Has anyone had someone call the cops on them before? Hahahaha
This lady left me some nasty voicemails saying how she's calling the cops because I am selling her property out from under her nose and that she hopes I get the punishment I deserve hahahah.
I called the police myself explained that she must not have read the post card very well and that I was interested in possibly purchasing her property not currently selling it hahahaha.
Long story short I have 12 felonies (which is why I turned to this full time since mc Donald's wouldn't even hire me) and with my business just starting this scared the shit out of me and made scared for my business and future in the business plus made me extremely angry with this lady. But you gotta let it go n be as professional as possible. If possible hahahahha
@jaydensdad7317 I'm sorry that happened to you. I actually just saw your post after mentioning a moment ago in another, unrelated thread how I had a realtor respond to me in a very threatening way fairly recently. I had inadvertently mailed to an owner that had his property listed on the MLS, unbeknownst to me, so within minutes of each other I received, first, a courteous message from the property owner, letting me know that the property was listed for sale and providing me the contact info for his agent if I wanted to make an offer; then followed by a very aggressive and extremely condescending message from his realtor, which I almost wanted to post here because it was so crazy. The agent, having been told by his client that I've sent a letter expressing interest in buying this property, felt compelled to curse at my voicemail and threatened to sue me and contact my state's Attorney General's office, saying that I was guilty of having interfered with his contractual relationship with his client (also called "tortuous interference" in some jurisdictions).
I got pretty worked up at first, and debated back and forth whether I should call the guy back, and/or post a review on Google/Yelp/etc. Ultimately, I waited until the next morning to let everyone cool down, and then called him to calmly let him know that:
I had no knowledge that he had a contractual relationship with this owner (having no idea the property was listed on MLS when I sent the letter)
I would gladly remove the owner from my mailing list, as I don't want to waste my money or anyone's time, mailing to people that are not interested in selling me their property
But I may very well continue to mail to other owners in that area, so there's some chance that we'll cross paths again. If so, I wanted him to know that I had no idea whose properties he had listed or didn't, so these instances were completely accidental, and that there was nothing criminally illegal or civilly actionable in what I was doing.
Therefore, I hoped we could stay out of each other's way, but if we couldn't, and he felt compelled to take some action against me, then I would have to explore all options available to defend myself.
Total pussy-cat on the phone. It was like a completely different guy than the one who left the voicemail. He still suggested that I include a footnote on my future mailers stating something to the effect that if an owner has their property listed with an agent, this offer was not for them, kind of thing. I thought about that very briefly but to me it feels awkward and I think is completely unnecessary (but I'm not an attorney).
Anyway, in your situation, for whatever it's worth, I think you're doing the right thing by pro-actively reaching out to the police department that has jurisdiction where this person lives, and other than that, by just keeping it moving.
@jaydensdad7317 wow, that's pretty nuts. I've had people threaten to call their congressman and report me to the news before (I never heard anything from either a congressman or a news outlet... so they either didn't do it, or the congressman and news media didn't care).
I think the bottom line is, people can scream and threaten you about whatever they want... but all anyone has to do is look at the original piece of mail you sent them. If you aren't lying or misleading them in any way, there's really nothing to talk about. There's no law against asking someone if they want to sell their property or even sending them an offer, however low that offer might be.
Usually these people are having a bad day and your mailer reached them right when they're looking for someone to unload their hate onto... but a person's level of outrage doesn't automatically mean their anger is justified.
Its my understanding that you could still buy a property from an owner who has it listed with an agent. @retipsterseth can confirm it for sure, cause im not 100% sure, but i think its allowed. Its just that the agent would be entitled to get his commission, which the seller would have to pay. It might be a deterrent for the seller since he would be taking a low offer plus paying agent commission but hey, maybe if the seller is desperate enough...
@Ladymarmar2 I think in my case the thing that upset the real estate agent was probably that my letter mentions something about the convenience of selling one's property fast, without dealing with banks, realtors, etc. They're literally mentioned among a list of different costs/bottlenecks that one often encounters when selling the traditional way, but this guy took it as some kind of personal, existential threat, apparently.
In my relatively limited time flipping land, I've only become aware (after the fact) of two instances where I mailed to someone who had their property listed, the above scenario being one of them, and in both cases once I found that out, I learned they had the property listed on MLS somewhere between 110% to 130% of what I thought current full market value might be. Also, both listings appeared to have been active for some time (and the prices were still that high), so at the risk of imposing self-limiting beliefs on my part, I just assumed they weren't going to accept my offer of 5% to 10% of their current asking price and didn't bother submitting one. If others have actually had luck purchasing at very low prices in similar situations, though, I'd definitely consider taking a different approach in the future.
I just posted a few days ago about my disaster of a first mail campaign. The County Treasurer is out for me, and according to a few voicemails so is the sherif and some lawsuits. It really stressed me out at first, but after the initial blowback it’s pretty comical.
According to the treasurer I was “sending the taxpayers misinformation.” I reminded her of our email conversation when she sent me the list and asked if it was outdated. She insisted it was accurate which obviously confirmed there was no “misinformation”. By the end of the conversation she admitted I’d done everything legally and within my right, she was just mad about it. Ha
long story short, I’ve been in a lot of public relations type positions with people threatening me and it’s all bark no bite. I wouldn’t worry about it but good luck.
One of my favorite insights from the tv show Suites is where they say "If their threantening they want something. If they were going to act, they already would have."
Here I am not sure what they want, an apology, taken off the list? Or maybe a higher offer. One guy called me and was angry about me low offer. He said with a cabin and well he had dug the property was worth so much more.
Ohh! I said, (that is great to know) so how much would you like to sell this property for?
Although I didnt buy, it opened up the conversation to negociate and provided me with more information.
@jawollbrink That's a great point. In my case, though, the realtor was freaking out after receiving a neutral letter (not a blind offer), so I had no expectation that his demeanor would improve when I offered him pennies on the dollar relative to what he had the property listed at. I do want to make more of an effort moving forward, though, to solicit some feedback from the property owners that reject the offers that I do make, though. On my first few mailers I sort of took a "plenty of fish in the sea" approach, but I can see where keeping the conversation going just that extra step might provide some real value in some cases, like your example.