Tampa Real Estate Investors Alliance Blog

It amazes me how so many so called real estate investors who have been in the business for less than five years think they know enough about investing in profitable properties to be able to create a fortune. Think about this for a minute, if you have been an investor for 5 years or less the majority of your investing knowledge is based on trying to buy pretty houses, pay cash for them, or get institutional financing to fund your deals and at the same time believe you will eventually become wealthy using the plan you are currently using. If you got into the business when money was easy to get, your perception of what is a good deal is probably is not an accurate assumption.

Another important mistake beginning investors make is using dollars per square foot to determine the value of any property is not a prudent way to give you what any property is worth. Another reason I say investors who have been in the business less than 5 years is, almost everyone I meet who is trying to become a successful real estate investor think the only good deals are short-sale deals. In my opinion, this is failed, but constantly used way to buy property beginning investors use. Why you may be asking is investing in short-sale properties a failed plan? Here is some facts most potential short-sale investors don’t think about. First, if the investor needs fast money, short sales probably won’t be the answer to your needs. Most short-sale deals take months to close. Many take six to nine months to get through the short sale process.

Other newer investors want to be Wholesale investors. Being a wholesaler is not being an investor, believe it or not, you have a job you must continually repeat if you want to survive in the business. Let me ask you a question. If you had $100,000 or could borrow $100,000 and could buy a property worth $150,000, how many of you think this would be a good deal? I personally think that deal would stink and here is why. If I had $100,000, why would I put it all in one deal when I could divide that money into $5,000 increments and control twenty properties worth $150,000 if done correctly? Read More→

Which Type of Real Estate Investing Deal Has The Highest Yield?

Our bank savings account is earning less than 1% interest. It’s not even keeping up with inflation. Meanwhile, Kim and I did a Lonnie Deal a few weeks back and we’re getting an eye-popping 50.38% yield on our investment. If you’re like us, you believe it makes better financial sense to get a higher yield versus a much lower one.

So what’s a Lonnie Deal? Basically, it’s when you buy a mobile home (that’s right, a trailer) in a mobile home park for cash and then sell it on time. Hey, in 2008, I had the same soured look on my face as you do right now as you ask, “Trailers? Seriously? Are you kidding me?”

Back then we were getting tons of calls from folks looking for $500-per-month housing. We couldn’t help them because our single-family houses rented for between $800 and $1,400 per month. I remember telling Kim that because of the huge demand for $500-per-month property, we needed to start doing Lonnie Deals.

We bought our first trailer on September 19, 2008 in Bartow County, Georgia. Our all-in purchase cost was around $5,500. We sold it on November 9, 2008 for $16,900 with the following sale terms: $500 down, $16,400 loan balance for 75 months at 18% interest with monthly payments of $375. Our yield on this deal is a jaw dropping 81.22%! Read More→

“I’m known for my handwritten notes.” ~ Pamela Anderson

You’re driving your Uncle Bugsy to the doctor when you spot a “for sale by owner” sign in front of a nice little brick house. You’re already running late, but you’ve been watching this house – it’s got a big blue tarp draped over the roof – for a couple of months now. You’ve got no pen and paper, and you won’t have time to stop later. Sure, you can snap a picture with your cellphone, but you’d really like to take some notes, too.

Unfortunately, Uncle Bugsy isn’t known for his patience, so you’re only going to have about a minute before he starts complaining about how inconsiderate kids are nowadays.

What should you do?

If you have an iPad, the solution is a great little app called CaptureNotes. CaptureNotes might look like just another note-taking application, but it’s not. Yes, it lets you do all the usual note-taking things: create notes, choose the type of paper and ink color, and doodle and scribble on a touch screen. So far, it’s pretty ordinary.

But there are three other things CaptureNotes does that make it really useful for us as real estate investors. Read More→

Blue Collar Genius Defined

A Blue Collar Genius is all of us who have mastered our craft with hard work, diligence, taking action, creating experience, making mistakes, and most importantly never giving up!

That’s a blue collar genius by my definition. How many times have you said I’m smarter than he is, but he’s driving the big Cadillac and you’re driving the little economy car? How could that guy ever make any money?

Perspiration, Inspiration, and Blue Collar Genius’

Thomas Edison said “Genius is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration”.

The Top Real Estate IRA Investors Know Lack of Knowledge = Fear

How many people do you know that have been to every seminar, they know more about real estate IRA investing than anybody you’ve ever talked to, and when you ask them “how many deals have you done?”, they say “Well, I’m still working on my first deal.” You ask, “How long have you been a member of the group?” You’re not shocked when they respond, “About eight or nine years, but I’m looking.”

Knowledge is wonderful, but you have to actually use it! Read More→

Have you ever thought about getting into the multifamily business? It’s not easy and it’s not for everyone, but if you have what it takes I can show you how! I created Real Estate Raw to pull back the curtain on the commercial multifamily business. I have survived the down turn of the economy and quite frankly I don’t want to go through that again. Do you?!

How many real estate seminars have you sat through to only find that it was one big SALES PITCH! Starting a business armed only with sales pitches is never a good thing. In this 5 part series I will be teaching you the “real side” of the real estate business.

Notice I keep saying real estate “business”? That is one of the first lessons that most people get wrong when starting out in real estate. Let me clarify this for you.

An investor is someone who is sitting around with cash that they need to get a return on. If you have all the cash you need to buy real estate with…then you are an investor. If you are trying to create wealth in real estate (not spend it) then you will need to raise money and possibly qualify for some loans…you are not an investor, you are a real estate entrepreneur. Read More→

Many Investors and Realtors avoid short sales like the plague.  They are definitely missing the boat!  My business specializes primarily in short sales and I have seen an increase in the number of approvals we are getting.  The time line for a short sale varies from 90 to 120 days if you submit the lender a “complete” short sale package.  Since short sales are dominating the market, the Lenders are creating more streamlined processes to conduct smoother short sales.  If you do short sales, then I am quite sure you have heard of the online system called “Equator.”  Equator allows all of the short sale paperwork to be processed electronically through one common venue, versus traditional and random faxes and emails.  Having a file processed online avoids the common objection from the short sale lender of “We didn’t receive the documents.”  Effective January 1, 2013, the newest lender that has started to use Equator is Chase.  The following lenders and servicers are presently using Equator:  1) Bank of America, 2) Chase, 3) Wells Fargo, 4) GMAC, 5) Nationstar, 6) ASC, 7) Carrington Mortgage, and 8) Homeward Residential Services. 

The Equator System assigns applicable tasks to each party (Agent, Negotiator, Closer, etc) including a deadline in which to complete each task.  I like the fact that the lenders can no longer say “Oh, we never got that paperwork.”  However, I don’t like the fact that they are tracking our information.  Nationstar has taken the collection of Buyer’s information to a whole new level.  They require all Buyers to fill out a loan application even though they most likely will not be using Nationstar as a lender.  This application has been mandatory and this has not been waived on any of my files.  If you are a Buyer on any property, you are required to provide your name, address, telephone number, DOB, SS#, assets, employment history and more.  This is regardless if you are purchasing for investment or personal use and if you are getting a mortgage or paying cash.    Read More→

By remembering just a few basics, you, as a Real Estate Investor, can quickly determine whether or not a seller is motivated to sell their property. First of all, a motivated seller will ask questions like “how soon can you buy my house?” or “How can you help me get out of this situation?” or “How soon can you get here?” An experienced Real Estate Investor knows these are really good questions for a seller to ask.

There are two types of houses we are going to buy, either pretty houses or ugly houses and there are motivated sellers in both of these categories. When you are marketing to sellers, there are certain types of sellers who are much more likely to have a house they need to sell.

For example, I personally like working with out of state owners (folks who own a property where you live but don’t live there full time), heirs, divorces, vacant houses, estate and probate properties, military transfers and pre-foreclosures. These sellers are much more likely to have a house they need to sell “right now” and that’s the kind of seller you want to work with. As a Real Estate Investor, you may also run into landlords who are fed up with tenants ruining their properties over and over. These are all good sources of motivated sellers. Most of these sellers are folks who don’t live in these properties. Read More→

Every New Year’s Day, people consider what they want to accomplish in the following year. Well, we are now 30 days into 2013, and I am sure that you have reflected on 2012. What resolutions did you follow to success? What results have you seen from last year’s work?

At the beginning of 2013, I reflected on what I considered success. Like many of you, I realized that I want to improve my monetary, financial, relationship and problem-solving skills because these lead us to success. What is success in 2013? ACHIEVING MORE OF YOUR GOALS.

We all know that success in our business means learning new tricks, tips, and techniques. We must accumulate knowledge and power. We must achieve a superior capacity to think and act effectively through presentations, best practices, and strong strategies. We must have a highly competitive advantage: a platinum value. But how do we strengthen the skills that we MUST have? Read More→

Welcome back! If you read Part One of this article, you know that we covered the other different types of popular real estate deals that most people do, and the biggest problems with them these days. Then we talked about how advantageous it is to do the new type of deals: Wholesaling Pretty Houses!

But we still have a few important things to cover, so let’s pick up where we left off…

Once you agree on the deal & terms with the seller, you get all the paperwork signed & closed at either a title company or attorney’s office. No exceptions. You’ll want that legal backup in case the seller conveniently forgets what they agreed to later.

So now you’ve got a deal under contract & all the paperwork signed. What now? Simple. You get it ‘sold’ as an opportunity to a tenant buyer who: 1. Has a decent chunk of money to put down (typically $5,000+/minimum), and 2. Can afford the existing monthly mortgage payments. Read More→

In my last article, I explained that there are two approaches investors can take to determine whether or not a lender has been negligent or committed fraud. The first approach I described is to look through the paper trail to dig up issues. The second approach is to follow the money.

Not many people truly understand how the mortgage and finance industries work. It’s basically a shell game with them moving money around with little regard as to the laws and regulations that govern how banks are supposed to act.

They play this constant game all supposedly in the name of increasing the money supply. Attorney Neil Garfield describes the process as the bank starting out with $100 in the left pocket and taking $10 out to deposit in the right pocket, but still reporting to the SEC and investors that the full $100 is still in the left pocket. When the next $10 comes out, described as trading profits or a fee, the amount in the left pocket is still reported as $100 rather than the $80 that is actually there. Read More→

“Greedy people bring trouble to their families, but the person who can’t be paid to do wrong will live.” (Pr 15:27)(NCV)

The relentless drive to acquire the elusive “American Dream”, is what fuels many business professionals. To many, in pursuit of the world’s definition of success, means “getting more and more”, “climbing the corporate ladder at all cost”, or perhaps it means “the end justifies the means, no matter what!” This kind of ill-advised pursuit requires that a person disconnect other areas of life that makes significant demands on their time and attention. One way to separate these distractions is to departmentalize them.

Highly motivated entrepreneur and business professionals often compartmentalize their professional interests from the rest of their personal lives. Many “go-getters” tend to divide their lives into these different compartments and make decisions as if they are not interconnected. For many, their thoughts about church, religion, matters concerning God and the Bible, or even their family, have little or nothing to do with their day-to-day business decisions and activities that are required to be successful. They rationalize that these different compartments neatly and separately co-exist. For instance, one might; Read More→