Tampa Real Estate Investors Alliance Blog

OK! So you have decided you want to get into real estate investing and you have gone to some real estate seminars and classes and read some books. Great! You have learned that the next step is to put out some marketing to get leads coming in, like people that want to sell their house, and hopefully at a discount. So you have started doing one or more of the following:

  1. Mailing letters to home owners that say you want to buy their house
  2. Put out bandit signs on the side of the road that say something like “We Buy Houses”
  3. Have set up a website or websites that people find when they search “We Buy Houses” or other various search terms (“Sell my house fast”, “Sell your house fast”, etc).
  4. Have put an ad in the newspaper or Craigslist that says “We Buy Houses”, “Fast Cash for your home in as little as 3 Days”
  5. Have put out flyers around town with similar messages as the above.
  6. Or one of the other (96) marketing strategies that Dustin teaches us.

And then what happens? The calls start to come in. YEAY LEADS! Read More→

Several members have asked me to lay out the steps required to get your first check with a detailed description of each. That’s exactly what you’ll get, but it’ll take several editions to get it done. You may want to copy these lessons and build your own manual as we go.

Here are the steps all in one place to do a simple ACTS or sandwich lease option deal, which is the fastest way to get a check for $5,000 or more. But, before I go there, you may want to take the shortcut and order my Control Without Ownership course where it’s all in one place with everything you need from beginning to end. It sells for $997, but if you call 800-567-6128 and ask for the Mentor discount, you’ll get $200 off. The hard truth is, if you don’t, it’ll cost you many times that amount.

Okay, here we go… Read More→

Have you ever heard the saying, “Work smart, not hard”? It’s one of my personal favorites, and I’m here as a coach to show you how you can do it.

I’m guessing that when you think about buying a property, you’re assuming a lot of leg work: traveling to the property, inspecting it, doing the due diligence, and checking your numbers. And, yes, this is the way you’ll buy the property that you’ll put into your portfolio.

But what if there is another option? What if you could buy a property without ever seeing it and possibly sell it on the same day?

The option is called a WHOLESALE DEAL.

Sound too good to be true? Let me tell you, as a coach and as a business person who has done it, it CAN be done— YOU CAN DO IT—I can tell you how—and these deals can get you to your goals: earning a profit. Read More→

If you want to sell/educate/entertain/enlighten/etc. just about anything to anyone in the world these days, you can and should have a website. No matter what you do, you will be able to reach and communicate with anyone you desire with this incredible tool.

But how do you make one? What do you put on it? What do you say?

And how do you add those cool videos and funny pictures of cats on there that everyone loves?

Yes, these are the questions I often hear people ask. And today, I’ll do my best to answer them for you!

To begin, you need to ask yourself: WHY do I want a website, and WHAT will I be doing with it?

Well, I’m happy to say that I have the answer for you, and that answer is: “It depends.” Read More→

To Blog or Not to Blog?

Posted on October 9, 2013 by

“I blog because I have something to say.” ~ Eddie Huang

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

I’ve done some blogging myself, with mixed success, and in doing so, I’ve developed some ideas about what works and what doesn’t. Since I’ve been reexamining the idea of blogging as an investor, I thought I’d share my thoughts with you here.

As you know, I like to start at the beginning, and I’ll bet at least one of my readers doesn’t really know what a blog is. A blog is simply an online journal or diary. That’s pretty much it. Beyond that, each blogger decides what his or her blog is going to look like.

But first you’ve got to decide if blogging is for you. Read More→

Dinner With The Millionaire Next Door

Posted on October 9, 2013 by

Have you ever made a TOTAL fool of yourself – when you were least expecting to? Read on, and learn how I stepped square in the middle of it!

Last night, one of my lifelong friends – Mary Ann Doering – invited Kim and me over to a small dinner party she was having for her neighbors. Mary Ann is a wordsmith and the woman who proofs my columns.

As much as I like and appreciate Mary Ann, I did NOT want to go to her dinner party. Frankly, any get-together that doesn’t include real estate investors, capitalists and financial-freedom seekers bores me to tears. No matter – Kim made it clear that we WOULD be attending. What I didn’t know was that Mary Ann was setting me up BIG TIME! She was about to pull off her best practical joke on me EVER!

We got to Mary Ann’s before the other guests arrived. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. Prior to the couple walking in, Mary Ann whispered, “I barely know these people. They’re pretty boring from what I remember.” GREAT, I thought: Now I’m really glad I came.

After meeting “Tim” and “Jane,” I began doing what I always do – asking questions. At one point, Mary Ann mentioned that she was rereading The Millionaire Next Door by Tom Stanley. Tim asked, “Who is Tom Stanley?” Read More→

Whether you are a serious investor or you’re just getting started in the real estate investing business, you need to have at least one Realtor on your “dream team”. There are many ways a Realtor can help you in your business, both on the buying and the selling side and they can play an integral role in building your business.

One of the questions I get a lot is “how do I find a Realtor to work with?” There are many ways to do this. You can find one by asking other investors who they use. They may or may not want to share this information with you. You can also go to your local real estate club. There are always Realtor/Investors at those meetings. Another way to find a Realtor to work with is to check with the Board of Realtors and find Realtors who specialize in investor properties. This type of Realtor may also work with bank owned properties which can also net you some really great deals, especially in today’s market where there are so many foreclosures and motivated sellers.

You need to find a Realtor who is going to do a good job for you. Make sure the Realtor you pick is at least a broker-salesman. These types of Realtors have usually been in the business for a long time and have a lot of experience in dealing with all kinds of properties and situations. You also want to work with a Realtor who is motivated to bring you deals and buyers. Read More→

I was just up speaking for Atlanta REIA when a member asked me “isn’t closing short sales back to back illegal?” My answer was NO! He asked me, when did that change? It has never changed. He just didn’t ask the right questions to the right Attorney or Title Company. Closing a short sale back to back can only be done with full disclosure which I always do on my paperwork to the short sale lender and to the “C” Buyer. I provide copies of my purchase agreement which I have signed with my “A” Seller and me as “B” Buyer to the short sale lender. I then provide copies of paperwork that I had signed with my “C” Buyer and me as “B” Seller to my title company. If you are using my paperwork, here is how I disclose the back to back CASH closing. Remember, disclose, disclose, disclose!

1. The “C” Buyer is a cash buyer.

2. The “B” Seller/investor must has signed a form along with the “C” Buyer, stating that they are aware that the “C” Buyer’s money is going to be used to close the first transaction between the “A” Seller who is doing the short sale and the “B” Buyer/Investor who is purchasing the property prior to selling to the “C”/Buyer.

3. In addition, the Title Company and/or Attorney who is writing title insurance on the property, their underwriter has no problem with this type of transaction as long as this form along with the disclosure stated in your purchase agreement to the short sale lender is provided to them for review. Read More→

Major Zane Purdy’s life crumbled overnight…

Maj. Zane Purdy was making over $100,000 a year employed by defense contracting company, General Dynamics, when his identity was stolen and sold to an identity theft and tax fraud ring. Now, Purdy makes $7.25 an hour at a Krystal to support his wife and two children.

In 18 years of service, Purdy had never had an issue with his top secret security clearance. But once thieves stole his identity, his credit was trashed. Bad credit automatically flags someone as a national security risk and his security clearance was suspended. To add insult to injury, he has also been blocked from active duty and General Dynamics was forced to fire him.

Adding to his plight, he has tax liens levied against his property and the IRS is claiming he owes them more than $10,000 in back taxes.

You may want to believe he was careless with his information, maybe on an Internet smut site or volunteering personal information to a phone scammer. Nope.

His identity thief was a data-entry clerk at a nearby hospital! Read More→

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

But what does this all mean for the title on a property that had a loan go through this process?

Basically, the title was flawed from the get-go. Nobody who was a signatory to the loan had ANY interest in the repayment of that loan. MERS and all the others were just filling a role by pretending to be officials of the bank that was lending the money, when in reality they were a signature factory. If the trusts had been managed correctly from the beginning, the name of the trust should have been on the note and on the mortgage. They weren’t. Instead the banks set up a huge maze of companies to process the loans with defective notes and mortgages. Read More→

Funding in the real estate business can be one of the biggest barriers to entry and one of the biggest headaches! Here are some tips to help get your next deal funded.

Remember that the only thing that sellers really care about is solving their problems. Make your offers a solution to their problems. Do your homework on the seller and the property. Find out why they are selling and if the property is distressed in any way (deferred maintenance, low occupancy, etc.). Make an offer that solves the seller’s problems. An example might be using a master lease option to take control of a distressed property, fixing it up and then refinancing or selling it.

  1. Use master lease options. A master lease option or lease option is a set of two contracts that give you the right to control the property (master lease) and an option to purchase the property for a set price and for a set amount of time. A master lease option will allow you to take control of the operations of the deal and give you time to stabilize the property. Once that is done you can exercise your option to purchase or sell the option to a new buyer for quick cash. Read More→

Considerations

Hard money lending can be a great place for self-directed IRA or other retirement assets. There are, however, a few things to be aware of before you commit:

  • Hard money loans can be illiquid. If you are nearing or over age 70, pay attention to your required minimum distributions. You must make these RMDs, even if the borrower pays the loan late. You may want to earmark RMD money to come from another source besides the hard money lending part of your portfolio.
  • RMDs do not always have to be taken in the form of cash, some self-directed IRA investors that do hard money lending have elected to take their RMD in the form of the actual loans themselves. In fact, you can even take a portion of the loan as your RMD thus becoming partners with your IRA on that loan. (For Example: You can take 25% of the loan as your RMD. You would then own 25% of the loan and your IRA would own the other 75% of the loan.)
  • Your ability to contribute new money to your self-directed IRA or other retirement account is limited each year. For self-directed IRAs, for example, you are limited to $5,500 in new contributions. Anything over that must be rolled over into the account from another qualified retirement asset, or you will have to borrow the difference.
  • You cannot lend money to yourself or certain family members, via your self-directed IRA. You therefore cannot make a hard money loan to any property in which you, your spouse, your ascendants or descendants and their spouses has an interest. Similarly, you cannot lend money from your self-directed IRA to any project in which any legal, accounting or financial professional who advises you on your self-directed IRA investments has an interest. Read More→

Across the country there are cities which have high percentages of underwater houses. Cities like Tampa, FL have as much as 43 percent of area home mortgages seriously below its formerly established market value. Fortunately for investors there are numerous areas like Tampa which have a large volume of homes with a mortgage balance exceeding the home’s value by at least 25 percent.  REIAComps helps to quickly see the number of foreclosure sales of these types of houses in your market month after month.

By looking at REIAComps valuation and sales data, we were able to actually verify the two market areas with a higher percentage of foreclosure than Tampa. They are Las Vegas, NV and Lakeland, FL. According to the local Tampa newspaper, The Tampa Tribune one additional factor is this market condition restricts the number of homes that can be listed for sale and exacerbates a region’s temporary shortage of homes on the market. Read More→

Reggie Brooks

Posted on October 8, 2013 by

Reggie BrooksReggie Brooks has achieved what many people consider to be impossible. He went from making $36,000 per year at the local telephone company, to making over $40,000 per month in his real estate business. Starting out with very little money, Reggie began his investment career in 1986. After taking several real estate investment courses he began investing in rental properties in Los Angeles. By educating himself about hidden opportunities in real estate and making well placed investments, he has become a multi-millionaire.

Read More→

Thurs, Oct 10th @ 6:00 PM – Doubletree Suites Tampa Bay
Join us at Tampa REIA on October 10th to…
Learn Powerful Real Estate Investment Strategies Using Land Trusts, Personal Property Trusts & IRA Trusts
With Special Guest Speaker, Jack Shea
Members can attend at NO CHARGE and Guests for Only $10 at the Door.

Jack SheaTampa REIA is very excited to announce that our special guest speaker on Thursday, October 10th will be local real estate legend, Jack Shea, who will teach you several Powerful Real Estate Investment Strategies using Land Trusts, Personal Property Trusts and IRA Trusts. At the meeting, Jack will discuss the uses and benefits of trusts in great detail. Jack will reveal the myths and mysteries of trust to show that a trust is simply a contract between the trustee and the beneficiary.

Jack says “The Trust is the best entity for holding title to investment real estate and thousands of people use it on a regular basis. Many investors create their own deeds and trusts from available materials. Everyone can do the same.”

Jack goes on to say “Adding the personal property trust to an investment program creates additional privacy and safety. This trust can be used as a trustee, as a manager for an LLC and for holding title to mobile homes, notes, vehicles and other personal property. This is a benefit to the user.”

Join us at the meeting and Jack will teach you many of the benefits of holding title to real estate and personal property in trust such as:

  • Privacy and Safety by Creating a Firewall Against Threats
  • Preventing Liens and Judgments from Attaching to the Property
  • Transforming Real Estate to Personal Property
  • Creating a New Purchase and Sales System
  • Creating a New Management System
  • Serving as a Partnership and Syndication Facilitator
  • Providing Estate Planning and Asset Protection
  • Permiting Financing Without Foreclosure
  • And Many More…

Come early to network! Come ready to learn! Come with pad and pen! Come ready to participate! Come join us at Tampa REIA on Thursday, October 10th at 6:00 PM at the Doubletree Suites Tampa Bay located at 3050 North Rocky Point Dr West in Tampa, FL. We look forward to seeing you there!

Click to view Cruise VideoWIN A CRUISE: All participants who attend the Tampa REIA Meeting will entered into a drawing for a chance to win a *Complimentary 2 Day Cruise to the Bahamas with Caribbean Cruise Line! *You must be present at the meeting to win. The 2 day Cruise does not include port fees, transportation and taxes.

Late Night Networking at Whiskey Joe’s Bar & Grill

Whiskey Joe's Bar & Grill Tampa FloridaAfter the conclusion of the Tampa REIA Main Meeting (around 9:30PM), we will be reconvening at Whiskey Joe’s Bar & Grill located at 7720 West Courtney Campbell Causeway in Tampa for the “Meeting after the Meeting”. Come eat, drink, network and have fun with us as hang out late into the night on Tampa Bay!

See Tampa REIA Events Calendar for More Events!

Online Lead Finder SoftwareDuncan has updated his famous Online Lead Finder Software repeatedly over the past few weeks. Now, as of today, October 1st, Duncan has done it once again with version 2.6.4!

If you are an Tampa REIA Member you can download the software for free by logging in to the Tampa REIA Members Only Website and then navigating to the Members Only Downloads & Bonuses page where Duncan’s Online Lead Finder Software is listed 2nd in the list of available member downloads.

If you are a Gold Member, there will be instructions in the ReadMe.txt file in the software download telling you how to activate the Unlimited Gold Edition at NO CHARGE (a $500 value!).

I hope you all enjoy this lead generating software. Duncan, thank you again for this awesome software!

Jack Shea

Posted on September 25, 2013 by

Jack SheaJack Shea moved to Florida in 1978, and began investing in real estate.  He is a licensed Realtor and Mortgage Broker.  He has done syndications and  mobile home development.  He also has bought and sold mortgages and notes on real and personal property.  Jack Shea has concentrated on buying and selling options on real estate, and has been an investor in single-family and mobile homes.  Jack operates a 1031 exchange facilitator business with his wife, Merle, and his son Daniel.

He has taught classes to investors nationwide on lease-purchase contracts, note buying, Land Trusts, exchanges and IRA investing. Jack has developed several unique strategies in options, trusts, exchanges and IRA investing. He, along with Jack Miller and a few other investors pioneered the technique of gaining personal control of IRA funds. This required working with several IRA custodians to develop the trust documents necessary to accomplish this. These documents needed to meet the requirements of the custodians and be compliant with the IRS regulations. As a result, every IRA owner is now able to move their funds from the custodian to their corner bank and have checkbook control of the funds.

Never Forget 9-11-2001

Posted on September 11, 2013 by
Never Forget 9-11-2001

Dustin GriffinOn September 6, 2013, Dustin Griffin kicked off the 101+ Ways to Generate Motivated Buyer & Seller Leads Online Workshop to teach you many of the 800 Pound Guerilla Marketing Strategies and Techniques he and other successful investors use to generate all the buyer and seller leads they can handle on a low budget and how you can too. For your convenience, this class is being offered online in 4 parts starting on Sept 6th with the other 3 parts taking place on Sept 13, 20 and 27.

In Session #1, Dustin gave a detailed overview of the marketing process and covered “How to Market Your Real Estate Investing Business in 7 Easy Steps”. The purpose of this session was to teach attendees how to design a marketing plan to generate all the buyer and seller leads they desire, based on their own budget and short term and long term financial goals.

If you registered for this Online Workshop, you can login and watch the Workshop Replay below as well as see the class outline and download the Workshop Workbook, Worksheets and other Class Handouts. Read More→

The Profit September 2013 Edition

Posted on September 6, 2013 by
The Profit Newsletter for Tampa REIA September 2013
Download the September 2013 Edition of The Profit Newsletter Now!

The Profit - September 2013 - High Quality PDFThe September 2013 edition of The Profit Newsletter is available for download just in time for our Tampa REIA Meeting on September 12th. You can download The Profit Newsletter as a High Quality PDF (Recommended) or Low Res PDF for slower devices. The Profit Newsletter is the official newsletter of the Tampa Real Estate Investors Alliance and is a digital, interactive newsletter for new and seasoned real estate investors delivered as an Adobe PDF file to read on your PC, Mac, Smart Phone, iPad or other mobile ready devices with a PDF reader. Many of the articles and ads in The Profit contain hyperlinks you can click or tap to visit websites, watch videos, listen to audios, download content, send emails, comment on articles, share socially and much more! The high res version of The Profit is “print ready” for those who want to print the newsletter on their home or business printer. Also, be sure to Subscribe to The Profit so you don’t miss a single monthly issue.

Download Now!
High Quality PDF / Low Res PDF
See The Profit Archives for our past editions.

Read More→