We’ll be ringing in the New Year soon. Will you have wrapped up your 2015 finances by then?

There’s something very satisfying about turning our calendars to January. It always feels like a fresh start. We resolve to develop new, better ways of using our work and leisure time. We reflect on what we accomplished in the last 12 months, and we look forward to achieving even more in the next 12.

But sometimes we have a nagging feeling that we forgot something. And it often has to do with our finances, both personal and professional.

You can take steps now to make New Year’s Day less worrisome. Doing some extra work in QuickBooks during December will ensure that you’ll start 2016 ready to move ahead, rather than scrambling to see what you missed on January 2. Read More→

Despite what you may be hearing in the news, foreclosures are increasing nationwide. Sure the media has been trying to paint a rosy picture by showing areas where foreclosures have been decreasing, but those are only specific areas. When looked at nationwide, things do not look so great. Foreclosures are bad enough, but the fact that the vast majority of these are sham foreclosures pushed through by pretender-lenders with no right to foreclose should be a source of national shame. Fortunately there have been two major court decisions that show the tide is continuing to turn against the banks and in favor of homeowners and real estate investors.

In US District Court for Oregon, a judge reaffirmed that the Supreme Court of the United States settled that a rescission is effective at the time that the notice is sent, whether or not it is sent within the three-year period set out by TILA. The bank in this case was arguing that the law was never intended to let borrowers cancel their loan transactions. The court specifically shot this notion down, saying that, while the banks and trustees have an interest in the finality of these transactions, consumers have a “countervailing interest in avoiding wrongful foreclosure.” This is a HUGE decision because it affirms that, no matter what the banks say or what lower courts try to argue, a rescission is effective as an operation of law the moment it is dropped in the mail. It does not matter if the rescission is done 15 years after the loan is consummated. If the bank fails to contest the rescission during the 20 day period established by TILA, the note and mortgage are gone. Their only option after that period is to go to a court that has the proper jurisdiction and prove that the rescission is wrongful and that they can prove standing without using the note or mortgage (now legally nonexistent) as evidence. Read More→

Lots of real estate courses out there talk about the subject of co-wholesaling or JV’ing. (Joint Venturing for short) It sounds simple enough. If you are new, work with someone experienced to do business together that seem trustworthy. If you are experienced, work with people you know and trust. You can market their deals for them and hopefully bring them a Buyer. It’s very simple so what could go wrong?

In a word: Everything

If there is one topic that I think is one of the most scathing I hear from Buyers, it’s co-wholesaling. It ranks right up there with off base renovation estimates.   How can something so simple be so problematic?

Let’s take a look at the issues so you can see how to avoid these pitfalls and have more success with this underutilized subject. This is a simple subject as long as you get it right. Read More→

Entrepreneur’s minds go a hundred miles an hour in many directions. This can be great at times and at other times not so great. In the case of real estate investors, it tends to be the latter. Real estate investors have a habit of learning how to make money in one aspect of real estate investing and then another and then another etc.

Before the investor realizes it, he/she is just doing what comes easiest and not considering the most profitable exit strategy. Or worst, the investor has not fully learned one strategy and is not maximizing profit. How can you solve this issue? FOCUS!

Investors usually progress in the following order: bird dog, wholesaler, flipper, landlord, and lender. This is not mandatory but it tends to be a natural progression for many. At the beginning bird dog will usually only bird dog because it is all they know how to do. Naturally, by being in the real estate investing community, they begin to learn how to wholesale.

At this point, the wholesaler will still be pretty focused but then he/she begins to buy-fix-sell properties. This is where it gets tricky. Should the investor wholesale a property he/she finds or invest in the property himself/herself. This question comes up every time the investor puts a property under contract.

Then after a few homerun deals the investor decides it is time to begin keeping a few homes as rentals. A few months go by and now the question to wholesale, fix-sell, or fix-rent begins soon after placing a property under contract. Read More→

As you probably know if you have been reading my articles, I strongly advocate using direct mail to locate highly motivated sellers for your Real Estate Investing business no matter what market you live in and no matter what your real estate market is doing. With the market being in its current state of affairs, there are more motivated sellers than ever before if you know how to find them.

As a seasoned Real Estate Investor I fully understand that I need to be locating the most highly motivated sellers in order to construct the very best deals. Remember, the profit on a deal is made when you buy a property.

In addition, while many investors enjoy working with pre-foreclosures, short sales, REO properties and buying houses on the court house steps, these properties take time to close on and there is a lot of competition for them.

In the meantime you need to be able to continue to fill your funnel with cash producing deals in order to keep your business moving forward. Working with motivated sellers that your competition knows nothing about is definitely the way to accomplish this goal and direct mail is the best technique to draw in these very motivated sellers. Read More→