If you have Buyers that are experienced, they know the drill.  A wholesaler gets a deal and pushes it out to their Buyers list.  Then all the wholesalers on that list send it to their Buyers with some marking up the price.  And then the next level does the same.  And somewhere in there are the bird dogs that literally do nothing but press the forward button thinking ‘easy money’.  Problem is the Buyer is on all of these people’s lists.  Depending on the timing, he may see the lowest price first or one much higher.  Or maybe the Buyer is not on the primary wholesalers list so he never sees the original deal.

At this point, the Buyer naturally goes to the lowest price wholesaler to get the deal.  But if that wholesaler doesn’t control the deal, then the relay of information from wholesaler to wholesaler begins.  And more often than not, inexperience or greed or dishonesty shows its head.  You’ll find few cash Buyers are stupid so they pick up on this and walk from the deal.  People can sense when something is up and all it takes is one less than confident conversation to kill the opportunity. Read More→

Everyone knows that the first thing we need to do to be successful in real estate investing is to find the Holy Grail of real estate: The Motivated Seller.

And when it comes to finding that beautiful motivated seller, there’s essentially two options: FREE and PAID.  Another way of saying that: TIME or MONEY.

Obviously, if you have more money than time, you’ll have more choices at your disposal. Direct Mail is most likely your highest & best choice. Hiring someone to find those motivated sellers for you would be another great option.  But this article is NOT about those options. We’ll save that for another time.

No, THIS article is for those of you without the means to pay much for your marketing. This article is for those of you who are currently ‘financially challenged’ (another way of saying broke), or who have more time than money AT THE MOMENT. Read More→

This past February, I attended the Keller Williams Family Reunion in New Orleans, along with 15,000 other “Type A” real estate agents. One of the highlights of this convention is Gary Keller’s Vision Speech. He makes this speech to educate us, so that hopefully, we will be the economist of choice in our market.

“You have to look at the past to predict the future”, says Gary Keller, “Mortgage rates are national rates.” Keller said, “While the government does not exactly know how to raise rates, but, low rates are helping affordability in most U.S. markets.” Mortgage rates averaged 3.85 percent in 2015, down 32 base points from the 2014 average. Since the Federal Reserve is now actively raising the federal funds rate, it is expected there will be upward pressure on mortgage rates in 2016.

Last year was the 5th best year in home sales in the history of home sales due mostly to the mortgage rates being so low. In 2015, 5.26 million homes were sold, making it the best year for home sales since 2006, which was the height of the market. In 2016, some slowdown in sales is expected as interest rates slowly increase. Read More→

Creating value in real estate is a great way to make money. In this article of the Master Lease Option (MLO) Series I will discuss how you can add value to your real estate deals using MLOs so you can make more MONEY!

Getting a seller to accept a master lease option deal is everything when using this technique. If a seller doesn’t believe that giving you a MLO on their property is the best option, then they won’t. Your job is to make the seller realize the value in allowing you to solve their problems with a MLO offer. The best way for you to present this idea to the seller is to know how to create value for this person. This will start by analyzing and becoming familiar with what the deal needs. In most cases we will get MLO deals done on distressed assets. You will show the seller that you can “un-distress” their property with a MLO and this is the biggest step in getting your offers accepted. If you can turn their property around then you have created value and the likelihood that you will complete the transaction is much better and that is what the seller wants. For the MLO to end in a sale and this is what you need to convince them of.

 Why is the seller selling? You should get the best answer to this question as the first step in your analysis of any deal. Sometimes sellers will be honest in their answer and sometimes not. First ask the question directly. No matter what type of answer you get ask several more questions to get the real story. Read More→

One day I wanted to go fishing to a new spot. I knew where it was but had no clue as to how to get there from where I was at the time. I could have used a GPS if I had the address. I could use technology but Google maps needs to know the general area where I wanted to go. Another option, I could just ride out in the general direction and hope to see something I recognized. I could go old school and get a folded map. My time is money so I needed to go out there and get the fishing done, have my fun and relax. Then get back in time to meet my coaching clients for a discussion of how to create inventory fast, efficiently (low effort high return), and effectively (cost effectively). I needed the most direct route to get to the fishing spot with no time to loose, which maximizes my efforts and gets to the sweet honey fishing hole fast. I chose the old tried and true method. It would get me there. The good news was the map was only 12 years old.

Well the fishing was great and the method of maximizing the fun worked. You are asking yourself “why do I care about your fishing”?  Because fishing is similar to creating inventory!  You must do the right presentation to get the fish to be interested in what you have to offer and catch the fish or land the deal.  So if you are offering cash to the seller, they might be interested unless they have a big tax liability, have done a loan modification, and have 2 years before they can sell. If you offer fair market price in cash the owner will definitely be interested (however you will not be able to sell it or turn a profit).   I use artificial bait when I fish (creative financing). I also do catch and release (wholesale).  It takes a certain magic to look like the real thing, smell like the real thing, and get the fish to strike (close the opportunity and get paid)! Read More→