Dear Readers: This month I have been working with Larry and his team in his office buying and selling houses and in this article I am going to be talking about my experiences.

I started working there about a week after school finished. On my first day Larry showed me the manual about his new “Filthy Riches” program. We search for houses that are listed for $25,000 or less. We aim to buy the property at much lower than that and then sell it straight away, as is, with seller financing. This means that you hold the note and essentially become the bank. You can then either keep receiving the payments and earn a huge return on your investment or you can sell the note for cash at a discount for a huge immediate profit.

When you find a house you phone the broker and find out what work needs doing to the property. If a lot of work is required and a contractor is needed, this is not the house for you. You are looking for a property that you can fix up yourself, (that should only be paint, carpet, appliances, and maybe a broken window).

When I talk to the broker I tell them that I am an all cash buyer, I can put up a 100% deposit, I don’t need an inspection or appraisal and I can close in 10-15 days. If you like the house and you can do the work your self make a starting offer of about $4,500. Sometimes the broker is reluctant to submit this offer to the bank. It is up to you to persuade the broker that you are a serious buyer and that most banks will respond. You can always tell the broker that this is an opening bid and that you are willing to negotiate once the bank has responded. Once your offer is accepted you will get the contract from the broker. It is very important to include the following conditions which will allow you to withdraw your offer without penalty:

1.sellers agent to provide buyer + buyers approval of condition of property based on a minimum of 20 photos including each room, interior, any problem areas, mechanical systems, all sides of exterior and street view within 48 hours of acceptance.

2. Sellers agent to verify in writing that there are no existing code violations on the property.

3. Sellers agent to secure the house if needed + place sign in window and a combination lock on the door with key + provide buyer with pictures of the sign and lockbox at closing. (You will need to send the agent the sign and provide the agent with money to buy the lock box or send them a lockbox

The agent will do all of this for you free of charge.

Once you close on the property you don’t do any work on the property your buyers will be doing that. Just send the agent your “rent to own” sign and they will put it in the window for you. When someone phones you for info on the property, tell them how many bedrooms it has, how big the house is, how many bathrooms it has, and then let them know what work needs doing. If that puts them off, tell them that you are offering seller financing with just $1,000 down, that should get them interested again.

It didn’t take long before I got my first house under contract. That was a very exciting day! I got it under contract for about $5,500 in Jackson, TN. When I got the contract I put in my conditions and the agent then sent me the 20 pictures that I asked for, I looked at the interior pictures and saw that the walls in every room needed new dry wall. This is not a job that you can do by yourself, so I withdrew from that deal.

I then found a house in Kokomo IN that was listed for $24,900. My initial offer was $5,500, the bank countered at $16,000, I then countered back at $8,600 and they accepted. I received the contract and once again inserted the 3 conditions.

Now I am waiting for the photos to see if this deal goes through. I will let you know next month how it goes.

Be on the look out for Larry’s new course Filthy Riches which will teach exactly how we do this.

This has been the best summer vacation ever, working with Larry and the team has been a real education and I have loved every minute. Of course, by the time you read this I will be back in school again, just counting down to the next vacation. Happy investing.

If you have any questions please email me at  gregory@mglpropertysolutions.com

Till next month readers,

Gregory

Dear readers

This month I am going to talk to you about what I do as a teenager that is different than other teenagers and the difficulties I face.

First of all it is very important to know that not very many people will take you seriously in a deal because you are a teenager. This makes them think that they can get as much money out of you as possible, but if you know enough about real estate and you have done your homework on the property and area you will surprise the person and you will get a deal. Some people won’t mind how old you are as long as they get their money.

When you go to a deal always take your parents, but you do all the talking unless they can bargain better than you can. If your parents are better at bargaining than you are, then let them do it for the first few times and you will quickly learn. If you are not older than 18 your parents will have to sign the contract.

Where ever I go I always take pen and paper with me, even when I am with my friends. Often I’ll be with my friends in a car driving down the street and I will see a house that I think could be a deal. I will ask my friend to pull over to the side of the road so I can write down the address of the house and a phone number if there is one. I also take a picture of the house on my phone. Most of my friends make fun of me when I do this but I just ignore them because a week or so later I’ll drive up to school in my BMW with a new set of dubs on it and my friends will ask me where I got the money from for them, and I’ll just say “you know that house I told you to stop at so I could get the information and take a picture? Well I bought it and sold it.” (wholesale deal). Every time I stop at a house they’ll make fun of me but I know I will never have to work a 9-5 job like them and when the money comes in I will be the one laughing.

That is one way I find deals, but I also use the internet. When most teenagers get on the computer they will go on MySpace or YouTube, yes I do that as well, but a lot of the time I am looking for deals on websites. When I find one I like I either phone the broker or email them and I get as much information on the property as possible. If I like what I hear I will submit an offer there and then. They usually ask for proof of funds. You will need to get your parents to get this for you, as it usually requires a bank statement or the like. As soon as you have this, just email it to the broker who will then submit your offer to the owner.

When I am on the phone to a broker or seller and I need help for something I will ask my parents to join me on the call and I will introduce them as my PARTNERS not my parents. You never want to tell the person you are talking to that you are a teenager or a youngster. If you do they will end the call very quickly and you will lose the deal. Generally, I have found that the brokers have been very helpful and have taken me seriously when speaking to them.

I am 16 nearly 17 and plan to be a millionaire before I am 25. So if you are younger than me, now is the time to get started.

Hope you have a good month.

If you have any comments or questions please email me at gregory@mglpropertysolutions.com

Gregory

Dear Readers I hope you had a good month.

This month I am going to talk about being a landlord.

In this economy there are more houses for sale than there are buyers for the houses. So if you have a nice house in a nice neighborhood you can rent it for a decent price.

If you have a good rental price, you should get good renters.

You can also say to the renters that you will install ceiling fans (or any other home essential or luxury) for $10 more a month (or more), or if they have pets you will allow them in your house for an extra $30 a month.  This way you will increase your monthly income with just a small outlay on your part.

A good house to look at for a rental could be a HUD owned home. HUD homes are government owned and often require some repair work to be done to them, but this is normally reflected in the asking price. Once fixed up, they can be very desirable, depending on the neighborhood.

You will need to screen all of the potential tenants, what I mean by this is doing a background check on them, doing a credit check on them, etc…. You need to know as much as possible about your tenants, BEFORE they move in!

All of your potential tenants over 18 need to fill in an application form. Don’t forget that you may not discriminate against any applicant on the grounds of race, religion, color, sex or creed etc. BE SAFE and know the law.

A good way to learn if your area is desirable is to advertise a house for rent in that area and monitor the response. If your phone is ringing off the hook, tell the enquirers that that particular house is no longer available, but you will have another similar house in a couple of week’s time if they would be interested in looking at that. Then go and find that house! You know that it is a good area for rentals and you already have a list of potential renters. On the other hand, if your ad is met with silence, don’t buy a house in that neighborhood.

Don’t wait until your work is complete before looking for a tenant, start looking as soon as the house is cleaned up and the major work is done. However, never show somebody around a building site and expect them to fall in love with it!

The best ways to advertise a house for rent is in a newspaper, a sign in the front yard of the house, or just a sign on a busy road where lots of people can see it. (check with code enforcement before doing this)

Renting is a good way to build wealth because if you’ve bought a property for the long term, you have tenants who are paying off your debt.

To buy the property you can use your money. But I don’t recommend it.

You can use OPM (other people’s money) which I do recommend. (see previous article)

Try starting with wholesaling in order to build you cash reserves and then you can think about lease optioning as well as rental. Then, when you have enough cash and a big enough cushion get into rental property.

Many people do it backwards. They get into rental property first and get bogged down with cash flow problems.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.  My email is gregory@mglpropertysolutions.com

Have a nice month and I will talk to you next month.

Gregory

Dear Readers I hope you enjoyed last month’s news letter.

This month I am going to be talking about marketing. What I mean about marketing is advertising what you are looking to buy or what you are selling.

There are many different ways you can advertise what you have for sale or what you want to buy. You can use postcards and send them to everybody in a certain neighborhood. You can put an ad in the local news paper, you can put up posters at your local supermarket (if they let you), you can put a sign on a street corner (only in some states), or if you spot a vacant house you can search the internet for the owner’s details.

Once you have found the new address of the owner you can send them a letter telling them that you would like to buy their house on……..(always put the address of the vacant house because they might have forgotten about it). Don’t forget to put your phone number and an email address. Ask them to get back to you as soon as possible.

You want your letter to be short and to the point “You are interested in buying their property”. You want your letter to be different to the others because lots of people probably send them postcards and letters asking to buy their house and the home owner probably throws them in the trash without reading or looking at them. You need the owner to open your letter and read it!

Putting ads in the local newspaper is a good way of advertising because most people read the paper. Find out when the ‘real estate’ section is printed (usually sometime over the weekend) and make sure that your ad is set to appear when most people are searching for property. In the newspaper you also want to make your advert stand out from the others. In this ad you only want to put your phone number.

If you put up a sign on street corners, be aware that you may be breaking city laws. Check with code enforcement before committing a crime. You may be able to put them up on a Friday evening and then make sure that you take them down Sunday evening. They are a good way to get your message across to a lot of people if placed correctly.

If you put up a poster at a supermarket make sure you ask permission before you do it. Many supermarkets do not allow you to place an advert for monetary gain.

If you decide to send postcards to your potential sellers you will need to subscribe to a mailing list supplier, get postcards printed and also pay for postage. This does mount up, but the returns can be worth it.

Make sure that your marketing campaign is targeted, manageable and recordable. You need to know which campaigns are producing the leads so that you can spend more time re-producing those good results and less time and money on campaigns that are not producing the returns that you want.

When the phone rings, be sure to ask where they have seen your ad or poster. If they are responding to your postcard or letter, ask them what it looks like because then you can see which ones are working well and which aren’t.

Happy investing

And if you have any questions please email me with them my email is

gregory@mglpropertysolutions.com

Have a great month   Gregory