Over the holidays I had a few great learning lessons. I volunteer for several different causes. The one I chose, was a half-way house for recovering addicts. I have learned from that experience that it takes on average 6 times or 6 attempts to become clean. Now this is an average. There are some individuals who will get clean in a much shorter time because they have super “WHY” and have the right relationships which will support them in their life’s journey. So I started to look at my own life and the struggles I have learning and implementing new systems in my own business. Why do I go to the seminars and training which I buy, spending thousands of dollars on my education? The day after the seminar I do nothing. I never implement the great knowledge and systems the gurus has provided. I don’t even open the book ever again. Does this sound familiar? Read More→

Yet another calendar? Yes. It’s a good idea to use QuickBooks’ calendar to stay on top of your financial transactions.

These days, some of us find ourselves updating multiple calendars. There’s the Outlook calendar or other web-based solution for scheduling and task management. Maybe a smartphone app to track to-do’s on the road, and a paper calendar as backup.

But where do you keep track of your everyday financial tasks? Including these in your scheduling calendars and/or task lists will make for very crowded screens, not to mention how inconvenient it can be to keep switching between applications.

So consider adding one more tracking tool: the QuickBooks calendar. This graphical screen isn’t designed for data entry (except for to-do’s). Rather, it’s designed to give you a quick overview of your financial activity, both historically and in the future. Read More→

If you are a smart investor you read and stay up to date with the market. But as you read, you find that different people have different opinions as to why the real estate market has shifted, which range from the presidential election, the stock market, the price of a barrel of oil, employment reports, changing interest rates, etc. The fact is, all these are intertwined and they all have a chain reaction effect on real estate. While you cannot make a huge immediate impact on the direction of any of these factors, you can make changes in your game plan for investing in real estate in the New Year.

As we all know, the real estate market is cyclical. The majority of last year the market was at the height of its cycle. At the end of the year to present the market has begun to cool down or at least level off. Investors are no longer purchasing houses expecting one sales price and selling it for a much higher price because it “appreciated” while it was being renovated. Today investors are selling their investment properties for the original after repair value they had projected or a bit less if the renovation was not up to par. This has become the new norm. With that said, there are still a few sub markets in each of our markets that continue to sell fast and for record prices. However, those too will eventually cool down. I have mentioned many times that it is best to purchase investment real estate based on today’s values not anticipated appreciation one cannot control.

Here are a few items I would recommend when investing in real estate in today’s market. Read More→

Kim and I want to thank you for reading our weekly real estate investing newspaper column for the past 13 years. With this last article, we say: Goodbye, y’all!

In 2003, when we started this feature, we were still fairly new to real estate investing. As we gained knowledge and experience, we shared the creative deal-structuring techniques we learned that allowed the impossible deals to become not only possible, but also probable.

We also shared most every mistake we made along the way. We did this because more great lessons are learned from failure than from success!

And, we wrote a ton of articles about what it takes to succeed. No matter what field you’re in, the attributes it takes to succeed can be boiled down to these ten: love, accomplishment, discipline, persistence, belief, integrity, associations, a yearning to learn, sacrifice and giving back.

The story about how our weekly column first got in the paper demonstrates these attributes at work. Read More→

It seems that nobody today learning how to be a real estate investor wants to start at the bottom anymore. What I mean is, most beginning real estate investors want to start at the top making money like those who have spent many years learning how to buy real estate and make money every time they buy. Having been a licensed building contractor in a previous life I can tell you that I never built a house starting with the roof and then built downward to the foundation. Investors today must realize it just doesn’t work trying to get rich quick without a solid foundation of basic investor knowledge. Unless you want to build a house of cards that will easily tumble down you must forget trying to start at the top of the learning curve and understand that the only way you will ever be truly successful is if you start learning real estate investing with sound techniques and strategies that will allow you to make the very best buying decisions every time. Read More→