I just recently finished a 2-day in-office training last week for both Personal and Business Credit Secrets and I started thinking about something...
One of the strategies I taught in the workshop on the first day was how I once used this "cheat" to immediately have a negative delinquency removed from my personal credit without paying a penny to the creditor and...I don't even know if the "cheat" was legal.
Yet it got the delinquency off my credit report instantly within a couple of weeks.
I've used a variation of this "cheat" a few times after that and each time it's worked like a charm, instantly and without incident removing each delinquency off my credit reports within the shortest amount of time possible.
Of course, everything else I've used to get delinquencies removed from my credit years ago when I was in a "credit hole" worked...it just took more elbow grease and time to get the stuff off.
Eventually it all came off.
Now I have a FICO that's pretty damn near 800 and, for sure, it will exceed the 800-mark by this summer.
Not that I care. After all, once you get to the 720+ FICO range, the credit "seas" will part for you and you'll be able to do and get whatever you want at that point.
Everything I've done for my credit has been stuff I've personally used, stumbled through, and had to essentially "re-invent" to both fix and build my personal credit and then to build business credit from scratch several times.
After my bankruptcy back in 2003, I had a FICO that was in the mid-400s. Like everyone else, I didn't think there was much I could do to improve my credit score.
So I sat and did nothing for awhile.
I decided..."What the hell? I can try to do something to improve my score."
I read some books, tried some stuff out, saw what worked, saw what didn't work, invented my own techniques, morphed other people's strategies into something more workable, and was able to boost my FICO from a dismal 450+ to jumping into the 640-FICO "club" within my first 9 to 12 months of working with "credit repair" and building techniques.
Once I hit 640, I was able to climb to above 680 within another few months after that.
Then I was "stuck" at 690 forever.
This was, folks, while I still struggled with a bankruptcy, multi-million-dollar judgment, and a few other stubborn things on my credit...I was at 690!
If I only knew then what I know now, I would have been able to jump that difficult 700+ mark. (And to think that the 700+ "jump" was due to only one secret strategy that I presented in my 2-day training basically requiring me to not do one little thing!)
Once you get into the 720+ range then all the credit doors you ever dreamed of open up for you. Getting to 750+ or higher is just a game at that point because you're not going to be able to "squeeze" anymore "juice" out of anyone creditwise. The rest of your work comes in from your business credit building activities.
Can you imagine getting to that 720+ FICO by this upcoming summer?
Can you imagine using your awesome personal credit to quickly building business credit?
Can you imagine being able to access hundreds of thousands of dollars in unsecured business credit cash to use for down payment money on your commercial and apartment building properties?
I always have students asking me over and over again..."But Monica, where do I start if I'm just starting out in this business?"
The realities of commercial and apartment building investing have shifted over the past couple of years. In order to play the game now, you need some money.
There are only a few ways to get the money:
1) Take it from your savings (except most people don't have a few hundred thousand dollars lying around)
2) Get an investor partners (except most people don't know how to do this or don't want to share the profits of their deal with someone else)
3) Build business credit and get unsecured lines of credit for your down payment cash (and requires you to fix and build your personal credit first)
Opportunities are everywhere now. That's the good news.
The bad news is that the good stuff is being sucked up by all the serious investors out there who have some big bucks behind them and they're not stopping their real estate acquisition activities until there's nothing left to be had.
You can still compete within all of this so long as you start playing the game a little differently.
You're going to have to enter the game a little differently. You're going to have to fix bad personal credit then build both your personal then your business credit.
And you're going to have to do it quickly if you're going to have a chance in tapping into these passive income cash flowing property deals.
But the keyword is "quickly." This means that your days of "dilly-dallying" around are over if you still want to latch onto some of these highly profitable cash flow apartment buildings, mobile home parks, commercial buildings, self-storage properties, and even single-family homes to rent out as passive income.
In my 2-day workshop, I had the video rolling so that I got every detail about how to fix/build personal credit as well as quickly building business credit. Many of these details I've never included before in any other presentation I've done with my students.
In fact, I've included so many small details about credit that, after watching these videos and taking notes, you'll be such a huge expert that you'll even be able to make a fortune operating a credit repair business if you wanted to. That's how thorough I was.
I even had a lady in the training group who told me that she owned a credit repair service years ago and that she's convinced after the 2-day event, everything has changed. Nothing is even close to being the same as it was before when she was in the credit repair business.
If you're trying to use old, outdated methods to fix your credit, you're probably doing more harm than good. It's best to learn the most cutting-edge strategies.
Even the one that is "borderline legal" to get stubborn negative marks off your credit report.
Go to this link for more details: http://www.monicamain.com/credit_workshop_videos
I had this very interesting conversation with one of my investor partners this morning that I wanted to share with you.
Tim is one of my investor partners that go way back to when I first started investing in commercial real estate. He's one of my guys from Texas. He has invested in more deals that I can count with both myself and with my students.
We were chatting on the phone yesterday. This is a super rare occurrence considering that he's had some on-again off-again health problems that has really put a damper on both his professional and personal life. (He's not a spring chicken anymore, let's just put it that way.)
He was telling me about the population explosion going on in Texas and had me read an article corroborating this information. There's a list of 10 cities in the United States where the population is growing exponentially. Texas claims 4 of those 10 cities or 40% of the list! (Utah claims 2 of those cities or 20% of the list. I know...weird.)
He was telling me that he's had major problems trying to find deals in his own backyard because investors have "taken over" the area and are swooping up on anything and everything. (They're even buying up low-cap properties left and right.) And he's had problems investing in cash flowing deals for about 18 months now. (I already knew all this but I politely listened anyway.)
Sadly, he told me that this is the end of his investing career. (He's not going to make it to our next recession where all the deals will crop back up again.) I think it was that moment of realization of knowing it was "the end" that really bothered him.
He asked me what was going on with my deals and how the market was unfolding for me since he knows I do a lot of stuff in Atlanta still. I told him that the competition hasn't gotten that fierce in Georgia yet but it's starting to build...and fast. Detroit is also getting fiercely competitive with all these investors coming out of nowhere for the last solid year.
And Florida is much like Texas now where it's difficult to get decent cash flowing properties in the larger metro areas. And, unfortunately, it's been that way for awhile now...I'd say coming up on a year.
And by this summer, a lot of these stabilized "hot" areas will no longer be a possibility for experienced investors to get in, let alone "newbies" who are just entering the field of investment real estate. For them, let's just say "fo-getta 'bout it!"
But one of the things I started telling Tim was about my apartment building flipping activities. That definitely piqued his interest.
Tim: "What's that about?"
Me: "Funny you asked, Tim..."
And I proceeded to tell him about how there still is opportunity...everywhere, actually.
But you have to put some work into it now.
(Of course, Tim isn't in the physical or mental space right now to partake in these types of deals. But I am. And so are you!)
You see, all of these investors that came running out of the woodwork are severely limited to investing in one thing and one thing only: stabilized performing properties with a cash flow. They do not have the luxury of buying a vacant REO, stopping everything they're doing to devote 100% of their time to rehab it then lease it up post-rehab. No, they don't have this luxury at all. They cannot stop the mad rush of grabbing up all of the performing properties they can.
What's this chaos like?
It's like being amongst a stampede of Kmart Blue Light shoppers on Christmas Eve, grabbing up everything in sight and leaving nothing left on the shelves (while many casualties end up dead on the floor).
If these investors aren't big heavy hitters who aren't quick and aggressive, they're going to lose out.
And they all know this!
It's a madhouse out there right now and you're about to profit big time because of one small little thing: their lack of ability to take on rehab and/or under-performing property projects.
For the first time ever, I'm going to be presenting a couple of highly profitable apartment building flipping strategies that I've never presented in full detail to any of my students before. It's a strategy that I've been using for the past year with my investor partners like Tim who have been frustrated with losing out on deal after deal because investors have gotten too aggressive.
And now it's your turn to use this strategy to make huge profits without using any of your own cash or credit to pull this off.
Anyway, Tim and I both ended up concluding that we have until about the end of summer to snap up any properties that are "reasonably performing" before all of us will be "locked out" of the good deals until the next recession hits...probably around 2020 or so.
And that's a long time to be waiting around.
I don't suggest you wait, especially since the deals you'll be getting in the next recession are not going to be as good as what you can still get right now as REO bank-owned properties! By the end of summer 2013, your opportunity for flipping houses will be virtually over in most areas of the country.
I seem to have developed a cult following for this Victor guy in Michigan. I get students calling my office wondering if Victor ever contacted us.
Answer: nope!
It's all very strange, really.
Now I'm starting to think the guy was a figment of my imagination. I'm sure many of you are thinking the same thing too.
Did you ever watch one of those movies where there was some kind of angel that appeared from nowhere and they are in human form yet they know your name and everything about you?
Well, I'm starting to think that's the story with Victor.
He was some angel that appeared from nowhere, knew my name and a little too much about me, and now he's gone. Just like that. Poof! Vanished into thin air.
After all, it was right before Christmas.
How else can you explain someone like Victor who claimed to read all of my emails and hopefully knows his own name, knows he lives in Michigan...yet never responds to these repeated emails calling out to him by name?
Victor, Victor, Victor...where are you, young man? Where the **** did you go, dude? Are you afraid? What's the deal, man? Let's talk about it! Just call my office, guy! I won't bite. I promise!
Then I started thinking about the ridiculousness of all this.
Here we have a situation that had about as good a chance in odds as playing the Mega Millions...and winning. Yet this guy "won" essentially and chooses not to turn in the ticket.
Let me ask you something:
Since most of my students, including you, are really serious about doing something about your financial state of affairs which is why you found me in the first place, why would you go through all that (visit my websites, buy stuff from me, read my emails, generally "deal with me" at all) and yet stop short when the opportunity comes pounding at your door?
Literally!
It makes not a shred of sense...especially since many of you that have been following this Victor MIA story only wish it was you instead of Victor that met me that day because you would definitely have called me by now. Right?
So now I'm just annoyed and maybe feeling a bit "dissed." (Hey, is that still a valid word?)
And maybe that's why Victor is afraid to call.
But if it's any constellation, I won't be the one answering the phone. Lea will more than likely be answering the phone and everybody knows she's as sweet as pie. (She won't hurt you, Victor, I promise. I may hurt you at this point but she won't.)
As for the rest of you, the situation isn't much different if you think about it.
Here I have presented an opportunity to you that I will be doing only once in my lifetime and yet I don't yet have you on the updated roster of enrollees for my upcoming March event in Detroit, Michigan.
I don't know how to be more clear so I'll say this one more time:
My Flipping Frenzy Aggressive Income Cash Flow Event including the Millionaire Meet and Greet where you can meet with my investor partners, get their contact information, and use them to invest in your deals just like they've been doing with me for the past dozen years!
Yet you're going to pass this opportunity because...you're busy that weekend?
What's your excuse? Tell me.
1) I'm making this event completely affordable to attend, especially if you enroll before the end of the month. You can still get my ultra-cheap early-bird deal by going to www.monicamain.com/flipping_frenzy. No excuse to he had there.
2) If you need a special payment plan to make it, call Lea or Mayra in my office. They'll set something special up for you. Again, no excuse there.
3) You believe that I'll be doing another one of these events? Think again. It's doubtful, at this precise point in time, that I'll be doing anymore events at all let alone another one with investor partners involved. I've never done an event with investor partners before and I will never do this again. Period. No exceptions.
What do investor partners do? What kinds of deals are they looking for? My guys are looking at flipping properties, buy-and-hold investments (for a maximum of 5 years before the asset is liquidated), and even buying into business start-ups. They are looking for SFRs, apartment buildings (small and large), MHPs, self-storage, and commercial-commercial investments.
You see, this is a very unique time. Investors that have been waiting around are now pulling the trigger as fast as they can since everybody and their mother is now jumping into the real estate investment game. The fear of prices going lower is gone. The fear of interest going higher is real.
And everybody now wants to get everything they can before the music stops.
Take advantage while you can. Make these once-in-a-lifetime contacts because, guaranteed, if you don't come you'll be kicking yourself later. Guaranteed.
You can make $990,000 in your pocket (profits) by the time December 31st of this year rolls around provided that you get started by February 1st...which is right around the corner.
And you can do this with a nifty Aggressive Income Strategy that I'm not showing to some of my students.
Get your calculator out. I'm going to show you what you're going to be doing and how much you can make doing it.
"Create, package, and sell your own product."
And sell it nationwide.
In fact, there's a secret to getting your product in thousands of stores with only one phone call.
And I can show you how to do that.
All you would have to do is move 15,000 units per week or 60,000 units per month where you profit $1.50 per unit and you'll make $990,000 by the end of the year.
And you'll be parking that money in a Passive Income stream of income, preferably several smaller apartment buildings.
Your $990,000 will get you $4,950,000 in property by the end of the year (using the $990,000 as a 20% down payment).
And $4,950,000 in property will get you an average cash flow of $18,000 to $24,000 per month (that's including all of your expenses and depending on where in the country you buy).
This time next year, you'll be deciding whether to retire on that monthly cash flow or if you want the cash flow and your million-dollar-in-profits income to keep rolling in.
Hard decision to have to make this time next year!
I will warn you: This business is not for everyone. You have to be a hustler or someone who is willing to work by nature. This isn't a plan for the lazy ass who wants to play internet poker all day.
If you are a hustler and are willing to work, this is the only one of my Aggressive Income Strategies that you can use to actually make millions of dollars with. (Most of my Aggressive Income Strategies are for those looking to make a few thousand dollars a week and that's where it caps off!)
Again, this isn't for everyone but for those of you who want to get involved in doing this, you could actually make millions from this one type of Aggressive Income while (ideally) stuffing all that cash into Passive Income real estate!
I think one of the most evasive theories ever is that of the "meaning of life."
But I think I cracked the secret!
I've had everything, gone through some pretty dark moments of despair, been on top of the world, and experienced a variety of versions of "hell" often enough to be fairly confident in what I'm about to tell you.
When it comes down to the basis of being psychologically and mentally healthy, I think a lot of it has to do with the people you have around you. When you have sucky people around you, you have a sucky outlook on life. When you have awesome people around you, you tend to feel balanced and uplifted.
I never want to be the lonely rich widow on the hill. Having "everything" when you have no friends and family around means you really have nothing.
Yet how many people go through life "too busy" for set-aside time for friends and family?
I've thought about this over and over again and it really comes down to the time you have with other people, enjoying laughs and catching up.
The unfortunate thing is that we never have enough time to live life and be with other people on a more enjoyable level because we're ball-and-chained to work all the time.
And that really sucks.
In your lifetime, right now, you have a fraction of an opportunity to benefit with the greatest amount of leverage you'll ever have in this lifetime.
It's a shame how many will actually waste this opportunity because they are "too busy" or "too lazy" to take advantage of it.
Most of you know that I've been teaching a lot about my Total Wealth Building System, showing my students how to feed Aggressive streams of income into Passive income assets for retirement in 3 years or less.
And in the last summer, I did a few different trainings and seminars showing how the New Wealth Ninja aggressive income streams work. I also covered both business and real estate types of aggressive income strategies in my last seminar event in Vegas this past October.
There are 2 powerful Aggressive Income Secrets that you can use to make huge cash flows with in 2013:
1) Aggressive Real Estate Investing: Discover my most powerful strategy in raising quick money (ultimately for your passive income streams) through property flipping. At my last seminar, I covered flipping strategies with SFRs only. In my upcoming March event, I'll be talking about flipping SFRs and apartment buildings for huge amounts of cash! This is the first and only event I'll be covering these coveted, little-known strategies.
2) Aggressive Business New Wealth Ninja Strategies: I've recently revealed my most powerful and highly secretive means of making a huge stream of income through a highly profitable business endeavor using distribution as a powerful leverage to making millions of dollars.
Again, my strongest recommendation to all of my students is to use these Aggressive Income Secrets to funnel the cash into your Passive Income Investments; this is truly the closest I can get you from Point A (where you are now) to Point B (retirement) in the shortest amount of time possible. There is no shorter road to financial freedom.
Need I remind you again why you want financial freedom?
You can't enjoy life when you're working your ass off for someone else, stressed out about bills, and too preoccupied (physically and mentally) with scraping by to enjoy your friends and family.
Because as I started with this email, I clued you in that the most important thing in life is howyou spend your time and who you spend your time with. As long as you're a slave to the grind, you don't have any choices with either of the two.
The only thing we all start with when we're born is with a clock that starts ticking backwards on how much time we have left. For some, it's only a little bit of time. For others, it's 80+ years. Unfortunately, you never know what your clock says when you're born. None of know exactly how many years we have on this planet.
Why wait till the end of your life to start enjoying it...especially knowing that you may not make it that far?
I know...it's a depressing thought.
But it doesn't have to be because you can start taking control of your entire future right now!
Aggressive Income into Passive Income. Your simple rule to financial freedom.
I strongly suggest you choose property flipping or a New Wealth Ninja strategy...or both. We are getting down to the wire on raising money for passive income and 2013 is it. This is the last year you'll still be able to get deals on properties. Residential and commercial property deals will start to climb aggressively in the years to come. Therefore, your strategy needs to be to get cash, push it into passive income, and retire with your passive streams of money coming in.
I have a student who showed up as a guest at my Vegas event this past October. Quite honestly, he didn't even want to be there. He was dragged there by one of my other students who didn't want to go to a 3-day seminar alone.
This student of mine politely and quitely sat through the 3 days of the event. Nothing seemed to "interest" him much except for one thing...
When my husband Ronnie started talking.
Yes, that was a blow to the old ego but I don't think it necessarily had to do with Ronnie so much as it had to do directly with what he was talking about.
Before the 3-day event started, I was drugged by a roofie. Many of you remember the story and still to this day I don't feel 100%. I think it threw my biochemistry off a little bit.
Anyway...I told Ronnie that I needed him to speak on the 2nd day to talk a little bit about how powerful it can be (financially) to think outside of the box. This was for a couple of different reasons: (1) I wanted people to start thinking about the possibilities, and (2) I needed a break after speaking for 2 solid days while being 1/2 out of it.
So, for an hour, Ronnie spoke about how our health supplement business exploded because of a specific means of distribution that we decided to participate in.
This was the time (I was told) that this one lackluster dragged-to-the-event "student" started to listen intently, took copius notes, and then after the one hour speech, bombarded Ronnie with..."How can I get involved, too?"
This one student and a handful of others wanted to get involved with our business.
And this wasn't planned nor was it the intent of the speech to begin with. The intent of why I put Ronnie up there was to show everyone how to think beyond the boundaries of mail order and the internet with good old fashioned marketing and distribution.
Several students contacted Ronnie the next week and wanted to get started as distributors in their local areas.
The one student basically twisted Ronnie's arm to get involved right away, bought a quarter case for sales, and went out the next day to market the product to his local area.
Less than 3 weeks later he grossed $11,380. Of that, he pocketed just under $4,500. (The rest was for product cost.)
Between when he started (post-Vegas) through December 31st, he grossed a total of $28,625 in which he kept just under $11,400.
Not bad for only doing this a total of 9 weeks and 2 of those weeks were "wasted" because of the holidays.
Since this guy is on a roll, I told him..."Create, package, and sell your own product." If he did that, he would have been keeping most of the $28,625 for those 9 weeks. In fact, he would have been able to keep about 85% of it or more than $24,000.
This was around the time that me and Ronnie had a convesation about what would be possible without any overhead.
Say, for example, we started this business in our garage...or garages (since we live in separate households).
Total product cost including the supplement and packaging is around 25 cents per unit. Yet we turn around and sell each unit for anywhere from $1.50 to $2.00 each.
While those numbers don't seem big at a glance, considering that one single person can easily move 1,200 units per week working 15 hours, suddenly making anywhere from $1.25 to $1.75 per unit can start meaning some big money. The average would be $1,800 in profits in a week in your pocket. If you decide to work a "hard" 30 hours in a week, you are looking at pocketing $3,600 per week or $14,400 a month.
Most of you know I keep my numbers realistic and conservative. These numbers are beyond realistic and conservative; they are attainable for anyone reading this email.
After being bombarded at the October event, I had to put together some kind of training for the select few people that really wanted to do this. I put together the only manual of its kind including a complete audio seminar and a video on exactly how to do this business, primarily focusing on you developing your own products for maximum profitability. I also give up a resource directory with all the contacts you'll ever need for a highly successful business.
And you can do this all from your garage or a spare corner in your house.
However, I should warn you: This business is not for everyone. You have to be a hustler or someone who is willing to work by nature. This isn't a plan for the lazy ass who wants to play internet poker all day.
If you are a hustler and are willing to work, this is the only one of my Aggressive Income Strategies that you can use to actually make millions of dollars with. (Most of my Aggressive Income Strategies are for those looking to make a few thousand dollars a week and that's where it caps off!)
Again, this isn't for everyone but for those of you who want to get involved in doing this, you could actually make millions from this one type of Aggressive Income.
A week ago today I found out that the guy who ripped off my sports bar business plan for the lease-option building deal I was negotiating on just closed the doors of his joke of a bar last Monday.
All I can say is..."Karma is one big fat-ass beeeaaatttccchhhh!"
And add a few more derogatory words to that!
Many of you who have been following me for the past couple of years know all about the sports bar debacle but I'm not sure if I ever mentioned anything about the guy who outright stole my business plan and opened a sports bar in the exact location that I intended on putting a sports bar after seeing what a kick-ass idea I had for his vacant property.
We were negotiating on a lease-option for the building since, back then, banks were still leery of ponying up a mortgage for a vacant commercial location. So, the strategy on any non- or under-performing property (which is still a solid strategy to use today) is to lease-option a property, stabilize it with a tenant or multiple tenants, and then get a loan for the property from a bank showing that you are buying a leased-up property.
Except my other company, Brie Restaurant Enterprises, would be the tenant and my real estate investing LLC would be buying the leased building.
In order to make this deal work, the owner of the property wanted to see a business plan to make him feel confident that this deal would play out the way I had said it would. This didn't surprise me. It's normal in the course of business that, when doing a lease-option deal, a property owner/seller may want to see what you're going to do with the property to make sure it's a financially viable deal. This would be no different than me leasing the unit from him as a restaurant and many times property owners will want to see a business plan in that case as well.
As soon as I gave them the business plan, they suddently started to change the deal in the most ridiculous ways, I thought I was on Candid Camera. They were giving me architectural drawings of how they planned on removing parts of the building. In one drawing they were splitting the building into 3 parts including adding a drive-through for some fantasy fast food place that they concocted in their tiny brains. In another drawing they were adding buildings in the parking lot, underneath power lines...knowing damn well that they'd never get city approval for permits to build these buildings.
I'm like..."Leave the freakin' building alone! I want it just the way it is!! What's the matter with you people?"
The deal stalled into a black abyss, I pulled out (using words that I'd rather not repeat here) after being verbally degraded by the listing agent, and I moved on. This was in the late summer of 2010.
In February of 2011 I was driving to my office and I happened to notice a liquor license posting on the door. I got to my office, told Cindy about it, and sent her over to see what the license said. I wanted to find out...was this going to be a restaurant, bar, or what?
She got to the property and texted me the name of the place: "Game Day Sports Bar & Grill"
This would be the beginning of my moment of total meltdown.
"How [CENSORED] dare they, those lying bastards. Game Day? What kind of stupid [CENSORED] name is that?"
And it progressively got worse from there.
I think what really insulted me about the entire situation was that during our negotiations, I had been verbally mortified and basically called a loser by the listing agent as well as the owner. I didn't realize it then but it was their way of breaking themselves off from the deal so they could make off with my business idea.
I think that's why the meltdown happened. After everything they had to say about me as a person, which was uncalled for and had nothing to do with the deal, I felt like they added insult to injury by stealing my business plan when only a few months before I was considered a POS to them.
I realize now that they felt that insults was their means of getting out of the negotiations when all they had to say was, "No thanks!"
The problem with his particular property is that it's been a revolving door of different restaurants for the past 10 years. So, I guess it was a blessing in disguise that I didn't get such a crappy location to begin with.
I realize all of this now, of course, but when something is happening "to" you in your life, it's hard to wrap your head and mind around the blessings and what's really the true meaning behind what people are saying and doing...especially when you are emotionally wound around everything that's going on.
But...the reason this single moment was so significant in my life was because it was the precise "thing" that happened in my life that completely threw me off balance for about 2 years thereafter.
And when you're off balance, everything starts getting uncontrollably sucked down the drain as if someone in the sky pulled a gigantic car-size plug out of the "pond" that you call "your life."
That's what happened to me.
That moment I found out about the ripping off of the business plan in February of 2011 the wind was completely knocked out of my sails and I actually had a nervous-breakdown-type meltdown in my office.
I remember that day. Cindy, my former assistant, had to basically talk me down from having a stroke or other such physical calamity that may have permanently affected me for the remainder of my lifetime. I literally lost physical control and I felt like one of those women in a movie that was going through the worst type of physical and mental meltdown/breakdown including flinging large heavy objects across the room, uncontrollable falling to the floor crying, and the whole pitiful and painful nine yards.
Something that's never happened to me before.
Never had any type of "deal" or "business situation" ever affect me in the way that that "February Black Day" had affected me before or after that moment.
So what happened? Why did that one moment seem so different and affect me on such a deep level over every other situation in my life?
I got too emotionally intertwined with "the deal." I had forgotten the mentality of "you win some and you lose some." I also forgot that "sometimes things just aren't meant to be."
Shortly after Meltdown Day, I noticed my entire life being dragged down the drain starting with custody/divorce problems, my dad found to be embezzling from my company, then my assistant Cindy getting all weirded out on me.
All within 6 months after that day.
I felt like I was in a plane that was going down in burning flames. It took me about 6 months to start pulling myself out of the seemingly uncontrollable and helpless free fall.
And even still, I was never able to get my plane in normal flying condition ever again after that day.
A few things since then that I've learned about life:
1) Crisis pushes you to see who you really are. What you can withstand. And if you're really on the path in life that you need to be.
2) Sometimes you're on this path in life and you wake up one day realizing you've been living someone else's life all along. And what a freaky realization that is!
3) If you intentionally screw people over, you'll never get ahead. Period. There are absolutely noexceptions to this rule.
The owner/seller of the property ripped off my business plan. He was finally able to open his ramshackle of a "sports bar" on October of 2011. Me and Ronnie went in there and I found an item on the menu that was meant as a slap in the face to me directly. They named one of their appetizers "Brie Sticks" after my company name Brie Restaurant Enterprises which is named after my daughter Brie.
Apparently they thought it would be funny to poke a "ha-ha" sick in my face.
I wonder what they are thinking now after having to suddenly shut the doors of their bullsh** sports bar after only having had it open for a little more than 14 months and after sustaining a massive financial loss?
I wonder what my dad is thinking as he teeters on the verge of bankruptcy because he embezzled from my company and now I refuse to help him out on any level? (He's ripped me off a few times in my life so this wouldn't be the first time. And I'll never help him do anything again.)
I wonder what my brother is thinking as he sits helpless in the desert trying to raise 2 kids as a single parent on welfare because he's screwed me and many others over and over again in his lifetime? (And I refuse to help him, too.)
I wonder what my ex-husband is thinking as he's rapidly declining in both health and financial status after having recently moved in with his mother because he blew all the money he's stolen from me not including the hundreds of thousands of dollars he's gotten from me in the past couple of years in support payments that the universe apparently has mysteriously taken from him? (And I definitely won't be helping him either!)
Karma happens. And it works every time. Everytime. Like clockwork and always on schedule!
You may not see the aftermath of what happens to those that screw you over for several years afterwards but the aftermath always happens. Always. Every time. Without a doubt.
If you keep living your life the very best that you can...the best that you know how...and you try helping people around you, you will always come out ahead. If you try to do good by others and not rip them off, you'll always do well in life.
The nice guy may finish last but at least he finishes. The losers and users end up perishing in the game and never finish at all, even when it seems like they're getting ahead of you.
My students trust me. This is because I've never screwed any of them over. I've had students have fears of sending me deals because they feel that maybe I'll take the deal from them and not include them in a partnership or bird-dog contract.
This has never happened...nor will it ever.
I'd rather go without and not do a deal even if it meant making a boatload of money if it meant I had to screw someone else in the process. And it's not because I'm such an awesome person (even though that's part of it) but it's because I know how religiously karma works. Time and time again. Without fail.
Over the years I have made quite a few connections with different investors. Some are high in integrity. Some weren't.
I've had more investor partners screw me over in the past dozen years than I care to admit to having business relationships with. It's not as easy to find truly awesome people with solid integrity in this business than you may think.
I've been lucky in the past handful of years to finally start hooking up with investors who are honest. Maybe I got more "street smart" and could finally weed out the losers or if the universe finally gave me a break from getting hammered by too many dishonest people. Who knows?
But I'll tell you from vast experience in this area: good investor partners are hard to find. Honest ones are next to impossible to find. Especially when dealing with such an unscrupulous business as real estate investing.
So...let's just say that I came across some interesting information over the past couple of weeks that I can't tell you about until next week.
(Don't you just love when I keep you in suspense?)
I feel like I'm in a Hollywood movie where I'm some kind of whistleblower for some highly secretive operation that I just uncovered.
Except it's not that serious. Close...but not quite as 007-ish as I'd like it to be.
(It actually may turn out to be extremely bad for the people I found some "interesting" things about but more what I uncovered next week.)
One thing I do want to mention is that I'm getting really excited about March. Like all my events, it's going to be a full-blown party. So expect the usual hard-core education with plenty of fun sprinkled in.
Some of you have been asking for more information about how to flip an apartment building since I mentioned it in my last email to you. A house is easy. It's small, quick to rehab, and quick to resell.
But an apartment building? Flipping it? Seems intense, doesn't it? Seems overwhelming.
There's a phenomenon tearing through this country right now. It's called investors pulling the trigger on every profitable cash flowing deal that makes sense.
Read the sentence above a few more times before reading on. Go ahead. Read it. Again.
Now, there's a "hole" in this market.
Let me explain:
There are a couple of things these investors do not have the luxury of doing and that is...
1) Buying a vacant or near-vacant building that's not performing at all and/or that needs major rehab.
2) Buying a building that's underperforming with low occupancy and/or management problems.
The "hole" in the market is that these investors do not have the ability to take advantage of these incredibly lucrative opportunities in rehab and underperforming property deals because they don't have the time or won't get approval from their money partners.
That's where you come in. Here's how you can cash in on this short-lived opportunity:
1) Find an underperforming property or a complete gut-to-the-studs rehab job. This property is preferably 20 to 50 units.
2) Whip together a simple mini-business plan (and I have a special template for you). This can include a PowerPoint presentation converted into a PDF file (in additional to the mini-business plan) and a snapshot of your profits on the Cash Flow Evaluator (laid into your biz plan).
And then present your plan to investors that you find online.
Something weird happened to me last week that really made me believe I was in the Twilight Zone.
If you recall, I mentioned that I ditched out my gas-guzzling Lincoln Navigator for a more environmental friendly vehicle and I settled on a mid-size Lexus.
Except...long story short: Lexus is gone and the Lincoln is parked outside of my office as I write this.
What the hell happened?
You know, quite honestly, I still don't know; I will tell you that dealing with Lexus this last time was the worst car buying transaction I've ever had to date and I will never, under any circumstances, purchase a Toyota or Lexus product for the remainder of my lifetime. Great cars; extremely poor customer service across the board. (And this has happened on a number of occasions within their organization.)
From what I gather transpired in this moment of my life that I wish never happened, they wrote the Lexus lease wrong giving me an incredibly ridiculously low lease payment, realized their mishap after I drove off with the vehicle, and did what they could to reverse the damage they'd done over the course of 4 days to get their vehicle back.
And they did.
They refused to finance the Lexus even though my mid FICO is 757 and I'm considered a Tier 1 to any dealership across America. Their reason? They claimed I had a repo with Toyota in the late 90s and that, 15 years later, they refuse to finance me...even with my current impeccable credit history.
Strangely enough, I've had 2 Lexus' since this "repo" they claim I had 15 years ago that I financed under my own name in 1999 and in 2005.
But...since they made an error and didn't want to admit to it, their only recourse would be to refuse to finance the lease, which is their choice, of course. (Bad business but their choice nonetheless.)
One thing about credit that I wanted to mention to all of you who are rebuilding your personal credit score, finance a vehicle. (Not a Toyota or Lexus, of course.) Financing a vehicle will bolster your credit score quickly provided that you make all your payments on time. You'll be surprised at how fast you can add 75 to 100 FICO points to your personal credit score after paying for a new (or used) vehicle for a solid 6 months.
I've found that Ford Credit will finance most anyone, even if you've included them in a bankruptcy or had a repo with them in the past.
This is why I realize that Ford will continue to hoard the 2nd place majority market share when it comes to U.S. auto sales in the country. (First place is GM and 3rd place is Crysler. Go Detroit!) Between the 3 auto giants with cutting-edge auto designs, progressive financing incentives and programs, and their ability to forgive the past (for those with credit problems and even if you screwed them over on a repo), how could they possibly lose?
In the meantime, you have Toyota who is struggling to keep their market share between a major hit to their reputation due to braking problems, killing innocent people in the process to save a few cents in manufacturing costs while refusing to finance people with perfect credit due to mistakes in sales contracts, credit problems from decades ago, and other such nonsense.
I don't care what market analysts say about what the hopes and dreams are for any company or what they "believe" the numbers will show in, say, 2015 or some other futuristic time frame. When you, the consumer, can see how things are "at the bottom," then you will ultimately see how any company will perform in the New Economy.
And Toyota/Lexus/Scion isn't going to fare well. (I'd like to see Honda/Acura and Nissan/Infiniti bump them out of the game altogether.)
I see Detroit growing and growing in the years to come. Again, this comes down to what I see on a consumer level and nothing else. And no, I am not an economist or do any type of economic analysis. However, I'm usually right 9 times out of 10 just because I pay attention to reality and not news stories or what I'd "like" to see happening in the world.
Many of you know I have a connection with Detroit because Ronnie lives there. During my last visit, I did an inspection on a building that I'm putting an offer in on just because Michigan is the #12 state in the U.S. that has a business user-friendly environment as well as kick-ass tax incentives. (This beats out California which is one of the worst states to do business!)
But I see other things going on there too.
I do see major progress with the auto manufacturers.
And there are the little things...
How cool is it to be looking at a building that has train tracks behind it and to see a pile of brand new chassis' slowly going down the tracks, on the verge of arriving at some auto manufacturing plant to make into cars? It's cool as hell.
Maybe it was going to the Toyota plant to build a Lexus. (In which case, I should have derailed the train.) Yes, Toyota/Lexus also has a manufacturing plant in the outskirts of Detroit. So do other "foreign" manufacturers. Surprising? (It's the "foreign" manufacturers best kept secret: they manufacture in Detroit and in other U.S. states, mostly in the Midwest.)
It's the "little things" that are showing me what's going on with our New Economy. When you have the most dismal war-zone third-world-country-ish area of the United States starting to boom, buckle your seat belts. We're on the verge of seeing a replay of the Roaring 20s...except better.
I see it. I can feel it. And I'm preparing for it.
Most of you probably remember the email I sent out a little while back telling you about a guy named Victor I ran into while shopping in Michigan. And he recognized me, which doesn't happen very often.
Since I didn't have the foresight to give Victor my business card and since he says he reads all my emails, I wanted to give Victor a special prize when he called into my office.
Except he never called! WTH, Victor? Where are you?
I also mentioned something about "synchronicity" of the universe. And that if you run into the right people on your path at the right time, it's meant for you to take an opportunity to move forward.
I was trying to help Victor do that by offering him something special...except he didn't call.
What's interesting is that Victor claimed he was just on my website before meeting me that day a few odd weeks back. Victor is ready for a change in his life...or so I thought, because he never called me to take me up on this special gift I email blasted everyone about.
Could I have sent out the one email that Victor happened to not read? (Now, what are the chances of that? I put his name in the subject line. Kind of hard to miss, you think?)
Think about it, folks: what are the chances? I live in California. I happened to be out shopping in a busy mall in Michigan. (This is something of a pet peeve of mine, shopping in crowded places because my basic motto is "Get it on Amazon.com or Don't Get It at All!")
Since Victor happened to be there at the right time...or maybe it was the other way around...I'm tried giving him an opportunity to further the opportunity in his life if he chooses to take it. This is an opportunity that most of you, my dear students, would kill for.
Except, Victor never called.
The universe opened a door for him...but is Victor too afraid to answer it?
It got me thinking about my students and how many of them have been sitting around thinking about changing certain aspects of their lives, yet they don't for one reason or another. Yet I have a slew of other students who have decided to make the changes and they've become successful as a result of it, mostly by having a Take-No-Prisoners attitude.
This is the point you need to get in order to have the right follow-through.
The start of a New Year is always a good momentum starting point. This is when many of us are gung-ho, clutching to a list of "resolutions" that we swear we'll follow through with this time. Because this year will be different.
This year will be different but only if you want it to be.
By the way, many of you are wondering what I was going to give Victor as a gift.
But he never called...sooooo...so much for seeing Victor at the gift.
And this really bothered me because I really felt that there was a one in a zillion chance that he would have gotten this kind of gift given to him just because of the highly odd set of circumstances that allowed us to meet that maybe he was ready to chance his life.
Well, Victor isn't ready. That doesn't mean you're not ready. In fact, by now you should bemore than ready. This is the year to stop stalling and start kicking your own ass into gear.
When I first got started in investing eons ago, like many other investors I got started flipping fixer-upper single-family homes. Later on I adopted the methodology of buying SFRs to rent them out. Then, of course, the economy greatly shifted, I moved onto the more lucrative apartment building investing, and I long left SFR acquisitions and flipping in the dust.
About 18 months ago I started flipping SFRs again, only because the economy came around, making flipping an incredibly lucrative enterprise. This generally happens when the economy shifts from a recessive flatline to a slow progressive improvement. Flipping is awesome during these times and...we're now officially in "these times" to make fixer-upper flipping work.
And I can show you how to make quick, easy piles of money doing this.
Plus, you can meet my investor partners who are ready and willing to invest in flip deals, apartment buildings, MHPs, commercial-commercial buildings and even business ventures such as software start-ups, restaurants, and other lucrative business enterprises.
If you're interested in acquiring even more cash for your passive income real estate (i.e. apartment building investing), it's best that you inject your own cash into those types of deals which you can now easily raise through SFR flipping.
But this opportunity won't last forever.
Just as the window of opportunity has closed for no-cash-no-credit deals with 100% owner financing, you can now get your own cash and credit together to do your own deals and increase your net worth 1,000 fold in the shortest amount of time possible.
Listen, 2013 can be your year...but not if you plan on sitting on your ass and doing nothing. Every successful person out there -- smart or stupid, with or without resources -- all did onething and one thing only: they created a simple plan and executed the plan. That's it. Nothing more!
No, you don't have to win the lottery or "get lucky" to make things happen for your life. (Victor kind of got lucky but never followed through.) You just have to have a simple set of instructions and play out the instructions laid out. Just like every other successful person has and does.
And for Victor, if you're reading this, you can still call my office. Tell me what happened to you and why you never responded. Maybe, just maybe, I'll cut you a break. (Depends on what type of mood I'm in when you call.)
