Archive for October, 2013

Tues, Oct 15th @ NOON in Atlanta
The Onsite Renovation Group
Meets Tuesday, Oct 15th at NOON
651 Holderness St SW, Atlanta, GA 30310

651 Holderness St SW, Atlanta, GA 30310On Tuesday, October 15th at Noon, the Onsite Renovation Group will be returning to 651 Holderness St SW, Atlanta, GA 30310. You may remember that we visited this gut-out project back in July in what used to be the “red line zone” but has been experiencing incredible rejuvenation thanks to investor activity. The project is an early-make bungalow with visions of grandeur and profit. We’re returning to this job now that sheetrock is getting done and the trim and tile are starting to show the finished product. Come see what a job looks like before the finishing touches are put on!

Onsite Renovation GroupThe Onsite Renovation Group, led by Aaron McGinnis of Craftbuilt Properties, is an new educational and networking group that focuses on the acquisition, renovation and retail resale (fix and flip) of single family residential homes inside the I-285 perimeter and the in-town neighborhoods. The purpose of this group is to allow both new and experienced rehabbers and investors to meet, network and share knowledge and experience with “hands on” access to real property. The Onsite Renovation Group meets on the 3rd Tuesday of each month at NOON at an active renovation site, build site or rental property which will vary from month to month. There is currently no charge to attend these meeting.

POSTPONED Until Nov 20th
Atlanta REIA North Meeting
Postponed until November 20, 2013

Atlanta REIA North Monthly MeetingAtlanta REIA North is a of the Atlanta Real Estate Investors Alliance that meets on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM at 1960 Skylar Hill Dr, Suite D, Buford, Georgia in North Gwinnett County just a few miles from the Mall of Georgia. There is no charge to attend this meeting for Atlanta REIA members and the cost is $5.00 at the door for non-members.

Taco MacAfter the conclusion of the Atlanta REIA North Meeting (after 9:30 PM), we will be reconvening at the Mall of Georgia located at 3250 Woodward Crossing Blvd in Buford, GA for the “Meeting after the Meeting”. We may arrive late if the Atlanta REIA Meeting runs late. So please come eat, drink, network and have fun with us as hang out late into the night!

Thu, Oct 17th @ 1:30 PM in Sandy Springs, GA
Haves & Wants Weekly Meeting
Hosted by Joe Thompson

Joe ThompsonHaves and Wants is a weekly investor’s networking, brainstorming and deal making jam session hosted by Joe Thompson and held every Thursday at 5 Seasons Brewing at the Prado from 1:30 PM till approximately 3:00 PM. This group has been meeting for over 6 years and is all about networking, sharing information, doing deals and making money right now. Be sure to bring lots of your business cards and flyers and be prepared to promote your business and/or your haves, wants and deals with our group. If you are a real estate player or want to be, this is one meeting you don’t want to miss!

5 Seasons Brewing5 Seasons Brewing is located at 5600 Roswell Rd (map) inside the Perimeter at the “Prado” in Sandy Springs. The all natural, organic food at the 5 Seasons is excellent and the hand-crafted beer is even better! Come out and eat, drink, network and share your deals with us! There is no charge to attend this meeting for Atlanta REIA Members or guests. Please come early and stay late. We would love to have you!

Mon, Oct 21st @ 6:30 PM in Sandy Springs, GA
The Beginning Investors Group
What Happens When You Lock
4 Attorneys in a Room Full of Eager
New Real Estate Investors?

with an All Star Attorney Panel on Mon, Oct 21st
Non-Members RSVP Online for $15.00 or $20 at the door.
Atlanta REIA Members are always FREE!

Attorney Panel at the Beginning Investors GroupWhile this may sound like the opening line of a funny joke, it is no joke at all! On Monday, October 21st at 6:30 PM at the Beginning Investors Group (BIG), we’re having an All Star Attorney Panel Discussion with four prominent local real estate attorneys… Fred Kross, Craig Halperin, John Maurer and Jon David Huffman.

BIG meets at the Hudson Grill located at 6317 Roswell Rd NE in Sandy Springs, GA. This is a special BIG Meeting you don’t want to miss since it is a rare opportunity for you to discuss your real estate investing business with not one, but four real estate attorneys!

With all the attorney jokes aside, as investors, having good attorneys on our team is very important to our business. They assist us with legal entity setup; reviewing contracts; closing our real estate deals; dealing with liens; assisting our sellers with bankruptcy; short sales and foreclosures; representing us in lawsuits and so much more. This month at BIG, you are going to meet four local real estate attorneys who are all Atlanta REIA Members and who specialize in serving the needs of new and seasoned investors. They will be joining us to share their thoughts with you and answer all your burning legal questions. Join us at BIG and you will learn…

  • When and why you need a good attorney on your side
  • What advice our attorneys would give to beginning investors
  • How to avoid many of the common mistakes investors make
  • What type of legal entities and asset protection you should use
  • How to work with sellers in bankruptcy or foreclosure
  • How to avoid frivolous lawsuits
  • What to expect at closing
  • And answers to all your burning questions and much more!

After the Panel Discussion, attendees can stick around and participate in our new creative deal structuring exercises. This is an opportunity to practice on how to structure deals. Bring some of the deals you are working on, or use some of our scenarios.

Atlanta REIA members can attend the Beginning Investors Group for FREE. Non Members can RSVP Online for $15.00 or pay $20 at the door. If you join Atlanta REIA before the meeting, you can attend at no charge and get BIG Discounts on Atlanta REIA Training Workshops.

All over the Atlanta Metro Area, people have walked away from their real estate for one reason or another. Divorces, major illnesses, a death in the family, financial trouble, job relocation, etc. are a just few of the reasons people abandon their homes. Many of these owners are still paying the mortgage every month because they want to preserve their credit. Many of these folks might like to rent or sell the property, but they often think that no one will want it in its poor condition and they don’t have the money to make the necessary repairs. They just keep making the mortgage payments and/or the taxes.

Reggie BrooksOn November 4th at the Atlanta REIA Main Meeting, Reggie Brooks will teach you how to to find these abandoned and distressed properties, find the owners, and structure a transaction that is mutually beneficial to both you and the seller. You will learn how to automate the process of finding the properties, the owners and create a profitable business where you get the abandoned properties chasing you, rather than the other way around. Reggie’s “Abandoned Property” presentation includes case studies of people who have used his Abandoned Property System to create huge profits buying and selling these unwanted homes.

Join us and you will learn…

  • How to make big profits using a unique niche in the marketplace – Abandoned Properties
  • How to invest with no cash and no credit
  • Insider secrets that the professional investors use to turn $15,000 profits into $50,000 profits and more
  • Hot new tips and insights that the professionals use to find profitable deals, especially in today’s market
  • Hidden cash producing secrets that even seasoned investors don’t even know
  • How to uncover hidden value in properties that most seasoned investors overlook
  • How to profit from properties that most investors consider worthless
  • How to write your contracts to maximize your profits
  • How to use creative financing to fund your deals
  • And much, much more!

Come join Reggie and the rest of us at the Atlanta REIA Meeting on Monday, November 4th at 5PM at the Holiday Inn Atlanta – Perimter/Dunwoody located at 4386 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road in Atlanta, GA to profit from abandoned properties.

Crowne Plaza Ravinia HotelPLEASE NOTE: On November 4th, the Atlanta REIA Main Monthly Meeting will be held at the Holiday Inn Atlanta – Perimter/Dunwoody located at 4386 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road in Atlanta, GA. This is for the November 4th meeting only. Our December 2nd Meeting we will be back at the Crowne Plaza Ravina Hotel as usual. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Reggie Brooks

Posted on October 8, 2013 by

Reggie BrooksReggie Brooks has achieved what many people consider to be impossible. He went from making $36,000 per year at the local telephone company, to making over $40,000 per month in his real estate business. Starting out with very little money, Reggie began his investment career in 1986. After taking several real estate investment courses he began investing in rental properties in Los Angeles. By educating himself about hidden opportunities in real estate and making well placed investments, he has become a multi-millionaire.

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Download The Profit Newsletter for October 2013 (PDF)
The October 2013 Edition of
The Profit is Available for Download!

The Profit - October 2013 - High Quality PDFThe October 2013 Edition of The Profit Newsletter is available for download just in time for our Atlanta REIA Main Meeting on October 9th. You can download The Profit Newsletter as a High Quality PDF or Low Res PDF for slower devices. The Profit is the official newsletter of the Atlanta Real Estate Investors Alliance and is a digital, interactive newsletter for new and seasoned real estate investors delivered as an Adobe PDF file to read on your PC, Mac, Smart Phone, iPad or other mobile ready devices with a PDF reader. Many of the articles and ads in The Profit contain many hyperlinks you can click or tap to visit websites, watch videos, listen to audios, download content, send emails, comment on articles, share socially and much more! The high res version of The Profit is “print ready” for those who want to print the newsletter on their home or business printer. Also, be sure to Subscribe to The Profit Here so you don’t miss a single monthly issue.

Download The Profit Now!
See The Profit Archives for our past editions.

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I spent the last weekend attending a training event put on by one of the premier real estate teachers in the country today. As I listened to her teach phenomenal content, I kept hearing her talk about the MAO formula to determine the most that anyone should pay for any property. The basic MAO formula is… “The After Repaired Value of the subject property X 70% less Repair Costs = the most you should pay for any property” when using institutional or private financing.

As she talked, I kept thinking to myself, what if the buyer can’t qualify for institutional financing? What if private financing isn’t possible either? What if the buyer doesn’t have someone lined up who can get institutional or private financing? If that is the case what good is the MAO formula to the buyer?

Sure, I know the buyer could use a Hard Money loan to fund their deals and there is a formula for getting a Hard Money loan too. The basic Hard Money formula used in my area is… “The After Repaired Value of the subject property X 65% less the Lenders points and fees = the most that can be borrowed on that property”. The biggest problem I see using Hard Money loans is if the borrower can’t get the property they are buying resold quickly. Most hard money loans are short term, usually one to two years in length and if the property hasn’t sold and the Hard Money loan becomes due and payable, the borrower may find it impossible to find other financing to replace the Hard Money loan and could lose the property. Read More→

Marketing StrategyOne of the things I have learned over the years about my ongoing marketing efforts is that my results only seem to be limited by how much time, effort and creativity I put into the marketing process and not how much money I spend. The more time and energy I put into the marketing of my real estate investment business, the better my results tend to be. When I decide to slack up, get lazy and not stick to my marketing plan, my results quickly diminish as a result.

This is also true of the people I hire to market my business for me. Their success does not depend on how much I pay them, nor the size of their marketing budget, but how much time, energy and creativity they put into the marketing process.

Remember, 800 Pound Guerilla Marketing is about dominating your local market using a little time, effort, creativity and a relatively low budget using both new and traditional marketing techniques along with the power of the Internet. The more time, effort and creativity you put into the marketing process, the better your results should be.

As real estate investors, one of our most important responsibilities is to generate a steady flow of motivated buyer and seller leads for our business. After all, no leads = no deeds = no profits. If we don’t want to be responsible for personally generating leads ourselves, then we must hire someone competent to generate leads for us. But even if we do hire someone, it is still our responsibility to make sure they are generating the quantity and quality of leads we need to meet our business’s short term and long term financial goals.

If you want to generate all the leads you can handle for your real estate investing business, start by following these 7 easy steps to determine your marketing plan and your marketing budget: Read More→

If you want to sell/educate/entertain/enlighten/etc. just about anything to anyone in the world these days, you can and should have a website.  No matter what you do, you will be able to reach and communicate with anyone you desire with this incredible tool.

But how do you make one? What do you put on it? What do you say?

And how do you add those cool videos and funny pictures of cats on there that everyone loves?

Yes, these are the questions I often hear people ask. And today, I’ll do my best to answer them for you!

To begin, you need to ask yourself: WHY do I want a website, and WHAT will I be doing with it? 

Well, I’m happy to say that I have the answer for you, and that answer is: “It depends.” Read More→

Considerations

Hard money lending can be a great place for self-directed IRA or other retirement assets. There are, however, a few things to be aware of before you commit:

  • Hard money loans can be illiquid. If you are nearing or over age 70, pay attention to your required minimum distributions. You must make these RMDs, even if the borrower pays the loan late. You may want to earmark RMD money to come from another source besides the hard money lending part of your portfolio.
  • RMDs do not always have to be taken in the form of cash, some self-directed IRA investors that do hard money lending have elected to take their RMD in the form of the actual loans themselves. In fact, you can even take a portion of the loan as your RMD thus becoming partners with your IRA on that loan. (For Example: You can take 25% of the loan as your RMD. You would then own 25% of the loan and your IRA would own the other 75% of the loan.)
  • Your ability to contribute new money to your self-directed IRA or other retirement account is limited each year. For self-directed IRAs, for example, you are limited to $5,500 in new contributions. Anything over that must be rolled over into the account from another qualified retirement asset, or you will have to borrow the difference.
  • You cannot lend money to yourself or certain family members, via your self-directed IRA. You therefore cannot make a hard money loan to any property in which you, your spouse, your ascendants or descendants and their spouses has an interest. Similarly, you cannot lend money from your self-directed IRA to any project in which any legal, accounting or financial professional who advises you on your self-directed IRA investments has an interest. Read More→

Whether you are a serious investor or you’re just getting started in the real estate investing business, you need to have at least one Realtor on your “dream team”. There are many ways a Realtor can help you in your business, both on the buying and the selling side and they can play an integral role in building your business.

One of the questions I get a lot is “how do I find a Realtor to work with?” There are many ways to do this. You can find one by asking other investors who they use. They may or may not want to share this information with you. You can also go to your local real estate club. There are always Realtor/Investors at those meetings. Another way to find a Realtor to work with is to check with the Board of Realtors and find Realtors who specialize in investor properties. This type of Realtor may also work with bank owned properties which can also net you some really great deals, especially in today’s market where there are so many foreclosures and motivated sellers.

You need to find a Realtor who is going to do a good job for you. Make sure the Realtor you pick is at least a broker-salesman. These types of Realtors have usually been in the business for a long time and have a lot of experience in dealing with all kinds of properties and situations. You also want to work with a Realtor who is motivated to bring you deals and buyers. Read More→

In last month’s issue, I began to explain exactly what securitization is and why it is fraudulent.  For several years the mortgage banks in this country were flat-out making up transactions and trusts to cover for the fact that they were pocketing their investors’ money.  But that wasn’t enough for them.  They bundled up the loans, intentionally loaded them with toxic mortgages to increase their rate of return, and sold them to themselves for a “profit.”

But what does this all mean for the title on a property that had a loan go through this process?

Basically, the title was flawed from the get-go.  Nobody who was a signatory to the loan had ANY interest in the repayment of that loan.  MERS and all the others were just filling a role by pretending to be officials of the bank that was lending the money, when in reality they were a signature factory.  If the trusts had been managed correctly from the beginning, the name of the trust should have been on the note and on the mortgage.  They weren’t.  Instead the banks set up a huge maze of companies to process the loans with defective notes and mortgages. Read More→

OK!  So you have decided you want to get into real estate investing and you have gone to some real estate seminars and classes and read some books.  Great!  You have learned that the next step is to put out some marketing to get leads coming in, like people that want to sell their house, and hopefully at a discount.  So you have started doing one or more of the following:

  1. Mailing letters to home owners that say you want to buy their house
  2. Put out bandit signs on the side of the road that say something like “We Buy Houses”
  3. Have set up a website or websites that people find when they search “We Buy Houses” or other various search terms (“Sell my house fast”, “Sell your house fast”, etc).
  4. Have put an ad in the newspaper or Craigslist that says “We Buy Houses”, “Fast Cash for your home in as little as 3 Days”
  5. Have put out flyers around town with similar messages as the above.
  6. Or one of the other (96) marketing strategies that Dustin teaches us.

And then what happens?  The calls start to come in.  YEAY LEADS! Read More→