Real Estate Investors Association of Greater Cincinnati

          If you don’t understand what’s funny about this line of thought, look again, because you may have the same problem. The investor is so focused on what the INVESTOR wants that he apparently hasn’t even bothered to find out what the SELLER’S story is.

          In fact, it’s a BIG PROBLEM when we get so focused on our strategies and our goals and our desire to get a deal done that, we completely forget that unless what our strategy has to offer meets the needs of our sellers, THERE IS NO DEAL.

          Jumping ahead to “How do I write up a creative deal” before you know what the seller owes, why she’s selling, and whether taking payments would meet her goals is putting the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse. Worrying about finding a buyer for property x before you know that the seller will take a wholesale price for property x is torturing yourself for no reason.

         And it’s easy to make assumptions about seller motivation: that a seller in foreclosure will always want to sell; that a seller who inherited a house doesn’t want it; that a se
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        It seems like every new Wholesale School student immediately stumbles upon a landlord who wants to sell ALL of his properties, then wants to know how to tackle a package of 4, or 9, or 37 single family homes all at once. And they're already rented, and the don't need any work, and the new wholesaler is excited because this looks like a deal that could make tens of thousands of dollars all in one fell swoop.

        These deals are problematic for a number of reasons:

1. I rarely see one where the landlord isn't asking more-than-market for the properties. He's willing to sell, but isn't really anxious to sell
2. It's basically never the case that the houses don't need work. Yes, I KNOW there's someone living in them. That doesn't mean that the roofs aren't 22 years old, or that the furnaces work consistently, or that they won't need a $5,000 turnover when that tenant inevitably moves out.
3. Each property has to be evaluated separately, which is a LOT of evaluation for a deal that's unlikely to come together.
4. Coordinating a single buyer to buy a whole package of non-turnkey properties, especially if they're in different parts of the city, isn't
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            Go to any real estate association anywhere in the country, and you’ll meet endless excited folks who are sure that their futures—and fortunes—lie in wholesaling houses. Go back 6 months later, and you’ll find that 90% of those folks have never successfully closed a deal. In most cases, this isn’t due to “inactivity” or “fear” or any of the usual excuses. Many of these folks have actually tried and failed, to make a go of it. In my experience, there are 3 main reasons for this:

1. They don’t understand WHY wholesalers make money. They understand, at least in a basic sense, HOW it happens: you put a deal under contract, and you find someone who wants to pay more than you did, and that “more” is your profit.

But they don’t understand something very basic: that buyers don’t just write a check because the deal is available, or cheap, or even because it’s cheaper than other properties that might be for sale in the same area.

Buyers for wholesale deals are real estate investors, right? So, in order to be interested in a deal, the deal can’t just “make money”; it has to make ENOUGH money to provide a satisfact
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The concept of “branding” is an elusive topic.

Many are of an opinion of what a brand is, however, few know the true definition. More important, even fewer know how to properly leverage their personal brand for greater results in business and life.

Your brand is more than a logo. It’s who you are, your reputation in the market, how you are perceived. Your personal brand stands for something. It’s a positive, negative, or natural feeling in your prospects or colleagues minds.

A properly designed and delivered brand opens the doors to greater opportunities, earning a higher income, producing more sales, or positioning you as an expert in your field.

We all have a brand whether we know it or not. In fact, not having a brand – is a brand. Think, how are you being seen in the market. Are you being intentional with your brand, or is it a byproduct of how other perceive you?

Here are 3 specific advance personal branding strategies you can employ starting today to grow your business.

1. Getting Your Brand Known. You are in control of your brand. Give it a name, a look, a feel. Start with your reputation. Then make your colleagues, business associates, clients, customers, employers know your brand. In today’s market social media plays a big role. Are you being conscious of your presence in social media – remember, your market is watching.

1. What you say DOESN’T c
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          When real estate investors discover they can use their IRA, solo 401(k) or other tax-exempt account to invest in real estate, they sometimes mistakenly think it will take a while to build up the balance needed
to get started with any type of significant real estate investing.

          It’s true that CONTRIBUTIONs are limited; in tax year 2021 (you can still make contributions for ’21 through April 15th, 2022) you can contribute up to $6,000 to a traditional or Roth IRA when you’re under age 50; up to $7,000 when you’re 50 and older.

          Despite these relatively low dollar amounts,
there are strategies for real estate investors looking for ways to grow their IRA in a short period of time. Provided you follow the rules, wholesaling or flipping options provide two such opportunities grow a small retirement account significantly.

Wholesaling in an IRA

          Wholesaling is essentially an A to B to C transact
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Lordy, people, there are SO many ways to put together real estate deals. SURELY there’s one out there that you’ll like/understand/benefit from.

If you don’t like full-on wholesaling—maybe because ugly houses repel you, or some of the areas that work well aren’t neighborhoods in which you want to spend time, or you don’t like making super-low offers—then learn how to do creative deals, and flip those.
     
Creative financing techniques—buying properties using seller-held mortgages, contracts for deed, lease/options, and subject to the existing loan—are usually thought of as ways for you, the buyer, to control real estate for some period of time so that you can exercise some exit strategy that requires control.
     
For instance, you might buy a property subject to the existing loan so that you can renovate it and rent it for the long term. Or you might get a “split funds” seller mortgage for a year because you intend to renovate and resell the property within that year. Or you might control the property with a lease with the option to buy so that you can sell it with a lease with the option to buy (with, of course, a higher overall price, higher down payment, and higher monthly payment coming to you than the
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   Let’s face it: making deals complicates our lives.  

    When we first become involved in real estate, buying a property can be very anxiety-provoking: I mean, really, even though we’ve done all our due diligence and run the numbers 15 different ways and talked to our favorite mentor about it and it STILL looks like a great deal, how do we ever REALLY know? And this leads to self-esteem problems, as we’re constantly second-guessing ourselves and berating ourselves over our lack of confidence. 

    And even for seasoned investors, taking on a new deal is stressful—an accepted offer means that we must find a buyer, start a rehab, or put an ad in the paper to get a tenant. Plus, there’s the additional bookkeeping when the checks roll in, and, of course, the taxes to pay on the profit at the end of the year… 

    Since stress and anxiety lead to psychological and medical conditions, including high blood pressure, overeating, bad hair days, fear of success, and a whole host of others, making deals should obviously be avoided at any cost. So, I think it’s important, for the sake of our own health and well-being, that we all learn how to NOT get trapped into making a deal. Here are some suggestions: 

        1. Make Sure You Know EVERYTHING Before You Do ANYTHING. <
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             One of the most boring topics – to most real estate investors, anyway -- is insurance.  That’s why so many get themselves in trouble when it’s too late to do anything about it. 

             As a real estate investor, you NEED to understand the basics of insurance that directly impacts your business.  Property insurance and liability insurance are the backbone of your business’s asset protection plan. Having a major insurance issue – and not having the proper insurance coverage in place – could easily cause your real estate business to go OUT of business, and take all the wealth you’ve built up over time down the drain with it.

            Our goal, thru these articles, is to provide a better basis to your real estate insurance knowledge so that you can ask the right questions and make the right decisions when it comes to your insurance.

            The first topic, as a basis of understanding, is to discuss “reconstruction value” versus “street value”.  Too often people use street value—what the property would sell for today—to try to determine what value they need to use to insure a property.

     
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 That is the question every rehabber asks himself/herself.  Many cities and states don’t legally require that all contractors be licensed (though most require that plumbers, electricians, HVAC contractors, and the like are). But even in places where a license IS required, there are plenty of unlicensed folks who are happy to do jobs ‘under the table’.

The natural thinking among real estate investors is that we can save money by not using licensed folks: that if I use a licensed contractor the job is going to cost me more money.  

Yes, I have asked that question myself.  And I have tried to cut corners by hiring the “handyman” who is not licensed.  Here are a few of the results I have seen.

1. On an early project I discovered the contractor who was doing excellent work, had a cooler on the job.  I didn’t think much about that until I noticed beer cans on the job site.  So, I dropped in one day unexpectedly and discovered my contractor was drinking beer on the job.  When questioned, he replied, “I’m doing fine.  I am perfectly OK to do the job while drinking.  To prove it, I can trim my thumb nail with this power miter saw and will not cut myself.  Here, let me show you.”  He didn’t get
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              Beginning investors have a tendency to get stressed out by the very thought of “negotiation”.

              They put off calling sellers (or calling them BACK) for days and days. They worry about what the seller might say and what they should say back to the seller.

              It’s as if they believe that something they could say to the seller—or fail to say—would make that seller motivated or not motivated.

      The truth is, sellers come to you already motivated or not motivated, and what YOU say doesn’t change that one way or another. And since that very important fact is completely out of your control, that means that the only thing you actually need to worry about in a “negotiation” is

1. Building rapport
2. Getting the information you need
3. Protecting your time

              To that end, there ARE some things that experienced real estate entrepreneurs do, and do consistently, to maximize that chances that any given seller negotiation will be a successful one.

•               Balance your need to get the information quickly
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