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.)
One of the things I generally do is that I let my students know some "things" about the year ahead including some personal things about what's going to be transpiring with me for the duration of the year.
Before I go into anything, I wanted to bring up a gripe...just because I'm in that type of mood right now.
So...a couple of days ago I got rid of my Lincoln Navigator for a few reasons:
1) I started to feel something strange. I'm not sure if it was guilt or...something. But I felt like I was committing a crime against the environment for driving around this massive beast just for myself and my little 4 1/2 year old daughter 99% of the time. It no longer made any type of sense whatsoever. And it was quite sudden, too.
2) I'm sick of this "status" nonsense and trying to "fit in" with society. It makes me want to puke just thinking about it lately. I'm tired of everyone on my neighborhood block having new cars, trying to top one over the other. It's so...sad, sickening, nauseating, and so far from any kind of spirituality on any level. And I'm no longer choosing to drive something I really don't care for just to be a "cool dude" in the eyes of someone else.
3) I originally bought the Lincoln Navigator to "show up" my ex-husband right after we split up because he took the other Navigator that was under his name (that I drove all the time). And what a useless endeavor that was. (Talk about a spiritually bankrupt decision on my part!) This was over 2 years ago. And I needed to change that energy.
What did I end up doing?
I've always been a fan of Toyota/Lexus products and I haven't had one in a good 5+ years.
And it was time to get rid of my Made-in-Detroit gas guzzler that is only beat out by the Hummer beating out my former 11-miles-to-the-gallon beast by 2 miles per gallon.
But, honestly, it was time for an energy change all around. I figured that we are up on 2013, I can get my last tax write-off, and...what the hell?
A few days before I traded in the Navigator, my neighbor across the street got a mid-size SUV made by Infiniti. I was going to get the same model because it has a 3rd row seat which comes in handy when Ronnie and the kids come out in the summer. But...I didn't want them to think I was copying them and I'm not really big on Infiniti so...I went with a small Lexus SUV instead.
All of a sudden, my neighbors across the way started giving me the cold shoulder since I parked my new vehicle in the driveway. Hmmmm. My imagination? Maybe.
Except what happened next sort of surprised me.
Today my neighbor came up to my door and hands me a gift card. She says, "Here's the gift card back that you gave us for Christmas. It was unnecessary." And walks off.
WTF?? What planet am I on? (And you thought living in a "well off" area was some how better? Pullleeeezzzeee! These people are weirdos across the board!)
Who gives back a gift?
I'm thinking about it now and it's...laughable actually. What can you do when you live on a block that's full of nothing but circus characters trying to one-up each other every day? Who lives like that?
And my neighbors wonder why I don't bother talking to them.
Very quickly, I want to go over two (2) things; what to expect for 2013 and what to expect from me:
What to Expect for 2013:
Apartment and MHP investing are already heating up. Mid- to large-size investors are picking up everything they can get their hands on starting this past summer of 2012. Commercial-commercial is starting to heat up, although not as much. Investors are looking for stabilized properties that are rehabbed and leased up.
This means your Opportunity Opening is with rehab and/or leasing up underperforming properties, namely apartment buildings and MHPs. Serious investors don't have the time or interest in rehabbing or stabilizing a property in any fashion whatsoever and that can be your niche...and a very profitable one at that.
SFRs (both flipping and buy-and-hold) have been hot from the very beginning of 2012 and continue to do so. Investors are picking up SFRs by the handfuls each with their own different strategies in mind. Some rehab and flip. Others are just hanging onto them until the economy gets better with the intention on flipping them later. Some are buying and leasing them out. You can get into this game as well because there are too many properties (especially foreclosures) and not enough investors to swoop them all up. You have all of this year and a good part of next year to make big money with SFRs.
Banks are making commercial loans/mortgages much easier to get if you fix your freakin' credit already. Even residential loans are getting much easier to get. The government is kicking up FHA loans (for residential) and SBA loans (for commercial) programs, making it extremely easy to get these types of loans. Just clean up your credit. And you can do this inside of 6 months if you are consistent with the process.
The stock market will struggle this year with its typical emotional roller coaster ups and downs but...who cares? You shouldn't be putting your assets into the stock market anyway. Real estate is where it's at, baby!
And yes, you can make 2013 the year of your financial independence...but only if you actuallydo something about it. That means 2013 has to be your year of action! And this is pretty much your last year where you can get a solid shot at becoming financially independent starting from nothing or near nothing.
What to Expect from Me in 2013:
I've been undergoing some massive spiritual and emotional changes over the past 6 months. I think many of you have noticed.
I think the hardest part for the past couple of years is the distance between me and my hubby, Ronnie.
Strangely, this past fall, after going through the 5 Stages of Grief and Loss, I finally came toAcceptance. And it was a long, hard road for me.
It was during this time when I decided that my days of training would be coming to an end soon just because it's time for me to focus on different things just to keep my soul and heart expanding.
Somehow I always feel some personal responsibility when a student gets my course in the mail and stuffs it under his bed without ever removing the shrink-wrap. Even though I've helped thousands of people become successful just in the past few short years, I still focus on those I wish I could help more but couldn't. And that's the part that bothers me the most.
The other part is that I don't ever want to be one of those people who has 20 years of teaching experience when, in reality, I felt like I had 1 year of teaching experience times 20 years.
I've sacraficed doing some larger deals, important once-in-a-lifetime projects, and other special endeavors I really wanted to participate in just to keep heading up my Apprenticeship and Mentorship Groups.
With that said, I already started limiting my hours of working on training students starting this past summer. Many of my students began panicking earlier last year when they first learned I'd be shortening my schedule but, rest assured, I didn't disappear nor do I plan on completely disappearing for awhile.
In fact, I've committed to all of 2013 to train, guide, and instruct my students. Just on a more limited schedule.
As one of my other businesses is exploding beyond my wildest imagination, I'm taking more time to focus on new types of marketing and product development that is out of my realm of expertise. And this is exciting for me. It keeps me passionate about life.
I'm also focusing on some new types of real estate investing that I never considered before. I'm also considering moving one of my companies out of California to a location in the greater Detroit area just because doing business in California sucks ass.
Regardless, I'm going to be available for my students all throughout 2013.
P.S. And after thinking I ditched out my Made-in-Detroit Navigator, I read the paperwork on the Lexus SUV I bought and it was...Made in Detroit at the Toyota plant.
Yes, I think I do live in the Twilight Zone because nothing makes any sense anymore.
A lot has changed in the world of real estate in the past couple of years. Let me give you the good, bad, and ugly of it all as we prepare to enter 2013.
Let's get The Ugly out of the way first:
The Ugly:
Real estate agents and brokers are still losers, even more now than ever because of their lengthy time in starvation mode. It's like letting a caged dog out of a hot box after starving him for a couple of weeks. Not a pretty sight. And yes, he will attack you, probably eating you in the process. And no, none of them got any smarter, more professional, or kinder in the last few years. I have to say that it's probably the meanest and angriest group of "professionals" since the lynch mob in the 1800s.
There are still some very creepy unscrupulous characters out in the world of lending. Although they can't get away with the former lending practices that got us into all that financial trouble a handful of years back because of so many newly implemented federal regulations, they are a little more brazen with their front-end scams such as "money-up-front" loans, ridiculously high loan application fees, equity partnership scams, due diligence legal fee scams, and a wide variety of other illegal behavior that's pretty obvious unless you're emotionally desperate to do your deal, then you may actually fall for the scam at hand. There are still Uncle Guido loan shark types out there with super high loan points and borderline illegal interest rates that make investing in any type of property not only incredibly risky but just plain stupid.
The Bad:
Many sellers still think they are selling at the peak of the market, even after watching their property rot on Loopnet with no activity for years and years. They also think that their property is the hottest thing since the Gold Rush in California and won't budge on their price, probably even thinking their building was built out of 24K gold bricks; this is how deluded many of them still are. Yet on the flip side, because the market heating up so fast in the commercial real estate realm, many of them can actually hang on for a little longer and get what they're asking for. Maybe more.
Competition pretty much took over the commercial real estate investing market virtually overnight, especially with apartment building investing. This happened because everyone realized (at the precise same time) that the market wasn't getting any lower on pricing, interest rates weren't going to get any lower and commercial banks started lending with much less strict mortgage criteria. This "perfect storm" happened over the summer, probably while you were at the beach. Tighter competition means that the days of 100% owner financing are officially over. So is expecting a lot of seller carry.
The Good:
Investors are picking up properties so fast (expecting that they'll start going up soon) that they are limited to choosing stabilized properties in order to manage their cash flows and/or appease their investor partners. Most of them are notin the position to rehab or lease-up an underperforming property. This leaves the REO and underperforming property market pretty much wide open for you.
Investors are leaving smaller properties alone. This includes 4-plexes ("quads"), SFRs (single-family residences), smaller MHP properties (up to 20 pads), and smaller apartment buildings (5 - 16 units). The good news about this is that smaller properties are much cheaper to function. Your operating expenses usually never exceed 35% on these properties and can be as low as 20%. (Bigger properties have operating expenses as much as 65% or higher in some cases!) Having a bunch of smaller properties is the way to go because the cost to operate them is much less, thus putting more cash into your pocket.
Becoming part of an equity partnership deal is super easy now. Every investor and wannabe investor with money wants in on real estate right now. Long gone are the days of twisting an investor's arm to get him or her to invest in a deal or convincing them how awesome apartment building investing is. Their pens are poised to write checks. Now! You just have to find these people through a variety of specific methods that I've taught over the years. (Now is time to use these methods; get my point?)
Commercial mortgages are actually much easier to get than you think. If you have good personal credit, you're in. Even if you have no built business credit yet, you can still buy a building under a newly formed LLC and use yourself as a personal guarantee since all loans under $1,000,000 are recourse loans (requiring a personal guarantee) anyway.
Gaining access to unsecured lines of business credit has never been easier because of a newly implemented government program encouraging commercial banks to lend more money to businesses to get the economy rolling again. Banks get special incentives for lending money to businesses. Of course, this requires that you take some time to build some business credit which takes anywhere from 3 - 6 months. Good business credit can put you in an unsecured line of business credit in the low- to mid-six figures which can, in turn, be used for down payments on properties. Since you're going to be focusing on smaller properties from now on (priced $100,000 to $1,000,000), having unsecured cash will easily give you the 20% required for the down payment on these deals.
Like I said, I've been warning everyone for a couple of years now that the window of opportunity is closing for getting your foot in the door on apartment building investing with little or no money down, owner financing, and by using creative financing methods.
And I also mentioned that the window of opportunity has just officially closed.
Instead of letting it depress you, instead you need to look at what's left on the table for you to make a killing with.
1) Smaller properties like small apartment buildings, MHP properties, and even SFRs.
2) REO apartment buildings and unstable properties requiring a revamp on management.
But...if you're going to get these properties, you're going to have to put some "skin" in the game. This means putting money down. And you can get this money by changing the face of your personal credit and building business credit.
My students with good credit get anywhere from $300,000 to $500,000 in unsecured lines of business credit.
Students with marginal personal credit but with built business credit get anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 in unsecured lines of business credit.
Whichever category above you'll end up in by this coming summer will still get you in the investing game because you'll be able to raise the money for your EMDs, due diligence, and down payments to play the investment game.
Yesterday I met a nice young man by the name of Victor while shopping. Right now I'm in Michigan spending time with my husband's family and looking at property for acquisitions.
And a rare occurrence took place. I was recognized in public.
It happens here and there but not often.
I didn't have the foresight to give Victor my business card and since he says he reads all my emails, I'm going to give Victor a special prize when he calls into my office.
So, Victor, if you're reading this, call my office and ask for Lea. She's in the office from 9am to 5pm PST...that's 3 hours behind you. I already instructed her on what your special prize will be if you can tell her which store we met in and where it's located.
This is what I call synchronicity of the universe.
And it will now be up to Victor on how he chooses to use it.
What's interesting is that Victor said he was just on my website before meeting me. Victor is ready for a change in his life. He happened to bump into me. Think about it: 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 going to give him an opportunity to further the opportunity in his life if he chooses to take it.
This is the universe opening doors for him...because Victor is ready.
Are you ready?
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 coming year will be different but only if you want it to be.
Unless you believe the end of the world is tomorrow...in which case there won't be a 2013 at all. (Somehow I have a feeling we'll all still be here.)
I've found a single success formula that will always work...but only if you do it.
It's actually compacted into a single word: Action!
Sometimes your plan may be out of whack and that's okay. As long as you're pushing through with some kind of action, sometimes other opportunities or directions are presented to you. Sometimes you alter or tweet the plan and that makes it work. Sometimes you realize the plan isn't what you wanted after all, in which case you devise another plan and go for that instead.
But none of this can occur until you proceed with action in some direction that best matches your desires right now.
Many of my students ask me where to start. Of course, the answer changes every 6 - 12 months depending on what is happening with the real estate market and economy.
Right now, my recommendations for the upcoming year is the following provided that you're someone who likes to do things yourself (like I am):
1) Get your personal and business credit in functioning order. This will allow you to tap into unsecured lines of credit to purchase apartment buildings, single-family homes, access cash for a business start-up or whatever you want to do. You can't make a living working for someone else unless you're a CEO or other high falutin figure. You have to make money as an investor, business owner, or both.
Fixing/rebuilding your personal credit while getting your business credit up and running will not only help you acquire investments and business cash but it'll allow you to "roll" your money-making leverage up in the fastest possible increments. And you can do this all yourself without sharing any of your investment or business proceeds with an investor partner.
2) Starting with SFRs. 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.
Then last year 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.
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.
At my Detroit event in March 2013, I'll be talking at great length about the SFR flipping opportunity as well as the Total Wealth Building System and you'll even be able to access a million-dollar line of business credit during the event. For more information on this, go tohttp://www.monicamain.com/flipping_frenzy.
This coming year of 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 one thing 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. 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 I just laid out the instructions in #1 and #2 above. Now you just need to execute them.
If you have any questions, call my office at (661) 295-5050.
As for Victor in Michigan, Lea is waiting to hear from you after 9am PST.
Before I left the office last night, Lea told me that a lot of my students who were calling in about the raising capital website building that we are now doing were wondering about one thing...
Are we going to be doing everything for the website?
Funny that she mentioned this because I was also bombarded by quite a few emails asking me the same thing.
Are we going to be doing everything for the website?
Well, let's define all of the elements that are needed for a super successful raising capital website that will be so awesome, it'll get investor partners writing checks for the down payments on your real estate deals.
1) You'll need a website with multiple pages, including the page in which your hot deal will be located. Yes, we will be doing this for you.
2) You'll need a means of capturing prospective investors' contact information including their email addresses. Yes, we will be setting this up for you including a short "auto drip" campaign and a "bait" report (which you'll also get from us).
3) You'll need fresh copy on your site that will instantly draw in the interest of your prospective investor. Yes, we will be including that on your site.
4) You'll need a hot deal. No, we will not be providing that for you. You will have to get a deal that you want funding for and we can do the rest for you.
One of the other things my students seem to be concerned about is their level of experience and if investor partners will be interested in working with them.
The answer: yes, they want to work with you. If you are presenting an awesome money-making opportunity for them with a basic plan on how you're going to pull it off, they want in. Period!
The basic "rule" though is that the property (or opportunity) will have to be local to some degree. You can't realistically dream of capturing the interest of a prospective investor if you say, "Here's my Loopnet deal, I want 50% of it, and we are going to acquire this as partners yet I'll hire a management company."
No, no, no! This isn't how it works.
Instead, you're essentially saying, "Here's my deal, I want 30% of it for overseeing minor cosmetic rehab and lease-up, we are going to acquire this as partners, and since I'm fairly local to the property, I'll handle every aspect of this deal while you wildly profit!"
The other thing that my students don't seem to understand is that there is this huge wave of interested investor partners coming out of the "mass wealthy" pool. These people are doctors, dentists, lawyers (yuck!), engineers, and other professionals who have lots of liquid assets but no clue on what to do with this money.
Yet they are all in the same boat.
Time is running out for them. It's as simple as that.
These people can only continue working 40 to 70 hours per week for so long before they will realistically drop dead from exhaustion (or blowing their brains out to escape the rat race), they're all getting up there in age, and they are desperate for a real plan on maintaining their lavish lifestyle while cutting back (or eliminating) their work schedule!
And you're their plan.
I've had more "mass wealthy" invest in my deals just in the past 2 years than I've ever had in my investing career.
I had no "mass wealthy" invest with me 10 years ago. I had 1 invest with me about 5 years ago. Now 95% of the investor partners who invest with me on deals are part of this "mass wealthy" pool.
Interesting how quickly things change.
What's awesome about these people is that you don't need to twist their arm on the opportunity. You don't need to convince them of having a high level of experience. Just going through a course on real estate investing makes you much more qualified on the subject than they'll ever be!
This is quite the opposite, by the way, if you're trying to deal with professional investors (which has become very difficult to do these days because they micro-manage everything).
Remember, I've been warning everyone for a couple of years now that the window of opportunity is closing for getting your foot in the door on apartment building investing with little or no money down, owner financing, and by using creative financing methods.
Okay, so you know you have to set up a website to start drawing in these investor partners.
But it takes more than just having a website out there.
A website is like an island. It can be there in the middle of the ocean. Unless people know about it, the island is useless, bare, and lonely.
So, you won't be getting just a website from us. You'll be in full understanding of exactly what you'll need to do to market this website with a cutting-edge, bona-fide step-by-step plan on what to do to drive boatloads of qualified investor partner traffic to your site so that you can get your deal(s) funded virtually instantly!
This is a far cry from what I had to use to get investor partnership money only a handful of years ago.
I had to use investor mailing lists. I had to create a kick-ass mailing piece, talking about specific deals I was working on. I was limited to mailing to Southern California investors and I had to meet with them one-on-one to "sell" them the deal.
This was costly, time-consuming, nerve-wracking, and a miserable process And I hated every minute of it. But I was able to acquire tens of millions of dollars in property from 2003 through 2012 without sinking a penny of my own into a single piece of investment real estate.
I only wish I had access to the type of technology and the online raising capital "system" I know about now back in 2003 because I would be into the hundreds of millions of dollars in property by now.
However, reality is, most people cannot do what I did to raise capital because it takes a certain type of personality and very thick skin.
Now you don't have to anymore.
For a very limited time, I'm offering you an opportunity to have your own Operation Money Magnet website developed and up and running so that you can ring in the New Year with getting your hot new deal funded and launched.
I already had quite a few students sign up by the time I left yesterday. I'm putting a limit on this since I don't want to overwhelm myself or Rafael nor do I want any of my students waiting to get a complete website.
You can also use me to write your mini-business plan, PowerPoint, and to do your YouTube online video presentation for your site. All you do is supply the deal.
You decide whether gaining access to hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars in investor partner down payments for your deals is important...or not.
Okay, you remember that over the past week and a half I've been sharing different details about how you can change your life by the end of this year, making 2013 your "magical" year...including giving you a 21-page Magic Report (for those of you who requested it)?
After putting together the report and mulling over it for a few days, I realized that there is one element that trumps over everything else when it comes to being successful in everything that I do.
Now, this doesn't work unless you have both an action plan and the motivation (and enthusiasm) to do the plan.
Plus...you have to be doing the plan.
As I mentioned (about 5 emails ago), you have to be working a plan. Once you start working a plan, the Universe will start making ways for you and altering your plan into something that is better for you. The point, though, is that you have to be working a plan into a productive direction in order for the Universe to start helping you. If you plan something but sit on your ass watching Judge Judy, the Universe will do nothing for you.
With that said, I can now get down to business with "my secret."
Once you get rolling with the implementation of your action plan, you can't care about the outcome. That's the rule.
Part of the reason my life works so well is because I don't give a damn day to day what the outcome is (or isn't). I have learned to trust that things will work out.
Bottom line: I set forth a solid and strong plan in motion and I then let go, not giving a damn what happens from that point forward.
Seriously...I don't give a damn. I completely let go and understand that whatever happens, happens.
Now, in order for this to work well you have to obviously have a solid action plan and be implementing that plan. You have to be doing the very best you can do with the resources that you have. You can't beat yourself up if you don't have enough in resources including knowledge, experience, money, etc. Again, do the best you can with what you have and you'll be surprised at what will open up for you.
After a time when you start to realize that the Universe will begin "helping" you along the way with knowledge, people, and other resources, you'll start to trust that you'll be taken care of with whatever endeavor you decide to go forth with.
And with trust you'll get more results from the Universe. With more results, you'll have more trust. With trust, the flood gates will fully open.
And you'll never have to worry again about what to do in any situation or circumstance. You'll always be taken care of. Automatically.
To be clear, the secret is to give it your all and not give a damn about what happens. When you can truly let go, you'll realize just how miraculous things will start to happen in your life.
