Spring has finally arrived and Baseball is about to start which, for me, makes this the best time of year. Another thing that makes this such a good time of year is that this is when the real estate market generally starts to heat up. The winter months are always slow thanks to little things like the Holidays. But we are now past that hurdle and we are also past the terrible weather of the winter, in most parts, which means the market is going to be heating up.

If you buy properties to invest in now you’ll have a better chance of fixing it up and retailing it instead of fixing it up and putting a renter in the house. The economy is starting to show some signs of life and it appears that the government is doing everything they can to try and get banks to lend money again. That will open the door for more buyers instead of creating more and more renters. Real estate investing is all about timing, and right now properties and interest rates are at historic lows. That makes this the prime time to buy. Lex Luthor from “Superman” made a great point when he said, “Stocks may rise and fall, utilities and transportation systems may collapse. People always need land and they’ll pay through the nose to get it.” Bottom line, even when things are tough people will always need a place to live.

So get out there and buy some houses. And we would be very happy to sell a house for you if you’ve gotten a good enough deal. If you have a property that you would like to submit to us to see if we can work out a deal please send all your property information to matt@investorsrehab.com.

As always, if you are looking for great deals and don’t want to do all the work yourself visit our website at www.InvestorsRehab.com. All of our properties are for sale at 70% of the ARV minus the repairs. We already have a contractor ready do go on every property and their bids are on the site. We also have an After Repair Appraisal and a Realtor that is ready to list the property for you once it is fixed up. It doesn’t get any easier than that.  

Until next time…

Matt Lubisich

Oh NO!  The Seller Accepted My Offer!

By Lester Watts

Oh NO!  The seller accepted my offer!  Well, wait a minute…isn’t that a good thing!?  Of course it is, but many new investors are finding that once they have an offer accepted, then what? Now it is real!  Time to get busy.  In this month’s article we are going to address just that.  What do you do AFTER the offer has been accepted?

If you read last month’s article you will know we talked about how making more offers is one of the basics to success in real estate.  You have to make offers in order to make deals.  Inevitably, you make enough offers; you are going to have some accepted.  Once that happens, take pause and pat yourself on the back! Congratulations!  You are one step closer to becoming a successful real estate investor!

Ok, now take a deep breath and let’s get started.  I am going to keep it simple here even though some of our readers are experienced investors.  This series is going to be about the basics and even those of you who are experienced can forget some of the basics.  So, the next thing we want to do is check and double check the Offer to Purchase that was just accepted.  Normally the seller is going to give you the conditions under which they have accepted your offer.  Be careful here.  More than once I have had an offer accepted and blindly assumed that they didn’t change anything.  WRONG!  Never assume anything.  Thoroughly read through the documents the seller sends you.  It can be as simple as you put in your offer with a 15 day inspection period.  They say they accepted but when you go to read the contract they send you (or one of the addendums many banks are using) they may have changed the inspection period to 5 days or maybe 10 days.  It is possible of course that nothing was changed but what I want you to be aware of is that it does happen.  If ever in doubt then simply take all your related documents to your attorney and have them reviewed.  That way you can sign in confidence that the deal you think you are getting is indeed that!

If you have read the manual in Larry’s Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine, you are familiar with the three contingencies that we ALWAYS put in our offers and in the Contracts.  Recently I have reviewed several deals submitted by students where the contingencies where in the Offer to Purchase, however, the final addendums negated those contingencies and in effect, made them useless.

Although it may seem like a “no-brainer”, reviewing your documents and making sure everything is in order is an often over-looked basic step when you get a deal accepted.  The excitement of making money on a deal can sometimes override our thought process and end up costing us money if we are not careful.

Next month we will look at the basics of finding a contractor and what we need the contractor to do for us.  That is the next step in the process.

Until next time, to your success!

Lester Watts

JUST KEEP SWIMMING! JUST KEEP SWIMMING!

By Lester Watts

So often in today’s hectic quest for success, we forget the basics that are essential to our success as investors.  I am reminded of this while sitting with my two youngest children watching the movie “Finding Nemo”.  For those of you who have not seen the movie, it is the story of a Father clown fish searching for his lost son, Nemo.  Along the journey he meets a lady fish named Dory.   As they continue on their journey and things get a little tough, Dory tells Nemo’s father to “just keep swimming, just keep swimming”. 

About a week later after watching the movie I was teaching my daughter to ride her bike.  I found myself repeating to her as she got her balance “Just keep peddling! Just keep peddling!”  And then it hit me!  The basics! 

The basics are essential in anything you do in life, and investing is no different.  My desk sits within earshot of Larry’s office and I frequently hear him on the phone with students.  He asks them all the same question:  “How many offers have you made?”  Many times the students have the same answer-NONE!  Or if not none, then very few offers have been made.  The next thing I hear Larry say is that he “guarantees you have 0% chance of making any money in real estate if you don’t make any offers.”  This is so very true and is one of the basics that so many of us forget when we get wrapped up in all the analyzing and research we do when looking at potential properties to buy as an investment. 

Regardless of whether you are a rehabber, a wholesaler, or buy and then rent.  If you are looking to make a deal you have to remember to “Just make offers, just make offers!”  Once you pick up the phone and start making offers, you will find that some of them will get accepted, or the seller will counter and you will have succeeded in starting the negotiations.  Once you get an offer accepted, THEN you can begin doing all the analysis and investigating that is necessary to make sure you are going to have a good deal.  That is what your inspection period and due diligence is for.  

I have to admit, I am as guilty as anyone else.  Just in the past few weeks I have decreased the amount of time researching and increased my time making offers.  And the result?  More accepted offers.  There are plenty of deals out there in the current market; the key is to make offers on them.  So while you are out there in the sea of properties, just remember what Dory said in the movie:  “Just keep swimming! Just keep swimming!”

Until next time, to your success!

Lester Watts