I don’t do your usual by a 1,000 signs and put them out a 100 at a time kind of thing anymore. That use to work, but in nicer areas of town (price ranges just at or above the median home prices) I have gotten in so much crap for doing this that it has become so ineffective.

What we do now is have someone hold our signs for us. I use to pay them by the hour and do when I am selling, but when I am trying to generate leads for buying, I pay 25% commission for anyone who holds the signs and brings me a lead that we do a deal on. This is free advertising for me, and everyone is happy and it’s a true win win.

I stumbled on to this strategy of having people hold the signs out of necessity. One time when selling a home we were putting signs up and long story short, I ended up in court with a fine and on probation. But I didn’t want to stop using signs because they produce the most calls and open house visits of any other type of marketing hands down. Ads in the paper produce the highest quality. So, mixing these two together is a potent mix.

Anyhow, so I tested hiring some kids of a lady that worked on my houses for me and paid them $8 an hour. We ended up having 93 people come to that open house and we sold it using a round robin auction format at the end of the weekend. It was awesome.

So, I kind of got off subject for a second, because I started this post to let you know about a new website that we launched. We use a lot of Internet marketing. I think I am quite good at driving sites up the search engines and getting them ranked for particular keywords.

One of our newest sites is called We Buy Houses Dallas, it takes after the idea of the signs…except in this case its a sign on the Internet, which also allows for us to have a few more words. When you hold a sign on the street corner (usually by a Walmart in the area of town that you want to by in) you shouldn’t have more than 3 lines which also should include the phone number.

Something like:

We Buy Houses
Or Take Over Payments
214-555-1111

or

Avoid
Foreclosure
214-555-1111

Something like this works great. Also the signs that we use are 3′x4′, 3′x5′, or 4′x4′. Online our site is very similar…it’s a simple message that gets them to call us. We don’t try to come off as this huge big company, just normal investors that can and will buy your house or help you sell it fast. The only purpose of the site is to get them to call us.

So, if you want to check out our new site and try one of these in your marketing strategy go here and take a peek: We Buy Houses Dallas…

…It’s still a baby site as far as traffic, but the last time I checked it was #2 in Yahoo all ready and we just started to promote it. Our keywords don’t burn up the search results, but they offer enough traffic that we feel that we can do 2-4 deals every single month from this site. That’s not so bad.

Also we are adding a few other pages and post that will help us get some other traffic for helping people to: Stop Foreclosure Dallas…

Talk to you soon,

Kenney

Technorati Tags: we buy houses dallas, we buy houses

I have been working on houses and deals that I had before the 22 month retirement and my personal life has been a mess.

Anyway, all is good in the neighborhood and I will start to tell and show you what’s going on.  I’m really starting from scratch so, really I only have 13 months to finish eh?  That’s ok, a little hard work, a few late nights, being extremely productive, and who knows… we might just make it.

But hey, check it out, there have been some changes to the amount of money I need because me & my wife found our dream home and put an offer in on it last week.  You won’t believe me, but it’s a 6,064 square foot home, on 5 acres, with 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, a pool and all kinds of stuff.  It needs work, but that’s what I do so that doesn’t bother me.

Anyway, it’s in a real cool part of town with lots of trees and a circle driveway.  I am going to trick this thing out, but this is a total blessing from God because the total amount that will be put into this property will be like less than $185k including purchase.  Yeah, it’s one of those “As Seen On TV” type deals.

Almost to unreal to uneven believe, but it’s all that and a bag of chips.  I am so happy.  Anyway, I only tell this story to say that I originally thought I was going to spend $1.2 million on my home because that’s what I wanted.  But with this new home and price I just found, I only have to spend $185k.  Yay.

So, if I take $1,200,000 – $185,000 I get $1,015,000.  So, my original real estate investing goal was to make $2,154,700.00, now it’s only $1,139,700.  That’s a heck of a lot less, but it works for me.

That brings my monthly retirement amount need to $11,397 per month.  So, for the next 13 months I need to sell one house per week (which is about 55 weeks) and make an average of $20,721.82 net per house.  I am retiring on October 1st, 2010 @ 11:59 the day before my 31st birthday.

So, I have been working on putting together a team to help me accomplish this goal.  If you think that you are going to sell that many houses without any help, then you may have another thing coming.

I have a great realtor that I am working with, I met another investor who is great at finding homes to sell and wants me to market the houses he gets in contract.

I am not a “fan” of networking, but it comes in handy.  I am putting together a system that helps me bring in houses on autopilot and helps me sell them on autopilot with as little interaction from me as possible

If you learn to market homes or “market” period you will always make money.  That’s were the money is.  It’s in the marketing.

Well that’s enough info for today.  Talk with you soon.

Kenney

Technorati Tags: the 22 month retirement, real estate investing, setting real estate investing goals

A friend might have referred you hear. You might have read about it in a news publication. Maybe you just stumbled upon it through a search on a search engine.

But, however you got here, you have arrived at what is the most valuable real estate investing secret on the Internet.

Here’s why: The real estate secret is a simple secret that when understood and applied, will help you to buy and sell more houses without frustration in only a couple of hours a day, with more success and spending less time on it than most investors do all month.

What is The Real Estate Investing Secret?

It’s not no money down deals.
It’s not finding partners to invest with you.
It’s not flipping homes.

It’s not owner financing deals.
It’s not long term investing or short term investing.
It’s not location.

If that’s all you think that THE Real Estate Investing Secret is, then you should be scared.

When you know the real estate secret, it won’t matter if the market is good.
When you know the real estate secret, it won’t matter if the market is bad.
When you know the real estate secret, finding houses to buy and selling homes is easy because it’s simple.

Being A Problem Solver…

…that’s what I call the real estate secret. This is the most important activity you can learn about investing in real estate! You should hang this statement above your work space.

Why?

Because in order to solve a problem, a pain must exist…And if a pain exists, then motivation exists. You should ONLY deal with people that are motivated to buy, sell, or do business with you. It’s not your job to convince them that they should be motivated…either they are or they are not, and if they are not, then you should contact them at a later date.

You will waste time, money, and become extremely frustrated dealing with people who do not have a pain or motivation to act, if you make it that long in the business. Dealing with unmotivated people is the BIGGEST dream killer in this business. If they don’t get it, move on. There are more deals out there that won’t leave you begging them and pleading with them to do business.

Pain is the BIGGEST motivator in the world. Not love. Not fear. Pain…

Pain makes you jump when it says jump, and move when it says move. If you have ever experienced PAIN, I mean real pain, it takes control of your life until you can get rid of it.

You have to think of yourself as a problem solver.

When Buying Houses, you want to look for people who need to sell, who think of their house as a pain, for whatever the reason. Either they have moved and are paying 2 mortgages, or have lost their job, have had a death in the family, or a divorce. There are thousands of reasons people see their home as a pain and are motivated to do business.

This is also why follow-up is so important. If you call a home owner and you get the vibe that they aren’t motivated to do business, then you get off the phone and follow up with them later. Right now, that house isn’t a pain to them…

…But time has a funny way of changing things. When you call back, you may just be the pain reliever that they are looking for.

When you’re selling homes, you are still a problem solver. You’re solving problems for people who don’t have the best credit, don’t have the full down payment (that banks require), need a property quickly, want to buy a bigger home at a discounted price, and many, many other reasons. They are a ton of great buyers out there that have a problem that you can solve in helping them get their dream home.

Your job is to try and find out what is hurting them and solve there problem.

When you learn how to become a problem solver, and start solving problems for sellers and buyers, then you’ll work less, make more, be less frustrated, and live the life of your dreams.

To Your Immediate and Lasting Success,

Kenney

Technorati Tags: real estate investing, the real estate investing secret, real estate training

I wanted to let you know about this awesome place to buy cheap custom real estate signs.

It’s called BanditSigns.com!

This places seems to be phenomenal. I can’t put my full seal of approval on them yet because I haven’t personally used them, but I was referred here by a friend and I think they will do just fine.

I just couldn’t wait to share this news. Hope it might help you save some money and some time.

It’s rare to be involved in real estate investing and not use a sign of some sort, at some time.

Anyway, they were running a couple of specials like 100, 18″ x 24″, corrugated plastic signs for $97 bucks. That’s pretty hard to beat.

Anyway, if you’re in need of some custom signs or just cheap real estate signs, stop by there, I know I will be really soon.

To Your Immediate and Lasting Real Estate Investing Success,

Kenney

P.S. It’s Band It Signs (or http://banditsigns.com).

Technorati Tags: banditsigns.com, band it signs, custom real estate signs, real estate signs, cheap real estate signs

As I talked about the other day in the post about seller financing, you can sell houses really quickly using owner financing – aka seller financing…

…But what most people don’t know is that you do NOT have to continue to receive those payments over a long period of time, making this strategy an extremely useful and profitable quick turn real estate investing strategy.

How?

Because once you owner finance a mortgage note, then you can sell that mortgage note for cash. Yes, you will have to sell it at a discount, usually 6-13% or so depending on a couple of factors about your buyer like: down payment received, credit of borrower, time on job, and debt to income ratio, but you WILL get cashed out within 30 days.

This allows you to owner finance houses, and then get all cash within a very short amount of time by selling your mortgage note to a mortgage note buyer or broker.

It’s kind of similar to the requirements that banks have, EXCEPT, there’s a huge difference. The company or individual that will be buying your mortgage note doesn’t care about all the red tape that banks do, doesn’t have to abide by all the same regulations, and they are not as problematic. If there is an issue, you may have to discount the note a little more, but you can still get cash.

The better your note, the less of a discount you have to take. If the borrower has better credit, a larger down payment, longer time on job, or better debt to income ratio, then you’ll get more cash for your note and you won’t have to discount it as much.

Why do they buy notes? For the same reason that banks make loans. Let’s take a $200,000 loan at 7% interest. The bank will make about $279,016.00 over 30 years of profit on one loan. If one company only did 1,000 loans, they would make $279,016,000. That’s a lot of money.

This is why they don’t want houses back. They don’t want to foreclose on them. They are not in the real estate business, they are in the loan business. This is why mortgage brokers will buy your owner financed mortgages.

They even give you different options. You can sell all of the note, some of the note, or the whole thing. They work with you on whatever it is you want.

Quick Turn Owner Financing

Here’s the deal: You run an ad that says, “Owner Will Finance, No Banks”. Don’t forget to put a few other buzz words that will help sell the house and your phone number.

Then, when negotiating the deal, you really need to get 20% down. This is the most important factor in selling the note, next to their credit score.

Now, to get their credit score… you can have them pull a new report, you can become a part of a credit union, or you can have a mortgage broker or loan officer do it. This might cost a small fee, but it’s worth it. Just make sure that before you close the deal, you do pull the credit.

Anyway, I hope this little strategy makes you a ton of money and adds a little more fire to your investing arsenal.

To Your Immediate and Lasting Real Estate Investing Success,

Kenney

P.S. Oh yeah, the reason it takes about 30 days to cash out now is because that’s how long most mortgage buyers want the note in place before they will buy it. Once the real estate market gets back into order, you’ll be able to sell the note, probably, in less than a couple of days.

Technorati Tags: owner finance, sell mortgage note, mortgage note buyer, seller finance, real estate investing, the 22 month retirement

…especially because of shows like property ladder, flip this house, flip this house, and others.

Now, let’s clear the air. Flipping houses means to buy a house at a discount, then to turn and sell the house quickly at a higher price (or flipping it for profit).  Flipping can really be applied to anything that you buy at a price and then turn and sell at a higher price. This is also why the term “wholesaling houses” is sometimes used.

Flipping houses now, though, has become synonymous with buying houses at a discounted rate, usually needing a substantial amount of repair, then fixing it up to look really pretty and marketable at a retail rate and selling it.

Thus, the term “fix and flip” is often used.

This is a very, very good way to make money in real estate.

7 Tips To Help You Flip Houses For Profit

1. Buy houses in marketable areas.
2. Use hard money to purchase and fix.
3. Never take more than 30-45 days to fix any house.
4. Stay in affordable price ranges, if you don’t want to hold the house long.
5. The house must “look and smell” pretty.
6. Cheap work isn’t always the best option.
7. You MUST be on the job site daily to make sure work is getting done and done correctly.
8. Always account for about 15-20% miscellaneous rehab cost. (Okay, so that one was a bonus… lol)
9. Don’t let “ugly houses” scare you.  You’ll be shocked at what new drywall, carpets, and paint can do.

Just because this is one of the oldest and most “popular” ways to make money in real estate doesn’t mean that this is the way you should go.  It’s just one method.  It has more than it’s fair share of troubles… I guarantee you that.

Remember, house flipping doesn’t mean buying ugly houses and fixing them up…it means buying houses at a discount and turning them quickly for a profit.

So, make sure to check on these other methods.  They almost always produce quicker pay days, less headache, and you don’t have to personally sign for a loan.

Option Secrets (How To Control Houses For $10)
Lease Option Secrets
Seller Financing Secrets

To Your Immediate and Lasting Real Estate Investing Success,

Kenney

Technorati Tags: house flipping, fix and flip, flip house, house flipping tips, real estate investing

Why?

Because you can control the most beautiful and expensive properties, for only $10, and it’s an easy pitch.

“I will help you sell your house, you don’t have to take it off the market, and I will use my time, my money, and my resources if your house qualifies…”

You’re not really selling them on anything. Either they want your free services or they don’t.

Options have an extreme upside and no real downside.  Options allow even the most humble beginners to the most experienced investors the opportunities to make a lot of money, without risk, in a relatively short amount of time.

So, what is an option?

An option, is a lease option, but without the lease.  Options are an investment strategy where you have a negotiated price agreement with the seller that you can exercise your right to buy at any time during that agreement.

Why is This Powerful?

Because once you negotiate a price that the seller will allow you to buy their property at, you can turn around and sell the property at whatever price above, and pocket the difference.

Example: You negotiate a purchase price with a seller for $350,000 for a house worth $425,000 and you ONLY give them $10 to option the property.

Why?

Because you are helping them sell the property.  A real estate agent wouldn’t give them any money, and most of the time, they won’t even market the house, AND they’ll have to pay a 6% commission on a house that might not sell for 6 months.

Then, you run an ad like: By Owner – Worth $425,000 Beautiful 4/3  $370,000 or Home To Be Sold To The Best Reasonable Offer – and other house selling buzz words.

This ad will generate calls.  The idea here is to generate calls from interested, motivated buyers.

In order to sell this house quickly, you’ll want to offer them a deal that they cannot pass up.  This is how you sell houses fast.  The purpose of quick turn real estate is to get in, get out, get a check, with little to no risk.

You still make $20,000, so don’t get greedy here.  Take what you can get and get out.  Everyone wins here.

To Your Immediate and Lasting Real Estate Investing Success,

Kenney

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Technorati Tags: options to buy homes, options, real estate investing

A lease option is a real estate strategy where you “lease” the property from an owner with the “option” to exercise your right to buy at any time during your lease. You don’t have to exercise that right, but you can.

The KEY to using this as an investment strategy is to make sure that your agreement allows for you to sublease the property out.

Using the Lease Option as An Investment Strategy

In this case, you won’t really be able to do deals on homes where they are behind on payments, unless it’s a very small amount. Making deals where people are behind on payments is for Seller Financing, wholesales, or straight options.

This is a more “take over your payments” type of deal with a twist.

You are looking for properties that are nice, and in move-in condition. You are looking for deals that probably don’t have much equity.

In this strategy, you’ll first get the house into a lease option agreement. You can’t give a lot of money for the lease because you won’t be able to offset it with the money you get from your buyer.

Then, you run an ad like “Rent To Own” 4/2 Beautiful and a little other jargon. What you are looking for is a buyer (lessee) with, at the very minimum, $1,000 more than what you had to give as a non-refundable deposit.

Example: You find a beautiful home in move-in condition for $225,000. You negotiate a lease option deal where you have to put $500 as a deposit, and payments of $2,000. You run the ad like I talked about above and find a buyer that has $4,500 for a deposit, and will make payments of $2,100, and will agree to a total purchase/option price of $237,000.

Your take on the deals is a quick $4,000 up front with an extra $100 a month, and when they go get a loan to buy the property before their lease is up, you’ll make another $7,500 when the deal closes.

This is an awesome strategy for making money investing in real estate. This deal uses no banks to close up front, and allows you to pocket some quick change really fast.

Quick Note: These types of deals should help you get over your fears of investing. You aren’t putting much of your own money into the deals. Also, you can use the first find buyers strategy, if you really are still concerned.

To Your Immediate and Lasting Real Estate Investing Success,

Kenney

P.S. Don’t try and get rent credits or anything like that. There are laws passing now that prohibit that anyway.

Technorati Tags: lease options, real estate investing, rent to own real estate, real estate training

Seller financing is simply the art of getting a seller to finance a real estate deal. In this case, the seller is the bank.

They will negotiate a down payment (if any), they will allow you to make payments to them at an agreed upon rate and length of time, and you can even negotiate the interest rate (if any).

Have you noticed the theme here? Everything is negotiable and there is NO banks involved?

That means you don’t have to go through a mortgage approval process.
That means you don’t have to make large (if any) down payments.
That means you can find rates and terms that make sense for both you and the seller.

What is really cool is that the time in which you can get one of these done is a couple of hours to a couple of days. That’s it!

Yes, you could start looking for a house in the morning and by the end of the day, own it without going down to a bank and signing personally for a loan.

This is what makes owner financing so powerful, so amazing, and a strategy that you’ll need in your portfolio of offers.

How To Use Owner Financing As An Investment Strategy

The purpose of this strategy is NOT to take advantage of the home owners. It is to create a win-win-win situation where you help the owner sell their house fast, you make a profit, and the person buying the home from you gets a house that they didn’t have to go down to the bank to qualify for and with much less cost.

If you start making deals where only you win, then you will find it hard to succeed, and your business will be tough.

How Seller Financing Ties Into No Money Down Deals

Please listen to this tip: What is going to set you apart from those “other” types of investors is that you will not have to put any money of your own into the deal, except an earnest money deposit, but you will be able to give the sellers a good deposit if and when you sell the property.

How?

Here’s an example: Houses in North Dallas are worth $240,000. Let’s say that your seller is behind 2 months on their payments for a total of $4000 and they need $1,000 moving money.

So, you decide to give them a $10 earnest money deposit and a $5,500 down payment (being nice). Remember, the down payment only comes when you close the deal, not before.

You would then market the house, “Owner Will Finance, No Banks” and some other jargon. What you are looking for is a buyer that has at least $5,500 plus whatever profit you want to make.

So, let’s say that you want to make $10,000 out of this deal. You would just need a down payment of $15,500.

To come up with a $15,500 down payment for a house that you don’t have to qualify for is nothing. Remember, there are other options than having to go get a loan in which most banks, especially nowadays, want to see 20% into the deal. That would mean, traditionally, they will have to come up with $48,000.

So, there is no heckling on price, or the small things. They are getting a house for almost nothing and without all the red tape. Then, when you close the deal, the buyer will bring the $15,500 check or roll of cash (I don’t really care), and the seller will get their $5,500 and you will get $10,000.

Everybody wins and nobody had to be taken advantage of…And with the rate of foreclosures as high as it is now, there are lots of people who are motivated to sell there homes, but that’s not all that creates motivation…there’s relocation, job loss, drop of income, death, too big, too small, making 2 mortgage payments, or they just really want to sell.

So, go out and start creating “Winning” deals.

Then, you can take your baby on a cool date, and get back to work.

To Your Immediate and Lasting Real Estate Investing Success,

Kenney

P.S. Check out this post that will help you to turn your Owner Financed Deals into cash in 30 days.

Technorati Tags: seller financing, real estate investing, real estate training, how to buy house, the 22 month retirement

I don’t have all day. Actually, I won’t work more than 4 hours a day, 4 times per week…And many days, it’s less than that.

Why?

For 2 reasons:

1. It forces me to be more productive. I know that I only have 4 hours to work… But yet, I know that there is a certain amount of work that just has to be done in order for me to be successful in this challenge.
2. I want you to feel and know that you can do this too. I want you to know that if you can find a few hours per day, that you can realize your dreams.

How To Get More Done Using The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule simply means that 80% of all your results will come from 20% of your activities.

So, if you focus your efforts on 20% of the activities that produce the 80% of results, you’ll get the most results in the least amount of time.  Thus, you’ll make the most amount of money in the least amount of time.

As you grow, you can outsource work to other people and companies to help you grow even more, and all the while, doing a little less work.

Learning to be productive is Critical to the success of your business.  Learning to do the most important activities in your business firstly and consistently will ultimately determine whether or not you succeed.

What Are Your Most Important Activities?

• Getting houses into contract
• Marketing those houses
• Making relationships and connections with the people who have large audiences (Brokers, Builders, Highly trafficked website owners, etc.)

What Activities Are NOT Important, But Make You Feel Busy?

• Checking email
• Going over stats 5 times per day
• Going to see houses that you haven’t pre-qualified and don’t know if you ever have a chance at buying
• Going over your business plan again and again
• Highlighting classified ads again before you call after you’ve already circled them

Always do the MOST important task first, then, if you have time, you can do whatever the heck you want.  How do I know this? Because I have wasted so much of my life doing all of those “frivolous” things, which never brought in a dime.

You see, you keep your hand busy doing things that make you feel like you’re working hard, and you are! But you are not working smartly, efficiently or effectively…And that’s what will leave you broke and upset.

If what you are doing isn’t bring in business, then it’s not one of the most important things in your real estate investing business.  If what you are doing is NOT moving your business forward in “leaps and bounds”, it’s not one of the important activities.

How To Determine What Activities Are The Most Important Ones For You To Do Everyday

• Imagine your dream business and what that would look like.

• Now, write down the obstacles that are keeping you from getting to that dream.

• Take each one of those obstacles and turn it into a goal to overcome.

• Those goals are now the most important activities that you have to do first every day you go to work.

If one of your obstacles was not generating enough home buyer leads, then every day you need to spend a little time trying to generate leads of people who want to buy houses.

If you spend any time doing anything else before this, then you are not moving toward your goals, you are NOT removing the obstacles that are in your way of success. Thus, you are killing your own dreams.

Don’t kill your dreams before you get a chance to live them.

To Your Immediate and Lasting Real Estate Investing Success,

Kenney

P.S.  To learn more about how to use the 80/20 rule, check out this post by Yaro from the Entrepreneur’s Journey:
Revisiting The 80/20 Rule and Why It Is Even More Critical To Your Business In 2009

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Technorati Tags: 80 20 rule, yaro starak, real estate investing, real estate training, the 22 month retirement