Hey, it’s Larry here.  One of the questions that I get more often than any other question about working with us is:

How do I submit a property to you?

What is your buying criteria?

Well, as many of you know – at least those who own my Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine, which is my course that teaches how to buy and sell houses the same day using the Internet, which is based on my book Getting Started in Real Estate Trading – I need to be able to sell my properties at 70% of the after repaired value. That 70% includes purchase price, repairs and closing costs.

In other words, whenever I buy a property, I need to be able to add my $5,000 to $10,000 to $15,000 to it, then include repairs, closing costs (which I generally figure around 4% of the 70%), taxes, insurance and attorney fees (which I usually figure around $2,500) – and that is the price that I need to be able to sell it for to another investor. I want another investor that buys this property from me to be able to buy it, pay all the closing costs, fix it up and then they have 30% instant equity built into property.

Is it easy to do that? No, not all the time. But if you will do this in buying your properties to resell to other investors, it will be an easy sell if you negotiate a deep enough discount or you can turn around and sell it to another investor at 70% including purchase, repairs and all closing costs.

Also, I get people that want to know about submitting a note to me, as far as Filthy Riches type note. By the way, I only buy Filthy Riches notes from Filthy Riches students. That way you know exactly what we are looking for and how to protect yourself and get the most amount of money from your notes.

Because these Filthy Riches notes are such small deals and because you are buying them at $4,000, $5,000 or $6,000 and then creating a note buy [xx 00:02:19] sell price of $30,000, there is not really a lot of equity – real, true equity – in the notes. So you have to be able to sell them at 25-35% yield.

But if you are buying a property for $5,000 and you sell it for $30,000 and they give you a couple thousand dollars down, even if you only get $15,000 for the note, you still made $10,000-12,000 on this deal, so it’s still a really good deal. In fact, if you buy it for $5,000 and you end up netting $12,000 or $15,000, then you sold it for 2-3 times of what you’ve paid for it. You can’t do it on $100,000 or $200,000 house – there’s absolutely no way.

I hope this helps in understanding how to submit a property and a note to me. For complete details on submitting a property or a note to me, just go to www.InvestorsRehab.com and click on a link Submit a Property. It will give you all details about submitting a property to me to buy and submitting a note as a Filthy Riches student to buy.

Thanks a lot and be sure to look for next month’s newsletter where we have some really special items included for you! So thanks a lot and have a great day!

You might think I’m off my rocker for suggesting that a housing boom can actually work against you, but it has happened to many, many investors, including myself.  Let me share with you two observations I’ve made after going through a housing boom into a housing collapse.

 

#1: A housing boom can keep you from learning to negotiate.  Think about it.  When property values are going up thousands of dollars per month, you could actually buy a house for full market value and resell it later for a profit.  You could buy just about any house on the market without picking and choosing, or offering less than asking price.

 

Conditions like these only last a short while and are no way to run a portfolio in the long run.  What will happen when home stop going up in value?  You won’t have any negotiating skills, which take time to develop and cultivate, and you will either waste time learning, continue offering way too much and getting into trouble, or not making any offers at all.

 

#2: A housing boom can make you focus on short-term profits  I remember when any investor with a pulse could get a loan to buy a rental property, often with no down payment and 100% financing.  Or, people would get short-term financing with ridiculously high payments, because they intended to (and could) sell the house for a profit in a few months.

 

So guess what happens when financing gets harder to come by?  Your whole operation will get shut down.  Or, you might buy several properties with short-term, expensive financing, but not be able to sell them OR rent them out, and then you’re stuck. 

 

#3:  A housing boom makes you too lazy to find private money.  In  my opinion, the key to success is to build relationships with private lenders constantly, so that you can always borrow money on easy terms no matter what your exit strategy.

 

So while a housing boom is great in regards to your houses’ equity increasing, the side effects are the 3 temptations I’ve listed above.  I recommend negotiating well and finding private lenders regardless of your market conditions.

 

Click Here: http://stinkymarketreport.net — In this FREE digital book, learn the secrets that a $100,000,000 real estate investor has discovered about making money in a slow market, by understanding how market cycles REALLY work.  Or, for info on Alan Brymer, go to www.AlanBrymer.com

Using “Small Math” to Make BIG Profits

By Trace Trajano

Unlike most people I love math. I am an engineer by training so I am used to “Big Math”…you know the kind of math that involves too many Greek symbols. However, in real estate investing all you need to know is small math – addition, multiplication and subtraction. This is the math that your third grade teacher wants you to master. If you can do third grade math or small math you can make BIG profits in real estate.

I have a formula for making the right offers on a property. This formula works in any market – whether the market is HOT or cold and it works in any country. No other formula for making offers works as universally and it uses “small math”. It works whether you’re trying to rehab a deal or you’re trying to wholesale it.

Here’s the formula:

MAO = CF x ARV – Repairs – Profit

One of my students – Maria Senger from Michigan used this formula in successfully buying and then wholesaling her very first deal. The market right now in her part of Michigan is slow (albeit better than Detroit). Based on her analysis, the ARV or After Repair Value or the value of the property when it’s fixed up or in move-in condition is $105,000. According to her estimates, the property needs about $5,600 in renovation or repairs. Based on her market, she used a Cost Factor of 0.8. The CF or Cost Factor is 1 less the percentage of the value of the property that you allocate as the cost of selling. Very simply, CF is related to the cost of selling a property. The longer the property stays on the market, the higher the cost of selling and CF goes farther from 1.0. For example in a slow market, use a cost factor of 0.8 even 0.7 for markets like Detroit. For hot markets or areas where houses sell in 30 days use a CF of 0.9.

Factoring in a profit of $20,000 for her renovator/buyer and $10,000 for herself, her MAO or maximum allowable offer is $48,000. She initially offered $40,000 for this house that the seller – which happens to be a bank – was asking $63,000 for. She made the offer anyway. The bank lowered their price to $55,000. Then she countered at $45,000. The bank still did not budge. Everyone agreed to meet halfway to $48,000 – her Maximum Allowable Offer. The MAO is your absolute highest and best offer – going above this means you’re lowering your profit and even risking losing money on the deal.

What happened afterwards? Once she has the property under contract – or once she has control over it with a purchase contract, she then worked diligently to find a buyer for the house. She sold the house 2 weeks later for $55,000. She made $7,000 profit using “small math”.

Another student of mine – Jay Castillo from the Philippines used the same formula for buying and successfully selling a house on a rent to own basis. He found a bank owned property that is being auctioned. Based on his analysis, in the neighborhood where the house is at, the property being auctioned off has a value between P1.9 Million and P2.5 Million. To be conservative, he used an ARV of P1.9 Million. Based on contractor estimates, he thinks he can renovate the house for P30,000. He found out that similar houses in the neighborhood sells quickly – within a month – and this is why he used a cost factor of 0.9. He factored in a profit of P350,000 for himself for buying, fixing then selling the deal. Based on all these numbers, the MAO is P1.33 Million.

During the auction – of which he was the only bidder, he got the house for the minimum bid of P1.1 Million. He proceeded to renovate the house. His actual renovation cost is P130,000 (P100,000 over!). Two weeks before he finished renovating the house he already found a buyer. The buyer agreed to buy the house for P1.9 Million on a rent to own basis. The buyer put down P350,000 and Jay will have a cashflow of about P5,000 a month over the next 10 years and P18,000 a month from year 11 to year 15. All in all – not a bad deal. Had he sold it for cash for P1.9 Million, he would have made P800,000. Now that he sold it on rent to own, the cumulative cash he will get is about P3.1 Million – a P2 Million profit!

Not bad for using “small math”.

So now that you know how to use “small math” to make BIG profits, what do you do? Focus on learning how to find good deals and make a lot of offers using the simple formula I shared with you. If you do, I guarantee it, you will be counting BIG checks soon!

Source: http://tracetrajano.blogspot.com/2009/07/using-small-math-to-make-big-profits.html

Stepping Outside the Real Estate “Box” with Self Directed Retirement Accounts

By Laurie Bachelder

Investors tired of watching their retirement accounts ride the Wall St. rollercoaster are searching for other ways to create wealth in their retirement accounts. If you turn to most business or financial publications or websites you will find many articles about investing in real estate with a Self Directed Retirement Account (‘SDRA’). The majority of articles written about investing with a SDRA pertain to real estate as a popular choice for an alternative investment, and why wouldn’t it be.

Real estate offers several advantages. For one, most people understand real estate. Many investors own a home and understand how real estate performs; they understand that real estate typically appreciates in value . With real estate it is unlikely, not impossible, that the value of a given property will decline to zero and the investor will lose their entire principal. Compare this to stock investments. It is very possible to lose your entire investment in an individual stock if you are not in charge of the company, or if the company’s assets are highly leveraged

Real estate investors like the fact that there is a physical asset they can see and touch, and in some cases exercise some control over. This can help curb any uneasy feelings when the market is volatile.

But what if an investor is not interested in investing their SDRA in real estate? Or maybe an investor already holds a portion of their portfolio in real estate and understands they need to further diversify their holdings. After all isn’t diversification one of the founding strategies for risk management of a successful portfolio?

True Diversification

SDRAs allow investors to truly diversify their portfolios and to invest in an almost endless range of investments, with a few exceptions per the Internal Revenue Code. SDRAs allow people to invest in their core competency. If they understand stocks, then they can invest in the securities market. If they understand real estate, then they can use that knowledge to invest in real estate. If they understand farm animals, show horses, domain names, the restaurant business, construction, and so on then they can take that knowledge and passion to invest in those assets.

The bottom line is – SDRAs allow people to pursue the investments that they know and understand. As long are the rules and regulations are adhered to their imagination and passion become the only limitations.

What is your passion? What are you knowledgeable about? What do you think will grow your retirement account wealth? These are the questions one has to ask themselves. These are the questions that many investors have already answered and have been enjoying rewarding returns within their SDRAs.

Turning Passion info Profit

Investor Joe, a businessman with a background in business development and business analytics, has always had a passion for horses. Joe also understands the potential that dressage horses offer for a healthy return on investment. His experience arms him with the knowledge that there is a difference in value between what a horse is worth in Europe and what it would be worth in the United States.

Joe’s Business Plan states: A well trained horse in Europe may sell for $40,000, but that same horse may bring forth a value of $80,000 in the United States. The difference in value is the profit margin for this asset.

Coupling his knowledge and passion with his savvy business sense, Joe was able to put together the right people with the right synergies to incorporate his passion into an investment for his SDRA. He already had a working relationship with a horse stable and he had in-depth knowledge on buying, training and selling horses. Joe also has a close working relationship with trainer, vet and a transportation company. Joe coordinated a new venture to import, train and sell dressage horses using his SDRA as the investment vehicle for this new venture.

Don’t have a passion or understanding for dressage horses? Maybe you have an understanding of the process of excavating and how to make money from raw land and dirt.

Investor Ike makes his living in excavation. Ike knows that when excavating land there are many aspects that can bring income other than just getting paid to clear the land. The trees that are cleared can be cut and sold as lumber or firewood, the dirt that is removed can be sold as fill and once the land is cleared it can be divided up and sold to developers.

Ike, armed with this knowledge and an SDRA, uses the SDRA to purchase 50 acres of wooded land in a highly sought after area for residential development. Per the IRC rules and regulations, Ike will not personally perform any of the excavation work on the land that is owned by his SDRA, but he will contract the work for the clearing of the trees and removing of the dirt. He will also decide where to sell the wood and fill. The profits from the sale will flow back into the SDRA and will continue to grow tax deferred or tax free. The same goes for the profits from the sale of the land that will be sub-divided once cleared.

Diversification for Everyone

Even if do not have a passion, hobby or specialized knowledge that you think can be profitable, that doesn’t mean an SDRA won’t work for you. If you are creative, it is possible to come up with some interesting strategies that could turn a profit.

For example, Investor Dan, an experienced businessman, lives in New York City and read an article about the sale of covered bus stop stations to minimize the maintenance costs from the transportation agencies hands. As Dan was reading this article it struck him that this could be a good investment, not because they would appreciate and he could “flip” the stations as in real estate, but because of the cash flow opportunities. Each of the covered bus stop stations in the city provides an opportunity to sell advertising space on them. This would provide a monthly cash flow back into the SDRA and also create a viable cash flow report when the time comes to sell any of the stations. The profit from the sale would also flow back into the SDRA and continue to grow tax-deferred.

No matter what your passion or knowledgebase happens to be, there is bound to be something that you can invest in to generate wealth for your retirement. Structured properly, alternative investments can benefit an investor’s SDRA just as easily as a stock or bond.

A word of caution though, alternative investing through SDRA’s typically requires additional knowledge of the rules, regulations and guidelines set forth by the IRC. It is not the same as sitting at your computer and purchasing common stock, wherein all the rules, regulations and guidelines are more straightforward. The best chance of succeeding in the world of alternative investing is to work with professionals that are knowledgeable, specialize in the industry and take the extra steps in making sure that the investment through the SDRA is in compliance with the guidelines.

Disclosures: The examples used in this article have resemblance to actual investments, but specifics have been withheld to maintain the privacy of the client and their investment portfolio. This article is for educational purposes only. There is risk associated with all investments, both traditional and alternative investments. Not all investments are for all investors, and appropriate portfolio planning, whether traditional or alternative is required prior to making any investments. Classification of risk for an investment is based on many factors, some of which is inherent in the investment and some of it is based on the portfolio and plan of the investor. Please seek professional advice prior to planning any investment whether traditional or alternative. Nothing in this article implies, either explicitly or implicitly, that NUA or the authors of this article is soliciting investors for any specific type of investment, nor is NUA or the authors providing any form of investment advice through this article. Not all information contained within this article may be applicable to all readers, and NUA shall not be held responsible or liable for any use of the information with or without seeking knowledgeable professional advice.

About The Author About NUA Advisors, LLC (NUA): an independent Registered Investment Advisory firm is bridging the gap between traditional and non-traditional investing. NUA is unique in that they have an extensive understanding of the regulatory and financial considerations involved in an SDRA. NUA is comprised of experienced and knowledgeable professionals who provide diversification strategies that go beyond traditional markets. If a client has identified an alternative investment, NUA’s risk management team can provide the fundamental analysis of the investment, as well as assist with properly structuring the transaction to avoid the common pitfalls of alternative investments within a SDRA. Interested clients that have not yet identified an alternative investment to diversify their portfolio may utilize NUA’s alternative investment platform. The platform identifies, evaluates and monitors alternative investment options for SDRAs. NUA appropriately introduces clients to strategies designed to provide true diversification that are non-correlated. For more information you can visit http://www.nuaadvisors.com; or Contact NUA Advisors, LLC at: info@nuaadvisors.com

So What is Equity Buildup?

Building wealth. A simple statement. Everyone wants to “build their wealth”, or just simply “get rich”. One of the most widely recognized paths to this wealth building has historically been through Real Estate Investment. I use the word “path” deliberately as the road to real estate riches is not normally one of “overnight success”.  It has long been, and continues to be, one of the surest paths to wealth. It can be a sure path if you do your homework, and it does involve study, planning, research, some degree of risk, and most of all, a plan of action.  Nothing happens without taking action.  So, how does the term equity buildup apply here?  Equity is the difference between what is owed on a property (the mortgage or the loan) and the actual market value of that property, or what it will sell for. It’s the cash you take away from the closing table after you’ve sold the property. Before you cash out it is equity.

Now that we have defined equity, we can talk about equity buildup. One of the most powerful tools in acquiring wealth through real estate investment is equity buildup. How does it grow?  It can happen naturally, or it can be forced.  When it happens naturally, it is generally over a longer period of time, and is the result of natural appreciation. Buy a property, hold it for a long time, let the rental income cover the mortgage, taxes and insurance, and then sell it for more than you paid for it. Many people have use this method as a means of building a secure retirement portfolio.

The second method, or forced appreciation, occurs as a result of specific actions on the part of the investor, and can happen using several different methods. You can buy right (right meaning low) and have instant equity, you can buy something in need of repair and improve it – thereby creating instant equity, or you can build it from scratch and sell it, also creating instant equity.  Any of these last three ways are generally used to develop fast real estate cash. By far the quickest of these is to simply buy a property in good shape, from an extremely motivated seller, and then re-sell it as soon as you can for a short term profit.

Buying a property to fix up or “rehab” as it is usually known in the business, is the second quickest.  Buying a piece of land, building a house, and then selling it would come in third.  Any of these three can usually be accomplished in less than a year.  Buying low and immediately re-selling could be anywhere from a day to a few months. It all depends on your methods of marketing.  One other way which does not involve equity buildup- but can produce quick cash, is called “assignment of contract”.  Contract for a property, add on a small profit, and sell the contract to a buyer who wants to do any of the above. That’s a whole separate subject, and will be covered in another article.

I’ve purposely left out any quotes of profit numbers here, as they can range anywhere form a thousand to five thousand or more for a simple assignment, to that much up to even six figures on any of the other methods. It all centers around your market, your research, your savvy, and your exit strategies.

If you’d like to learn more about these, and other helpful strategies, visit my website, as shown below.

Michael Perry has been a successful Real Estate Developer and Investor for over 30 years. He has purchased and/or built properties in New York, Hawaii, and Florida. He has authored a Real Estate Book for first time homebuyers, (Buying A House-The First Time Homebuyer’s Guide- – available through AMAZON.COM and major bookstores), and has owned and operated numerous small businesses. He presently resides in Central Florida. Go To http://www.FreeRealEstateInfoandDeals.com

Internet Marketing… You Need A Website

Every Real Estate Investor Should Have a Website!

Your website can be used as part of a “Credibility Kit.” A “Credibility Kit,” is just a collection of information that you can present to your sellers that will show them that you are a real business professional and not just someone looking to take advantage of them.

You can put testimonials up there that you get from sellers of past deals or letters of recommendation from your insurance agent, Realtor, mortgage broker, or anyone you have good business relationships with to show that you’re a legitimate professional.

Not only does a website give you some upfront credibility, but it gives people a way to find out more about who you are and what you can do for them before they contact you. By building credibility you will take some of the skepticism out of the seller, and you will find that you get a more flexible and cooperative conversation from the seller that could lead to an accepted offer.

One of the most important uses for a website is to help you pre-screen your prospects. You can provide a feedback form for your prospects to fill in the details about the property they are selling (asking price, location, mortgage balances, reason for selling, etc.). This information can be automatically emailed to you and then you can be armed with deal closing information when you return the call.

It’s a fact that a large percentage of homeowners will look to find information online before they start the process of selling their home. With some simple search engine advertising, and by adding your address to all your marketing material, you can drive some of that traffic to your website and cash in on it.

Keep in mind that you want to have your website content setup as a “resource” for your visitors, not necessarily a sales pitch about how you can buy their house.

If you have a good source of information about various ways to help them with their current financial situation, you will be perceived as someone that is looking to help, rather that take advantage of their unfortunate situation. This is the critical step to building the relationship you are looking to establish.

How to Work with Web Designers – Don’t!

Thank God for duplication through software. Imagine if people hadn’t bought into Bill Gates’ view of how software should be created and distributed. We would all be operating a self-developed version of Microsoft Word or Excel. I have built software from the ground up and it’s a pain. Just this morning I got off the phone with a web contractor that’s two months late on a simple project. So far of the six or so companies I have worked with, only one company has successfully completed a project with any sort of resemblance to the original bid price or time frame. And then on the next project they failed miserably.

Software is complicated. Unless you truly are o.k. with spending long hours dwelling in frustration, you might try buying or leasing a website that someone else is losing hair developing.

Hope this helps,

Matt Gerchow

How to Build a Real Estate Business Without Going Broke or Insane

By Michelle Spalding

This special report was created at the urging of many of my clients and students. Apparently there is a myth that as a Realtor you must do everything yourself. Too often there are articles written touting the super strength of a Realtor who is being featured. He/she is bragging that the customer can always feel confident knowing that he/she is doing it all.

I honestly feel bad for this person however heroic or honorable their intentions are. Sadly, this person is simply trading hours for dollars which is basically having a J.O.B. Many real estate investors I also speak with are in the same boat. The worse part of this is that if they want to take a vacation, it’s tough if not impossible if they are the do-it all person. If they want to increase their income, they will have to spend more time working to accomplish that. There is nothing to sell when they want to move onto something else or retire. There is no income if they are sick or become incapacitated. The stress of being a soloprenuer is daunting and often overwhelming. It’s one of the reasons that many don’t make it long in the business. Besides, no one can great at everything.

It doesn’t have to be that way and the information I’m about to share with you will probably revolutionize the way you think about your business. Notice I said BUSINESS, that’s exactly what you should have, not a J.O.B.

Before I share with you how making small changes can help you can create the business of your dreams without going broke, I want to share this simple yet eye opening example how much doing it all yourself is costing you financially. Let’s say that you want to earn $75,000 per year, after expenses. That’s about $37.50 per hour based on a 40 hour a week work week. With that said, do you think you are paying yourself too much for some of the activities you do? Is sending faxes, stuffing envelopes or following up with the title company a job that you should pay someone $37.50 an hour to do? I don’t think so and I’m sure you don’t either – so what’s a busy real estate business owner to do? There are ways to change this and I’m going to cover a few of them in this report. I’m also going to go into detail about the pros and cons of several of them as well as how to implement others. Remember this report is REAL information to help you see your real estate business as just that, a BUSINESS.

Leverage is one of the most powerful things you can add to your business and perhaps your life. It’s how you increase your income without working more hours. It’s adding people to your business help you grow it and to enable you to generate more sales and also enjoy more free time. It’s using systems and tools to ensure that the people you bring into your business are effectively doing the job you’ve assigned to them the way you designed it and that each of your customers is receiving the best service, each and every time.

Let’s look at People first – this is often the most challenging yet the one that most business owners jump right into without doing a great deal of research. It’s often done wrong and yields less than desirable results. This leads to negative feelings about this and often stagnates a business’s growth because if it. For many reasons this is understandable. Bringing someone into your business requires you to take on another role “manager”.

There are several ways you can bring someone into work with you, as an employee, independent contractor or as virtual contractor. While I’m not entirely against employees, don’t get me wrong, it’s not perhaps the best first choice for a small growing business. I am very aware of the challenges and expenses involved with hiring one especially too early in your business. Nonetheless, it is an option so let’s discuss how it’s done effectively.

• Solicit applicants – advertise the position
• Screen applicants – It’s suggested that you interview the person over the phone briefly to pre-screen them then two additional times before hiring them
• Negotiate salary – this salary won’t just be what you’ve agreed upon with employee, you have to pay taxes on both the federal and state level
• Provide training
• Manage the work they do
• Provide work space
• Provide benefits.

Bringing people into your business is a huge expense and it’s easily understandable why many people feel they will never get to that point, or even want to. Additionally, having another “mouth to feed” is also quit overwhelming. But without people, you are always going to be the one doing ALL THE WORK.

The other alternative is to hire non-employees or contract labor. This is the method I prefer but a word of caution, contract labor has it’s draw backs also. You are limited in the control you have over the person’s time, because if you set hours, then they are employees. The benefits however are of course you can bring this person in for special projects or events and when those are done, you don’t have to be obligated to continue to employee this person for other activities. Many of the same above apply such as:

• Solicit applicants – advertise the position
• Screen applicants – It’s suggested that you interview the person over the phone briefly to pre-screen them then two additional times before hiring them
• Negotiate compensation
• Provide training
• Manage the work they do
• Provide work space
• You may also have to pay a retainer to keep this person available to you on a regular basis

The last is to go into cyberspace and locate a virtual nonemployee. Usually this person, also called a Virtual Assistant will have general office skills however in recent years we’ve seen this expand. Now it’s pretty easy to find someone who indicates they have specific knowledge in a certain industry. When using this option, please keep in mind here are the basics you’ll need to do:

• Solicit applicants – advertise the position – or search for them online
• Screen applicants – It’s suggested that you interview the person over the phone briefly to pre-screen them then two additional times before hiring them
• Negotiate compensation
• Provide training
• Manage the work they do

No matter which option you choose to help you grow your business there is no doubt, you will have to have help enjoy the freedom that owning a business can afford you as well as helping you maintain your sanity. Before you add any one to your business you first must determine what jobs can you give this person, what are you comfortable delegating?

Here’s an exercise to help you get started:

– What feeds your passion? (What do you like to do the best?)
– What are your core competencies? (What are you best at?)
– What is drudgery? (What do you dislike doing in your business?
– What are you using to leverage yourself? (Be honest)

If you could hire someone to help you with your business and money were no object – I’d have them do the following: This is one of my favorite eye opening exercises; I hope you found it helpful also.

Before you bring someone, anyone into your business, you have to have systems in place to ensure that the work this person is doing is consistent with the work that you have been doing. This is another stumbling block that many encounter.

One of my favorite books is The EMyth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber. If you haven’t read this book please take the time to do so. It will give you a whole new perspective on your business. The book tells the story of why many small businesses fail and offers suggestions on preventing it. Much of it has to do with systems or lack thereof. Systems are what can help you take your business to the next level. They enable you to consistently deliver top quality service to your clients always and from each member of your team. They also empower those that you’ve hired to work on your team to do their job effectively and with little supervision form you.

Here’s a few suggestions on using systems to help you grow your business and regain or retain balance in you life; • Use check lists. NEVER rely on your memory. Sounds simple, but often overlooked. Lists will help you ensure that all activities on a listing or transaction are complete. Checklists are also a great way to communicate with your clients and team members. This will eliminate unnecessary repetition of others on your team. Using them to communicate with clients will also help your clients know exactly what you are doing and where you are on their listing or transaction.

• Develop a written procedure for all of the activities you do. Document everything from how you input a listing, to how to close out a file after closing. Having a written plan will not only make it simple to hire an assistant or add to your team in the future, it will give you a reference point to help you discover where your time is being best spent.

Hint – an easy way to start this would be to buy an MP3 recorder and dictate all that you do. Email it to an online dictation service where many will type your dictated word and email it to you in a word format for about a penny a word.

• Devote time for income generating activities DAILY. Don’t over look the power of this system. Review your business, determine the steps necessary to create the results you want then daily take steps toward that goal. If it takes you 100 cold calls to generate a new listing, then daily you must set aside time to do these calls. 25 or 50 a day and you’ll be on your way to the results you want. Putting it into your calendar and making it a system will increase the likelihood of these activities getting accomplished.

• Focus! Start day with a plan (system) and stay focused. It’s easy to get off on something else as soon as the phone rings but, staying true to your plan will help you grow your business. If you have an article to write, a proposal to prepare, cold calls to make or anything else that takes focus, turn OFF your email, and tell yourself you will spend the next hour or however much time you think this will take on this activity only. Then focus, focus, focus. You’ll be amazed at how much you’ll get done in a shorter period of time without any interruptions or distractions.

• Schedule time to work on your business rather than in it. That’s right, put it on the schedule, just like you would with any other important activity. Spending time developing goals, new systems and solutions for implementing them is a surefire way to increase your business. Don’t get stuck in the day to day and confuse busy time for business building time. Many top professionals take one day off a month and work on their business. They do not take calls, emails or any interruptions during this time. They simply work on building their business.

As a small business owner I am all too familiar with the day to day distractions and time zapping activities that come our way. However, in order to grow a business you’ve got to be willing to do a few simple steps to set it up. Growing a business takes leverage and requires you to bring people into your business, teach them to do what you want done. It also requires using the right tools for the job. It requires you and your team to utilize systems. Here are several resources you may find helpful in locating talented individuals to provide services for your growing business:

1.REVAnetwork.com – this is an excellent place to view profiles of independent contractors who have specialized knowledge specifically for real estate professionals. They can be hired for a simple onetime project or as an ongoing position in your business. Generally these are virtual contractors or non employees and will work from their home office from almost anywhere in the world.

2.Craigslist.org – this is a free resource to post jobs and to review the resumes of those who are seeking employment. My favorite is that you can also make the resume submissions confidential.

3.Guru.com, Odesk.com and Elance.com – these are great resources to post project to and receive bids on. I personally have used all to have many projects done within my company such as website additions, writing articles, research and logo design work.

Suggested reading:
The eMyth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber
The Obsolete Employee by Michael Russer
The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris

Each of these will help you gain insight in to the power of systems and well as the importance of having the right team working with you to help you grow your business. Remember FREEDOM is one of the most fantastic benefits of having a business and being a Realtor is no difference.

So I challenge you to step back, take a look at your business. Is it where you want it to be? Have you explored hiring someone or changing the way you do some of the activities? Think you can do it all and still have a life?

The Online Closing Team at Transaction Management Consultants is dedicated to helping our clients build their business one transaction at a time. We are a team of highly skilled coordinators here to help our clients focus on the activities that create business and generate income. We’ve created, tested and perfected the systems needed to manage a transaction from contract to close. For more information on the services offered at Transaction Management Consultants – please contact Michelle Spalding at Michelle@ProTMC.com or by phone at (407) 622-4862 or Toll Free (866) 683-4862.

“Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing.” William Feather

About The Author Michelle Spalding Online Closing Team Transaction Management Consultants Michelle@OnlineClosingTeam.com

April 2010 Tech Corner

Building a Hungry Real Estate Buyers List on Twitter

We’ve talked a lot about using various social media in our real estate businesses.  One really cool way to have an active and hungry buyers list that jumps at your real estate offerings the minute you post them is to build your buyers list on Twitter.com.

For the purpose of this article we will start from scratch and presume that you have yet to create a Twitter account.

Go to http://www.Twitter.com and set up an account.  Click the sign up now button.  Type in your full name.  Then select your user name.  You want to select a user name that is indicative of what type of properties you are selling.  Then select a password and enter your email address.  Click create my account and you now have a twitter account.

That’s it.  The hard part is over.  You now have a Twitter account that you can use to develop your followers.  First thing to do is click on the Find People text link at the top of the page and look for @larrygoins and @shannan0 and follow Larry and I.  We will follow you right back so that you will start to have a follower base.  Then you want to continue using the Find People feature to search out people who you are already in contact with who are involved in real estate and follow them.  If they don’t have a Twitter account you can send them an email invitation to set up an account and follow you.

Directly under your Twitter ID on the right hand side of the page you can monitor your number of followers and the number of people that you are following.  Don’t follow too many more people than are following you at any one time.  About 20% is the largest you want to let the disparity get.  Periodically check your followers and make sure that you are following them to so that you set up reciprocal relationships.  Remember that your followers can and will retweet your posts on Twitter so not only do you reach them but you reach their followers as well.

Now, as you are building your follower base, you will want to periodically clean out the people who you are following that are not following you back.  The quickest tool to do this is http://www.Twitter-Karma.com.

When you want to send a Tweet out on Twitter, just place your curser in the box below “What’s happening?” and enter your tweet.  Remember it can only be 140 characters so if you are going to send out a tweet with a long URL you will want to use a URL shortener like http://www.bitly.com or send your Tweets through http://www.HootSuite.com which automatically shortens your URLs.

You are going to send out Tweets relevant to your ideal follower, your hot buyers.

To do this, you have to formulate in your mind who exactly your hot buyers would be.  They could be price specific, geographic specific, wholesale or landlord or rehab specific, or perhaps some combination of the above.  Grab a notepad and jot down what you are selling and who would be buying it.  Then jot down some of the things that people who meet your buyer criteria would be interested in and those are the topics you will want to tweet and retweet about in ADDITION to positing about properties that you have for sale.

Now to find additional people to follow who will in turn follow you, use the search feature in Twitter and search for posts with those keywords.  You will find many additional people to follow.  Say for example you are looking for potential buyers in Newport News, Virginia.  You could search for tweets about Newport News or the beach or Virginia or the local sports teams or anything relevant to Newport News, Virginia.

One you feel like you have exhausted the Twitter search feature there are some other tools that you can employ to find additional people to follow.

One tool to help you do this is http://www.flashtweet.com/.  FlashTweet let’s you automatically amass more followers on Twitter.  http://www.twittgeek.com/ is another auto follower tool.  This marketing tool will let you find and then follow Twitter users with certain interests.

Perhaps the most powerful tool for locating local Twitter followers will be http://www.twitterlocal.net/.  Twitter Local is an application that you download to your computer and use to find local people on Twitter to follow, local people who would be interested in buying or selling you real estate.

If you are actively using your mobile phone when you are one the road and want to be able to quickly be able to post content to your Twitter account, then check out Twitterberry for the Blackberry, Tweetie, Twitterific or Twitterfon for the IPhone or IPod Touch.  Many mobile phones also have their own custom Twitter applications.

If you have a blog, you can use Wickett Twitter Widget to display your recent Twitter tweets on your WordPress.com blog.  This widget displays tweets from your Twitter account in the sidebar of your blog.  It is the easiest and best way to add Tweets to your blog.

Also, you might want to sign up for http://www.Twitpic.com which allows you to easily post pictures of your properties to your Twitter account.

Once you have begun to employ these tools you will see your Twitter account grow by leaps and bounds of hungry buyers on a regular basis.

Happy Tweeting!

The 5 Key Housing Statistics to Watch Like a Hawk

By Alan Brymer

Thank heaven you don’t have to be an economist, statistician, or even a real estate agent to be able to assess a housing market’s statistics and know what’s really going on.  Here are 5 key items to watch in order to judge what part of the real estate market cycle you’re in, and make wise decisions when investing.

Housing Statistic #1: Days on the Market

This one is pretty straightforward.  It tells you how long houses are taking to sell.  In the hottest markets, this number might be 30-40 days, meaning that listed homes went under contract in a matter of hours or days.  In slow markets, the average house may take 6 months or longer.  If you see this figure movin up or down it may be the sign of a significant trend.

Housing Statistic #2: Average Inventory

This mean the number of houses currently on the market compared to the number of houses that sold in the last month.  If there are 6,000 properties for sale in your county, and 1,000 sold last month, then you have a 6-month inventory of houses (which is actually the average for most markets over time).  It means the average house will take around 6 months to sell.  Too many houses on the market is a sign that the days to sell is going to go up soon.

Housing Statistic #3: Mortgage Defaults

When houses take a long time to sell, many homeowners get trapped when financial challenges arise.  Mortgage defaults lead to foreclosures later, and are a sign that times are getting tough economically in your area.  Keep in mind that there will always be a certain number of defaults in your area, but it’s whether that number is going up or down that’s important.

Housing Statistic #4: Foreclosures

Foreclosures are another indicator of the health of a market, because a house foreclosing is often proof that it couldn’t be sold by the homeowner prior to the auction.  In a hot market, few houses go all the way to foreclosure because someone always comes out of the woodwork to buy it in time.  As houses get harder to sell, the number of foreclosures go up.

Housing Statistic #5: Building Permits

Building permits are also a sign of the times.  When values go up an people have money, many property owners choose to add on to their houses or build new ones.  When times get tougher, people put these projects on hold, so pay attention to this, too.

The 5 keys above are not a foolproof system to guessing exactly when your real estate market will finish going up or down and turn the other direction.  But they will help you know the signs of the times so you can at least get your bearings and not mistake a slow market for a hit one.

Click Here: http://stinkymarketreport.net — to learn how to be able to time your local real estate market with 95% certainty.  You’ll receive a FREE report on how to explode your profits by knowing when and where to by.  Or, for info on Alan Brymer, go to www.AlanBrymer.com

2 Tips On Selecting The Perfect Wholesale Website Domain Name

By Rob Swanson

One of the most important things you can do to help optimize your wholesale real estate site for good placement in the search engines is choose a good domain name.  But, you might be asking “What makes a domain name good?”  And let me just say for the record, it is not the name of your company in most cases.  No one knows the name of your company and frankly, no one cares.
When it comes to domain name selection, it’s all about branding and understanding your potential customer.  And, the answer is pretty easy.  You need to think like your potential customer, you know the person typing a search into Google that you hope sees your website.

In the case of a wholesale real estate site building a buyers list, it is important to recognize that your potential customer is searching for good real estate deals, wholesale property, cash flow houses, real estate wholesalers and so on.  If someone that is buying in your area is typing one of these searches, you want your domain name to hit as the first line of optimization.  Because, when a search engine receives a search there is a lot that happens, but one of the first things the search engine does is look for domain names that are relevant to the search keyword or phrase.

Here are two tips that should help:

1. First, your domain name should identify “what you have”.  For example, wholesale real estate, investor properties, rehab houses, etc., etc.  This is what people are searching for and should be a part of your domain name.

1. Second, your domain name should identify “where you have it”.  For example, Denver or Colorado or Adams County or SW Florida, etc., etc.  This is where people are searching.

Because people search for what they are looking for generally by location choosing an easy to remember domain name that covers both is a great place to start.  Combine an easy to remember mix of “what” and “where” into your domain name and you will be taking a big step forward in helping cash buyers find your wholesale website online.

For fast, organic search engine ranking there are 3 additional techniques you can use to crush your competition and dominate your online presence.  I’ll address these other techniques in upcoming issues but for starters, get your domain name right first.

About The Author

Rob Swanson is a full time real estate investor and is the publisher of the 100% FREE, content rich http://www.WholesalingNewsletter.com.  Claim your copy today and learn how you can find wholesale real estate deals in your backyard in less than 3 hours.