Atlanta Real Estate Investors Alliance Blog

The Profit has finally arrived just in time for Atlanta REIA’s 2 year birthday celebration. That’s right, it has already been 2 years since we decided to start Atlanta REIA back in June 2010 and to hold our first meeting on July 5^th, 2010.

Ever since we started Atlanta REIA, our mission has always been to help insure our members real estate success by providing affordable, quality real estate investing education, frequent, fun real estate networking opportunities and community outreach programs to build, renovate and repair homes for needy Atlanta families.  We’ve been able to achieve this mission through our meetings, special interest groups, networking events, seminars, webinars, workshops and our relationship with the Fuller Center of Atlanta.

Now we are working to bring you even more incredible member benefits and bigger discounts from suppliers such as Lowe’s, Sun Belt Tool Rentals, Sherwin Williams, Sears Commercial, Sprint /Nextel, Rent Fast, Build a Sign through our new relationship with the Community Buying Group; interactive, database driven websites with Super Smart; and our brand new newsletter, The Profit, which will be published and delivered each month about a week prior to our Atlanta REIA Main Monthly Meeting.

The purpose of The Profit is to help keep you and our members, guests, friends and followers updated on all the ups and downs of the real estate market; changing laws, rules and regulations; the latest real estate investing techniques, strategies and so much more! The Profit is also designed to keep you and other subscribers updated and informed of all the events and happenings going on at Atlanta REIA each month as well as exposing you to a wide variety of vendors and suppliers serving the real estate industry.

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1. Overcoming Fear. When I first got started in the real estate business I had a tremendous amount of fear. There was the fear that prevented me from placing the ads, the fear that prevented me from making offers, and the fear that paralyzed me to the point that I was not able to move forward in a real estate investing career.
2. Knowing The Numbers And Exit Strategies. After I made my first 50 offers I overcame that fear. After I got an agreement accepted I had the fear of not knowing what I was going to do with the property and whether or not it was going to be profitable. The exit strategy is the plan. The exit strategy defines what your profit is and how much profit there will be. Once I was able to get a handle on the exit strategies and refine the numbers my career started to take off. Read More→

Finding an investment deal today, although not easy, is not as difficult as it once was. When financing was easy to qualify for and no doc loans were offered by all, deals were harder to come by. Many people still believe that finding the deal is the hardest part of investing. I would have to say that finding the deal is less difficult than putting it under contract. Why? Well, by the time a contract is being discussed you know you want to contract the property and the seller knows he/she wants to sell. However, how much the seller will accept and what the buyer will pay rarely matches up.

Let’s look at the seller’s point of view. First, you must identify who the seller is and what is his/her interest in the property. There are many types of sellers but the most common seller is an owner that lives in the property, an owner that inherited the property, an owner that used the property as an investment, wholesaler, and REO agents. This is important to identify immediately because it determines how you should contract a property. More importantly it will let you know how to best present a contract to make it more attractive to each seller type. The one thing that all sellers have in common is that they expect you to justify your offer. As an investor you want the property as cheap as possible to make the most profit but making sure the contract is a win-win situation will make you more money in the long run. How? That seller will become your walking billboard and may bring you more properties! Read More→

Have you noticed a declining number of people attending real estate meetings lately? Well, maybe not at Atlanta REIA Meetings, but this is true of many other REIAs across the country. I’ve run a weekly real estate meeting myself for over 10 years down in St Petersburg, FL and I’ve seen my own group attendance diminish from an average of 200 people each week to approximately 50 over the past couple of years. I realize many investors are confused, scared and have lost faith in the real estate investing business and who can blame them? You can’t open a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing anything but negative news about the real estate market. All we hear about is the declining sales prices, lower number of sales, almost no building starts and of course the record number of Foreclosures nationwide. Who can blame investors for shying away from buying houses in this market? Many investors are waiting for the market to bottom out before they are going to get back in the business. There is no better time to be buying houses than NOW, yet many investors are finding it impossible to fund their deals while other investors believe doing Short Sales is their only chance to make money today. This is not true! That kind of thinking is simply crazy! Read More→

Rental Properties in Your IRA

For legions of investors frustrated with puny yields on savings and bonds, slow growth retarding stock market returns, and the usual substantial risk involved in security investing (any given stock or bond can potentially become worthless overnight), we have good news: The combination of declining real estate prices and steady or increasing rents have opened up a window of opportunity in real estate for income-oriented investors. In fact, years after the “smart money” was selling off real estate ahead of the bubble collapse, we are seeing signs that smart money is getting back in the real estate market. Indeed, up to 20 percent of residential real estate now sold is sold to investors – and not just to “play and pray” amateur property flippers, but to value-oriented investors as well, who are seeking to generate immediate positive cash flow.

Advantage for IRA Owners

This is a big development for IRA investors, because generating cash flow sufficient to maintain properties is important for IRA owners. Because you are restricted to $5,000 in new contributions to IRAs every year ($6,000 for those over age 50), you have to pay for any needed repairs or renovations to properties either with cash in the IRA, bringing on a partner, non-recourse debt financing, or other retirement assets you can roll over into the account. When you can realize immediate positive cash flow from a property, however, net of financing costs and taxes, that takes a lot of the pressure off, and makes owning real estate in an IRA much simpler. Read More→

As Director of Business Membership, in keeping with the kickoff the inaugural issue of The Profit, I’d like to take the opportunity to personally thank all the business members who contribute their valuable time, talent, and resources to making Atlanta REIA what it is, and what it is becoming.  Atlanta REIA is a collective success because of you and what you bring to the organization. While many of you attend the monthly general meeting or some of the subgroup gatherings, there are many others companies behind the scenes who offer a nearly endless variety of goods and services that support the endeavors of all our real estate investor members.

In future issues of The Profit, this segment will highlight our business members as well as announcing the new and renewing members so that the membership at large will be reminded of the fine companies that are available and at your service. Read More→

“They may say, “Come and join us … let’s ambush the innocent! …Think of the great things we’ll get! We’ll fill our houses with all the stuff we take. Come, throw in your lot with us; we’ll all share the loot.” My child, don’t go along with them! Stay far away from their paths.” (Proverbs 1:11-15)

We have all faced the question; “Is this a good business opportunity for me?” The answer to this question may come from your professional training on how to evaluate a deal. Sometimes, we find ourselves enrolled in the school of “Hard Knocks” taking the freshmen class of “Trial and Error.” But, if you are an entrepreneur, there may be is a more critical question that has to be answered and your answer to this question may not be quite as forgiving.

That question is; “Who am I doing business with?” Have you ever found yourself challenged to do business with someone who operates with a fundamentally different set of values and moral practices than yourself? Have you ever been asked to participate in a venture or business proposition that just didn’t sit right in your heart? Sometimes, at first glance, it may seem to be quite attractive and a potentially profitable proposition. But after some careful thought and discussion, you begin to feel uncomfortable about the person or the proposition. Read More→

As an attorney who specializes in real estate transactions for investors, I always try and stress the importance of using an attorney to form your business entity, more specifically an LLC, to shield your real estate assets from liability, as opposed to trying to take on this task on your own, or using an online service. No matter how many times we suggest this, investors sometimes overlook the importance of seeking an attorney’s advice during initial registration of LLC documents. As a result, many investors are forced to amend their Articles of Organization, sometimes more than once. In our experience, investors who have registered their LLC’s online, without engaging an attorney to correctly draft the documents necessary for proper filing, end up having to file amendments nine times out of ten regardless of their experience.

The time and money lost due to avoidable mistakes can be very frustrating, and necessary amendments often end up costing investors the same, if not more, than what their attorney fees would have been had they hired one at the onset. Conversely, investors who work with attorneys during the filing process are far less likely to encounter obstacles resulting from imperfect filings and unanticipated obstacles. These investors are thus much more insulated from the risk of needlessly incurring costly amendments. Attorneys can help investors circumvent these unnecessary obstacles and losses in several important ways. Read More→