller is going to send the docs. And they do. They get everything together. Death certificates and all this other stuff. Exactly.

It's not many items either. It's just enough for us to do an analysis. Once we get everything, then I'm saying, saying hey let's get on a conference call it was something that we learned justin which was super powerful is conference calls why everybody's on the same page it's not just me talking to the air it's them understanding what the process is and everybody has next steps action items on who needs to do what and what roles everybody has. On that call, that's when you'd probably find it funny because if we got on a call, I get straight down to it. I'm a straight shooter, right to the point. Hey, my name is Alan Nicoletti.

I'm the probate attorney. By the way, how are you related to this person? Because with me, I'm a very high volume law firm. So with high volume, we've learned to figure out what we got to do with that analysis quickly. So we can really get down to it. Your time's valuable. Our time's valuable. Get down to it. They already know what's coming by being on the call and we get straight down to it. Ask the questions, find out what's going on. And I explain if we can do this, I always tell people, Hey, we're going to make a folder. I'm typing, I'm making the folder. What's the best way we can send you documents? Can you use DocuSign? Can you do notarize.com? Um, how do we get Susie, her stuff? Oh, Oh, she needs it. FedEx prepaid label. No problem. We'll do FedEx prepaid label.

How do we make this system streamlined and easy for you so it's easy for everybody? We can get it back and boom, push it out. Yeah. You were making me think of something when I feel like when you as saying, hey, my name's Al Nicoletti. I'm a probate attorney or lawyer. I feel like it straightens people up real quick. Oh, yeah. That whole like investor seller that like tug of war.

I feel like at least for the seller side, because usually it'd be me hiring you. I feel like for the seller side, they go, okay, I'm dealing with a lawyer. So now I'm going to, I got to play the right way. Yeah. Not like just be a dickhead just to be a dickhead. It's funny you say that because for a lot of investors, the seller will go, hey, Justin, no, it's just me. And you'll be like, oh, great.

Done. One hour, ready to rock and roll. Then I get on the call and I'm like, how many are there ever, ever? And they're like, eight. And I'm like, did you not bother to tell Justin about this? And then Justin calls me and goes, dude, I swear. They only told me it's just one. And it's true.

It happens all the time. There's something about, like you said, me being on the phone that changes the whole dynamic of the conversation and it becomes, oh, well, I better tell everybody that it's eight and that there's nine. So yeah, it's a totally different dynamic. Well, sellers tend to keep their secrets, right?

Meaning I can't tell you how many deals I've come across just in a bank center and not a probate. Oh yeah, I owe 150 grand on this home, you know, pay off like 245. You're like, why didn't you just tell me 245? Like, so now I can't buy the deal. We have to unwind it. Sellers do it all the time. So if we're talking to the investor, newbie or otherwise, knowing what you know and how intimately, you know know these deals and where you find them and where they came from, how could we target probates more efficiently, effectively to find more, to find the attorney, whatever. Is there a better way to do it? Because there's all these companies that sell probate leads and every list provider sells them. I don't love them because the exact thing I said earlier, like I have done more probate deals, not going after probate deals than I have going after probate deals.

Right. What is your suggestion to the investor? I would say that I think it still goes back to the same old ways that has worked for years. Okay. A lot of people still, the direct mail, cold call, any way that you can get a hold of these people that are going through. What list? I mean, would you say go target the probates or is there a better angle is it do you see more uh what would be

another highly motivated uh list uh you know a county uh recording of like red tape or like is there something that you're seeing more commonality that you're saying hey yes probate but it also has these two or three other layers. These are also motivated factors. Do you see that? So one situation we're seeing a lot lately have been the ones that are eventually going to auction. So either foreclosure or tax seed. And they both have,

they're like a double-edged sword in a way because there's an imminent date, which means there's a lot of time-sensitive things that have to happen, but each are different. So we'll start with the foreclosure auction. A lot of times that you'll be like, Justin, you'll call me and say, hey, Al, got a smoking deal, but there's a foreclosure auction in three weeks. Well, what does that mean? Tons of motivation because if the heirs don't do anything, they're going to lose the property. Maybe there's a surplus later, but if they do

something, there's an opportunity. And so we're seeing those layered with sometimes probate, sometimes no probate. And a lot of these people waited until the last minute to do anything. And now they're scrambling to get somebody to buy the property, right? So how do we do the probate? And then how do we try to get the auction rescheduled and kick down the road 30, 60, 90 days? So those have been ones that have been pretty popular. But even the tax deed auctions, let's just say, hey, Al, there's a tax delinquent property. It's up for auction in August 15th, let's just say. And you're like, Al, there's a probate involved.

We got to do it. With tax deed auctions, there's no motion to cancel so either that probate gets done and you close and get or you're going to be taking a huge risk by paying the back taxes off and then it's like you know is that deal going to happen are they going to sign everything however those have been some of the most motivated we've seen and it's so hard to say it's a particular list i still believe that the best ones or any of these code violations, tax delinquents, pre-foreclosures, anything that is just been sitting and there's a time ticking that just keeps on going that they need to do something. Direct mail, I've heard people say,

some of the best ways, out-of-state. So out-of-state owners with some sort of clock that is ticking to make them have to move seems to be the other flag that you're seeing that is, yes, it's probate, but it's also a tax deed or it's also a foreclosure. Right. Those combinations and then absentee owners is who you think you should target the heaviest. Anything like that. And the key here is, sure, you can absolutely target the probate lists. There are lots of people that have success with that. Sure. Right. What I just believe is go where there's less competition.

Less competition is the game. Yeah. Because now not 23 people are going after one lead. Maybe it's like two or three. Right. Well, I just kind of go back to the typically, obviously, probate means someone died. There's a lot of people, and we've done it for years. They're just not ready.

They're not ready to come to that realization of pain or deal with it. Partly, they don't want to deal with it. They think, because they don't understand what you're going to be able to provide this scenario, that they have to deal with this big monstrosity of getting everything together. But that's where you come in. I think sellers don't want to deal with that. when you are targeting directly to probates it just can be tough to your point there are that list is around and provided by list providers because it warps right i just think there's a better hack right first if you're in the state of florida get a

hold of al but but really like the other triggers that's why i was asking that is the tax deed so i would say you know tax liens right yeah um pre-foreclosure or foreclosure right like and then absentee home owners pulling together that type of motivation you will come across these probates all the time yeah and sometimes you may not even know that you come across one that's right pick up an infill lot and you didn't target any list and somehow find out that the person owned it, died, title company's going to be probate. That was my next question about how do you see this relative to single family homes, asset classes, like land? Are you doing a lot of land deals? Does it come

up in land? Single family homes, apartments, like where do you see the asset classes most? We'll start with land. Land is hotter than ever. No kidding. Hotter than ever. In certain parts of Florida, hotter than ever. And a lot of these properties that are land, you have to think about it. These have been sitting there for 20, 30, 40 years. People bought it off the TV auctions. They bought it off different places, and they held on to it thinking they were going to build. They were going to hold on to it, and they die. And the family members don't even know about it. Or they bought it together.

That's another one we've seen where one family member or another one bought it together. There's no magic language on the deed. Now they both died. And it's just sitting there. And how do you solve that? So land, huge. And we find with land that that's where you're going to see a lot of the double, triple, quadruple probates.

Got it. Because it's sitting so long. Yeah. The ones that are houses, we see either singular or double probates, maybe because somebody died after. We haven't seen a lot of apartments and condos as much. I mean, it doesn't matter if it's a condo or house. If the title of the property is in that person's name and they died, you're going to need probate. But single family and land going to need probate.

Single family and land have to be the biggest. And a couple other asset classes we've seen that are unusual that you find very interesting is once in a while, there will be land that's zoned multifamily or zoned commercial. And it may be sitting there for years, nobody took took care of it or it's in a great location it's zone commercial those are huge opportunities because now a developer wants to come in and all the developers are interested in the florida of course oh yeah yeah well i was actually even thinking an asset class that probably has it have you done any storage i was thinking storage haven't seen storage but maybe if it was classified industrial or maybe yeah

well and the only reason i say that is a lot of these little mom and pop i mean literally mom and pop they are 80 years old that that is their income is these storage facilities right if they pass so i was thinking that would be a good target because i love storage i only have one in um oklahoma but i love that as well um if you had to give advice to anyone watching this on YouTube or listening to this on Apple or wherever they're getting it, what's kind of your pieces of advice, you know, kind of give yourself an opportunity to sell yourself. Yeah. Obviously it's only in the state of Florida, but just to anyone listening on how to handle all this. What I would tell somebody is when I first jumped into this, I didn't believe what the opportunity was. Back in 2017, when I was looking at all the data, I had no idea what

I was getting into. But as soon as I saw what the potential was behind this niche, it blew my mind and I went even harder after it. And especially when I saw the opportunity for tons of investors and what the money they're making on these deals was just huge. And the Florida market is only going to blow up even more. And I talked about the silver tsunami. As we continue throughout the years of the baby boomer period, these deals are going to come up more and more. And so before me, a lot of people wanted to shy away from it. Once I explained what was going on, a lot of people want to start getting into this. But it takes finding the right expert, the right team, the right people, and get your pieces together now. Because you can make some really good money off these deals.

It is totally possible. And I've seen a lot of investors do their first deal. And from there, they are all in on probate. Yeah. I love it. I mean, it makes you a lot of money. Brother, I appreciate you coming through. Again, make sure you are following this gentleman. Make sure you hit him up. What's the phone number again that they can reach you? 904-999-0053. Al Nicoletti. I appreciate it, bro. Justin Colby. Thank you so much for having me. Right on. Thank you.

All right, y'all. That is it. We are going to come back with another fire guest on the next episode of Science Flipping. Talk to you guys later. Peace.