I've been reading article after article after article over the past couple of days basically telling me that these Wall Street big shots are swooping in on as many foreclosure and short-sale SFR (single-family residence) deals, leaving the Average Joe investor struggling to make deals.
And this really sucks. Especially since some of these Wall Streeters are paying more money than they should on these deals.
This, of course, is creating a lot of stir. There are whispers of a "second bubble burst" and other such nonsense since these Big Boy investors are causing "false" housing inflation.
Except there's one problem with that "theory."
There is no such thing as "false" housing inflation.
It's either inflated by actual demand...or it's not. Pretty freakin' simple. And if these Wall Street freaks want to over pay on property, let them over pay. Those dummies.
So, what does this have to do with you, especially if you are flipping SFRs or getting involved with other types of real estate investing?
It means you are focusing on areas of the country that aren't dealing with massive Wall Street traffic.
For example, one of my students from my Detroit seminar last month already bought a house for $28,000 then put $2,000 into it. He just listed it for $65,000 when all of the surrounding comps can support the average $62,000 purchase price. He'll be selling the house by the end of next week and will cash out with a minimum of $32,000.
All in a couple weeks work. Not bad!
And he's now got a duplex under contract.
I won't tell you where he's located because my email blasts go out to just under 100,000 people and that means thousands of you will stampede to his area, pushing him out into the cold like you guys and gals have done to me time and time again.
What I will tell you is that it's in a city and state that you'd never guess. It's not in any of the "lists" that I've given you but I will tell you that it's in an area that is steadily growing.
So...what does all this mean for you?
A couple of very basic concepts...
1) The window of opportunity is quickly closing...much faster than I previously thought.
2) S*** or get off the pot. Period.
I have been teaching for many years and I've been investing in real estate a lot longer than that. I've seen some trends, good and bad. But absolutely nothing holds a match to the opportunity that you still have right now.
What pisses me off is that I'll have students who are sitting on the fence of life in general. They buy my courses, sign up for mentorships, attend seminars, and yet they continue to waste my time year after year. They talk a good game, muddy the waters with their tire-kicker non-serious offers, and then end up doing nothing.
Then you have those students who kick ass and take names later.
That's what you either are already or will become in the very near future...or you'll rapidly perish in this business, way before you start. Simple as that.
One of the things my students like to hear from me is about future trends since I'm right 99.99% of the time. What the hell...I'm actually right 100% of the time. Why minimize it?
"So...oh smart one. What are the near-future trends?"
Here they are for the next solid 12 months:
SFR flipping until the end of this coming summer, then it's pretty much over unless you focus on "fringe" city/states that the Big Boys don't get to, don't think of, or don't care about
Buy-and-hold multi-family (residential) such as 3-plexes and "quads" through 2015
Buy-and-hold smaller apartment buildings through 2015, meaning 5 to 20 unit buildings
Buy-and-hold commercial-commercial property from this summer through...several years to come
So I just laid it out for you.
Here's my other pet peeve:
Students who still email or call me for the "magical phone number" to the guy who will either get them 100% funding or pony up the down payment for their buy-and-hold property deal.
If you ever find this mythical guy, let me know. I want his phone number, too.
Reality is, you can get that down payment money a couple of different ways:
1) Investor partners
2) Credit
There are other ways such as robbing banks but we're sticking to the legal routes here.
I love investor partners but they're only there to help you get a start in the business. That's it. The rest of what you do should be 100% on your own so you can get 100% of the proceeds of your property without sharing anything.
The best and easiest route to take for doing it yourself is by fixing/building personal credit and building business credit. And fast! Super fast!!
Banks have changed their lending practices again in the past year. This means that they've essentially "lightened" up on their criteria. This, of course, doesn't mean you'll get qualified with 3 foreclosures and a bankruptcy but if you have mediocre credit, you stand to qualify now.
As "light" as they've gotten on their criteria, they'd implemented some hard-fast "rules" on their lending practices, including requiring a personal guarantee. Why this bothers some of my students, I'll never really know. The only people it bothers it seems are those who want to get into financial trouble by not following through with their lending/banking agreement. If this is the reason why you're afraid of a personal guarantee then find another business to be part of because this one isn't for you.
Just because a bank asks for a personal guarantee for a business credit account does not mean it necessarily goes on your personal credit report.
In fact, on all of my business credit cards, I had to sign a personal guarantee yet none of those accounts ended up on my personal credit.
I even had a student "argue" with me via back-and-forth emails just last week about how a close colleague/friend/associate/whatever got some ridiculous sum of money (upwards of a million, I think) without a personal guarantee or without having to have personal credit of any kind.
Really?
So, this "really close associate" of yours...how did he pull it off?
"Well, I don't know because he won't tell me...but he did it because I saw proof!"
Hmmmm.
If this person (doubtful he's such a close associate) can't show you how to do it then he's full of sh** because getting that type of money with no personal guarantee, no personal credit, and even no collateral isn't going to happen unless he's working with a private lender or angel investor.
When I asked about what this "proof" was that his associate supposedly manifested for him to see, he couldn't really answer the question.
So, in other words, they were sitting at a bar one day, trading bullsh** stories back and forth, and apparently this "close associate" decided to one-up my student on whatever credit or real estate secrets he was telling him. So, what could possibly top telling someone that he was able to get about $1 million without a personal guarantee, collateral, or even a Social Security number? Pretty impressive, right?
Except it just doesn't happen that way.
Our entire society is built on credit. It's time we made it work for you.
If you missed out on my 2-day in-office credit training back in February and didn't get the videos from the event, shame on you! You missed out on a lot of powerful information.
Then, something occurred to me. Maybe some of you couldn't afford the $1,497 price tag on the in-office training or the $397 price tag on the video set.
And something else occurred to me.
Since I'm doing the physical upgrades for both my Personal and Business Credit courses, why not create an upgrade kit for a super cheap $97 so that everyone can grab onto these credit-fixing/building strategies with no excuses?
Remember the trends I talked about a few minutes ago?
Credit will help you invest in any of those trends.
So much has changed with the rules of both personal and business credit in the past 18 months that it's mind-boggling. And if you aren't up-to-date on these new rules then you will have a difficult time fixing your credit as well as rebuilding it.
Did you know that the credit reporting bureaus got so sick of people disputing their credit reports that they found a more streamlined computerized method of verifying your debts called the e-Oscar Method...and it's dead illegal for them to use it?? Not only is it illegal but I'll show you how to get stuff removed off your credit reports just by you mentioning that they're using the illegal method.
Did you know that you can sue your creditor or collection agency in your local small claims court (in your jurisdiction) for the maximum possible and by even threatening this lawsuit (which costs them too much money just to appear in court), they'll remove the disputed items from your credit reports?
Did you know that Dun and Bradstreet is no longer the way to build business credit for smaller lines of credit ($100,000 or less) and that if you don't know how to use Experian Business properly, you'll blow your chances at these quick and easy unsecured business lines?
You can get access to unsecured business lines of credit anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000 depending on how well you fix/build your personal credit but you have to follow these new rules. If you follow these rules, no matter how bad your personal credit, you can get the majority or all of your delinquencies removed in just a few months.
Here's what that money can do for you:
The lower end ($50,000) could easily help you flip houses for huge profits before the opportunity is gone. The lower end could also get you the down payment for a multi-family or small apartment building or even a small mobile home park.
Getting in the mid-range ($100,000 to $250,000) could get you the down payment cash for a larger apartment building or a commercial-commercial property like an office building.
Getting to the $500,000-range will require you to build up your personal credit into the 800+ FICO score range and that can be done but may take a little bit of time.
This is the only way to get money besides an investor partner right now. This is it. The mythical guy who can give you all the money you need for your deals (except for transactional funding) simply does not exist.
This kit is being offered as a one-time deal. After the deal ends, the upgrade kit will be split with their respective courses. The personal credit upgrade will go with the Personal Credit Building Course. The business credit upgrade will go with the Build Business Credit Fast! Course. And later it'll cost you $544 to acquire both of those course to get what you can get right now for only $97.
What if you have no other credit courses? Then what?
I've made this Special Upgrade Kit to where it's a "stand-alone." This means that if you don't have any other credit course, you'll be able to successfully use all of the elements presented in the 2 videos, 2 audio CDs, 2 mini-manuals, and CD-ROM that will be shipped to you.
Here is the link: http://www.monicamain.com/personal_and_business_credit_secrets
I was having this discussion the other day with the lady that does my eyebrows. Her name is Angie and she owns and operates her own hair, nail, spray-on tan, and waxing salon. It's a quaint little joint in the Valencia Industrial Center literally one block away from my office.
Somehow the conversation came up about freeloaders. I think it was because she mentioned that her sister refuses to work or do anything with her life yet she always wonders why she's broke.
I immediately asked Angie if she was older than her sister and even went so far as to assume that Angie was the eldest child. I was right, of course, because it was an uncanny carbon copy of my exact situation with my brother who is younger than I am. I've always had a "knack" of making money and taking care of myself yet my brother is the eternal excuse-maker, bitcher, and professional moaner with a piss-poor and sickening "poor me" attitude that can make anyone lose all faith in humanity within precisely 37 seconds of listening to it.
There's always that "nature vs. nurture" argument where you can take, in some cases, fraternal twins who grew up in the exact same household yet one turns into a mass murderer and the other grows a multi-billion dollar per annual business. And there is no explanation for it.
Is it your environment? Or is it genetics?
I have a deeper explanation for it which goes into something deeper that I don't think I want to get into right now. The short version of my theory is that we all have unique personalities which some may call our "soul" which differs drastically, even if we have an identical twin with the exact same genetic make-up who we grew up with in the exact same household/environment with.
So, what does this have to do with anything?
Easy. It's very simple to become successful. You simply get off your ass and set out with an exact, precise treasure map to get there.
And you have to want it. Badly.
Nobody can teach you to "desire" success. The good news for you is that, chances are, because you're one of my faithful students reading this email, you've already got that burning desire and ability to "hustle" until you become successful. So, unlike my lazy excuse-making broker or Angie's pitiful freeloading sister who can't, under the best of odds, be convinced to get off their ass and do something...you're way beyond that if you're reading this.
Back to the treasure map...
I'm (unfortunately) stuck watching Dora the Explorer quite often. If you're not familiar with the kiddie show then good for you! If you are...I'm sorry.
Every episode of Dora the Explorer has to do with her going on some type of adventure involving a map. The map is devised of 3 things. Each "thing" is a landmark of some kind that she has to visit in a precise order in order to make it to the end of her superficial maze to accomplish whatever shallow goal the hapless writers of the tv show devised for her.
So, after Dora's backpack spits out her map with her directions on what she's supposed to do, she sets off to follow the map, working to avoid danger along the way. Danger is this fox called Swiper who tries ripping her off or doing demonic things like taking her tools to get through her adventure and whipping them off into the forest, or some other such nonsense.
I was watching the show today with my little girl and I started putting some things together.
First of all, most paths to success are pretty simple. Not exactly only 3 items to get there but pretty damn close. Yes, there are always thousands of details in any endeavor but, really, aren't there only a few "large" things that are in a set of directions?
For example, if I were to tell you how to get involved in apartment building investing, I could literally give you 3 basic steps to pull it off:
1) Do a financial assessment on yourself; determine your down payment and funding options.
2) Find a cash flowing property using my CFE (Cash Flow Evaluator)
3) Put in an offer on the property and see what happens.
Of course, there are more steps. There's the acceptance of the offer (or rejection, in which case you go out and repeat steps 2 and 3) and then going into "contracts" then escrow then closing on the property. Then once you close, you set up your management then cash flow away!
Still, if you add up all the steps, you're at around 7. Not too overwhelming, is it?
Everything is like this. Absolutely everything!
So why are so many people not doing these simple steps to find success?
I think it's because they believe there's much more too it. They believe that success is difficult and way out of their reach.
I can tell you, from massive amounts of experience in both business and in investing that success is very easy to attain but there's a catch. You have to get off your ass and follow some simple type of Dora map and move along the map to go get it.
Plus, the map has to be followed in an exact order. You can't change the order of things otherwise you'll find yourself unsuccessful.
But here's the catch...
You have to get off your ass, follow the map, and follow it in a precise order. By doing this, two (2) things will happen:
1) You'll be able to build a $1,000,000 BLOC or Business Line of Credit
2) You'll have a successful completed business plan that has been submitted and accepted by an investor partner who is part of the mentorship group
Again, you have to follow the map or the plan which is simple, well-laid out, and specifically geared toward helping you acquire a property with an investor partner.
