Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about the different ways real estate investors can achieve their goals and dreams in the fastest way possible. I get asked this question frequently by students who are just getting started in the real estate investing business. As I thought about the different strategies of how real estate goals can be achieved, I came up with the three most common ways most investors use today.

First of all wholesaling is what I hear about the most. The problem as I see it with wholesaling is two-fold. First, wholesaling real estate is to me just like having a job. Once you get a property bought and either “pre-habbed” or if you assign your purchase agreement you are creating the Hamster On the Wheel way of doing business. You buy the property, you fix the property then you sell the property. At that time hopefully you get a check. You use some of the money you get to pay for your living expenses and if there is any money left you might use the excess to pay for a portion of the next deal you do.  Read More→

On the Front Page of The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday Nov. 30, it stated “Home Prices Hit record levels”. If you read this article, you will think it is over, the window of the “massive profits in real estate” opportunity has slammed shut. If you did not buy any property since the great recession, you have missed the boat. In your old age when you go into the smelly retirement home, that your Social Security or what’s left of it will pay, you will remember this lost opportunity of buying real estate in the 2012-2016. Yes, it is true the national average states that prices have recovered. If you sat on the fence, you have missed that once in a lifetime opportunity. You decided that the market wasn’t right and you would wait. Those who waited have lost the greatest opportunity in this decade or life time to hit it big and coast into retirement. You might as well go to your “JOB= Just over broke” opportunity and sell your health, back, brain and soul to the company. Don’t invest in any more real estate courses… Save your money, you will need it for your retirement.  Read More→

Expected returns are hard to come by. Stocks are at elevated P/Es on a historical basis, and yields are near all time lows. With economic growth sluggish, at 2-3 percent per year, any major gains will have to come from multiple expansion – and who can count on that? Earnings multiples can fall as easily as rise. This is what caused many of us to gravitate to self-directed IRA strategies in the first place!

Bonds aren’t much better, in the publicly traded market. There’s some downside protection, in theory.

Fortunately, electing to use self-directed IRA strategies allows you to transcend the limited publicly-traded stock and bond world, and explore hidden opportunities that are invisible to most investors – but which still offer reasonable yields – at acceptable risk levels, or at least with some security.

One such opportunity for self-directed IRA investors: Discounted Owner-Financed Real Estate Notes.

Here’s how it works:  Read More→

As an Investor, having a Realtor to work with is important in your business if you are buying or selling houses on the Multiple Listing Services.   Many new Investors rely on their Realtor to send them “good deals” to buy, hold, fix and/or flip.  However, a Realtor does not know what good deal means to an Investor.  A good deal for us could be the cash flow that you receive on a rental property or it could be the profit that you would receive from reselling the home.  As Investors, you are taught a MAO “Maximum Allowable Offer” Formula in which you use to make offers on homes for buying, fixing and reselling.  The formula varies based on your own situation.  The average formula used for Investors who have to get hard money to purchase the home would be:  ARV (After repaired Value) x 65% – Repairs = MAO.  Let me give you an example:  $100,000 (ARV) x 65% = $65,000 – $10,000 Repairs = $55,000 Maximum Allowable Offer.  This formula would then leave you with $35,000 for holding costs, cost of money, closing costs of purchase and resale, and then profit.  Your MAO formula would be different if you are purchasing the home as a Landlord and/or you have your own money to fund the deal.  You may be willing to pay between 70-75% of the After Repaired Value for the home – Repairs = Your MAO.  Read More→

In a previous column, we talked about setting up bills in QuickBooks Online. Now it’s time to pay them.

We recently laid out the benefits of using QuickBooks Online for bill entry and payment. It’s faster than manual methods. It leaves an electronic record of your accounts payable. And it helps ensure that bills are paid accurately and on time.

As we discussed, QuickBooks Online employs a two-step process for bill payment. Once you’ve completed the first (setup), the hard part is done, and you can move on to fulfilling your financial obligations. Let’s take a look.

Warning: Because you may be “handling” a lot of your bills twice in QuickBooks Online, this system can take some getting used to. We’ll be happy to walk you through the process until you’re comfortable.  Read More→

“I live a highly scheduled life. There’s absolutely no time wasted. I’m very focused. And I have a great assistant.” ~ Madonna

Amazon Echo has been a game changer at my house. I find it a great selling point for new homes I’m working on as well. I use “Alexa” to turn on my lights, my television, set the thermostat and basically anything that’s connected to the system. It’s been really helpful around the holidays too, baking with the family has been a breeze while “Alexa” sets up the timer and converts measurements for us.

I’ve talked about other systems, like the Ring for the doorbell answering service, but Amazon comes to a new level with Echo. Technology won’t solve all our problems but it does make things a bit easier. While baking holiday cookies with the kids, I do have a bit of trouble in the kitchen. It’s just that Echo made small tasks easier like setting the timer and changing the measurements from weight to cups. Small hiccups were easier to get through when the tech was literally a voice command away.  Read More→

With the internet, fake news and social media anyone can create a persona and/or a story and have people believing it is true. With a great marketing plan, a website, paid likes, paid followers, a cheap book on Amazon written through research as a top seller and some know how you can be the next real estate guru. And who knows, maybe you end up knowing more IN THEORY than actual successful investors but it would only be in theory. Therefore, you should be cautious of who you are giving your money to and more importantly who you are learning from. Here are a few questions you should ask along with a few acceptable answers.

The number one thing to do is find referrals. I do not mean the testimonials on their website, unless you personally know of that person in your market area, but someone in your local REIA that has used that person and has hopefully had success. Ask them if the guru and/or their program provided what it advertised. However, also keep in mind that you have to ask detailed questions to find out if that person actually implemented the program. For this reason, you want to find as many referrals/users as possible. Eventually you will begin to notice a consistency that the program was not as advertised, good but lacked content, ok for a beginner, not worth buying, terrible or maybe so bad they will give you the content.  Read More→