Tampa Real Estate Investors Alliance Blog

It was a radio talk show. An apologist for my generation (baby boomers) was explaining about how we were all victims of “the lies of the 1950’s”.

He said that as children his generation had heard and read many Horatio Alger stories; stories in which a young, ambitious person dreamed of becoming a financial success and went on to turn their dream into reality. The speaker argued that he had believed that he, like the heroes in those stories, would create success for himself. Reality, however, is different than fiction and the difference had left him and his fellows disappointed and depressed.

“We believed those stories!” he said. “We set goals, worked hard and still failed.”

Now people have given up. They no longer believe that they can create a better life. Read More→

One of the best real estate investing teachers in the country is Pete Fortunato. What makes him so special? Pete knows how to creatively structure deals in ways that make impossible deals possible.

Before Pete became one of our primary teachers in 1999, Kim and I did all of our deals the same old way. We’d find a house, apply for a mortgage, close with an attorney and then either sell or rent the property. Bottom line: If we couldn’t get a mortgage, we couldn’t do the deal. We felt like we were buying a Model T Ford from Henry Ford. Mr. Ford used to tell his customers, “The Model T comes in whatever color you want – as long as you want black.”

One of our biggest real estate investing ah-hah moments happened at our first Pete seminar. He flashed a diagram of a house up on the screen. The thing making this house different was that each room represented one of the eight transactional benefits of a real estate investing deal. The eight benefits are: Growth, Income, Amortization, Profits, Management, Security, Tax Benefits and Use. Read More→

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” ~ Anonymous

Today, here’s on offering for you Android fans.

Let’s set the scene: You’ve found a terrific little house to buy. You’ve finally reached an agreement with the seller, but one of his requirements is a little unusual. You want to run it by your lawyer.

Unfortunately, it’s 4:00 p.m. on Friday. In one hour, your attorney is flying to the Himalayas for three weeks to climb Mt. Everest. Even if he could get a signal up there, he has no intention of answering his phone while he’s gone. If he receives the offer before he leaves, he will read it on the plane and at least send you a quick text before he piles on his mountain-climbing gear. But if you don’t get it to him in time, well, you’re going to have to rely on Bernie, your wife’s aunt’s boss’s son, a really strange guy who just passed the bar exam after failing it twelve times. You’d really, really like to use your own attorney.

Now here’s the problem: You are at the house with the seller. Neither of you has a scanner. You are 45 minutes away from your office. Your assistant has the week off. What to do? Read More→

Mobile landing pages are different from traditional web pages. Users of mobile devices have less patience, yet are more engaged when they find what they want.

Knowing about web landing pages and what makes them successful isn’t the same as what you need to know about mobile landing pages. The tracking method, the conversions, and the need to keep your pages up to date with the latest devices are important to the success of your marketing plan.

1^st Must – Know Your Goals.

Be specific about which aspects of mobile marketing are critical to your business. Whether your priorities are downloads and apps, phone calls, redemption of mobile coupons, actual purchase rates, or the generation of further leads, know what your goals are before you get started. Read More→

The Atlanta real-estate market has finally hit bottom which means that things can only go up. How do I know that? Stupid money has returned: once again, people are willing to pay too much for properties, and banks are willing to look the other way. In fact, there is big money from hedge funds that are allowing people to buy many properties at once. What this means for us, the agents and small investors, is that we face more competition for the properties which are priced right.

So what do we do? We arm ourselves with research. Without knowing what we are up against, we cannot make informed decisions that will keep us in the game.

First, when you find a superstar, they become your benchmark: you do research and find out their business model. But studying them is not enough; you must take action by mirroring what they do to be successful. Read More→

A fraud has been perpetrated upon the American people all in the name of greed. Fraud is defined as deception in the execution of an agreement where some parties to the transaction are deceived as to the real nature of what is being agreed to. When some parties to an agreement are not clear, or some parties enter into the contract deceptively, then the agreement is null and void. A securitized loan is just such a fraudulent agreement.

A securitized loan is one where private investors, pension funds, insurance companies and others have purchased the cashflows from a group of mortgages that have been gathered into a trust in the form of a security assigned a particular risk value. Each mortgage-backed cashflow grouping is called a “tranche” and there are generally several tranches within a mortgage-backed trust. The cashflows are often sold multiple times to multiple investors. Securitization is a way that institutional lenders are able to leverage capital to support additional lending. When the economy is expanding securitization helps to grow the housing industry. When the economy is shrinking the flaw in the system reveals itself as investors begin to lose cashflow as a result of defaulted loans. Read More→

“The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing;
But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.” (Pr 13:4)

Some think wealth accumulation is the result of a series of uncontrollable events called luck or chance. Others believe it is solely the result of a person’s deliberate, well thought out financial planning and activities performed during the course of their lives. Our look into the Wisdom of God reveals that, “diligence is at the source of wealth accumulation and laziness is the culprit behind poverty and despair”. 

 It takes more than just wants and desires to produce success and wealth. The difference between unproductive people and those that are highly successful is not in their possessions. It goes deeper than that. The difference between a person that refuses to work when given the opportunity and a person that works hard to obtain success is not in their actions. It goes deeper than that. The difference between these two, fundamentally different, groups of individuals goes deeper than their desires; their hopes; their aspirations; or even their dreams. Read More→

Private Lending Explained

If someone wants to just simply hold the paper secured by an asset, they’re actually going to be a private lender for that asset. That’s right…private lending simply means a private individual is loaning the money rather than a bank or lending institution.

Private Lending…The Numbers

In this example, Jack Brown has $100,000 in a Rollover IRA, which is just another way of saying Traditional IRA. He wants to loan it to an investor as a first mortgage on a property worth $135,000.

Private Lending…Determining the Value

Perhaps Jack’s realtor, an appraiser or some resource told him, or perhaps he’s sophisticated enough to look at the deal and say I’m comfortable that the deal is worth $135,000. We always suggest doing your ‘due diligence’ and using professionals to assess the value of an asset you are going to loan money on.

In this case, we’re looking at an LTV – Loan to Value – of 75%. Hold on a minute, isn’t 75% LTV a bad idea? Everyone has to determine their comfort level when loaning money. I personally do not lend on anything over 60% Loan to Value. Read More→

Thinking Like A Successful Investor

An investor of real estate understands that general knowledge is not what it takes to create wealth. If general knowledge was what it took to create wealth, college professors would be the wealthiest people in this country and we all know that is not the case. Successful real estate investors know that it takes specific knowledge to create wealth. That is why real estate investors buy hard assets, (such as the seller’s house) at a price or with terms conducive to making a profit. If an investor can’t make a profit, they usually have no reason to buy a property unless they plan to live in the house. An investor who is a true capitalist knows they must always offer a seller something the seller likes and values more than what they are giving up or a deal will never happen.

Most sellers are looking for a large sum of cash, a monthly income stream, debt relief or any of a myriad of ways to receive that thing the seller likes more than what they are giving up.

Now that we have established this fact, as an investor it is your job to figure out what you can offer the seller that will be liked enough that the seller is willing to exchange their house for whatever you offered them. If both parties aren’t happy with the deal, it will never happen. Read More→

Welcome back! We’ve come a long way so far, and made a LOT of progress. But we’re not quite done yet, so listen up…

In our last article, you got a great introduction to Keyword Research, SEO (Search Engine Optimization)-both On-Page and Off-Page (remember?), and how to get started on getting a ton of FREE Traffic to your website.

Go back to last month’s issue for a refresher on that – it’s worth the read.

So now we come to the next part, and that is:

How to Get a Ton of Laser-Targeted Traffic to Your Site-FAST!

Before we embark on this particular adventure, I need to set the stage properly. It’s important that you have your On-Page SEO stuff taken care of first. Again, On-Page SEO is what you do ON your web page that makes it optimized for that particular keyword. This includes putting the keyword in the first and last sentence of that page, bolding it a time or two, italicizing it, underlining it, and all that other stuff we covered in the last article. Read More→

Where can I find a good mailing list to find motivated sellers? How can I create my own list to find highly motivated sellers? These are the big questions that I get a lot from Real Estate Investors! The true secret to success for a Real Estate Investor is finding sellers who really need to sell. I use different direct mail campaigns to locate different types of motivated sellers: out of state owners, properties quit-claimed from one person to another, expired listings, burned out landlords, vacant properties, military transfers, and pre-foreclosures, just to name a few.

The best part is that you can customize your direct mail piece and your list to reach exactly the kinds of motivated sellers you want to deal with in order to create the kinds of deals you want for your real estate investing business. This is best done by locating mailing lists and refining them to meet your individual criteria, then mailing to these potential sellers again and again, thus creating a multitude of profitable deals.

Investors often neglect to market to sellers using direct mail because they think the list is too difficult to get, or they only send the mailings once and quit. They don’t take the time to create the machine that will bring them deal after deal. Read More→

Now IS the perfect time to purchase and resell short sale properties. Why? Due to major mistakes by Lenders made at the time Homeowners obtained financing, our market is flooded with homes in which the Lenders are willing to accept short sales. Lenders such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, GMAC, CitiMortgage and Chase from 2006 to 2008, have major mistakes in their paperwork. They are reaching out to Homeowners asking them to do a Short Sale or Deed-in-Lieu. However, many of the Homeowners aren’t aware of the fact that they can’t do a Deed-in-Lieu if they have a second lien. And, if they owe Homeowners Association dues, which are a personal debt against the Homeowner, they may still be liable for the difference.

Homeowners Association dues need to be satisfied in full so that if a house is deeded back to the Lender, the Homeowners are no longer responsible for any more dues. There is a statute which states that the Lender that forecloses on the property is responsible to pay only one year of Homeowners Association dues. When conducting a short sale, this statute has little or no meaning to the short sale Lenders, meaning they may not agree to even pay one full year. I have seen Homeowners deed their property back to the Lender only later to find out that they are still liable for the difference owed on the Homeowner Association dues. Brutal! Read More→