Naked Lady Real Estate, The Bare Truth About Real Estate Investing

PACRAT meeting was great!!

Wow what a great PACRat's meeting last night.  We are growing!  Lots of cool stuff we talked about.  Some of the things (I think) I learned were:

1.  Buyers do not give a "Deposit" to move into the home.  The give a Refundable Contribution, which means that at the end of the term of the contract their contribution is refundable. e.g. they contribute $30K to the trust and at the end of the term, the refundable contribution can be deducted from the fair market value.

2.  Find Buyers for our current homes by marketing to homeowners who may be loosing their home in foreclosure. This will help so many people because they no longer have good credit, and will be in need of finding a new home.  With us they can buy without having to qualify for a new loan and will still receive the tax benefits of a homeownership.

3.  We also discussed taking multiple unit buildings and turning them into "condo's" using the trust, which is called "quick condominumization."  Basically assigning beneficial interest to each unit, therefore making them a an owner in the trust and now having all the benefits of ownership, which includes tax benefits.  This is a little over my head and although sounds fascinating, will take me a little longer to learn it!

ALVINS SIGNs are the hit of evening!

ROSIE and Petey!

wow - buying houses can be a lot of work...

The house that I am dealing with in Inglewood is becoming quite an experience.  To be exact; the seller of the home does not want to sign a Non Exclusive Option, because he wants to do the whole transaction at once.  This is very interesting indeed.

Additionally, I had a potential buyer call me tonight.  He was very interested in seeing the house and we made an appointment to go there on Monday morning because he said he could not make it at all on Sunday.  The next thing I know is that my seller is calling me to let me know he just showed the house to that very same "buyer".  Apparently he drove by and saw the lights on and KNOCKED ON THE DOOR!

More to follow.

Update: Knowing a little about real estate: Priceless?

A picture says a thousands words?  Yes indeed.  Update on my post from 10/26.  This house is for rent now.  I can't help but shake my head.  Not in satisfaction, but more like "what a freakin shame."  We are trying to get in touch with her to let her know that we are interested in buying the house on owner financing however, she will not return our calls or emails. 

It's just as well.  Quite frankly, I'm not all that interested in taking on the drama of this house.  It cost us close to 10 grand to move from here (where we offered to stay until she sold it) to our new home (where we had to move because she knew that the reason this house wasn't selling "was because she had tenants".)  With the new house, the deposit, the movers who couldn't make it up our long steep drive (so they took 2-12 hour days to move us) we were tapped out for this move. 

Seller Denial:  50K and counting.  What a freakin shame.

Wake up and smell the... the... for sale signs people!  It doesn't matter what you are listing your house for - now.  There are not many folks out there that can even get a loan right now.  And those who can qualify- are not that gung ho to buy, or just don't feel the pressure to do so.  As Bruce Norris says, the housing market that we have seen is only the tip of the iceberg!

This is why my strategy is to buy the houses that can stay in their existing loans and putting them into a trust and then we can "lease option/rent to own" on steroids.  Batta Bing Batta Boom.  Everyone wins.  Sellers sell, buyers get to buy. 

Land Trust Deal... in the works

I have a deal in Inglewood that the seller is anxious to get rid of.  He needs 60K to move into his new home that he is trying to close on.  He is running behind 5 months payments and has had his home in escrow 4 times.  All 4 buyers fell through because the buyers could not get Qualified!  This is such a huge problem.  We all know this. 

The good news is that he does have plenty of equity and I will be able to pull out the 60K to give to him.  What a great opportunity to work with this fella.  He has had a messy divorce and is just looking for a way to get out from under the house and start a new life.

I know the first rule is to not get emotionally involved in these deals but I am going to work my butt off to get this deal completed and money in his pocket to move.

I will be able to take the house subject to the existing loan and then we will put it into a Land Trust.  We will then be able to sell the home with no bank qualifying and get someone in there right away to buy the house through the Trust.  This is great news!

It's such a nice home.  Over 2400 sq ft in a great area of Inglewood!  I think I will look for a private money investor to loan the 60K at 10% to be paid within 3-6 months.  Additionally I might allow them to be a partner in the deal.  I'll see how it goes in the next couple of days.  I'm going to give Mr. Bill Gatten a call and ask him to help me structure this deal...!

Putting a house under contract tonight!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I am meeting with a seller tonight to put his house under contract using the PACTrust.  The house is Inglewood and he is running behind almost 3 payments.  He had it listed (just expired) for only about 2 months.  He got 4 offers on the house and all 4 fell apart because no one could qualify for the financing!

I plan to take the house subject to, and stick it in a Land Trust then go talk to those folks who didn't qualify for the loan and find out who might have 10% down and is still interested in buying the house! (Thanks Pete for this great coaching!)

The owner has already agreed to get the house refinanced so that we can lower the monthly payment.  He is buying another house in Riverside and needs 60K to close his deal.  The house in Inglewood is appraising for 640K (30 day old appraisal) and he owes 500K once we refinance. 

Wish me luck tonight!  I will write an update tonight!

Review of Money & You program (thumbs down)

Were to begin?  Let me start by reminding you that the purpose of this blog is for me to share the good, the bad and the ugly of the real estate investor’s world as I experience it.

So here goes. I went to a workshop this past weekend called "Money & You".  With a title like that, you would presume that it would be about Money &... well... me. The description of the workshop was promoted as learning business principles and how we relate to money.  Sounds good to me, I always love a good "personal growth" workshop that might give me insights into my own behaviors and perceptions about the world.  I have taken many terrific PG workshops, classes and courses through out my life.  Most of them have helped me tremendously; a few have even changed my life.

So when the opportunity to go to Money & You came about I was gung ho.  Since I am working on several new business endeavors, it seemed like perfect timing to take a workshop that was going to be about business management and money...(oh yea & “me”)

I will say that it was just OK up until Saturday night.  It didn't knock my socks off, but I was learning a couple of things about leveraging and systems and how I am in the world… blah blah blah.

The kicker and what pushed me over the edge was the Saturday night game that we were going to play that apparently “was the reason that people all over the world do Money & You!” Did I mention that I love a good personal growth workshop?  And that I am very open minded? I mean I graduated from a school that is a MA degree in Spiritual Psychology for christs sake!  I know how to do these things like no tomorrow!

I am not sure that I want to give too much away about this evening since the ‘big game on Saturday night” is one of their big selling points. But what I do want you to say is that for me, this Saturday night deal pushed me over the edge of reason. There was no legitimate purpose, that I could think of, for this supposed “amazing mind blowing game of Saturday night.”  I’ll just say that to me - it was so bad that I almost left 10 different times through out the evening - but didn’t (!) because, I would have let my team down and they would have had to leave with me.  (Probably the reason for this stupid game in the first place.  But I didn’t need to sit there working out this crap until 3:30AM to know that I am someone who’ll stick to my commitments!)

The bottom line of this review is that I thought this workshop sucked the big one.  It was one of the worst I had been to in many years – if not ever.  A big pile of dog poop. 

You see, I have been seeing a transformational life coach (see I told you I love all this stuff) for the past 4-5 months and he is extraordinary to say the least.  His name is Sensei Ron Thomas and he has helped me to grow tremendously over the past months.  My only question to myself is, if “you found something that is working – why do something else?”  Ahhh haaaaa… there’s lies the answer grass hoppa…  You don’t need to dumb ass!  Just keep doing what is working and when it stops working then it might be time to explore something new.  But by all means – check it out and make sure that the people who are recommending it to you are also people you admire and respect! Ah duh, perhaps that is lesson #2!

PACRats Meeting on Nov 29 2007

The Next PACRats - Los Angeles meeting is set!!

Date:  Thursday, November 29th.

Networking begins:   6:30pm
Meeting Starts:  7:00pm

TOPIC:  What to say to Sellers, How to Say it, Overcoming Naysayers

Trainer:  Pete Mendenhall

Location:

Jay Miracle's office

5839 Green Valley Circle, Ste. 200
Culver City , 90230

Doom and Gloom for Los Angeles

Excited and scared...  Bruce Norris, the brilliant real estate "guru" (he's much more than a guru!) was our headline speaker at the club the other night.  Boy can he pack 'em in! We have almost 500 investors there! 

The forecast that he showed us for the next several years in regards to foreclosures was stunning and terrifying to say the least.  I learned so much from him that night.  Wow!  He taught us that not only have we not seen the worse of it, but just how bad it IS going to get.  For all of those folks who still listen to CAR or NAR, you better pull your head out of your butt and do it quick!  It seems that is is going to get 10 times worse before it even starts to look better.

It takes approximately 11 months for the foreclosure to even show up in the public.  Today we are only seeing the foreclosures that started 11 month ago!  We are in for a big shake up over the next couple of years.   I am going to get the solid data that he showed us and I will post it here in the next day.   

Us investors are in for a hell of ride and now is the time to get yourself educated on dealing with these foreclosures and your exit strategy.  I for one am going to focus on getting these deals - hopefully subject to and then sticking them in a Landtrust and "selling" them with no bank qualifying.  There are going to be a gazillion people out there who cannot get financing who need to buy a home!  Move 'em in and Rack 'em up!

REI Club opening in Anaheim?

Well it's official!  Real Estate Investor Michael Quarles will be opening a real estate investors club in Anaheim!  This should be interesting...  He called Phyllis Rockower of REIC of LA yesterday to let her know. 

I think this can be a good thing. I know there seems to be a need out there for a good club.  I don't know how much Michael knows about running a club, but he is driven and ambitious and he is smart enough to get a good team together to do it!  I'm sure I'll hear a knock on my door very soon...

Fine with me.  I like working the barter system - he has plenty that I could benefit from!  I am about to open another PACRats group out there, so perhaps we can do cross promotion?

Good luck to you Michael!  Let me know if I can help!   I wonder what he is going to call it?  The Naked Investors Club sounds good too me...

An assistant in India?

Wow. I had a great meeting last night and learned the most amazing thing! I learned that I do not have to learn everything there is to know about blogs, websites, social networks, my space, Linkind (how the hell do you spell that damn word?) and every other god darn web marketing gimmick and how it works! Why? Because I can hire an tech guy in India to do it all for me! Everything! He will manage all my sites, create new ones and MANAGE all my content on them!

WOW! I feel like I'm queen of the world! The opportunities are endless!  I have spent so much precious time learning all this stuff and I am only at the tip of the iceberg!  It's a full time career in itself!

So - get ready - I will be launching at Masterminding group website for investors real soon! Yahoo!

30K Mentorship? You better be "helping me" in more ways than one!

This is going to be a post that represents one of the reasons why I started this blog. Even though it could impact my income or the clubs income, I will always be truthful about the situation.

I've been getting a lot of questions recently about all those "gurus" mentoring programs. What is my opinion about these 15K, 20K, 30K mentoring programs that they offer to us lucky investors? Well, let's be clear here; they don't offer them to just anyone. First, you must "qualify".

How does one qualify you ask? Well you see; it's a very complicated process. First they want to know more about you. What are your goals, your dreams, your accomplishments, your ambitions... NOT!  Don't get me wrong, they do want to know about your personal life, but don't worry; they won't be delving into those silly things such as goals, hopes and dreams. In order to qualify you only need to share your financial information with them. See now that's not so bad is it?

They'll just need to know a couple of things in order to get you qualified. First let's start with disposable income: How much money do you have in bank? What about equity lines? Hhhhmm... ok. How about your credit cards? How much available there? Not much there either huh? Ok, whatta 'bout your friends? Family? Neighbors? Your friends, sisters, husbands, brother? Oh - I got it. Do you have a car you can sell? What about a fine piece of jewelry? Art? Hhhmmm... do any of your family members have a car they can sell? No? Wow - you really do need us to mentor to you don't you? After we are done with you, you be such a successful investor that you will never have to do through a convesation like this again! So let's see here...

You don't seem to qualify to be a member of our 30K Platinum Membership where you will be honored to have lunch with Mr. So&So and his other lucky Platinum Members at his workshop next year. Nor will you be able to have your monthly 15 minute phone conversation with him or one of his "inner circle" trainers, but it does look like you just might be able to qualify for our 15K Gold Membership!

Now, we want you to have enough money to live on, so let's see here... why don't we take 5K of the 7K you have on your CC's, then 5K of the 9K that you have in your savings, you can get 2K from your father, 2K from your neighbor, and then that leaves just 1K and you can make 4 easy payments over the next 4 months and there you go!

Batta Bing Batta Boom! You're qualified!! 

...The moral of the story? Don't Do It People! Stay away from this crap! While I am huge advocate for Mentoring and Coaching - I myself am in many a program, I do not endorse the bullshit mentorship programs that you must get "qualified" for and then you are not even working with the guru himself! Can you imagine? You don't even get to work directly with the persons whose program you bought! You work with some flunky that you have never met and who's probably not even doing real estate themselves! Let me say it again: Never, ever, ever sign up for a mentorship program that you need to get qualified for and are not working with the guru him/herself!

Phyllis and I just talked about this yesterday! We are so sick of these bullshit mentorship programs that all these speakers are shoveling out. There are more investors out there who have spent 10's of thousands of dollars each on these programs and still have not even done a deal!

Bottom line: Stay away from these programs!

Housing crash? What do you think?

This was created by REIC for our Newletter.

Sorry for the small font. The Median numbers say:

August: 588,970

September: 530,830

Wow - I just learned how to post from my blackberry!!

Now we're talking people! Not only can I just send an email and it will post to my blog, I now know how to send a post straight from my Blackberry! Yahoo! It has been a challenge to get a lot of posts going because I'm on the road so much, but now it's as simple as just sending an email straight from BB! Honestly, I don't know how I lived without her before. I have only one problem with my new girl; there is a site called crackberry.com and I can't seem to stay away.

Another Update:

I have added a Google Calendar to this blog so that I can post all the upcoming events that are going on, and soon - like any day now, I will have completed our group on Ning and Facebook. This way we will be able to get together and communicate way more effectively!