Atlanta Real Estate Investors Alliance Blog

Over the past six months I have discussed excuses on why people are failing in the real estate business. I had discussed the excuse of lack of money, the excuse of lack of time, the excuse of lack of leads, the excuse of lack of a system, and last month I did a piece on accountability partners. Each one of these segments has been designed to eliminate the distractions and excuses for individuals that are desiring to get involved in real estate and are not accomplishing anything. This month I want to discuss how persistence and consistency will get you to your financial goals faster.

I go to the gym on a regular basis. There are individuals in the gym every time I am there, and I typically go 5 times a week. I have noticed that those individuals who are dedicated to their weight training and eating right have absolutely incredible bodies. The individuals, who come inconsistently, do not have the same success. For example take the individual who comes in on Monday and because it’s a Monday decides that they are only going to do a short exercise routine. That same individual on Friday decides that “hey it’s Friday and I will just do a light day”. That same individual comes in and spends 20 min. talking to everybody and socializing. That individual is not making head way on their exercise routine, maintaining their weight, and eating right. There are individuals who say that they are doing all of the right things, however their actions speak louder than words. These “quasi health nuts” are consumed by distractions and excuses. Read More→

“Measuring and laying out a room in advance can save you a lot of headaches.” ~ David Bromstad

Design for iPad By Black Mana Studios is one of my favorite apps. I usually don’t bother with apps if they exceed $3, but I heard good things about this. I think it’s worth every penny to be honest. I’m not colorblind, but I do struggle sometimes with how to pair materials and textures together. This app doesn’t build a lush virtual world, but it gives me a base to plan interiors that don’t disappoint.

It is a drag and drop interface, which is great since you can change things around in an instant. I find that the color and materials palette has great variety, so I can find that same wood finish or paint color (or something close to it) when I get to the big box store or wholesale warehouse.

This app is really useful with placing furniture too. It has a lot of different options to offer with sofas and tables. You can find items that you already purchased and arrange them before you move them. Or you can play with shapes and placement before you commit to buying anything. I found the dimensions to be very accurate. Read More→

Almost two thousand years ago, the Roman leader Julius Caesar used three bold words to describe a quick victory he accomplished in a war: “Veni. Vidi. Vici,” meaning “I came. I saw. I conquered.”

The fact that we, as a species: 1. Still know who Caesar was, 2. Still know what he said that long ago, and 3. Still hold him in high regard – is a testament that he did some great things in his time.

So how the heck does that apply to you as a real estate investor? Or anything else, for that matter?

It actually applies in many ways. You see, Caesar was the kind of guy that didn’t really mess around. He went to work and handled his business.

If Julius Caesar was a real estate investor in today’s times, he’d probably be someone like a Donald Trump. Wait…Did I just compare Caesar to Trump? Yeah, I guess I did.

In fact, I can pretty much assure that any time anybody did anything worthwhile, they were acting in a BOLD way.

Want to run for President? (on any level, even Grade School) You’ve got to be BOLD. Read More→

Over the past two months I have written about using “Paper” assets as income for your financial future. But did you know you are already using “Paper” for debts you personally owe. I am sure most of you have some type of consumer debt you pay every month. Every one of those individual consumer debts is also a form of “Paper” owed someone else. Your creditor’s hold a form of “paper” you signed and agreed to pay. Consumer debts are a drain on your monthly cash-flow and the sooner you get those debts paid off the sooner you will be able to use the money you no longer have to pay out every month for a better lifestyle or to invest and grow your financial future.

If you have never thought about your consumer debts as another form of “Paper” but as paper you owe I believe it’s time. I’ve decided to give you a very important lesson how you can use the “paper” or debt you owe for your own personal debts that are working negatively for you and show you a simple strategy that can help you become free of those high interest debts you owe in the shortest possible period of time. If you understand this simple strategy, it will make a huge difference in the quality of life you are seeking once you become debt free from the debts you personally owe. I believe this is a good place to really learn how “paper” works sitting at your own kitchen table so you better understand how to quickly eliminate the debts you owe. Read More→

Preserve your relationships with customers, vendors, and others by setting up reminders in QuickBooks.

How many calendars do you maintain? Many business people have more than one. Maybe you use a web-based or desktop application like Google Calendar or Outlook for meetings, task deadlines, travel dates, etc. Your Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) might have another. Perhaps you still have a paper calendar as backup.

But where do you keep track of bills that need to be paid, invoices that have to be sent, materials for jobs that must be ordered, etc.? Do you include that information in your general business calendar(s) and hope they don’t get lost in the shuffle?

QuickBooks has a better solution. The software contains a dedicated set of tools that automates the process of setting up and displaying reminders. Once you’ve created them, they can be the first thing you see when you open QuickBooks in the morning. Read More→

In these days of the real estate sites like Zillow and Trulia, the marketing and lead generation tools on these sites draw millions of page views every month. What you shouldn’t be doing as an investor, home buyer or seller is using the value estimates on these sites to make decisions.

Truly good real estate investors know the valuation of their deals is key to insuring success and protecting projected profits. To effectively determine if a deal is a rental building wealth or flip to make some much needed cash, you have to analyze a deal fully. All the market areas covered by REIAComps, insure you easily know which way an investor should go.

Even Zillow will tell you that they aren’t always on the money. They have a chart of median error percentages in estimates in major cities, and they run mostly between around 7% and 9%. That’s around $16,000 on a $200,000 house, so you don’t want that kind of number in your research for a wholesale or flip deal for sure. Feel free to use a Zestimate for a quick idea of approximate value, but what you want to do to arrive at an accurate market value is what real estate agents do; develop a CMA, Comparative Market Analysis. Read More→

In many past articles I have stressed the importance of knowing the current real estate market. You should take note when property prices are rising, falling or plateauing. If you are a flipper, is your inventory selling faster or sitting on the market longer? If you are a wholesaler, are you having to work harder to find deals or have you suddenly found an abundance of deals? Are the deals you are finding getting easier or harder to sell? If you are a real estate agent or work closely with one, is his/her listing receiving multiple offers and flying off the board? Or are they sitting on the MLS with a few showings here and there? These are questions you should always be asking as a real estate investor.

One can always pick up an article or see a news report about what is going on in real estate but it is usually a report of real estate as a nation not just your market place. Most realtor associations have monthly reports that are helpful but they are not out until the middle of the following month. As an investor, even these reports may be too late in providing the information. If you are in real estate or plan on being in real estate you must keep your finger on the pulse. If you are doing plenty of business you will feel the change in the market and can begin to prepare for it immediately. However, if you only dabble in real estate, you might not know what is coming around the bend. If you dabble or are just getting started make sure to network with people that are full-timers. If you find a deal you plan on flipping or holding on to for a rental, discuss it with a veteran investor. They can mentor you on the best option and possibly keep you from making a mistake. Read More→

Finding ways to attract motivated sellers to your Real Estate Investing business is probably the most important element in your business, since without the motivated sellers, there are no deals to be made.

There are several different ways to find motivated sellers for your real estate investing business using a shot gun type of approach to locate as many sellers as you can. A shot gun approach is where you “blast” your message out to your market and hope that there are motivated sellers among the bunch. Some of these techniques include yard or vehicle signage, business cards, t-shirts and hats, door hangers, pens, buttons, business card magnets, flyers and auto shades. What I really want to focus on today though, is using business cards to locate motivated sellers.

When having business cards printed, there are a couple of things you want to keep in mind. One is that your business card needs to have a grabber headline and it needs to catch people’s attention by looking different from every other business card out there.

Use bright colors and a benefit driven message on your business cards. List the reasons on your card why that seller should work with you and how you can help them. Remember business cards are a highly effective inexpensive lead generating tool for your business. On your business card, you want to provide your potential seller with a couple of different ways to contact you so they can contact you in the way that is most comfortable for them. So for example your card might include your phone number, your email address and a website for them to check out. The more ways you give a potential seller to contact you, the more of them will. Read More→

We’ve all been there. We go through and estimate repairs on a property and miss something. Sometimes, that something may be minor however it could be quite significant. This tends to happen when the rehabs are larger in scope or have a structural or foundation issue that needs addressing. I don’t usually see wholesale courses that teach how to address these sorts of things when dealing with these points beyond generalities. However, generalities is usually not going to get this done right and does little to build confidence in Buyers.

While Buyers of course are expected to do their own due diligence, it has more than frustrated countless Buyers when wholesaler numbers end up being way off due to this common ignorance. I thought I would take some time to outline some common figures for our market for a variety of these often overlooked items. Take this and adapt it to your area and this will give you a solid starting point. Read More→