Atlanta Real Estate Investors Alliance Blog

Every day the Banks are making minor and/or major changes on how they do short sales. What was once an easy short sale system, now varies depending upon each lender. Many lenders will want the Sellers to use their own in-house short sale package, even though my detailed generic package pushes the deals forward. Sellers really don’t have a true concept of how much debt they have when it comes to paying all of their debts. Many of them will not even include a debt on their financial statement to the lender, just because they are choosing not to pay it. In my short sale system, I have created a detailed short sale package with forms that are used to help my Sellers make sure that everything is included and maximize their chances in the consideration of the short sale.

In January of 2014, Florida allowed a law to be passed that the Short Sale Lender may receive a Deficiency Judgment at the time of the Foreclosure while still having the asset (property) in their portfolio and not even selling it yet. Before this law was passed, the Short Sale Lenders could foreclose on the property and then they have a choice whether or not to either forgive the debt or pursue the Sellers. If they forgive the debt, they still issue a 1099 (Forgiveness of Debt Form) which means the Sellers would have to pay taxes on the amount that the bank has forgiven. Or the Lender could go after the Sellers again by filing a new lawsuit for a Deficiency Judgment on the balance that is owed AFTER the Lender sells the property and releases it from their portfolio.. Many Short Sale Lenders are amending their complaints to request this immediate deficiency judgment. Sellers are blind to the new changes and they are burying their heads in the sand, thinking they are living in the house for free and then letting the property go to foreclosure with no repercussions.   Read More→

For those of you with an interest in real estate, yes, you can buy pre-foreclosure properties using a Self-Directed IRA. The same goes for other self-directed retirement accounts, including 401(k)s, SEPs, SIMPLE IRAs, and even Coverdell Education Savings Accounts and Health Savings Accounts, if your balances are large enough to make it work!

There are a number of advantages to using a retirement account to acquire these properties:

If your plan is to fix them up and flip the house, and you do this a lot, you may fall under dealer tax rules. That means that unless you are conducting your flipping activities within a retirement account, all your profits will be taxed as sales of inventory – and therefore subject to taxation as ordinary income.

Furthermore, outside of retirement accounts, those who are classified by the Internal Revenue Service as dealers lose their ability to defer capital gains under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code concerning like kind exchanges. And furthermore, the income may also become subject to self-employment tax of up to 15.3 percent. Read More→

When you are looking to become successful in the real estate investing business, implementing a solid marketing plan for your business is going to be one of your first priorities. This will be the main strategy that will separate you from your competition. In addition you need to develop long and short term strategies and goals for your business as you go.

Decide what your focus is going to be regarding the type of properties you would like to purchase in your Real Estate Investing business and create a plan of action that will begin to bring in motivated sellers in droves and create deals for you. If you don’t know what exit strategies to use, make getting educated one of your top priorities. One of the best ways to do that is to work with a Mentor who can help you achieve the goals you have set for yourself.

Getting a good education in the buying and selling of real estate and having someone to hold you accountable will quickly separate you from most of your competition. You can check out my website at www.marketingmagiclady.com for some really powerful tools for your Real Estate Investing business including my personal Mentoring Program.

Don’t be afraid to do what those around you will not. Dare to be different and consistent in your marketing efforts and the results will be amazing. Niche your marketing and become an expert in your market place. Become educated within your market place so you know what your property values are and what your personal target market is going to be. Decide what kinds of deals you like best and go after them. Read More→

As I’ve said and many other successful wholesalers will always tell you is that “Marketing” is the life blood of your business. “Marketing” is the process of getting leads as well as getting your houses sold, which is how we make money right? And I’d say there are (3) main goals associated with your Marketing:

• Finding Motivated Sellers
• Finding Cash Buyers/Investors or Retail Buyers (building your buyers list)
• Marketing to get a house SOLD

There are many different forms of marketing that we teach and that we use – including but not limited to: direct mail (letters and post cards), bandit signs, posting ads online and in newspapers, websites, flyers, business cards, telemarketing, door knocking, door hangers, social media, etc. YES – that was a lot, and you’re using ALL of them, right?

It wouldn’t hurt to try all of them at some point to see which one works best for you – depending on your personality and your resources (time and/or money). In other words, if you have NO money – telemarketing and door knocking take very little money up front. If you have LOTS of money – big direct mail campaigns might be good for you. I could go in depth on each method, but I’m going to focus on Internet Marketing for the remainder of this article – which encompasses a few of the methods mentioned above. Read More→

When I began looking into investing I assumed that I needed to be a real estate agent so I can learn how to buy and sell real estate. Thus I began taking real estate courses in 2005 and became a real estate agent. I learned that those classes only taught me the law but nothing about how to contract, buy and/or sell real estate. All this came from on the job experience and each transaction taught me something new because no two transactions are the same. For this reason you should be cautious when selecting a real estate agent.

Today, as a broker, I make it my goal to properly train my agents thoroughly. Too often my agents and I work with other real estate agents that have not been properly trained. In fact, many times, those agents have called us to ask how to do/handle certain parts of the transactions. It has happened so often recently that we had to figure out what we would and would not assist with due to liability. We determined if the answer to the question is a fact we would answer. If the response is an opinion or company based we request that they ask their broker. I believe that this has happened more and more as a result of 100% commission brokerages. Agents receive their license and start at a 100% commission brokerage where there is minimal to no training because they are paying 100% commissions. What you end up with is an inexperienced agent that will learn at the client’s expense. When investing in real estate this can be a blessing or a nightmare. Read More→

Another day, another court ruling against the banksters who have fraudulently foreclosed on millions of homes! I have been writing about how the courts have been wising up to the games the banks have been playing to foreclose on properties that they have no claim to, and the latest ruling is one of the biggest. The Federal 6^th Circuit Court in Ohio has cleared away a major hurdle that has stopped a lot of homeowners in their tracks.

In many homeowners’ cases, a major claim is that their note never made it into the trust that the foreclosing bank is acting as the servicer for. As soon as the homeowner makes their initial charge that the loan never made it into the trust, the bank would respond saying that, since the homeowner is not an owner or investor in the trust, they have no standing to challenge the validity of the transactions that purport to transfer the note into the trust. Since they have no standing to demand to see the chain of title on the note, their main claim is tossed out by the court, and their case is dismissed.

The 6^th Circuit Court’s has ruled that the homeowner DOES in fact have the standing to challenge title and therefore the validity of the transactions that claim to show the note belonging to the trust. Not only that, but the court found that whether or not the homeowner had previously defaulted on his mortgage. The court was incredibly forceful in their ruling, almost recommending a RICO action against the banks. Read More→

With only a few days left on extensions for business filing (Sept 15^th) and a few weeks for personal (Oct 15^th), I recently have had a number of clients who need some basic information that really has to come from the IRS. It might be a form or other basic information. Always check with your CPA first then if you still need assistance look at the IRS website.

When you’re looking for tax information help, you want to find it as quickly and easily as possible. That’s why the IRS redesigned its website. It’s now even more user friendly.

Here are the top 10 reasons to visit IRS.gov: Read More→

Multifamily real estate can be one of the most profitable real estate business models but it can also come with some barriers to entry. Qualifying for a loan to buy apartments can be challenging but not impossible. One of the major misconceptions today is that a bank will lend only on the value of the property and will not look at your personal financial standing for the loan qualification. This simply is not true. A lender will always look at the financial wherewithal of the borrower. The good news is that you can have partners that bring some of the things that you may not have and help you to qualify for a loan.

What I am discussing here is what we call a “Sponsor”. A Sponsor is a partner that brings the needed qualifications that will help you get the loan and the deal done. Sponsors can bring many things to your business besides money and net worth. They can bring experience too. Let’s start with the money side first.

Most banks and lenders will want you and your team to have a net worth greater than the loan amount. If you want to qualify for a $1,000,000 dollar loan then you and your team will need to be worth at least $1,000,000. If you don’t personally have that much net worth then you will need to bring on a partner or partners that do have it, in order to satisfy the lender. Net worth is a gray area that will ultimately be judged by the lender, but for this conversation I will give you some guidelines from the loans I have done. Read More→

There are indicators home values in recreation and in particular what are considered mountain homes in many US market areas lost tax value year over year. The data I have been seeing using REIAComps this year is proof which can affect your investing business.

For those of you already connected to REIAComps, the control and feeling of confidence you have over your deals is priceless. Having tax data at the ready adds power and knowledge to your tool belt. Using REIAComps to investigate the changing tax value of dwellings gives you an unfair advantage.

For not the first time the value of the property on many county tax rolls went down in this year’s reassessment of many recreation homes. What this has meant is an increase in the tax millage rate for these counties, school districts and municipalities. Read More→