Atlanta Real Estate Investors Alliance Blog

When you sell a property, a wrap will assure you retain control of a loan you have on the property. This may be a loan you got using the property as collateral or a subject-to loan when you purchased the property.

After the sale, the buyer pays you the full payment on the wrap and you pay the underlying mortgage payment. I suggest that you make the payment to the first mortgage holder automatically each month. Don’t wait around until your buyer pays you. Yeah, I know, properly constructed wrap documents do not require you to make the payments if the buyer doesn’t pay you.

But think about it. That underlying loan is in your name and it is your credit is on the line. Or it is in the name of someone who trusted you to make the payments when you took the property subject-to. In that case their credit could be damaged.

In either case, by keeping it current, you keep the lender from scrutinizing the loan and avoid late fees and foreclosure. When your buyer is in default, you want to control the collection process without the underlying mortgage holder interfering. Read More→

“A self-taught man usually has a poor teacher.” ~ Henny Youngman

Did you know that the little iPhone I carry around with me is more powerful than the computer that took Apollo 11 to the moon? It’s true. The Apollo 11 computer was just 64 kilobytes!

It’s amazing, isn’t it? I can balance my checking account on my phone. I get 200 cable stations on my TV, and I bet someday I’ll be able to watch them all at the same time. And I’m pretty sure my kids don’t know how to dial a rotary telephone.

Yes, we’ve come a long, long way from Atari Pong!

(For my younger readers, Pong was a very simple computer game where you made a little ball go back and forth and .…. Well, I guess you kind of had to be there.)

But technology development for its own sake just creates shiny distractions. In the rush for new hardware, new applications, and new and more sophisticated Internet sites, it’s easy to forget about yesterday’s website of the day.

So this month, I’m taking a look at a website that’s well-known and not so shiny anymore, but incredibly useful: Youtube.

Yes, Youtube. I know, it’s old news, but Youtube isn’t just for wardrobe malfunctions anymore. Sure, you can watch the Shamwow guy, or see the zoo lady tickle the baby penguin (I love that one!), or be inspired by that great Chrysler Super Bowl commercial from 2011. Read More→

Commercial Real Estate

Buying Commercial real estate with your self-directed IRA is not much different than buying a residential property, except commercial real estate purchases require a whole lot more due diligence.

Commercial Real Estate – Get the Real Numbers!

The offering says gross potential, (a.k.a. pro forma). This is one of the things you’ll run into all the time. The broker says it’s got a great pro forma. Here’s what it can generate. You want to find out what it did generate, not what it’s going to generate. You want to buy what it’s doing today.

With REOs, foreclosures and distressed sales, you’re going to have to evaluate things on a case-by-case basis and get the real numbers.

Commercial Real Estate – The Truth is in the Documents!

This section outlines the many important documents you need. Having said that, remember you can make the offer in advance of receiving all of the below as long as you make the offer contingent on the receipt of the documents you need. A note about contingencies: make sure you are very specific including amounts you expect to see on the documents, ability to get insurance at the current cost, verification from the county of zoning specific to what you intend to do with the property, etcetera.

A lease is the most important document. Read every lease line by line and make notes, or get somebody that knows how to read leases line by line. Are there any special arrangements? The landlord says they’re paying $1,000 a month, but it turns out that I’m obligated every year to repaint the place, re-carpet the place, and so forth. Read More→

When do you know if you have a great house to purchase, fix and flip?  Many investors start out their career looking for fast money.  They focus on Wholesaling by looking for deals to get under contract and then wholesale for a $2,000 to $5,000 profit.  I’m not saying that you can’t make money in wholesaling; however, you do need to consider all types of real estate transactions such as short sales, lease options, options, and subject to’s in order to find where you can make the most bang for your buck!

My 16 year old son, Taylor, has been involved in my business every since he was able to walk.  He is ready to get his first house!   We used to put him through windows of vacant houses to unlock doors and get inside so that we could make offers.  He has learned so much in my business; many of you heard him speak during my Foreclosures Gone Wild event in Georgia.  He is purchasing his 1^st house, rehabbing and hiring his friends, then flipping for profit with me, Kimberlee Frank, so he can purchase his first car! Read More→

Over the last couple of months, I have described some of the options lenders have when borrowers default on a real estate loan.  In this article, I will discuss borrower’s rights and lender’s obligations when lenders foreclose upon mortgaged real estate. 

If the loan documents are drafted properly, lenders have the right to foreclose without a court order when their borrower defaults on their mortgage.  However, lenders must foreclose legally.  Failure to provide proper notice and follow the legal procedures can lead to an illegal foreclosure.  If a lender breaks the law and forecloses illegally, then borrowers can sue the lender for “wrongful foreclosure.” 

In today’s market, I am often asked about “illegal foreclosures.”   The stories in this area are many and everyone appears to have heard of someone’s aunt or cousin whose mortgage was “forgiven” because of an illegal act by a lender.  The truth is that lenders very rarely make the types of errors that allow for complete forgiveness of the debt.  Most often the errors lenders make are technical and can be remedied.  Sometimes however, lenders do foreclose in an illegal manner and this can lead to liability for wrongful foreclosure.  Let me discuss a few rights of borrowers that are more commonly violated: Read More→

Anyone who has been to one of the Atlanta REIA monthly general  meetings has probably seen the Craftbuilt booth – they ‘re the company with the projector showing a picture montage of houses in various states of repair and disrepair. So who is Craftbuilt? They’re an Atlanta based Design-Build construction firm that serves the entire Metro  Atlanta area.  They have a full complement of crews, support, and logistical staff working full time on anywhere from eight to fifteen plus renovation and build projects at a time.  Craftbuilt handles simple  paint and carpet jobs for rental houses that would be lucky to sell for 40K all the way up to multimillion dollar houses.  being  Lead RRP certified, Craftbuilt specializes in old houses – the kind we see a lot of in the Atlanta real estate market. Their experienced in-house crews have tackled just about every problem you’re likely to find in the Residential market.  Their in-house design team has successfully developed upscale projects that have sold after just a few short days on the market. Whether you’re tackling a simple flip or a one of a kind historic renovation, Craftbuilt is there to make sure that the house is maximizing its potential.

 With heavy emphasis on logistics and scheduling, Craftbuilt runs a coordination back end system called BuilderTREND;  an online collaborative program that handles the client scheduling, communications, change orders, material selections, and more . This means that if you’re running one project or ten projects with Craftbuilt, your paperwork is kept to a minimum and keeping tabs on job flow and progress is easy as logging in to the client system. Read More→

I see a lot of people going into Short Sales these days and it really surprises me. A lot of these deals always seem to be more trouble than they are worth. But with decreasing inventory as we work through the last of the foreclosures from the 2008 recession, a lot of people are looking for the next niche to make their money on. I am going to go through some of the thoughts on this.

A lot of attorneys are wary to take on short sales. They require a lot of up front work (title, preparing prelim HUDs) for a deal that may not even get approved by the Bank. Do not be surprised if the attorney asks for money up front to cover their work in case the deal does not actually go through. Also many attorneys charge a “short sale fee” at closing that can be as much as their original attorney fee. So when you go into a short sale expect your costs to be higher, and likely to be required up front.

One you get approved, you would think yourself in the clear, but don’t be so sure. Banks have taken a beating on these short sales and they have learned that some people are lowballing the offer to the bank and turning around and wholesaling it to another investor for significantly more than the short sale offer. Banks feel they are entitled to your wholesale price as a payoff and so they have made arrangements to try to get that money. Read More→

There are several great and easy way to increase the response rates you are getting from your direct mail campaigns. The higher response rate you get from your mailings the more deals you are likely to create.

One way to increase the number of responses you get from your mailings is to use lumpy mail pieces in your envelopes to entice your reader to open the envelope and read your message. This could be a penny which makes noise or it could be a magnetic business card which would add dimension. Lumpy mail is actually defined as “anything that adds dimension to an envelope.”

It can be in the form of any type of enclosure such as a flat pen, or even a piece of candy or it can be the actual container in which the mail is delivered. “Statistics show that dimensional mailings can increase response rate by as much as 80%. There are many items that are lightweight and small that can be added to your mailings to increase response with very minimal expense. Design your direct mail piece so different that it demands people’s attention, and gets opened and read.

Because I use a response mechanism within the body of my letters (a section within the body of the letter that allows the seller to fill out all the information I need) when I send them out, I will sometimes use flat pens in my mailings so that the seller has the tool they need to fill out the response mechanism right in their hand. This just removes another step or another obstacle for the sellers and they will contact me even sooner. Read More→

Over the past 30 plus years I have learned that there are some different types of houses I shouldn’t have bought. Each of these types of houses gave me a financial seminar I didn’t really want to take but because of my inexperience at the time I made mistakes I don’t want you to have to make. Here are some of the different types of houses you should definitely avoid until you have some experience under your belt.

1. Houses located on a Busy Street.

Houses located on a busy street will definitely be hard to rent or sell simply because very few people want to have to listen to the noise of traffic day and night and have to back out into traffic every time they want to go anywhere. Another problem with houses located on a busy street is the danger of their children going into the street and being hit by a fast moving car. Houses on busy streets are not anything I want to invest money into that will definitely be hard to sell and set on the market for weeks or even months before they sell eating up my profits in holding costs.

2. Houses with small front yards.

Houses with small front yards are like houses on busy streets they place the house too close to traffic and noise will be a problem for anyone who lives there. Another problem with houses with small front yards is there isn’t room enough to have landscaping to enhance the looks of the property. Most homebuyers want a front yard to distance themselves from the street and the traffic and have a place to landscape and a place for their children to play. Read More→

In recent Washington State Supreme Court decision (Bain v. MERS), the court ruled that the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) is not and cannot be a legal beneficiary under Washington State Law.  In effect only the legal holder of the note, the real creditor, has the power to appoint a substitute trustee in order to transact such legal actions as a foreclosure.

The court asserted that the power of sale of a property is a significant one and trustees have tended to ignore their duties and obligations.  The court believed it was time to swing a little bit of the power back to the side of the borrower.

Essentially, the court ruled that the lenders could not continue to routinely ignore the state’s laws regarding the recording of deeds and then turn around and use the same set of state laws to foreclose on a borrower.  The court also left the door open for those with legal grievances to ask for compensatory damages against MERS and those who used MERS in wrongful foreclosures.

The court made this decision in part because MERS never has anything to do with the actual financial transaction.  It never handles any of the money in the loan process, and it never has anyone on staff with personal knowledge of the principal for whom they are acting.  Therefore, MERS has no standing when it comes to a foreclosure. Read More→

My first property turned out to be my first mistake in the real estate business and one of the best lessons I ever learned.

I am a pilot by trade. I graduated college and went straight into the flight academy. I flew and instructed there until my first real job as a corporate pilot for a medical supply company in Macon, GA. When I quit that full time job to go into real estate full time I had saved up $10,000 and had one deal under my belt. My first deal…a duplex which cash flowed $300 dollars a month. It was the best deal I ever did because it got me going in the business and now I have almost 400 units and 8 employees. I also made one giant mistake!

Always place the deal in context of the surrounding market. I analyzed the deal like I was taught and it did cash flow accordingly. I closed on the deal for $40K. Shortly after I attended my first REIA meeting in which I was promptly told “you’re an idiot!” Unfortunately I had to agree with the person that was telling me this. He and his friends had been buying similar duplexes in the neighborhood for $20K! I paid twice what the property was actually worth. Read More→

One thing everyone knows or should know about me by now is that I always make sure each transaction I participate in is a win-win situation. I do this to insure that the people I do business with continue to come back, become my walking billboards and think about me any time they have another deal. Many of these individuals also continue to work with me because I taught them much of what they use today make money.

I do not sell courses, books, or have any packages to sell. In fact, all the mentoring I have done to date has technically been for free. Obviously, the reason for training someone is in the hopes that they will pick up a fraction of what you teach them and find deals. You end up with deals and they make money for finding them, it does not get easier than that. Keep in mind that although it may not cost you money, it does cost time and time is money. A few months ago, an individual that I had mentored and assisted in earning $20,000+ in a matter of a few months stole a deal I negotiated and paid me ZERO. This taught me a lesson I had not followed before which is, “Be very selective in who you choose to mentor.” Although we would like to believe everyone has good intentions there are individuals out there that do not believe in win-win situations and they must be avoided. Read More→