Real Estate Investor Mom

Shadow inventory Armageddon â€“ Foreclosure timeline up to an average of 599 days with 798,000 mortgages having no payment made in over 1 year and no foreclosure process initiated. Shadow inventory grows to over 6,540,000 properties.

2011-09-01T22:14:00.000-06:00

Shadow inventory Armageddon â€“ Foreclosure timeline up to an average of 599 days with 798,000 mortgages having no payment made in over 1 year and no foreclosure process initiated. Shadow inventory grows to over 6,540,000 properties.

Gratitude Challenge - Change Your View - Change Your Life....

2010-11-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

I want to thank Drew Canole for sharing this video. It's a wonderful reminder to have and share gratitude for the blessings in your life.

So, Thanks Drew!

How to Profit with Orlando Real Estate

2010-08-31T18:17:00.000-06:00

Why I choose to invest in Orlando investment properties:

If you live in an area like I do (Denver), where property prices are high, but rents are fairly comparable to rents in other large metros, you’ve probably been wondering how you can get into this gold-mine you keep hearing about on the news… where property prices are so low. I wondered too. So I checked out a few areas around the country that had been much more depressed than my home area… areas like Nevada, Arizona, California and Florida. Because, after all, I want to buy in areas that were hot and will be hot again; but that have had significant price drops that I can use to my advantage.

Here’s what I found.

Nevada’s major draw is legalized sin, basically – gambling and prostitution. It’s not really an area where I would be comfortable owning rental properties. After all, who is my renter going to be? An empty eyed gambling addict pulling at the handle of the slot machine hoping for the “big one?” Thanks, but no thanks.
California’s prices are still crazy high compared to rents. Even the bad areas are still expensive. And the state itself is on the verge of bankruptcy. While it is an attractive area, I found too many fundamental problems for my risk tolerance.
Arizona is a little too controversial right now with all the protests against their immigration law. And it was so overbuilt that there is an awful lot of inventory to clear out – a lot more inventory than there is population. I found that population there is dropping, which means that the rental markets there will be slower.
In Florida, I found that it was overbuilt in certain areas, but that population is increasing, even amongst young 20somethings, who are a perfect group for renters. I found that although Florida has a high unemployment rate, companies are hiring there again. Disney is putting a brand new billion dollar project in place in Orlando.

So, I thought, now that I have it narrowed down to Orlando, how do I buy properties there safely? How do I know that these properties aren’t filled with mold, Chinese drywall, termites…. Or that the people selling them even own them? If I don’t have eyes on the ground, how do I protect myself from scam artists? Luckily, I know some people who happen to be investing in the Orlando area. I researched them and by the time I was done, I was so impressed that I decided to become a Director in the company.

Investors Alliance Asset Management Group, a division of HIS Real Estate Network, was formed specifically to take advantage of the phenomenal opportunities available in Orlando today, and to share these opportunities with other investors. We started with $5,000,000 to purchase properties directly from banks – and we purchase the properties in bulk. Our acquisition manager picks specific subdivisions that have fabulous amenities; subdivisions where you would like to live. While that is not often a criteria for rental properties, I like it that I can get affordable properties in very nice areas. After our acquisition manager purchases the properties, our construction crews get to work. They fix up each property to like-new condition. Once the properties are in excellent condition, we assign them to an expert property management company and they get the properties leased. Then, and only then, we offer select properties to our VIP buyers list.

Let me give you some real-life numbers so you can see for yourself what we are talking about:

One condo in a gated, resort-like community has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It’s approximately 1260 square feet. In 2006, this condo sold for $432,000 – so yes, it has granite countertops, crown molding, etc. It’s a NICE place. It would cost $150,000 to rebuild and the current tax appraisal is $125,000. So, we bought the condo for about 10% of what it sold for in 2006, fixed it up, rented it out at $850 a month and sold it for $59,900. It’s cash-flowing for the investor from the day of closing. Now, we recommend that investors hold on to these properties for at least 3 to 5 years to take advantage of market recovery. And when a property is cash-flowing, how many properties can you afford to hold on to indefinitely? That’s right! As many as you can grab.

To find out more about our investments, check my website at www.christinamellott.com. On it, you will get immediate access to a free report about the Orlando Market. I would also like to invite you to an upcoming live 2 day training event and property bus tour! The first day, we will teach you how we manage our business and the second day, we will take you on a bus tour of our available properties, so you can meet us and see for yourself that we are the real deal.

I’d love to meet you in Orlando – come check us out.

Christy Mellott
Executive Director, Investors Alliance Asset Management Group

Top 5 Reasons to Buy Property in Orlando

2010-08-28T13:06:00.002-06:00

Video of the Top 5 Reasons to Buy Bank Owned Properties

2010-08-17T13:26:00.000-06:00

Top 5 reasons to buy REOs

2010-08-14T00:10:00.000-06:00

Today, I'd like to talk to you about the top 5 reasons to buy REOs, as opposed to foreclosures or properties directly from homeowners. First, let me explain to you what an REO is. REO means Real Estate Owned and it is real estate that is owned by banks. It's generally been taken from the previous homeowner in foreclosure.

1. REO properties are free and clear. They have no other liens against them. For instance all the taxes have been paid, any mechanics liens or 2nd or 3rd mortgages have been paid. If you are working on a property that is in the foreclosure process, there could still be many other liens on it. There certainly could be 2nd mortgages, mechanics liens, tax liens or any number of other problems that you will have to deal with as an investor. Savvy investors know to always check the title BEFORE you buy a property. The same could be said for properties owned by individuals -- unless you have a title company who can check title for you, you could be in a world of hurt when surprises, like other owners for example, come up. When the property is already owned by the bank, there are no other owners -- it's just the bank.

2. Banks are motivated sellers. Banks are not allowed to own properties and the more they own, the more trouble they are in. They need to get rid of these properties and get rid of them at reasonable prices. Though if you are only buying one at a time, you might disagree with that as banks are also trying to recover as much of the property value as they can. However, if you can buy several REOs from a bank, you can get them for much less. Also, the bank has already spent a fortune on the foreclosure and they now have carrying costs for any property on their books. The more properties they have, the more trouble they get in with regulators, and with their shareholders. It's very good for banks to get rid of REO properties.

3. You don't have to go through a long process like you do if you are trying to get a bank to agree to a short sale. You don't have to get all of a seller's personal information and constantly submit fresh paperwork to banks or work with seemingly unmotivated loss mitigation representatives. While short sales can be very lucrative, and I believe in helping homeowners to avoid foreclosure so it is worth it to do short sales, if you can buy a property that a bank already owns, it's a simpler process.

4. Properties are ready to be yours right away. REOs are generally vacant. Any tenant has been evicted or the homeowner has already moved out. Unless you have a squatter, you don't have to deal with evicting a tenant or with angry homeowners destroying a house before you are able to buy it. What you see is what you get -- you will already know if the house is destroyed when you make your offer.

5. You get clean title with an REO property. The bank is the owner as soon as the foreclosure process is completed. There is no question about who owns the house and you won't magically have 5 other heirs show up on title making it impossible to purchase the property -- which is something that happened to a fellow investor and friend of mine.

I hope you learned something from this and look forward to speaking with you soon.

Christy Mellott

www.christinamellott.com <- go here to get a free report on investing in the Orlando Market (yes -- in fixed-up REOs) and 2 free tickets to a Real Deal Commercial Investing training and bus tour that normally sells for $997

Spinning Wheels, Spinning Round

2010-08-07T14:28:00.000-06:00

I was listing out the courses that I've purchased and mostly completed over the past 5 years. I had an acquaintance ask me to teach him how to invest in short sales and to do short sales negotiating over a Facebook chat message. And it made me think of all the time and money I've spent educating myself in these fields of real estate investing and marketing. And it made me wonder why I haven't organized my business better. I have more training under my belt than most other people I know. 45 courses and mentorships over the course of 5 years is 9 a year. Plus I paid for access to Dwan and Bill Twyford as coaches and am currently in the MMM Challenge.

For a long while, I didn't have to do anything with this knowledge. I was learning in order to keep my mind alive -- just following things that I was interested in. I was going to start a business when my son went to preschool. That 2.5 hours 3 times a week was going to be my time to start a business. Then my father-in-law got very sick and eventually died. Then I got pregnant with my daughter. I had a lot of excuses, I mean reasons, for not starting a business.

And I was always afraid that I didn't know enough (which you'll laugh at, after you read the list below). That's a fear that I think a lot of people have -- and one that is preyed upon by many gurus. I didn't actually call a seller until after my husband lost his job and got a new job that paid less than half as much. That's when I started making money instead of just talking about it.

Michael Masterson's Accelerated Program For Six Figure Copywriting
Michael Masterson's The Masters Program For Six Figure Copywriting (haven't completed this)
The Quick and Easy Microbusiness System (haven't completed this)
Direct Marketing University (haven't completed this)
Direct Marketing University, The Master's Edition (haven't completed this)
Jeffrey Taylor's Landlording systems
ETR Bootcamp in a Box
Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine (Larry Goins)
Apartment House Riches (Dave Lindahl)
The Ultimate Travel Writer's Program
Make a Flippin' Fortune (Ron Mead)
31 Days to Profits in Probate Real Estate (Ron Mead)
Improve Your Credit Now (Ron Mead)
Wholesaling Houses for a Living
Corey Rudl's Accelerated Internet Wealth
The Billionaire Way
6 Steps to Mastering Foreclosures (Alexis McGee)
The Sedona Method
Wholesaling for Quick Cash (Steve Cook)
The Instant Entrepreneur
Advanced Short Sales (Dwan Bent-Twyford)
Foreclosure Fortunes (Dwan Bent-Twyford)
How to Turn $10 into $10,000 in 30 Days or Less (Dwan Bent-Twyford)
Short Sales Secrets (Dwan Bent-Twyford)
Shut up and Stick to the Script (Bill Twyford)
Secrets of Closing the Deal (Bill Twyford)
Foreclosure Investing Strategies
Real Estate Success Library (Bill Bronchick)
Power Real Estate Negotiating (Bill Bronchick)
Rehabbing for Fun and Profit (
How to Sell a House Quick in a Down Market (Ray Cooper)
Jim Banks Probate Profits Made Easy
Larry Goins Mortgage Broker Training
Vena Jones-Cox Advanced Marketing
The Agent Magnet (Bob Massey)
The Short Sale Success Blueprint (Josh Cantwell)
Virtual Wholesaling (Cris Chico)
Real Estate Voodoo (Cris Chico)
Short Sales Riches (Nathan Jurewicz and Chris McLaughlin)
Michael Jake's Platinum Mentoring Program
Hedge Fund Lending (Richard Geller)
Credit Repair system (Richard Geller)
Shortcut to Money Secrets (Thomas Kish)
Bulk REO Secrets (Susan Lassiter Lyons)
Inspired Action Weekly (Matthew Ferry)

Right now, my business is mostly just me, though I have a couple of emerging partnerships for apartment investing and bulk REO deals. I am also working with a fabulous local Realtor and a short sale negotiator. I am also fortunate enough to know lots of excellent people. Maybe I am just feeling stretched a little too much right now...

I have a few steps I need to take in order to take my business from just me to a viable business that allows me to not just stay home with my children, but to spend time with them too. This summer, they've spent largely in front of televisions and video games because I've spent so much time working.... and it's a summer that I can't get back with them. Being a mommy with a business has been a challenging balancing act for me.

The first action I need to take is to write descriptions of the systems that a virtual assistant can take over for me. Then I need to hire a virtual assistant so that I can simply manage the systems & so they get done without my constant involvement.

So, I'm off to do that now.

Have a wonderful day!

Christy

Millionaire In Training, MMMChallenge.com

www.christinamellott.com

www.housingheadaches.com

2010-08-02T13:15:00.000-06:00

I wanted to share this post from an email I received today from Chris McLaughlin, an attorney in Florida who specializes in short sales. Since I am in Denver, it was particularly interesting that Altos Research considers the Denver market to be unstable. We are definitely seeing a slow down in the number of buyers in the market.

"Real estate data provider Altos Research is taking a very bearish outlook on the housing market. The California-based company says that ominous shadow inventory of distressed properties hanging over the industry will lock home prices into a downward trajectory for the remainder of this year, with property values
starting out 2011 even lower than they were in 2009. Market trends charted by Altos show that inventory levels are indeed moving higher and the influx of shadow inventory is beginning to show in the market. The company’s VP of data analytics, Scott Sambucci, described a noticeable shift in housing supply dynamics in a Webinar earlier this week, in what he called “a sign of market weakness.”

Since January, and particularly post-tax credit stimulus, Altos has tracked a rapid divergence in inventory numbers vs. listings sold and absorbed. This, Sambucci explained, means more inventory is coming onto the market, with less inventory leaving. As a result, he says, we’re going to see an extreme inventory overhang going into 2011. Add to that the fact that the pool of viable buyers out there is shrinking – thanks to tight credit, a declining homeownership rate, and more and more consumers being locked out of the market after a foreclosure – and you’ve got an equation that’s right in line with Altos’ bearish outlook. Following the rudimentary rules of supply and demand, more inventory with fewer takers equals lower prices. Altos Research provided its assessment of the most stable housing markets…and the markets that it considers to be on shaky ground. The San Francisco metro area topped the stable list, along with Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. Unstable metros included Minneapolis, Denver, Chicago, and Phoenix."

What do you think? How have your markets been behaving?

Leave me a note and share what you're seeing!

Christy Mellott
www.christinamellott.com
www.realdealcolorado.com

What Should You Expect During the Short Sale Process?

2010-07-13T21:24:00.001-06:00

In today’s difficult real estate market, sometimes a short sale is the best option for a homeowner. You’ve already tried a loan modification and that didn’t work for you. Or you need to move but can’t afford to sell the house because you owe more than it’s worth. And your financial state is such that you can’t bring money to the table to sell the house… or you can’t do the necessary repairs and maintenance anymore, you need to sell your house for less than you owe on it and get the bank to accept that amount as payment in full.

Sometimes you won’t qualify for a short sale. For instance, if the house is worth less than the mortgage, the bank is unlikely to accept less than what you owe on it because you can sell the house and cover the mortgage. Or if you have a ton of money in your bank accounts, the mortgage holder is not going to look kindly on your application for a short sale. They will expect you to come up with the difference to sell it.

So, if you likely qualify for a short sale, here is what you can expect from the process:

1. It will take time. Short sales take longer than regular sales because we have to negotiate with the bank to get them to accept less than you owe on the house. Some banks work much more quickly than others. However, many are notorious for taking months to even assign a processor to the file.
2. You will have to prove your financial hardship to the bank. The bank basically requests all the documentation that they wanted when you got your loan – only this time, you are proving to them that you can’t afford it anymore.
3. Once the bank decides that your financial hardship qualifies you to participate in the short sale process, they will order a broker’s price opinion or an appraisal on your house. They want to be sure that the house is actually worth less than what you owe on it.
4. You might need to continue to give the bank updated documentation and they might send you other documents to sign during the process.
5. The bank will either accept the offer, reject the offer or make a counter offer on the sales contract. You need to have a sales contract on your house in order to start the short sales negotiation process. Because it can take so long, it’s often a good idea to work with an investor. People who don’t understand the process, like first time homebuyers will often back out because of the time.
6. If the offer is not accepted, you must negotiate with the bank and with the buyer (unless you are working with an investor who will take care of all this) to get their prices aligned.
7. When a short sale is accepted by the bank, your buyer must close within 30 days of the acceptance letter.
8. If you are in the foreclosure process, you must keep on top of the bank to ensure that your house does not get sold on the sheriff’s steps while you are trying to work out a short sale.

When you are working with a Realtor to get a short sale accepted, there is about a 5% acceptance rate. Realtors can’t start the short sale process until they have a contract on the house. Buyer brokers do not like to show houses that are in the process of a short sale because they know that they are likely to lose a buyer who is ready to go if that buyer has to wait for the short sale to be processed. And if they lose buyers, they can’t feed their own families. And Realtors don’t necessarily enjoy spending hours on the phone with banks negotiating a short sale when they could go sell the house down the street and make the same money for a lot less effort. Very few Realtors are actually trained to work short sales because, frankly, it’s just not as profitable to them as working normal house sales.

When you work with an investor who specializes in short sales, that investor will put your house under contract right away. They will work with you to get the paperwork package together for the bank. They, or someone on their team who specializes in short sale negotiations, will spend hours on the phone with banks checking up and following up on your file. They will also do their best to ensure that if you are in foreclosure your house does not get sold before the short sale is completed. When the short sale is accepted, the investor already has money lined up to purchase your house so it will not fall out of contract.

So, your short sale is much more likely to be completed if you are working with an investor who specializes in short sales, than if you are working with a Realtor who would rather just be able to list the house and find a buyer without having to deal with the headaches that come with short sales.

Christina Mellott
Millionaire In Training, MMMChallenge.com
www.housingheadaches.com

Why Buy in Florida Now?

2010-07-08T16:36:00.002-06:00

You've all heard the news... Florida market dropping like a stone .... unemployment is up, jobs are down. Real estate prices are falling, falling, falling. Loans are hard to get, the stock market is on its way down. What's a reasonably intelligent investor to do?

Well, I like to start at the top and take a page from Warren Buffet. After all, if you're going to model success, he's a pretty good guy to follow. And one thing that Mr. Buffet says is that you should get greedy when other people are fearful and be fearful when other people are greedy. Following this advice would have saved a lot of people who sunk money into the real estate market at its top. Guess where Warren Buffet is investing right now... That's it -- real estate!

Right now, we believe that the Orlando market has reached its bottom. Prices are showing upward pressure and investors are moving back in. That's why we've formed a fund and are purchasing properties directly from banks in Orlando.

Here's why we picked Orlando:
1. 55,000,000 tourists visit every year. It's one of the world's major attractions.
2. The city of Orlando is filled with beautiful parks, recreation facilities and has a world class international airport.
3. The Mayor and city council of Orlando are working hard to attract new businesses and are using federal funds to improve Orlando's infrastructure.
4. Disney is starting a new billion dollar development. They're pretty smart -- and we like to follow smart money.
5. Orlando businesses are hiring again.
6. Orlando is attracting a young population. Their influx of 20-somethings will provide an excellent base of renters for our properties.

There are 6 reasons that we are investing in Orlando. We provide a turn key solution for investors. The properties we purchase are in gorgeous communities. We fix them up, rent them out and sell them to our investors at below-market prices with excellent property management in place. If you'd like to learn more about investing with us, please contact me at 303-386-6732.

Christy Mellott
303-386-6732
mmmchallenge.com
www.realdealcolorado.com

Finding Buyers for your properties

2010-06-22T10:01:00.001-06:00

It seems that I hear a lot of people these days who can get contracts on properties because sellers are desperate these days. However, they have problems finding good buyers with money to purchase the properties. Here are a few tips to find good buyers for your wholesale properties.

1. Go to your local housing authority and get a list of the section 8 landlords. Call the list. Yeah, I know -- calling people out of the blue is hard. But, you know what? If you are going to be a success in this creative niche of the real estate investing business where you aren't using a lot of your own cash to buy and hold properties, you're going to have to do some things that take you out of your box. Sometimes, you're going to have to cold call people. You're trading your previous comfort level for success. Get over it. Get on the phone and make the calls. Not only will you find some great cash buyers who want more rental properties, you'll find some landlords who HATE what they're doing and who will be willing to sell you their properties. GREAT situation -- finding buyers and sellers from the same list!

2. Get yourself to your local REIA meeting! Real Estate Investor association meetings and network. Talk to the president of the group. They will know who the players are and if you come across well, they will be thrilled to introduce you. Be friendly. Find out what is important to them and offer to help them with whatever it is. Follow up! I have met so many people at REIA meetings and hardly anyone actually bothers to follow up. That's great news for you. If you actually follow up, you won't just be one of the herd, you'll be unique and you'll be building yourself a good reputation.

3. Get a list from one of 3 places: Your title company, your MLS or RealQuest. Ask for a list that includes the following:
People who have purchased in your area
in the past 6-9 months.
Non-occupant owners
Loan balance = $0
Purchase price = whatever price range you want to sell it at
Get all the details that the list provider can give you
Realquest will be the most expensive of these options, but they include information that covers 97% of the properties in the U.S. If you can't get the information through your title company or your Realtor's MLS, they are a good option. And, isn't it true that it's worth paying a few dollars to get a list of solid cash buyers who are purchasing right now in your area?
Now, go buy a house!

Christy Mellott
Millionaire in Training, www.MMMChallenge.com
www.realdealcolorado.com

Do you Quit or Keep on Going?

2010-06-21T18:37:00.001-06:00

There have been many times when I wanted to quit in life, but I just kept going -- in the final stretch to get my college degree and on my first completed wholesale deal are 2 big ones.
When I was going to college, I was also working full time while I went to college at night. I was also a leader of our Tony Robbins group in Denver and had a very active social life. Oddly enough, once I could see the end stretch, I lost the motivation to continue. I forced myself to go on & finish. It was very good for me. Just having a degree opened up job opportunities that would never have been available to me without one. And if I hadn't finished that, so close to the end, it would still be haunting me, 12 years later.
The other time that I was tempted to give up, but I knew I had to fight through was when I was doing my first wholesale deal in January. I had a motivated seller on the hook -- he had a property listed at $250,000 and after some negotiations, agreed to sell it to me for $130,000. I thought that finding a buyer would be easy! So, I called someone that I 'knew' could perform & spent over a week working with him -- and a week in wholesale time is a LOT of time! Well, for some reason, he couldn't come up with the money, so he told me to go and find another buyer. Luckily, it was just before one of the REIA meetings that I attend, so I pitched the deal there and got a ton of interest. Did I mention that I raised the price? I was going to sell it to the first buyer for $145,000 -- and when I had to go find a new buyer, I raised it to $150,000.
I showed the house and put it under contract within an hour. The somewhat new, but not totally inexperienced buyer seemed so eager & was working with a hard money lender who was thrilled to lend on the property. Well, the buyer decided that he didn't like some of the verbiage on the hard money lender's contract and backed out. 24 hours before closing. So, I scrambled and found another buyer who had the cash to close. I thought this buyer was experienced, because he lent money through the hard money lender, but it turns out that this was his first foray into buying a triplex. He freaked when he found out that the landlord pays for water and trash... and backed out 5 minutes before the deal was to close. At closing, I had to talk a very unhappy seller into extending the contract, which he did, for one week. It had started as a 3 week contract.
I put the property under contract again with another buyer, who is generally a great buyer, but the owner of the company was somewhere in Central America with spotty cell coverage and was very hard to get in touch with. They were supposed to fund through an IRA... guess what they didn't get in time? I had to ask the seller to extend again. He wouldn't do it.
So, I closed on the property myself using hard money for a week. Well, that buyer had several more problems getting their money and wouldn't pay the additional fees it was going to cost me to hold the loan longer. Therefore, I found another buyer with cash who FINALLY closed on the triplex. Because I was under the gun, I agreed to pay his closing costs as well. In order for the last buyer to close, the other buyer had to release their contract, so I had to return their non-refundable $3,000 deposit to them. On a property that should have been a slam-dunk $20,000 fee to me, I wound up making about $12,000 after all my costs.
It was hard to get that property closed, even though it had an ARV of $300,000 and fix up at the most would be $30,000, so with the price of the property and fix up costs, I was selling it at 60% of ARV, which is an unheard of value in the Denver area. Usually properties go at 75 to 80% -- sometimes more.
But, I persevered and made a nice check which I would not have done if I had not powered through all the obstacles. Wholesaling isn't that hard in most cases, so I had to deal with the worst first. I forgot to mention that the seller's Realtor kept scheduling closings, even though I didn't have the buyer's completely lined up? She definitely added an extra layer of complexity!
Now, time to go buy another house!
Christy Mellott
Millionaire in Training, MMMChallenge.com
www.realdealcolorado.com

Burn Exercise

2010-03-08T12:22:00.004-07:00

This exercise is part of the MMM Challenge. We are in week 3 of the challenge. We wrote down some past limiting beliefs and some things around them like the people that we think contribute to them and why we haven't already achieved our goals, then burned the papers while we recited some of our affirmations.

Hope you enjoyed that and maybe you can do the same sort of thing to get past your limiting beliefs.

Danny Welsh and Rick Melero are excellent coaches. If you are interested in being a part of the MMM Challenge, go to www.mmmchallenge.com and apply for the next round. It's truly a wonderful opportunity... the only one I've seen where they actually offer to coach people for free.

Until next time...

MMM Challenge Real Estate Menternship Program

2010-02-12T15:55:00.001-07:00

Well, I applied for this free program and I got the word this morning that I am one of the 24 Menternship Students. How exciting is that?

Over and Out! Finally.

2010-01-30T13:52:00.002-07:00

Now, you would have expected that the closing with the experienced investor buyers who had plenty of time to do all their due diligence and get their money together would have been a piece of cake. You, however, would have expected wrong.

On Thursday afternoon, a bit after 3:00, I hear from them that they didn't get the HUD 1 from the Title Company until 8:00 Thursday morning. Therefore, they claimed, their investor wasn't going to be able to get me any money until Tuesday. That was going to cost me an additional 2 points, plus a payment of $1,320 - so approximately $4,000. I told them that I'd extend the contract if they covered my cost. After all, I had already bent over backward to work within their time frame. Also, I had cleared out the unit that people had left full of junk, gotten the current tenants to agree to the new rent, gotten the current tenants to sign their old lease as we didn't have a signed copy & gotten them to agree to make up the security deposit that the old landlord had taken in lieu of rent.

Well, they didn't want to pay the additional $4,000, but wanted me to extend it for free. Now, I'd already paid 2 points to a private lender as well as $1,800 in closing costs, rather than calling a cash buyer to close on the 22nd, in order to be able to work with these guys. To put it in monetary terms, I'd already spent $4,400 of my profit. Now, they wanted me to eat $4,000 more? When I'd first talked to them, they told me they could close in 2 or 3 days. When I got the seller to extend the contract, they told me they could close in a week. When they went under contract, they told me they could close in 2 weeks. Suddenly, 25 hours before closing, they needed more time. I had some serious thinking to do.

What were my options?

1. Let them have an extension and eat $4,000.
2. Keep it myself, along with their non-refundable $3,000 deposit.
3. Call another buyer and sell it to him on Friday before I had to pay the extra points and payment to the lender.

So, I called the other buyer. He agreed to buy it as long as he could just wire $150,000 and I'd pay his closing costs. In order to do this, I had to get the first buyers to release the contract... which they agreed to do as long as I didn't keep their deposit. So, another $3,000 lesson. Get the money released from escrow as soon as it goes hard. And another one, make it clear up front that there will be a high cost for any extension of the contract. It needs to be built in up front.

I wound up closing with my cash buyer who unfortunately wanted his title policy held open. This cost me over $600 because I had already held open my policy, expecting to turn it over to an end buyer and not incur any additional costs on it. The total amount I made of the $20,000 that I expected after all the expenses was about $11,800. It was a very, very expensive learning experience and I felt pretty beat up last night. I know I made money and that's great, but I just didn't feel like celebrating because the cost was so high.

Well, I have 3 short sales lined up and am going to be on the hunt for more wholesale deals. I've learned a lot from this and am certain that my next deal will be so much smoother. My wonderful Realtor tells me that it would be really hard to top how difficult this one has been.

Until next time...

Proud owner of a triplex... for a week anyway

2010-01-23T16:23:00.004-07:00

I've been very, very busy this week. I had to close on the triplex myself because my buyers needed more time to close than the seller was willing to give me.

I found a transactional funder who financed the property for a week. It's costing me 3.25 points (which I thought was 2, but when I read the loan docs, it costs an additional 1.25 points when I pay off the loan). So, with the funder who got the loan approved in 2 days - kudos to her!!! - I was able to close on the triplex on Friday afternoon.

Also, my Realtor wrote a contract between me and my end buyer and I'm paying him extra for all the work that he did to help me. He's been a rock and I'm so happy to have him on my team.

Friday night, I put a "free stuff" ad in Craigslist and spent Saturday morning giving away all the stuff people had abandoned in one of the 2 bedroom units. They literally left a houseful of stuff, as well as 9 leaf sized trash bags of trash (so far). Tomorrow someone is driving up from Colorado Springs to get much of the rest of the stuff (woohoo!).

My buyers are going to close sometime on or before the 29th - hopefully before. And I must say that not going with these buyers in the first place cost me around $5,000. This was a very expensive lesson to learn, but believe me when I say that it is well-learned. And even though it cost me money, I have made quite a few good contacts from it, including 2 more cash buyers and 2 good funders.

I'll let you know what happens next week.

Until next time...

Lessons to Learn

2010-01-18T23:03:00.003-07:00

So, now there's a gap between when my buyer can buy and when the seller needs to close. I have put down $2,000 of my own money and am looking for the best rate on transactional funding for a week.

I had a very frank conversation with Brad of IRR and he told me that I could have avoided all of these buyer problems if I'd had a tighter process. He's absolutely right... This really is all my fault. I've let the buyers roll all over me and have been far too accommodating when they've asked me to change things in the assignment contracts. I need to get tougher. No more working with anyone until they sign the contracts and put down some money, because if they haven't done that, they aren't really a buyer... and I need to add a clause that says if a buyer defaults after their inspection (like my first buyer did), they have to pay my whole fee. That would certainly make them think a lot harder about backing out when they have money approved. I'm thinking that I need to get IRR's assignment contract.

And, I have to tell you that Bill Twyford, who I coach with on Skype, really has my back. He actually contacted the most recent buyer and chewed him out for backing out at the last minute.

So, I'll let you know how it goes. Until next time...

Challenging Week

2010-01-16T07:42:00.007-07:00

Well, I thought I had the property sold to someone that I know and trust. However, he couldn't find money for some reason or another, so said I should shop the deal. That took about a week, but it was actually very helpful. We got an inspection and we got an estimate from a roofer on what the roof would cost.

Therefore, I pitched the deal at our local REIA meeting, to IRR. I was mobbed at the meeting. All 25 of my flyers got snatched up and 8 other people left me emails or cards. I showed the house to 4 people the next day and accepted the first guy who offered to give me a check. That's where the problems started.

While the buyer seemed to be very eager to buy the property, he had to work with hard money. The hard money lender was awesome. Their appraiser said the ARV (after repaired value) of the property was up to $300,000. A screaming deal when you look at the buyer's purchase price of $150,000 plus his estimate of $27,000 in repairs. Well, they approved the buyer, but the buyer didn't like the terms of the loan, so backed out. He told me at 10:17 Thursday morning. Closing was supposed to happen Friday at 3:00.

Thursday morning I started calling everyone I could think of who had shown interest in the property and who might be able to come up with cash to close the deal on time. The hard money lender called people too. So, I showed the house to a couple of people on Thursday at 3:30. One was the man who had been going to fund the loan for the hard money lender to the first buyer. I'll call him funder guy. The second was partners - one of whom could come up with cash in the short period of time needed.

The funder guy and his wife looked around and left, saying that he would call me later. The partners stayed for 3 hours. They did a very thorough review. They talked about just letting them take over the contract and give me a note for some part of my fee... I wasn't comfortable with the options they were offering because at this point, I would really like to just sell it and move on, so I promised to think about it and call them if I decided to go ahead.

The funder guy called me later and agreed to close on the property on Friday for $145,000. So, I was on the phone with him all Friday morning, sent him documents, my rehab contacts and all that. He signed the assignment contract, after getting me to take out any non-refundable part, since we were doing the deal in just a few hours... and met the realtors and the seller at the property.

So, I'm driving to Golden for the closing, which is a half hour drive and the buyer calls me up 5 minutes before closing time. He tells me that the seller pays $140 a month for trash and between $50 and $150 a month for water (I'll just call it $100 to keep it simple). He thinks that this $240 a month changes the value of the property by $30,000 to $65,000. He steps out of the deal. When I get to the closing offices, where my realtor is, they're on the phone... negotiating a much, much lower price than the one we had agreed to. I told my realtor to tell him we'd get back to him.

We called a buyer who's been interested in the property the whole time, who buys around 10 houses a month and asked if they wanted it since it appeared the deal had fallen apart. They do!!!! So we got the seller to extend the contract, which wasn't an easy thing, let me tell you, because they were highly annoyed at being put off again.

This has been the most trouble I've ever had closing a property. I'm trying to keep the deal alive, but am very worried that it's not actually going to work.

Until next time.

Holy Cow, It Works!!!

2010-01-07T21:11:00.004-07:00

So, the seller of the triplex who had dropped $60,000 off his price on the phone called me the day after Christmas and again a day later. He really, really wanted to get rid of the property.

So, I figured out what I would be comfortable offering (which was around $108,000), then Skyped with Bill Twyford, who advised me to start at $120,000. The seller had the triplex on the market for $250,000. I got on the phone with the seller (nervous as all get out) and explained that I was embarassed to make this low offer, but the property wouldn't cash flow at $190,000 (which was what he told me earlier was the best he would do). He told me to just tell him the number, so I did. He told me I was a little off. For once, I actually remembered the negotiating tactic of he who speaks first loses... and I shut up and let the seller tell me how much I was off.

He said "$10,000."

So I said "You'll take $130,000?"

He said, "Yes."

So, I told him I had to think about it and would get back to him. I got off the phone, did the happy dance and called back a while later to accept the offer. I called up my fabulous real estate agent to write the offer on the 28th and we had it all signed and sealed up on the 29th.

Meanwhile, I started calling people on my buyers list... people that I was sure could perform. Well, long story short, I spent a few days working with someone who I greatly respect and he couldn't come up with the money and was kind enough to tell me that I could shop it.

So I called Michael Jake to talk to him about it... Now I gotta say that I feel extremely blessed to have access to Bill & Dwan Twyford and to Michael Jake. They are a giant help!

Michael told me how to pitch the deal at the IRR meeting the next night since it has both equity for a flipper (between $60,000 and $90,000) or is an excellent rental property which will cash flow some $1,200 a month. So, I called up my sister to watch the kids, made up my flyer just before the meeting - yeah, it was very badly organized... I put in the numbers, but forgot to put in the property address. I printed 25 flyers, thinking that would be plenty.

I have to admit that the IRR meeting was almost perfectly designed to sell a property. Brad and Andy were talking about getting past your fears of wholesaling and went through the 9 deals they had wholesaled last month. When I got up there with a property, which I must say is an excellent deal, I got mobbed. Literally. They had to restructure the meeting because so many people were running up to the front to get my flyer. Not only did I run out, I took approximately 8 other emails who were interested. And, one lady called me before she left the meeting because it was too crowded for her to get through. Trust me when I say that this was not what I was expecting.

I emailed the flyer to everyone when I got home Tuesday night and called back the lady who had called me first. Wednesday, the calls started pouring in. I showed the property to 4 people between 4:00 and 5:00 Wednesday afternoon & had a call from someone else who wanted to see it after I already accepted the first guy's deposit to assign the contract. Obviously, I had to tell him it was gone.

Now, the guy who I accepted is going through a hard money lender, so has to wait a week to close. The other people there could close faster. I called a Denver investor friend of mine and Bill Twyford (unfortunately after the fact) and got excellent advice to always accept the guy with cash first. Put the other guy in 2nd position.

Still, I feel as if I gave a newer investor a chance to get a great deal. It helped that I talked to the hard money firm he's going through before he ever did, so they're pretty forthcoming about whether they can fund the deal. At this point, it looks like a "slam-dunk." All they're waiting for is the buyer's list of repairs.
Which, of course, I helped with. I sent the buyer some contractor resources, including a roofer who had already given an estimate for necessary repairs.

My realtor told me to make sure the money commitment is firm by tomorrow in order to let the guy keep the deal. One of the excellent new clients he got from my showings really wants it - and they have cash.

So far, this has been a win for a number of people.

1. The seller who is getting rid of a property he doesn't want & getting a profit out of it.
2. The seller's realtor who is getting a commission.
3. My realtor who is getting a commission and a few new investor clients (Did I mention that he's the best investor realtor in Denver?)
4. Me - I'm getting a $20,000 assignment fee.
5. My buyer who is getting a property for $150,000 + $22,000 in repairs that will be worth $262,000 (10% CAP rate on NOI) when it's all fixed up and rented out.
6. The hard money lender who is getting points and interest.
7. The title company who is getting their fees.
8. However many contractors the buyer uses to fix up the property.
9. Some section 8 renters who will get a fixed up place to live in a decent area.

Well, to be fair, the last 2 haven't gotten any benefit yet... but they will.

This is a pretty cool business. The property must close by the end of next week, so I'll let you know what happens between now and then.

Until next time...

Chris Chico's Real Estate Voodoo Part 2

2009-12-16T20:08:00.006-07:00

So, I called the 6 people who left messages with information using the "script" that Cris Chico provided.

1. One guy dropped $60,000 off his listing price for his triplex right there on the phone.

2. One lady is a good prospect for a short sale on a reverse mortgage, but seems to have a foot injury that precludes her involvement for the moment so I will need to follow up with her.

3. One guy was just calling to see if I was one of those "lowballers"... why, yes, indeed I am.

4. One set of sisters who have an inheritance have differing levels of motivation. The out-of-state sister is far more motivated to sell than the in-state sister.

5. Two guys are also investors but they don't want to sell their properties at a price low enough for me to wholesale... though one's property has 2 houses on it which can be sold separately. He's a bright savvy guy, but the amount he wants to net might preclude wholesaling the houses - and he has them happily rented, so we'll see. He did mention wanting to cash out to pay off some debt. He might turn into a more motivated seller.

6. The other wants too much for his duplex, but is working on a wholesale deal in another area and might be a good wholesale buyer.

A total of 31 people called to listen to the recording, which, by the way, is still the one from Michael Jake's coaching program that I took in the spring. I use voiceconnectinc.com and they've made their customer sign-in button disappear so I can't sign into the account to change the voice mail. That was very frustrating.

An aside: All of the coaching students in Michael Jake's program have done at least one deal if they did what he said to do. I got sidetracked by bulk REOs (which my sellers never were able to deliver or if they did, I never heard anything), then summer came and I had both kids at home with no help, so no time to do real estate investing work.

Back to Voodoo... I checked out the triplex this afternoon and will give the owner a call tomorrow morning to see if he'll drop his price some more. This place needs a lot of work, though it's considerably better than some I've seen. Two of his units will be vacant as of next month, so he should be even more motivated. And, I'm going to continue to follow up with the short sale prospect. Her deal will be a win for both of us.

Until next time...

Chris Chico's Real Estate Voodoo

2009-12-10T17:12:00.004-07:00

So, I let the Virtual Wholesaling program go a while ago. I didn't really see the point of paying almost $900 a year for online access to a program. However, I got a recent ad from Cris Chico (Virtual Wholesaling's creator) for his Real Estate Voodoo program. It only cost $27, so I figured, what the heck; why not try it out?

Well, boy howdy! I already had a source for absentee owner leads as I can get them through my title company. Therefore, I didn't need the videos on getting leads through Realquest or SiteXData. I also already have an automatic answering/voice mail service, so didn't use the one he recommended. But... the postcard that he gave and the instructions for using Click2Mail to send them were excellent.

I sent approximately 600 postcards that went out Monday and the calls started flooding in Tuesday. It's Thursday and I've received 25 calls and 6 of them left messages saying they're interested in selling property. I'm very happy with that response rate. The mailing cost right around $170.00 and if I can flip even one of these properties, my returns will be amazing.

I've been watching the videos on how to speak to the sellers and how to craft the offers. In order to follow this program, you need to have sitexdata comp reports, so I just ordered those and must wait for approval (on a free trial) before I call the sellers back.

So far, the Real Estate Voodoo program is simple, easy to follow and quite effective. Frankly, I like it better than the Virtual Wholesaling site - ESPECIALLY for the price! The Real Estate Voodoo web site is actually lined up, top to bottom with the document you need, videos explaining what to do and links for other web services.

I'll let you know what happens when I call the sellers using the script that Mr. Chico provides.

Until next time...

What's Been Going On

2009-07-31T08:44:00.003-06:00

Quick update.... Mr. Goins put out a new (updated) Ultimate Buying Machine system in October 2008. I bought mine in October 2007. However, for people who purchased the system from him, there is access to a website with all the updates. That's a refreshing change from say, Cris Chico's system, which costs about the same, but is internet based, does not offer as much... and is only accessible for a year. If you let Cris Chico's Virtual Wholesaling system expire, which I did, you get an email with the header "I must be crazy to take you back." Well, don't let me make you crazy, Mr. Chico, I ain't comin' back.

Anyway, back to Larry's system. The updates have all the newest bookmark links online. Now, you're supposed to be able to download them... but I wound up clicking each link and creating each bookmark in Firefox. It took me about 2 hours. The whole time, I kept thinking how much longer it would have taken if I actually had to go search out all of this information... and believe me, there is a lot of amazing info contained in the links alone.... Now to follow the Ultimate Buying Machine and figure out what I need to do with all this info.

Also, I just couldn't resist... had to do it. I bought Dwan Bent-Twyford's short sale teleseminar system that starts Monday. I got an electronic manual and forms and will have a pre-recorded teleseminar emailed each Monday that I can listen to at my leisure. It has homework for each week and promises that I will have a deal closed at the end of the 4 week training. It also comes with coaching access to Dwan. I'm pretty psyched about that.

Until next time.

Bulk REOs, MLS REOs and a Bus Tour

2009-03-20T21:24:00.005-06:00

Boy, I've had a lot going on lately. I've met with several investors who want to buy bulk REO packages. Some of them have almost unimaginable amounts of funds (not quite like the bailout, but you know, big...) and some want to buy one or two houses with the package. It's a pretty sweet deal. All we need is to get Letters of Intent and Proof of Funds from all of the willing participants and we'll be good to go.

And, I even know how I'm going to be paid. I'm going to get 1% of what my investors spend. The bigger investors so far have been introduced to me by this wonderful realtor - and he and I are going to split the 1% down the middle for the amount his investors purchase.

I've also spent three days looking at bank owned properties listed with Realtors. I have one amazing Realtor who sends me lists every day of properties with at least $15,000 in profit potential. We've looked at a dozen properties and made offers on four. I also worked with another Realtor who is investor friendly, but is not nearly as on-the-ball as the other. I'm going to make a couple of offers on properties with her as well.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. Our market in Denver is HOT right now. Houses under $200,000 are only on the market for an average of 44 days. There's a lot of competition - but it doesn't scare me. I just have to go out there and make the offers that make sense for me. I'll get one and another and another...

Once these offers get accepted, I will send them out to my buyers list that I've created by networking with other investors. I'm putting in offers low enough that I will have some wiggle room to wholesale the properties to the other investors and they will make the lion's share of the profits.

Oh yeah, I've also been listening to Ray Cooper's CDs on selling houses. I would recommend them to anyone at all who needs to price a house in any market. He's got it nailed on how to figure out the correct pricing to sell a house fast. Not to mention any and everything else you might need to know to sell a house. He's sold over 1500 in his 23 year career. The man knows what he's talking about.

So, on Thursday, we went on an ugly house bus tour in Colorado Spring with Michael Jake. I'm in his Platinum Mentoring Program - and it rocks! We looked at a whole bunch of houses and learned how to make an approximation of the repairs needed in about 20 minutes. It was very helpful to go through the houses and see what sort of house you should bid on and what you should pass on. The angry house was possibly the worst - it had frowny eyebrows. And really bad neighbors on both sides. And had been "remodeled" so it was horrible inside. Let's just say that one was a "pass."

Tomorrow, there's an REDC auction that I'd like to attend. Some of the properties have bids starting at $500. The valuations they list in their auction catalog are all high according my research. However, I want to go in order to meet the people who are bidding on the houses. They'll be great additions to my buyers list.... It's an important thing to remember in this market. Build your buyer's list first! That way, you know that #1 you're looking for what they want and #2 you have a buyer when you get a property tied up under contract. And, if something's cheap enough, I might just buy one myself (you can't really go wrong with a $500 house)

I may need to bring the kids to the auction because my husband is playing in the state racquetball championships. That should be interesting...

Until next time.

I almost forgot to mention that my bus benches have finally gone up! Calls are not pouring in, but I have gotten a few. I'll keep you posted.

Court Room Humor

2009-03-14T12:35:00.002-06:00

My Dad forwarded this to me in an email and as I read them, I laughed so hard tears came to my eyes. Let me apologize in advance to my lawyer friends... I'm sure these questions are not yours.

These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I,Cathy?'
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes .
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ..

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the circus was in town, I'm going with male.

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for bloodpressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law..

Bulk REO Packages

2009-02-24T20:43:00.002-07:00

In my quest to become a successful real estate investor, I have been attending CAREI meetings and anything else they offer. I've met several already successful investors to add to my buyers list and made a connection with someone who is working to put together a package of bulk REO properties (REO means real estate owned by a bank - generally, it's properties taken back in foreclosure) that they are selling at .60 on the $1.00, according to the bank's BPO value (BPO is broker's price opinion).

Since that seems like a very good deal, I've contacted several folks, including a wonderful realtor who answered an ad I put in Craigslist. These people want to buy 13 houses (so far) and I could probably get at least 3 more by making a few more calls. What can I say? Apparently no serious buyer turns down that kind of deal.

So, tonight I talked to the guy and he is emailing me the paperwork to give to my buyers. They need to put the money in escrow for the properties, then will get a list of properties to choose from and must close within 7 days. Frankly, I'm not too clear on how I'm going to get paid on these deals... though a few of the buyers have offered to pay me a finder's fee.

I'm probably not the Queen of Negotiation in this case - but it's really exciting to see this happening. If it works the first time, I'll be able to contact several more people to buy properties... talk about the ability to make a profit with no money out of pocket! This rocks. Even though it's nothing that was even addressed in any of the courses that I've gone through.

Eventually, I will get some of my own properties. My main goal is to have a steady passive income. They tell me that some of these properties are multi-families... which is what I want. So, this is kind of like Dave Lindahl's chunker strategy - buying single families to flip in order to get multi-families to hold.

This first house buying spree is supposed to go down on Friday. I'll definitely be on top of it! If it works, it can happen every week or so - this is so exciting!

Until next time.

VENA Jones - Goddess of Real Estate Rants Against Unethical Practices

2009-02-21T20:25:00.002-07:00

I can't tell you how much I appreciate Ms. Jones for the following rant. She's been in this industry a long time and practices what she preaches... This is particularly applicable to my blog, as I'm sure that I've purchased some of the information passed along as useful that really isn't...

Anyway, here is Vena's rant:

My official rant against the current state of the real estate education industry
Vena Jones

I’ve Had All I Can Take of This…

For years now, I’ve been very restrained in sharing my opinion of the real estate education industry and the precipitous decline in quality and sharp increase in cost of the information available.

Hypocrisy alert: a big part of the reason for this uncharacteristic hesitation to share my opinion on this topic has been a sort of self-serving desire to avoid burning bridges in the “guru community”. I can guarantee you that the very act of writing this article is going to get me banned from events, webinars, and other opportunities that could potentially make me a lot of money. As it happens, I tend to sell a lot of courses to the students of some of the gurus that I’m about to blast, because the fact that I actually TEACH and have actually DONE DEALS is such a change of pace to their customers that the flock to the back of the room to buy from me. I am guessing that these words will literally cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales in the next few years, and perhaps a few students who don’t agree with me, and will certainly earn me widespread and open criticism from the folks who are doing the things I talk about here.

Another reason for my silence has been a desire to avoid the whole, “she’s just saying this to torpedo her competition” backlash. I fully understand that there will be some who view this as a self-serving attempt to draw people away from other instructors and to me—and yes, I happen to think that I provide a higher quality of education (and certainly a higher standard of service) than many of my “competitors”. Otherwise, I’d just retire and be done with it.

But despite all of this, I’m breaking my silence, and here’s why: the fact that I am a provider of real estate education does not obviate the fact that I am also a consumer of it. I literally receive and review more than 30 new courses every single year. I learned real estate the same way you are—by depending on people who’d been there first, made all the mistakes, and had a system that worked to guide me. I love real estate education and the way it can make a real, long-term difference in people’s lives. I continue to learn new strategies primarily from other people, because I’m smart enough to know that reinventing the wheel is stupid. Given my extensive experience as a student, I have a pretty good idea of what a quality course looks like and what it doesn’t.

Plus, thanks to my “behind-the-scenes” look at what really goes on at seminars, webinars, bootcamps, etc, I am in a unique position to explain and critique things that you aren’t even aware of about the education business.

And frankly, a lot of what I see makes me ill.

If you could overhear the cynical, predatory way in which many gurus talk about their customers…if you were constantly approached by students of these gurus who can’t understand why they can’t get a return call from the salespeople’s office after spending $4,000 on a bootcamp…if you understood the total focus on “sales per head” as opposed to providing quality product…you’d be as sickened by it all as I am. So *deep breath* here goes.

I believe that real estate education can and should be a wonderful resource. And trust me, I have absolutely no problem with charging for it. People who’ve learned the ropes, developed a system, and have the ability and desire to teach others to do the same are amongst my favorite people. When, in addition to being great teachers with great information, they also hone their sales skills to the point where they can also pitch well, I think that they should charge whatever the market will bear to make others rich.

However, I also believe that the education industry has been overrun by vermin. Yep, vermin. “Gurus” who have done 5 deals using someone else’s system, who then repackage it and present themselves as experts even though they have almost no experience to back it up, who have nothing new to say, who are selling courses that cost thousands of dollars just because they can, should be ashamed of themselves.

I’m talking to you now, vermin: if your most pressing concern is how many dollars per head you can sell instead of how detailed and informative your product is and how useful it is to your students, please get the HELL out of my business.

If you’re one of the many “gurus” I meet who can’t explain a land contract, or doesn’t know what fair housing is, or actually believes that it’s OK not to study and grasp your own business, you shouldn’t be able to pitch real estate education and sleep at night. I don’t care how many people you sucker into buying your garbage.

I don’t care how many millions of dollars your last launch made. Yes, you make more money than I do selling courses—I get it. I don’t care. You’re preying on people’s desire to get rich, and you can’t back it up with information they can actually use. You tell them what they want to hear from the stage, then give them inadequate information that makes THEM feel like THEY’RE stupid for not being able to generate the big, fat checks you’re showing them on the screen.

If you reach deep into your heart and find out that you don’t actually care about your students lives or their success, please do them the favor of getting a job as a used car salesman.

I believe that you should know the truth about how the money in the real estate education industry works. You know how every week you get 30 emails from 15 different gurus offering you the same course (with different bonuses) and letting you know that you’re going to die/fail/lose your hair if you don’t buy it?

That’s called a joint venture, and here’s how it works. Guru “A” contacts all of his guru friends and offers a 50% cut of every course the Guru A sells. Gurus B-Z then send out professionally prepared emails to all of their students personally recommending A’s course as the be-all and end-all for your future success. A JV “partner” (that’s B thru Z) with a sizable list can stand to make tens of thousands of dollars (plus possible win the “top partner” prizes, which range from Rolexes to Hawaiian vacations) for sending out a few emails to their customers.

Again, I’m a good capitalist. I have no problem with this arrangement on the surface. The problem is, THE JV PARTNERS HAVE OFTEN NOT SEEN OR REVIEWED THE COURSE IN QUESTION, or, in some cases, they are actually aware that it sorta sucks!

Now tell me, if I were to send out an email saying that I had made tons of money with this course, and you needed to get it, too, and I had never even seen the course, wouldn’t that make me…a liar?

I have had enough experience with these people and enough conversations with the JV “partners” to know that the whole “my friend A has this great course” thing is largely bull. They aren’t friends, the JV partner hasn’t made any money from the course (other than by selling it, of course!), it’s all meant to play on YOUR loyalty to guru B. Pathetic—and the reason you’ve never seen a JV email from me. And if you ever do, it will be because I’ve read and used the course in question and actually believe in it.
Oh, and ditto the financial arrangements in a live event or webinar. While the host is standing at the front of the room raving about how great the next speaker is, you need to think about the fact that 50 cents of every dollar you spend on said speaker’s product goes into the pocket of said host, and take all the over-the-top praise with a little grain of salt. Yes, even when the next speaker is me: I’ve been introduced as “close friend” and even “partner” of people I never laid eyes on as of 10 minutes before going on stage. And I can usually give my presentation anyway, after I throw up just a little in my mouth.

I believe that there are certain terms that, when we hear them come from a guru’s mouth, should send us running for the hills. “Virtual Investing” is one. I’m sorry, I know the internet is a powerful tool for finding deals, buyers, and money, but the idea that you’re going to sit at your computer all day and make deals on properties you’ve never seen, then sell them to people you never talk to, is a pipe dream. A CRACK pipe.

Trust me, I get emails on a daily basis from people who’ve bought into this crap, and my general response is, “Dear Idiot, the property you’re trying to sell me for $25,000 is one that I offered $16,000 for a year ago when it HADN’T been sitting vacant for 12 months. And it doesn’t need $3,000 in work as the seller reported to you, it needs $50,000 in work. And the tax appraisal that you based your ARV on is 2 years old AND was too high even then, because it was based on the illegal flip that sent the seller into foreclosure in the first place. Do not waste my time pitching me on properties you’ve never seen.”

REAL ESTATE IS A PEOPLE BUSINESS. If you’re going to be successful, you have to talk to someone, at some time. If you hate people, buy a course on how to deal with them, not one on how to avoid them.
Oh, yeah, and let me put “turn key” and “done for you” into the same category. Surely we are not so desperate in this country as to believe that “something for nothing”. Yes, some INVESTMENTS can be turn key—buy a property from my friend Missy McCall Hammonds (yes, she really is my friend, we had breakfast together on Tuesday) if you want to own a property without management. But no BUSINESS—which is what buying and selling properties is—can be “done for you”! YOU have to do it! And anyone who tells you otherwise either doesn’t understand his own business, or just nakedly wants your money and is willing to say anything to get it.

I believe that promoters and REIA groups need to take some responsibility for the explosion of bad education. Every week, I see that some of my most respected guru colleagues and some of the best REIA groups in the country are giving a stage to some of the worst “flavor of the month” speakers around. Guys, I get it—they sell a lot, and we all need the money in our coffers. But whether we’re association board members or seminar promoters, we all owe it to our members and customers to put QUALITY educators in front of them. They depend on us to do SOME level of screening of these gurus, because, frankly, many of them are too inexperienced to have a frame of reference to sort out the bull from the good stuff for themselves.

It is NOT ok, in my opinion, to put a speaker on your stage wholies, or who sells garbage, or who doesn’t give refunds or who doesn’t fulfill mentoring or any of the other numerous sins that a lot of these people are known for, no matter how well they sell. Your buyers should not have to beware of people that are on your stage. “Caveat emptor” certainly applies online, where most of these folks seem to primarily reside, but an attitude that says, “hey, he sells well, people want it, who am I to judge?” is all wrong. We talk to each other all the time. We know who has good stuff, so why are we discussing who sells well?

Don’t get me wrong, I want speakers who can sell, too. And it’s not that I’ve not had some fairly significant missteps in this regard—I can think of at least 3 presenters that I’ve booked on the recommendation of others, only to watch horrified from the back of the room as they claimed to have done 3,000 deals in 5 years (I kid you not) or as they discussed their new breast implants with the audience (again, not kidding) rather than teach anything. But for heaven’s sake, I don’t BRING THEM BACK. Ditto if they don’t honor refunds or don’t return calls from students or any of the dozens of other front of the room or back office atrocities some speakers are known for.

I can tell you for certain that if you see a speaker on MY stage, or hear one on MY webinars, it’s because I’ve vetted them AND their product AND researched them with other promoters and on the web, and that I think that their strategies are very workable for the average Joe, and that I will not say I’ve personally used them if I haven’t. and if I screw up (it happens—speakers that I’ve worked with in the past sometimes change their programs or develop fulfillment problems as they become more successful), I’ll say so.

I believe that undisclosed “forced continuity” programs are immoral, and are going to land some people in jail—and when they do, I’m not even going to send soap on a rope. If you’ve been a victim of one of these programs, you know what I’m talking about: you buy a course, then find that your credit card is being charged $19 a month or $39 a month or $99 a month and you don’t know why.

Again, I feel obligated to say that there’s nothing wrong with the programs themselves. My Inner Circle is a continuity program, and I happen to believe it delivers incredible value for the price. And my program isn’t “forced”—when your membership expires, we don’t just grab your credit card number off the order form and start charging you! You have to proactively say that you want to join.

The problem with some speaker’s programs, though, is that they neglect to mention that you’ll be charged for them at all, and they bury the permission you’re giving them to do so in the fine print of the order form. The theory is that most people don’t look at their credit card statements carefully enough to notice a little charge like that every month, and that one can make a fortune just off the people who don’t cancel for months on end because they don’t notice it. And it’s a workable theory—just one that is pissing off a LOT of customers these days. Check out the chatter on the internet about this: many people are saying they can’t even get the guru to stop charging them when they ask, until the customer finally runs a chargeback on their credit cards.

I’m telling you, this is exactly the kind of business practice that prosecutors love to get their hands on. And in this case, rightly so. It’s wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

I believe that it’s up to the consumer to have a little sense about this stuff. There’s a reason for all of those old saws about money and success… “You don’t get something for nothing”. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” When did we lose our grasp on the idea that success=work? When did we start believing that there WAS such a thing as “get rich quick”? Why is it that so many people thank me for “revealing” that real estate is a business that requires investments of time, effort, and money, and yet buy from the guy who says that it’s all done for you?

Here’s the deal: if you’re looking for someone who tells you what you want to hear, shows you 5 figure checks that his students have earned, and makes the real estate business sound like it’s all beer and skittles, I can point you to dozens of gurus who will be happy to fulfill your need to be lied to. But if you’re serious about knowing the warts and all, and you don’t need hype to be happy, and you’re willing to work hard to be rewarded in an extraordinary way, stick with the people who aren’t willing to blow smoke up your skirt in order to sell you a course.

Your gut will tell you when you’re in the right place.

STOP The Silence 12for12K Challenge

2009-02-21T19:19:00.004-07:00

Just writing the blog hurts my heart. I can't even stand it when I see children fall on a sidewalk. My skin literally crawls in sympathy. You can imagine that being sexually abused is a sight worse. While I can't imagine how someone could do such a thing to a child, if I can do something to prevent it, then I'm being the good I want to see in the world.

This is just such a cause. WWW.12for12k.org is a group that selects a charity a month and goes forth to raise $12,000 for each charity during their sponsored month. You can give to the charity by going to www.12for12k.org and donating. They're only asking for $10 per person. $10 is like 2 trips to Starbucks. If you can treat yourself to that, you can share $10 with an organization that's doing good in the world. This month's charity is called Stop the Silence.

"The Mission of Stop the Silence is to expose and stop child sexual abuse and help survivors heal worldwide. The charity’s overarching goals are to:

1) help stop child sexual abuse (CSA) and related forms of violence;

2) promote healing of victims and survivors;

3) celebrate the lives of those healed."

Do you know someone who was a victim of sexual abuse when they were a child? You sure? One in four American girls are sexually abused as children and one in seven American boys are. This is a silent epidemic. Abused children are afraid to talk about the abuse. I understand that most sexually assaulted children are abused by someone they know, love and trust.

According to the world health organization (WHO) in 2002, 150 million girls and 73 million boys were sexually abused. I don't have a calculator at hand, but that's approximately 1 in 30 of everyone in the world. If that's not an epidemic, I don't know what is. Yet, it's quiet; hidden - not spoken of lest the adult abuser be put to shame. Nevermind that they've destroyed a life - or more. The children only know that someone they trusted did something they shouldn't. And if xxxx gets put in jail, who's going to put food on the table? Do we listen as well as we should to our children?

My mom was a guardian ad litem for a court system. She saw first hand the evil that adults can do to children. It's the only time she's wanted to kill someone. A friend in my Mom's Club works directly with abused children in a local center. It's her training and she's glad she can help. But she has a 2 year old and it eats at her soul.

I am incredibly protective of my children's innocence. I imagine that I'm not alone in wanting to protect children. We can help a group that's making a difference by donating to www.12for12k.org this month - February - for Stop the Silence. Make a difference today. Share $10, share what you can.

Ultimate Buying & Selling Machine; Mentorship Program

2009-02-03T11:26:00.004-07:00

Ultimate Buying & Selling Machine:

So, one of the first things you are supposed to do when setting up the Ultimate Buying & Selling Machine is to put a list of bookmarks into Mozilla FireFox. I loaded up FireFox with no problem... but the bookmarks are in MS Word and I have NO IDEA how to move them from Word to FireFox easily.

Note to Larry: Please tell me how to put the links from the Word document into FireFox. I'm fairly technically savvy, and if I'm having problems, so are others.

So, I guess I'll have to transfer the links one at a time, then categorize them, one at a time, into folders. I need an assistant to do it for me.

Mentorship Program:

I am so behind on doing the 4 things I needed to do for homework.

1. make a basic financial statement
2. decide on 3 month goal
3. create basic plan to reach it
4. make one on one appointment

I am putting the financial statement together. That should only take a few minutes as I already have all the information written down.

My 3 month goal is to make $50,000.

How do I do it?

First, I need to find home sellers. I plan to post ads on bus benches in areas I want to target. These are solid blue-collar areas that are below the current Denver metro median price of $203,000. I also want to do direct mail campaigns to absentee owners, burnt-out landlords, pre-foreclosure homeowners and Realtors for sellers.

Second, I need to find wholesale buyers and/or renters. I will do a mailing campaign to people who have recently purchased investment properties in the areas I am targeting to find wholesale buyers. To find renters/lease purchasers, I will post properties online and create multi-sign marketing campaigns.

Third, I need to find private investors. Ideally, they will have IRA money that can be moved to a self-directed IRA so they can earn great returns tax-free.

Okay, now that's all done, so I need to call and make an appointment for my one on one.

Until next time.

Signs, To Love or Not To Love

2009-01-18T20:07:00.005-07:00

Okay, so I've been driving around all over town with bold, ugly, red, white and blue magnetic signs plastered all over my car. It certainly catches people's attention, judging from the sideways glances/outright stares I get when I stop. So, I get lots of attention, but have gotten absolutely zero calls.

So, I wrote the ablove comments on the 18th. Right after that, I got 2 calls from the signs - yeah! One was a lady's daughter and the other was someone's husband. The first needs to get rid of a non-performing rental. The 2nd is facing foreclosure.

I've talked to the lady with the rental and am conflicted. Her house is a duplex and brings in about $1500 a month in rent, when the renters are paying. She wants $170k for it, but owes less... Her payment is around $1100. Should I make an offer? The big problem for me is that the floor plan on the larger unit is difficult, to say the least. I think it would be hard to sell or rent. So, I probably should make a very low offer, just to get the practice...

I have been calling the person facing foreclosure, but she has not called back. Her husband called me about her house. Apparently, the house has been in the picture longer than he has, so he's not part of the mortgage or deed. The owner owes about what the house is worth and is about 3 months behind. They are planning on moving at the end of the month - not much time - and the house is in a good, solid area of town. I'll keep trying to call her - this would be an excellent test of the short sale systems.

Also, I started Michael Jake's platinum mentoring system last Thursday. Good class and the people in the class range from me and a few other newbies to some who own tons of rental units as well as commercial property. Interesting. I have to complete my assignments and make an appointment for a one-on-one with Mike this week.

Until next time...

Mentorship Program/Signs/Marketing

2009-01-16T12:38:00.002-07:00

I am so excited! I have been accepted into the Platinum Mentoring Program from Swift Results, Inc. I got the last spot ever! Michael Jake wants to concentrate solely on investing and has decided to give up teaching after this 6 month session. (I am trusting that this is NOT a sales ploy-he seems like a stand-up guy).

I know I've been talking about trying the programs I've purchased one-by-one to see if they will work, but ran into a little (big) snag...

My hubby's base salary has gone down 40% over the last year and a half, but our bills haven't! We just got the check with the most recent cut -- if I don't bring in some $$, we'll be the ones facing bankruptcy and foreclosure. My hubby runs a sales organization and for years, got his full salary without any bonuses. They changed the structure to base + bonuses... so he got his base SLASHED and gets small quarterly bonuses and a larger yearly bonus. Well, our creditors need to be paid monthly, right? So this has been a tough situation. Don't get me wrong - his company is great and sales guys usually do have a base+commission structure, but we got spoiled.

Anyway, that means I can't really experiment with courses. I need to do something I know will work right now. For me, this means having a real person take me step by step - and I'll write about it as we go along. The first class is January 22 - only 6 days away! I wish it were tomorrow.

So, I've been driving around for a few days with bold magnetic signs plastered all over my car and so far, no calls... not even from contractors or other investors. Maybe I've been driving in the wrong areas. Anyway, they are ugly, but I'll give it some more time.

I created some marketing materials and have ideas for more based on Vena Jones's Ultimate Marketing Course. I'm going to take her materials and adjust them for location and amount of experience, then print them up and see what my new mentor thinks of them next week.

I've been trying to get the nerve up to go knocking on doors of recently filed foreclosures... So many excuses and time wasters later, I haven't knocked on a single one. Every time I think of seriously doing it, my stomach gets tied up in knots. Maybe this is why only 3% of people actually take action when they get a course. It's scary to go knock on doors and not know if the people are going to be mad at you, or embarrassed that you know their trouble, or even worse, what if I can't help them? I feel like these folks are in a very difficult place and I'm offering a solution, but what if I can't deliver? This is something I've got to get over.

Until next time,
Christina

Magnetic Signs - Deal or No Deal?

2009-01-13T15:17:00.000-07:00

So today I slapped 5, yep 5, magnetic signs on my SUV. Dwan Bent-Twyford has them in her top choices for marketing. I have both "I Buy Houses" and "Stop Foreclosure" signs covering my car.

Now, I've stuck one sign on each side of my car before and gotten a minimal # of calls. I screwed them up, frankly. Hopefully, I've learned my lessons - don't talk about myself - talk about them and their problems. Make sure the main solution you offer is to buy their house/houses. I'm sure there are more lessons to learn...

The 6yo is home sick from school, so I'm not driving around today. This will have to get tested tomorrow - maybe on the way to meet with the bus bench lady.

Finally Getting Moving

2009-01-12T13:49:00.000-07:00

I am in the midst of reading Josh Cantwell's book on Short Sales. It's more detailed, yet quite a bit drier than either Nathan Jurewicz's or Dwan Bent-Twyford's material. He is very current on exactly what percentage one can expect to get accepted on offers based on who owns the loan (as far as the big agencies, FNMA, FDMC, FHA, etc., are concerned) and he gives you specific scripts to use to talk to loss mitigators - yeah! that is very helpful information. Dwan's courses take a very different approach than Nathan's and Josh's (BTW Nathan and Josh have VERY similar information - their contracts are almost word-for-word). Dwan has no problem faxing a loss mitigator 200 times a day to get what she wants, while the boys take a much more conservative - don't make the bank mad - sort of approach.

Now, I just emailed a lead for a short sale in Mt. Pleasant to an investor there - he's also a guru type. We'll see if he responds with a "Thank you"...

And, I hate to say it, but I bought another course. This one is called Advanced Marketing and it's by Vena Jones. She has some absolutely brilliant instructions for marketing specifically directed at real estate investors, and she's been in the trenches for years, so her work is tried and tested. My only problem with the course is that she's charging more for the course than she charged for the boot camp/seminar that the course came from. She's also a Dan Kennedy student. I get his newsletter and devour it every month. If you're in marketing, you need to get his stuff.

So, here's what I'm doing right now - I have an appointment with a bus bench advertising saleslady. They provide graphics, upkeep and design services as well as rental of the ad space for what I think is a very reasonable cost. They quoted me $125 for setup and between $25 and $75 a month for the bench, depending on the location - mine was $50.

I also have applied for a place in Michael Jake's mentoring program. He swears that this is the last time he will be doing his platinum mentoring - I hope so, because I hate sales ploys like that. Mike is a local investor with experience and integrity, so I think he would be a good mentor.

Until next time...

2008-12-29T13:40:00.003-07:00

Completely off the investing subject, but this forward was too funny not to share:

For my birthday this year, my daughter (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health club for me. Although I am still in great shape since being a high school football cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try. I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Belinda, who identified herself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear. My daughter seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress. ___________________________ _____ MONDAY: Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Belinda waiting for me. She is something of a Greek goddess. Belinda gave me a tour and showed me the machines. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which she conducted her aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring! Belinda was encouraging as I did my sit- ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time she was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week! ________________________________ TUESDAY: I drank a whole pot of coffee, but I finally made it out the door. Belinda made me lie on my back and push a heavy iron bar into the air then she put weights on it! My legs were a little wobbly on the treadmill, but I made the full mile. Belinda’s rewarding smile made it all worthwhile. I feel GREAT! It’s a whole new life for me. _______________________________ WEDNESDAY: The only way I can brush my teeth is by laying the toothbrush on the counter and moving my mouth back and forth over it. I believe I have a hernia in both pectorals. Driving was OK as long as I didn’t try to steer or stop. I parked on top of a GEO in the club parking lot. Belinda was impatient with me, insisting that my screams bothered other club members. Her voice is a little too perky for that early in the morning and when she scolds, she gets this nasally whine that is VERY annoying. My chest hurt when I got on the treadmill, so Belinda put me on the stair monster. Why the hell would anyone invent a machine to simulate an activity rendered obsolete by elevators? Belinda told me it would help me get in shape and enjoy life. She said some other shit too. ______________________________ THURSDAY: Belinda was waiting for me with her vampire-like teeth exposed as her thin, cruel lips were pulled back in a full snarl. I couldn’t help being a half an hour late - it took me that long to tie my shoes. Belinda took me to work out with dumbbells. When she was not looking, I ran and hid in the restroom. She sent another skinny bitch to find me. Then, as punishment, she put me on the rowing machine — which I sank. _______________________________ FRIDAY: I hate that bitch Belinda more than any human being has ever hated any other human being in the history of the world. Stupid, skinny, anemic, anorexic little cheerleader. If there was a part of my body I could move without unbearable pain, I would beat her with it. Belinda wanted me to work on my triceps. I don’t have any triceps! And if you don’t want dents in the floor, don’t hand me the damn barbells or anything that weighs more than a sandwich. The treadmill flung me off and I landed on a health and nutrition teacher. Why couldn’t it have been someone softer, like the drama coach or the choir director? ________________________________ SATURDAY: ; Belinda left a message on my answering machine in her grating, shrilly voice wondering why I did not show up today. Just hearing her voice made me want to smash the machine with my planner; however, I lacked the strength to even use the TV remote and ended up catching eleven straight hours of the Weather Channel. ________________________________ SUNDAY: I’m having the Church van pick me up for services today so I can go and thank GOD that this week is over. I will also pray that next year my daughter (the little shit) will choose a gift for me that is fun – like a root canal or a hysterectomy. I still say if God had wanted me to bend over , he would have sprinkled the floor with diamonds!!!

p.s. I can't remember who forwarded this to me, or I would give them credit!

The Top Choices

2008-11-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I think my top choices to start are 7-Day Instant Cash Secrets, Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine, The Short Sales Riches System and Virtual Wholesaling. These all seem to be soup to nuts programs. Let's see if they work.

I've gone to the courthouse to try to get probate and in my counties, the clerks are definitely locked gates... I'll walk that path when I pick some of the lower hanging fruit (information that's easier to get to). Meanwhile, I'll continue to collect the Notices to Creditors that I can find and go with those.

I've decided against Alexis McGee's program because it's too much like stalking. Call the friends, call the neighbors, call the family before you talk to the person in pre-foreclosure. Oh, and by the way, here's how you find all that information. It might work, but it creeps me out. I'm more into actually trying to contact the person in trouble before trying to contact everyone else in his or her world.

Testing the Gurus

2008-11-13T13:12:00.001-07:00

So, I've been buying creative real estate investing programs and reading books for about 4 years. I've listened to CDs, watched DVDs, read manuals and reviewed web sites. However, I've not done a darn thing beyond that. I've been the classic analysis paralysis person. All that is about to change.

Here is a list of the "gurus" and their programs that I have, split by type:

Tim Mai, Virtual Vesting 7-Day Instant Cash Secrets
Chris Chico, Virtual Wholesaling
Steve Cook, Wholesaling for Quick Cash
Mike Collins, Wholesaling Houses for a Living
Larry Goins, Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine
Ron Mead, Make a Flippin' Fortune

Toby Unwin, One Deal From Retirement
Dave Lindahl, Apartment House Riches

Alexis McGee, 6 Steps to Mastering Foreclosures
Dwan Bent-Twyford, Foreclosure Fortunes in Your Backyard
William Bronchick, Colorado Foreclosure Investing Strategies

Chris McLaughlin & Nathan Jurewicz, Short Sales Riches System
Dwan Bent-Twyford, Advanced Short Sales
Dwan Bent-Twyford, Short Sale Secrets

Chuck Smith, Powerful Profits with Probate
Jim Banks, Probate Profits
Ron Mead, 31 Days to Profits in Probate Real Estate

Bill Twyford, Shut Up and Stick to the Script
Bill Twyford, The Secrets of Closing the Deal
William Bronchick, Real Estate Negotiating

Dolf De Roos, Real Estate Investors College
William Bronchick, Real Estate Success Library

And these are the books that I've read that pertain directly to real estate:

The Weekend Millionaire's Secrets to Investing in Real Estate, Mike Summey and Roger Dawson
Push Button Investing in Real Estate, Ron Draluck
Making Hard Cash in a Soft Real Estate Market, Wendy Patton and Justin Ryan
Buying and Managing Residential Real Estate, Andrew J. McLean
Investing in Real Estate, Andrew McLean and Gary Eldred, PhD
Making Big Money Investing in Real Estate, Peter Conti and David Finkel

Emerging Real Estate Markets, Dave Lindahl
Multi-Family Millions, Dave Lindahl (I'm reading this one right now)
How to Make Money in Commercial Real Estate for the Small Investor, Nicholas Masters
Make Millions by Buying Small Apartment Properties in Your Spare Time, Brian K. Friedman
The Best Damn Commercial Real Estate Investing Book Ever Written, Monica Villasenor
The Complete Guide to Buying and Selling Apartment Buildings, Steve Berges
Flipping Properties, William Bronchick
The ForeclosureS.com Guide to Making Huge Profits Investing in Pre-foreclosures without Selling your Soul, Alexis McGee
Preston Ely, Probates ebook
Preston Ely, Flip Your Way to Financial Freedom ebook

How to Get All the Money You Need to Buy Property, Alan Cowgill
Financing Secrets of a Millionaire Real Estate Investor, William Bronchick

The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, Gary Keller
The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, Gary Keller
Nothing Down for the 2000s, Robert G. Allen
Real Estate Riches, Dolf de Roos
How to Build a Real Estate Empire, Arsenault, Hamilton, Leeds & Marcil
Wealth Protection Secrets of a Millionaire Real Estate Investor, William Bronchick
Trump Strategies for Real Estate, Donald Ross
The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump

And, believe it or not, I have a pile of books waiting to be read about real estate investing.

The fact is that having all that in my head is very nice, but it ain't where the rubber hits the road. Right now, they are all theory to me. While I think that some sound more doable than others, it's just a guess and frankly, I'm a little nervous about getting out there and talking to someone about something that's so important to their life. What if I screw it up? Then again, what if I don't?

Is it possible to juggle several balls and have some of these systems running concurrently by setting up different businesses? Maybe I should just see if they work first.

Right now, short sale programs are coming out of the woodwork - seems to be the flavor of the month with the vast financial crisis we're facing in America today. Would that be the best place to start? Or maybe Tim Mai's program that promises cash in 7 days... all the possibilities make my head spin.

Anyway, my youngest is almost old enough to go to preschool so I thought I would try out these programs, step-by-step, one at a time. There are so many that I'm having a hard time deciding which to pick. Do I do wholesaling, foreclosures, short sales, probates? Some of these could be chunked together, but I want to test each system to see if it really does work like the author says it does. So, next post, the decision...