Atlanta Real Estate Investors Alliance Blog

As this year comes to an end, I am reflecting on what went right and what areas in my life do I need to focus on, to make some improvements to reach my highest level of success?

Part of having a very successful business, involves 3 basic principles; purpose, attitude and action.  Let’s look at these 3 basic principles. The good news is the chances of us getting it right is because the change is within us and we don’t need to depend on anyone else for this success. Did you hear me! The bad news is the change is within us, which means we have to take responsibility and action to get it right.

Number 1 – What is your Purpose?

When we have an outrageous WHY, the opportunity for success goes up dramatically.

SO ask yourselves…. why do you think real estate is the right vehicle for you?  What problems can this vehicle help to solve in your life?  How is this new wealth vehicle different from the current work you are doing? This is not a get rich quick scheme.  Read More→

Picture this… you buy a house in cash that you plan to renovate and sell. Two years later you have renovated the house and you try to take out a line of credit to purchase another property to renovate and sell. You’re excited to move forward until the bank tells you that you don’t own your house anymore because it has been foreclosed and sold to someone else. This is exactly what happened to a Montana couple. The family sued, and during the trial the bank did everything they could to get out of their responsibility for the error. Fortunately the court and the jury saw through the bank’s lies and ordered them to pay $350,000 in lost profitability, $100,000 for emotional distress and $1.6 million in punitive damages. This is part of a larger national trend that shows courts coming down hard on the side of wronged homeowners, creating opportunities for investors across the country.

Florida’s 4^th District Court of Appeals recently made a very subtle change that changes what the banks are allowed to submit as business records to prove a loan was made. The banks have been utilizing the tactic of sending employees with no knowledge of the loan in question to court in order to testify about the general practices of the bank instead of actually addressing the specific loan. The witness uses all the right buzzwords, stating that they are familiar with the books and records used by the bank and that entries were made near the time of the transaction. However, they have no direct knowledge which transactions were done by their employer. Before this ruling, the courts were acting under the presumption that the homeowner did indeed receive a valid loan from someone in the chain that leads to the foreclosing party. Now the presumption is that, though documents might have been executed, a loan was not necessarily made. This now puts a burden on the foreclosing party to prove with actual, valid documentation that a loan was made and that they have the right to enforce the loan.  Read More→

I am often asked whether or not there are still good real estate deals out there with the market constantly changing like it has been. The real estate market will always experience ups and downs and as real estate investors we need to be trained on utilizing the best tools to locate the motivated sellers within those markets. We also need to learn to be flexible in our marketing in order to bring in the highest number of new deals.

I often hear comments like, “you were just lucky” or “you got in on the real estate game when there were still lots of deals out there, it’s just not that way anymore”. Those folks couldn’t be more wrong in their thinking. This is just “stinkin’ thinkin’” as my friend Ron LeGrand would say. There are always deals to be made if you know where to look for them no matter what your local real estate market is doing. This is just a matter of having a marketing mind.

Using direct mail to attract motivated sellers is always one of the best tools in the real estate business for locating highly motivated sellers on a regular basis. I also utilize other tools along with my direct mail, such as lumpy mail pieces to make my direct mail stand out or I will send CDs to my sellers explaining to them why they should work with me. Using a little creativity with your direct mail campaigns will increase the response rate significantly. There are several reasons for this.  Read More→

Welcome Back! If you’re just joining us, we’re talking about what Squeeze Pages are in the wonderful world of Internet Marketing. In the last issue, we covered what the heck a Squeeze Page IS & why you should care.  In this issue, we’re picking up where we left off, staring with…

Why Do Businesses Use Squeeze Pages & Why Are They So Powerful?

Let’s use that example of the restaurant giving away a free dessert or appetizer. They would usually sell that item for $4-$9, right? But then what? They drop the check, collect their money & say good-bye to the customer… Hoping that they’ll come back someday soon.

These days, that’s not enough anymore! If a business is not collecting & building a list of their prospects & customers, they’re missing out on a HUGE opportunity to follow up and maintain communication with them! During that process, they can provide value and build a better relationship with their list.  Read More→

Learning to make your mark in real estate takes discipline in following a set of principles. Using REIAComps to guide your deals is beneficial.  These principles have guided many real estate investors to initial and repeated success. Ignoring them, on the other hand, is likely to either slow down or impede your success.

I’m sure you have heard the old saying “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. This is definitely true in the arena of real estate investing.  Many investors live by this motto.  They have either developed this system themselves, often over a period of years of blood, sweat and tears. Or they have modeled it on the system of someone else they respect. Either way, they know that their system works, and they do not deviate from it.

Most properties tend to tell a story.  The key to finding the right investment property is largely a matter of locating a good property and doing a bit of research to uncover the “full story” about it. This full story includes, among other things, the fair market value of the property, the existence of any liens or liabilities (in the case of pre-foreclosure properties) and the true condition of the property.  Read More→

Admit it…this may be a familiar story to you.  You learned about this money maker called wholesaling, did a few deals and made good money, celebrated and then told everyone how awesome this business is. 

But then the dark time hit…

Leads dried up.  Phone calls have slowed down.  Market dynamics may have shifted.  The list could be endless.  Bottom line, all of the sudden the euphoria of making money quickly and easily has been replaced with concern and worry about what’s going on.  All of a sudden your dreams coming true seem distant again and going the wrong direction…perhaps very quickly.

Or maybe the story goes like this…  You learned about wholesaling and got excited about it.  You did marketing one or two times, talked to a few people but nothing quite panned out.  Maybe even three or four times.  You got discouraged and decided this wasn’t for you.  Read More→

Selling often has a negative connotation to it. I hear people say sell is a “4 letter word”. This is an unfortunate point of view as selling is an extremely important part of being a successful real estate investor/business owner. Selling in real estate has many more functions than just buying and selling the actual property. We sell ourselves to investors when we raise money for our deals. We sell when we convince a realtor to work with us and give us the hot deals or when we convince a seller to give us the contract instead of someone else. If you want to use any creative financing techniques, such as a master lease option or seller financing, you are definitely selling the owner or agent on that idea.

Don’t think that selling is just describing the value of something and hoping someone wants what you are describing. Selling is helping. The first step to understanding a successful sale is to find out what someone needs help with. If the person does not need something or doesn’t think they do, then you are not likely to sell them anything.  Here are a few steps to better selling.

1. Ask lots of questions. What does the person need or think they need?

You need to identify a perceived need and then fill it. Notice I said “perceived” need. If the person doesn’t think they need anything… then they don’t. You need to identify what they need. If you see that they have a problem but don’t know it, you need to gently bring the problem to their attention. An example might be a distressed property. They may think the value is much more that it is. You need to educate the seller on the real value while showing them that they have a need. The need here is to sell the property when a buyer may not be able to get a loan because of the distress they let the property fall into. This is where you might “sell” the idea of a master lease option or seller financing to get the property back in good shape where a bank will then give you a loan and you can complete the purchase.  Read More→

In the Real Estate Investment industry and as a contractor, you sell services to your customers, you’ll need to understand how to use QuickBooks’ time-tracking features.

Usually contractors do not keep much if any inventory on hand. Most work is done with materials either supplied by your customer or you purchase what is needed to complete that particular job and bill the customer accordingly.

But if you are only billing for time and services, that becomes a different story. There’s no real inventory tracking involved — except in terms of knowing how much manpower you have available at any given time. But just like you wouldn’t want customers to walk off with merchandise they haven’t bought, you don’t want any billable minutes or hours to be ignored. Both scenarios eat into your profits.

Gone are the days when you had to count on employees to fill out detailed timecards and hope that they remembered to document everything. QuickBooks can help ensure that you’re getting paid for all time and services rendered. Read More→

When it comes to investing, there’s a lot of information out there—and a lot of misinformation as well. Being able to tell which is which is one of the keys to educating yourself as an investor and keeping your retirement investments secure, safe, and stable over the long haul. That’s why we love to dispel some of the common myths and objections when it comes to Self-Directed IRAs—and today, we’re tackling Real Estate IRAs.

Are we saying that all objections or questions about Real Estate IRAs—or Self-Directed IRAs in general—are meritless and without value? Of course not. But by the time you’re finished reading this article, you should have a solid grasp of which objections you might want to consider…and which ones really aren’t objections at all:

Common Objection #1: Real Estate IRAs Leave You Little to Invest With!

The idea of contributing, say, $100 per month to an IRA is easy when you’re investing in stocks and mutual funds. When you’re investing in real estate, many people understandably wonder how a similar strategy might work when it comes to Real Estate IRAs.  Read More→

If you are working on a short sale close to the end of the year, you will find that they are approving the short sales quicker versus throughout the year.  The Banks work on numbers every quarter giving us 4 quarters per year to get a short sale approved.  The closer to the end of the quarter, the more likely they will approve the short sale and when it comes to year end, the Banks are known to take deeper discounts, just so they can get the property off their books.  Did you know that the Banks are required to hold in escrow three times the amount of their bad debt?  Liquidating debt, aka short sales, allows the Banks to open up more money to the market that they can send out into their banking industry and loan out.  When they loan the money out to customers, they receive interest, origination fees and points on the money.

When you submit a short sale to the Bank/Lender, the HUD Settlement Statement shows the negotiator what the NET is going to be in order to satisfy the debt.  The NET figure is different than the Purchase Price.  In fact, when you are negotiating with the Bank, you need to clarify that the “magic number” you are discussing is the Purchase Price and not the NET figure to them. 

The Purchase Price includes all of the fees associated with selling the property such as title work, Realtor commission, settlement fees, tax prorations, outstanding liens, second or third mortgages, homeowner association dues and any other closing costs.  When the short sale is submitted, the negotiator will usually run an REO Net sheet based on the loan balance, status of where it is in the foreclosure action, and how long it would take to get the property to foreclose and become an REO (Real Estate Owned) by the Lender.  This helps the investor who owns the loan to determine whether or not a short sale discount would allow them to profit more than an REO property, and which way is most profitable to liquidate the property from their inventory.  Read More→

“Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature ~ Nhat Hanh

The Sign-n-Send app for my iPad and iPhone is a really handy tool for my everyday use. I find it very convenient to send documents via email, but sometimes it’s hard to put your signature on there without being on a desktop. It is very intuitive, just tap and hold to open the pdf and edit.

For a long time I struggled with signing pdfs on my phone. I tried taking a photo and writing over it, an electronic stamp, other apps as well, and none are as fast and simple as Sign-n-Send. If you have an email with a pdf attached, just tap and hold the attachment, and a window will show you a few options. You will want to select ‘open in’ and then select ‘sign-n-send’. From there the app is very easy to navigate.

The user will always go through another application to get to this app. Mostly through your mail app or a messaging app. When you tap and hold the pdf to open, it does take a few seconds to open. Once it is open, use one finger to draw on the page, but pinch with two fingers to zoom in and out. If you have a screen protector, better to put down the stylus and use your finger for the signature line.  Read More→

I’m sure you’ve noticed when I sign off, I prefer “To your quantum leap.”  People often ask me what I mean by that or how to have a quantum leap.  The only way I know to answer is to “keep fertilizing your crop.”  Let me explain.

You must ask yourself certain questions and continuously analyze what you’re doing at every moment.  Whether you’re young or old, what are you doing to fertilize your crop?  Is every day the same or are you taking on new challenges and learning new stuff?  Are you playing not to lose or playing to win?  Does your seed have a chance to grow and if it does, will it produce a crop worth having?  Are you spending so much time making a living you can’t take time to get rich?  If you are rich, are you complacent and bored or are you putting it on the line to stay in the game and win big?  Do you look forward to tomorrow because it’s just another day full of problems?  Have you had some major set- backs with your finances or health that you’re letting take you out of the game, or are you playing no matter what?

Everyone faces adversity at some point, many more than others.  Yet, successful people just keep ticking.  They keep fertilizing their crop and looking for new harvest.  They survive the test of time because they refuse to quit when things get tough and because they love what they do to the point it becomes their life… their station.

You never know at what point in your life a major turning point will take place that catapults you further in one year than all previous years combined.  I’ve seen that happen a lot lately with some of my students and in my own life.  Read More→