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Check Out These Great Authors & Articles In
The Profit Newsletter for December 2013

How to Manage Your Real Estate Career For Maximum Profits
By David Lindahl
Investing in real estate is profitable, fun and there are times when it can be psychologically rewarding. The real reason why you are doing it though, your motivation, has a lot to do with total financial freedom and with the ability it will give you to dictate your own future away from money worries and pressures that have anything to do with finances. Read More>>

How Many Leads Do You Need to Succeed?
By Dustin Griffin
Recently I wrote an article on “Determining Your Marketing Plan in 7 Easy Steps”. You can apply these 7 Steps to market your home buying and selling business or pretty much any other business, product or service you wish to promote. In this article, I want to expand on Step #1: Determine How Many Leads You Need to Succeed at… Read More>>

Busy Season? Don’t Lose Your Mynd!
By Don DeRosa
I love the holidays! But they can be pretty tough to navigate, what with parties, church and synagogue events, school happenings, gift shopping, cooking, work, and everything else I’ve got to manage. Thank goodness for my iPad, because otherwise, I would forget about Grandpa Bill’s annual Christmas Luau. And that party is a hoot! Read More>>

How Many Units to Retirement?
By Bill Ham
Do you have a solid plan to have your real estate investing be your vehicle to retirement? Do you know how many units you need to own to quit that job? Not having a solid plan of action is one of the biggest mistakes I see new investors making. Most people know that they want to be full time investors and they want the passive income from real estate to replace their working income but they never really form a solid plan to get to that goal. Read More>>

Self-Directed IRAs: Investing in What You Don’t Know
By Jim Hitt
If you’ve been following our articles, then you know we have often talked about how self-directed IRAs give you the freedom to invest in what you know and understand with your retirement account. This is the first time that we will talk about investing in what you don’t know. Introducing Jenna, she is new to real estate investing and knows some very experienced real estate investors she can lean on for advice. Read More>>

Prescreening Prospects
By Ron LeGrand
In our last issue, I dealt with Locating Prospects by using a virtual assistant to call FSBO ads. I said that’s pretty much all we do here and can’t keep up with the leads they generate. This month we’ll discuss how to determine if it’s a suspect or a prospect and quickly determine which need to be called and which need to be trashed. It all begins with my Property Information Sheet… Read More>>

You Can Rely on Assessed Value
By Mark Jackson
As a trainer of appraisers for nearly 15 years, to those who hold private and public roles, one thing is certain, local assessor offices around the country make relying on their values rough on investors. However, for those of you connected to REIAComps, the control and feeling of confidence you have over your deals is priceless. The stuff going on in places like Clark County, NV or even your own area won’t shake you. Read More>>

A Barrel Full of Fishhooks
By Bill Cook
Last Friday, I took Michele, a new real estate investor, out knocking on sellers’ doors. Hers was a very, very special case that touched my heart. Recently, Michele lost her husband. This caused her to fall into financially troubled times. In an attempt to dig out of the I-don’t-have-any-money pit, she attended one of those “free” real estate investing dog-and-pony shows that come to town regularly. Read More>>

The Most Cost Effective Way to Find Deals
By Matt Larsen
Alright – Winter Time! Time to hunker down and do some deals before Christmas. You want to give out good gifts this year right? Well get to it then! It’s cooler out so you will be less tempted by the beach and the pool and can focus on your marketing and getting the phone to ring. So as I am writing this article in early November, I’m thinking about the deals we did in October. Read More>>

The Contractor
By Michael Vazquez
With the holidays here everyone begins to think about everything they are thankful for having in their lives. I did the same and came up with the same things everyone else thinks about like family, friends, having a roof over my head, a career I love, etc. Then I began to think about what I was thankful for having in my work life. Read More>>

Unlicensed Real Estate Investors Beware!
By Jon David Huffman, Esq.
The more time I spend with real estate investors, the more I appreciate the variety and creativity of their real estate transactions. However, one thing I hear often concerns me: unlicensed real estate investors “brokering” a transaction for a fee. In the real estate world, transactions with real estate brokers are far from unusual. This is only noteworthy with investors because many investors do not hold real estate licenses. Read More>>

Business Spotlight on Atlanta Carpet Service
By Jeff Nix
Atlanta Carpet Service is a charter business member with Atlanta REIA and a veteran provider of flooring and installation services to the real estate specific market since 1990. Company owner, Jeff Nix is also the volunteer Business Member Director with AREIA. More than your ordinary flooring store, ACS has extensive experience and exposure to the Real Estate industry… Read More>>

Marketing to Motivated Sellers in Rural Communities
By Kathy Kennebrook
Since I am the type of investor who purchases properties in multiple counties and in multiple states, I have had lots of experience buying homes and vacant land in rural communities. In fact this is a part of our business that we find to be very profitable for us. I will share with you that buying properties this way is a science in and of itself. Read More>>

Case Study – Single Person Asset Protection
By Dyches Boddiford
Rick is a single person with no immediate family. After hearing a discussion I did on stacking Limited Liability Companies (LLCs), he wanted to know what he could do as a single person. At the time he owned seven properties. Three had almost no equity. One had over $60,000 equity and the other three varied from $25,000 to $30,000 in equity. Read More>>

Year End Business Health Check Up
By Karen Bershad
Q: I received a “Refundable Security Deposit” from my tenant. How do I enter this into QuickBooks? A: This is a Liability account that you will need to payout at some later date. In your chart of accounts you should have a Liability account set up for Security Deposits Escrow – or some name that sets it apart from security deposits you paid that are owed back to you (which is an Asset). Read More>>

What Makes or Breaks a Short Sale?
By Kimberlee Frank
Many Realtors and Investors really don’t know the secrets to a successful short sale. They think just because they make an offer close to market value that their short sale should go thru! Obviously, that is not correct. The secret to a successful short sale consists of several things including 1) listing price and 2) broker price opinion/appraisal on the property. Read More>>

Why Are Banks Letting Criminals Steal Homes From Them?
By Bob Massey
The last several months have been extremely encouraging for real estate investors who are purchasing notes from banks! Every day more and more judgments in foreclosure cases are coming down in the homeowner’s favor as judges become aware of the depth of fraud the banks have committed. What we are seeing in the market is more judges making the right decisions, and the banks starting to run scared of this turning tide. Read More>>

It’s Time for a New Year and a New Plan!
By Larry Harbolt
Here it is almost the end of another year and it’s time to ask yourself again, was this a prosperous year for you or not? If you feel that you haven’t had as prosperous of a year as you might have wished for you may want to ask yourself what you could possibly do differently next year to achieve your financial goals. Read More>>

The Time Is Now – Third Quarter Real Estate Market Review
By Russ Hiner
Last year at this time, we were all wondering what was going to happen to the market. My prediction? I knew that things were looking up, and guess what? I have good news. Here is the update for Atlanta’s 10 county area: sales are up, number of participating counties is up, prices are moving up, AND, most importantly: The bottom has come and gone in Atlanta. Read More>>

How to Make a Website For Fun or Profit – Part 3
By Tony Pearl
Hello – Nice To See You Again! Here’s what you’ve learned in the first 2 parts of this article: (1) How important it is to have a website, if you’re in business in the 21st Century. (2) There are so many things you can do with it, like get more business, educate your consumers, entertain an audience, inspire your community, link it to Facebook, etc… and that’s just scratching the surface… Read More>>

The Profit Articles for December 2013 on AtlantaREIA.com

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Check Out These Great Authors & Articles In
The Profit Newsletter for November 2013

Abandoned Properties – One Of The Best Kept Money-Making Secrets
By Reggie Brooks
When I began my career as a real estate investor in 1985, I stumbled across a little known area of real estate that had the potential to make us a ton of money. This was an area of the market that went unnoticed by most people. This was the area of abandoned properties. Read More>>

Five Marketing Musts
By Dustin Griffin
When it comes to 800 Pound Guerilla Marketing, I have learned that the number of motivated buyer and seller leads I am able to generate only seem to be limited by the time, effort and creativity I put into the marketing process, rather than how much money I spend. When I put in the time, effort and creativity needed to successfully market my real estate investing business, the leads come pouring in on a steady and predictable basis. When I slack up, the leads often start to dry up rather quickly. Read More>>

Building a Better Blog
By Don DeRosa
Last month, if you’ll remember, I talked about starting a blog. I began with a reality check, which I’ll repeat here: Blogging can be a great marketing tool, but it takes a lot of work to keep one up. And don’t expect riches! I gave you four other tips as well: make sure you have something to say, know your goals, identify your audience, and read other blogs. Those tips are just as important when you sit down to write individual posts, too. Read More>>

The Right Title Company
By Michael Vazquez
At the beginning of the year most people only considered a deal if it was at 65% loan to value (LTV) including repairs. As the year continued 70% LTV was acceptable and then 75% LTV. Today, there are investors buying properties as high as 80% LTV. The real estate market has changed and will continue to do so. In some neighborhoods new sales are driving ARV up daily. Do not get left behind using old numbers. If you have not changed, now is the time. Read More>>

Choosing the Road to Wealth
By Kathy Kennebrook
More people are becoming millionaires today than ever before in the real estate business. So what makes these wealthy entrepreneurs so different? They chose the road to wealth and real estate as the vehicle to get there. When choosing the road to wealth, there are some important distinctions that set the truly successful people apart from everyone else. Read More>>

Making the Impossible Deals Possible
By Bill Cook
A realtor asked me to talk about a real-world example of a recent deal we did that demonstrates how we make impossible deals possible. No problem, but I ask one favor: As I describe the homeowner’s situation, BEFORE you read how we structured the deal, think about how YOU would have done it! Read More>>

Locating Prospects
By Ron LeGrand
Last month, I said we were going to spend the next few issues going through an ACTS or Sandwich Lease Option deal. The first step is locating prospects, and that’s what we’re going to cover here. Actually, this is one of the easiest steps in the multiple steps of getting through a deal and getting your first check. Today, my team does nothing but call FSBOs to get more leads than we can handle, and in fact… Read More>>

IMPORTANT: Private Money and Cash Flow
By Russ Hiner
One of the most important rules to remember is that…
Cash Flow Starts and Stops a Business. As my career has matured, I have realized that the best way for me to grow my business is by making others wealthy — making YOU wealthy. I want you to learn from my mistakes and enhance your life and your business. I know that you can do it with certain essentials in place. Read More>>

How Countrywide Created 3.5 Million Fraudulent Loans and What It Means to You
By Bob Massey
My last two articles focused on the great Securitization Swindle the banks have been perpetrating for over a decade. It was successful because the banks created such a tangled web that it was nearly impossible for everyday people, lawyers, and judges to understand what was happening. But what if they committed a comparatively straightforward fraud? Surely that would be caught and stopped, right? Read More>>

Foreign Real Estate in Your Self-Directed IRA
By Jim Hitt
Many people are surprised to learn that not only can they take direct ownership of real estate within their IRA, but they aren’t even restricted to owning land within the United States. The IRS rules regarding what you may or may not invest IRA assets in are very liberal, and there is no IRS restriction whatsoever on ownership of foreign assets, including real estate. Read More>>

Create Your Own Luck in Real Estate Investing
By Matt Larsen
Howdy! As I am writing this in early October, I’m celebrating my one year anniversary of quitting my job as well as our 50th deal, as we closed deals 48, 49, and 50 last week. We are also a couple of weeks away from our one year anniversary of our 1st deal back in late October 2012. So as I reflect back on these milestones and the last year, I wonder how to attribute our early success. Was it luck?Read More>>

Nationstar and Auction.com Take Advantage of Short Sale Sellers!
By Kimberlee Frank
Recently we were working a short sale through Nationstar who requested that the Seller sign a document allowing Nationstar’s affiliate, Auction.com, to sell our short sale. Yes, you heard me correctly! We already had a buyer, submitted all the financials to Lender, and had the BPO (Broker Price Opinion). However, they hadn’t countered the buyer yet. The form that my agent and her Seller signed stated that Auction.com was allowed to hold an auction on the property and should my agent be a dual agent on both sides… Read More>>

Negotiate Like A Pro
By Bill Ham
Have you ever made a great offer, had it accepted and then for some reason it just fell apart? This is an all too common occurrence in the real estate business. The most common reason for this is an improper negotiation prior to the acceptance of an agreement. If you view a real estate negotiation as “win/lose” situation, then you probably got the buyer or seller to agree to something that they really weren’t comfortable with. Read More>>

Contractor’s Liens – Part 2
By Jon David Huffman, Esq.
This article is the second in a two-part discussion about contractor’s liens, specifically called mechanic’s and materialman’s liens in legal terminology. In last month’s article, I pledged to discuss two important items in more detail: (1) the requirements when filing a lien and (2) the requirement to file suit to enforce a lien. Read More>>

Case Study: Piercing the LLC Liability Shield
By Dyches Boddiford
Sally and Julie grew up together and have decided to invest in real estate. They both have regular jobs, but figure they can find a property, fix it up and rent it out in their spare time. They find a good property which takes most of their savings as a down payment. They figure that over the next few months, they can get the repairs done with money earned on their regular jobs. Read More>>

Local Market Actually Does Equal Location
By Mark Jackson
As a regular writer for the Atlanta REIA and Tampa REIA, I look forward to sharing with readers current, timely concepts and ideas regarding the valuation of real estate in many markets. Perhaps even better than sharing in these articles, is knowing REIAComps helps to quickly see how the location of your market impacts the profit of a deal year to year and in some cases, month to month. Read More>>

Do You Need Help with Reports?
By Karen Bershad
It is the goal of this column to answer questions about QuickBooks and how it is used in the REI arena. Know how to record transactions in the proper way and have your set of books in good shape when it comes time for taxes. It is our intention to do this by you the members submitting questions to Karen@SmallBusinessAdvisor.biz, and getting answers here in this column. Read More>>

How to Make a Website For Fun or Profit – Part 2
By Tony Pearl
Having a free website is great! This is particularly an attractive option IF you don’t run a “real” business, or if you’re only concerned with sharing your thoughts or ideas with the world. However, if you DO run a legitimate business, or if you’re interested in making money or being perceived as legitimate… or if you want to learn how a true website is made these days, then keep reading! Read More>>

Do You Have a Burning Desire to Buy One Hundred Houses per Year? If You Do, Be Sure You Are Prepared!
By Larry Harbolt
Recently I was talking to several of my students who each said they wanted to buy 100 houses next year. These students had listened to one of the gurus who had bought and sold over one hundred houses in one year and is now teaching people how to duplicate what he had done. I listened closely to these bright eyed, inexperienced students tell me they wanted to do the same as the guru, which frightened me to death. Read More>>

The Profit Articles for November 2013 on AtlantaREIA.com

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Download The Profit October 2013

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Check Out These Great Authors & Articles In
The Profit Newsletter for October 2013

Make Sure Your Rental Property Always Has a Cash Flow Using the Correct Formula Before You Buy!
By Larry Harbolt
I spent the last weekend attending a training event put on by one of the premier real estate teachers in the country today. As I listened to her teach phenomenal content, I kept hearing her talk about the MAO formula to determine the most that anyone should pay for any property. The basic MAO formula is… “The After Repaired Value of the subject property X 70% less Repair Costs = the most you should pay for any property” when using institutional or private financing. Read More>>

Determining Your Marketing Plan in 7 Easy Steps
By Dustin Griffin
One of the things I have learned over the years about my ongoing marketing efforts is that my results only seem to be limited by how much time, effort and creativity I put into the marketing process and not how much money I spend. The more time and energy I put into the marketing of my real estate investment business, the better my results tend to be. When I decide to slack up, get lazy and not stick to my marketing plan, my results quickly diminish as a result. Read More>>

How to Make a Website For Fun or Profit
By Tony Pearl
If you want to sell/educate/entertain/enlighten/etc. just about anything to anyone in the world these days, you can and should have a website. No matter what you do, you will be able to reach and communicate with anyone you desire with this incredible tool. But how do you make one? What do you put on it? What do you say? And how do you add those cool videos and funny pictures of cats on there that everyone loves? Yes, these are the questions I often hear people ask. And today, I’ll do my best to answer them for you! Read More>>

Using Your Self-Directed IRA to Invest in Hard-Money Lending – Part 2
By Jim Hitt
Hard money lending can be a great place for self-directed IRA or other retirement assets. There are, however, a few things to be aware of before you commit: Hard money loans can be illiquid. If you are nearing or over age 70, pay attention to your required minimum distributions. You must make these RMDs, even if the borrower pays the loan late. You may want to earmark RMD money to come from another source besides the hard money lending part of your portfolio. Read More>>

Getting Realtors to Work For You Bringing You Even More Sellers and Buyers For Your Real Estate Investing Business
By Kathy Kennebrook
Whether you are a serious investor or you’re just getting started in the real estate investing business, you need to have at least one Realtor on your “dream team”. There are many ways a Realtor can help you in your business, both on the buying and the selling side and they can play an integral role in building your business. Read More>>

What Is Securitization and Why Is It Fraudulent? Part 2
By Bob Massey
In last month’s issue, I began to explain exactly what securitization is and why it is fraudulent. For several years the mortgage banks in this country were flat-out making up transactions and trusts to cover for the fact that they were pocketing their investors’ money. But that wasn’t enough for them. They bundled up the loans, intentionally loaded them with toxic mortgages to increase their rate of return, and sold them to themselves for a “profit.” Read More>>

How to Talk to Sellers and Buyers If You’re Just Getting Started in Real Estate
By Matt Larsen
OK! So you have decided you want to get into real estate investing and you have gone to some real estate seminars and classes and read some books. Great! You have learned that the next step is to put out some marketing to get leads coming in, like people that want to sell their house, and hopefully at a discount. So you have started doing one or more of the following… Read More>>

To Blog or Not to Blog?
By Don DeRosa
Do you have a blog? Have you ever thought about starting one? For a while there, you could be shunned if you didn’t have a blog. Every Tom, Dick, and Alice had a blog. Heck, even my second cousin Flora, the cat lady, had a blog. All God’s children had a blog! Thankfully, the hype has subsided. But the potential benefits of blogs – and pitfalls – are still there. Read More>>

5 Tips to Getting Your Next Deal Funded Creatively!
By Bill Ham
Funding in the real estate business can be one of the biggest barriers to entry and one of the biggest headaches! Here are some tips to help get your next deal funded. Remember that the only thing that sellers really care about is solving their problems. Make your offers a solution to their problems. Do your homework on the seller and the property. Find out why they are selling and if the property is distressed in any way. Make an offer that solves the seller’s problems. Read More>>

Closing Short Sales Back to Back While the Money Stacks!
By Kimberlee Frank
I was just up speaking for Atlanta REIA when a member asked me “isn’t closing short sales back to back illegal?” My answer was NO! He asked me, when did that change? It has never changed. He just didn’t ask the right questions to the right Attorney or Title Company. Closing a short sale back to back can only be done with full disclosure which I always do on my paperwork to the short sale lender and to the “C” Buyer. Read More>>

Dinner With The Millionaire Next Door
By Bill Cook
Have you ever made a TOTAL fool of yourself – when you were least expecting to? Read on, and learn how I stepped square in the middle of it! Last night, one of my lifelong friends – Mary Ann Doering – invited Kim and me over to a small dinner party she was having for her neighbors. Mary Ann is a wordsmith and the woman who proofs my columns. Read More>>

Contractor’s Liens – Part 1
By Jon David Huffman, Esq.
In this article, I begin a two-part discussion about contractor’s liens. Under Georgia law, these liens are called mechanic’s and materialmen’s liens. I call them contractor’s liens for simplicity because these liens apply to a broad array of contractors including laborers, professionals and traditional subcontractors. Read More>>

How to Get Your First Check, Step-by-Step
By Ron LeGrand
Several members have asked me to lay out the steps required to get your first check with a detailed description of each. That’s exactly what you’ll get, but it’ll take several editions to get it done. You may want to copy these lessons and build your own manual as we go. Read More>>

Atlanta REIA Welcomes FirstCall Claims!
By Jeff Nix
New to the Atlanta REIA vendor family of services, FirstCall Claims is one of the largest and most experienced public adjusting firms in the Southeast, representing your best interests in the insurance claims process. FirstCall Claims exists to ensure that every last cent you are entitled to ends up in your pocket. Most people don’t realize that there are three types of insurance adjusters; only one of which has your best interests at heart. Read More>>

Working Smart: Making $5,000 From Selling Houses You Never See!
By Russ Hiner
Have you ever heard the saying, “Work smart, not hard”? It’s one of my personal favorites, and I’m here as a coach to show you how you can do it. I’m guessing that when you think about buying a property, you’re assuming a lot of leg work: traveling to the property, inspecting it, doing the due diligence, and checking your numbers. Read More>>

Changing with the Times
By Michael Vazquez
At the beginning of the year most people only considered a deal if it was at 65% loan to value (LTV) including repairs. As the year continued 70% LTV was acceptable and then 75% LTV. Today, there are investors buying properties as high as 80% LTV. The real estate market has changed and will continue to do so. In some neighborhoods new sales are driving ARV up daily. Do not get left behind using old numbers. If you have not changed, now is the time. Read More>>

Do You Need Help With QuickBooks?
By Karen Bershad
Q: I am having difficulty reconciling my bank account. I have reviewed each entry and have found that several of my deposits do not match the amount the bank has for them. How do I see all my detail on each deposit without clicking on each one to open it? Read More>>

From Top Secret Clearance to Minimum Wage at Krystal
By Dyches Boddiford
Major Zane Purdy’s life crumbled overnight… Maj. Zane Purdy was making over $100,000 a year employed by defense contracting company, General Dynamics, when his identity was stolen and sold to an identity theft and tax fraud ring. Now, Purdy makes $7.25 an hour at a Krystal to support his wife and two children. Read More>>

The Profit Articles for October 2013 on AtlantaREIA.com