Real Estate Wealth Today

Please join me Tuesday evening November 17, 2009 for a FREE teleconference at 8:00 PM EST and learn “50 Low or No Cost Marketing Ideas for Today’s Real Estate Investor Using Social Media!”

To sign up please go to Tuesday Night Teleconference Tips

Hope to see you there

Mike Lautensack
http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/

With your real estate investment business what is at the top of your "frustration" list?

Could it be trying to determine if a certain property is a good deal not? Trying to determine if your offer prices is "low" enough for you to make a profit in this market place.

For most real estate investors, this dilemma causes a lot of confusion and frustration. This is may be because your definition of a "good deal" may be skewed.

What makes a property a good deal? The answer is: one that has a ready buyer at a profit.

As long as you have a buyer ready and willing to buy that property and there is room for your profit, then you have a good deal on your hands. You can actual predict what your profit will be with the knowledge of the buy and sale price.

For example, if you know you have a property under contract for $120k and you can have a ready buyer lined up to buy from you at $130k you have a $10k profit locked in.

But the obvious question is how do you get a ready buyer?

You do this by building and maintaining a "buyer list". Building a list of ready buyers is the key. If there is a buyer from your list of buyers, who is in the market for the property you are looking at - then voila you have a good deal!

The way to build your buyers list is through aggressive marketing and here are 5 simple ways to start your list:

1. Post an ad on Craig's List, Backpage.com and other local internet bulletin boards with ads like "I sell ugly houses" or"Fixer Homes Avaialble". Do this once per week and be sure to capture everyones email address for future follow up.
2. Write down the phone number when you see "I Buy Houses" signs, ads, and websites. Call these investors and get their info, and let them know you're an investor and would like to bring them properties that are available. Add them to your list, and don't forget to get their e-mail address for when you automate!
3. Hand out at least 24 business cards at REIA meetings and be sure to go to as many REIA meetings as possible. If you not sure about where meeting are go to Meetup.com and search your local area for real estate investors.
4. Talk to everyone and tell them what you do and ask them to spread the words to their friends, family and coworkers.
5. Advertise in small local newspapers that you have "Fixer" homes available for sale and provided a phone number and email address.

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and become a member of our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html.

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to Real Estate Investing Blog .

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and become a member of our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html.

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to
Real Estate Investing Blog.

I would like to talk about what I call the “WOWWW” formula. It is a simple formula that you’ve got to understand and incorporate into your business if you are serious about real estate investment.

There is simply no way that you can structure a truly no money down and creative offer if you don’t understand this formula. There are just five pieces to it. Four of which are “W’s” and one of which is an “O”. The five important elements to working with a seller before you can structure an offer you must know these five pieces of information.

“W” When

You must know when. That is basically when do they want to sell? You want to understand their sense of urgency, their motivational level. If they want to sell months from now, they’re not very urgent. You’re not going to get a very good deal, and it’s really not something you should be spending much time on.
I’m not saying you don’t capture that person’s name, email and phone number, and put it in a database somewhere and follow up with them on a regular basis through postcards and what not. But they’re not going to be a deal this week or next month. They’re simply not.

If they’re not properly motivated, and the when is motivation, if they are going to be doing a deal in the next 30 days because of a foreclosure, they’re moving out of state, or they’re out of state or about to miss a mortgage payment because they’ve been trying to sell it for a year and they can’t sell it and they’ve run out of money, then their ‘when’ has really shortened up.

“W” What

What is their situation? That’s kind of related but you need to understand what’s going on with them. Why do they need to sell? Is it a foreclosure or pre-foreclosure? Is it a divorce? Is it a sale where they can’t get it sold? Is it that they bought it to flip?

We’re seeing a lot of this. People have bought things to flip them, went in and rehabbed it – spent a lot of money – and they were hoping to sell it but the market turned on them and they got stuck. So you need to understand what their situation is. That’s an important element of this.

“W” What Is the House Worth

Worth is always difficult to nail down, but you should do your homework and figure this out. You should look at comps or appraisals or whatever other sources of information you want to try to figure out what the properties worth fixed up.

It may be worth $150,000, $200,000, $300,000 or who knows. You should have some sense of what the property’s worth to make an offer.

“O” Owe

You should know what the person’s owes on the mortgage or mortgages. This is a critical element and something a lot of people don’t understand. You cannot make an offer through the MLS system if you don’t know what the other person owes. It’s very hard to make a creative offer if you don’t know what they owe.
If the property is free and clear and there’s no mortgage, then that will dictate a completely different type of offer. If they’re completely under water and the house is worth $130,000 and the mortgage is $150,000 that will drive a completely different type of offer. If they owe $90,000 that will drive the ultimate offer.
You cannot make quality offers to sellers if you don’t understand what they owe. It’s absolutely critical. All five of these are critical.

“W” What They Want

Probably the least important is what they want. That will change over time. If they’re not motivated and don’t need a quick sale – one and two aren’t really in place – most likely they’re going to want a high price. They are not truly ready to do a deal. They are not where you need them to be to do a deal.
What they want first all changes over time. It’s also probably the least important of the five items. However, you do need to know what that is. If they want some outlandish number, you don’t want to spend a lot of your time and effort on it.

That is the WOWWW formula. Use it on every deal and make much better offers.

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and join our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to
Real Estate Investing Blog.

Choose a Voice Mail System


Before setting up voice mail systems you have to choose one that will suit the needs of your business.  I use a company called Freedom Voice Systems. I think there are probably 8 or 10 different programs out there that are somewhat similar. A typical voice mail system will have a couple different price points depending on your needs.

A basic system may only have 10-20 different voice mail boxes. A more advanced system, the one that we use, has I think has 1,000 boxes or maybe 900. I think it starts at 100 and goes to 999, so I guess that’s 900 total boxes that we have available within the voice mail system.

A typical price for a voice mail system of any real quality is going to be somewhere around $20-40/month, a very minimal investment in terms of the amount of money that you put into that.

Using Voice Mail to Improve Response Rate


What a voice mail system allows you to do, once you’ve got it in place – let’s say you want to start marketing to sellers. You want to go out and you want to create some marketing pieces. You’re going to have let’s say a newspaper ad, you’re going to have a postcard, maybe you’re going to have your business card, and you’re going to have one or two other pieces of marketing, whatever they might be.

With each one of those various pieces of marketing, you’re going to put a different box number. You’re going to put Box 100, Box 101, Box 102, Box 103. The reason for that is that every time somebody calls you off of one of your pieces of marketing, the system will record where that came from.

Let’s say at the end of your first month you’ve got 10 calls on Box 103. Let’s say Box 103 was postcards, so you know that if you sent out let’s say 1,000 postcards and you got 10 calls back, that’s a 1% response. That’s not a bad response. Now maybe there’s some things you can do to make it better, but you know at least on your first mailing you got a 1% response. That’s not bad. It allows you to know precisely what your results were. You can know it mathematically.

So now what you can do the next month is maybe you send out another 1,000 postcards. Maybe you change the headline, maybe you make the offer a little bit nicer, maybe you change some of the information. You change the postcard, you do it again, and this time you get 15 calls the next month. Obviously what you did that second month is better than what you did the first month. Now you’ve improved your system and it’s gotten even better.

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and join our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to Real Estate Investing Blog.

One of the best ways to build up long-term wealth and passive income is by buying and holding rental properties.

While being a "landlord " isn’t a glamorous job… if you run your rental property business correctly, it can be a very rewarding, easy, and profitable way to invest in real estate.

In just 72 hours we are starting a power packed 3 4 Night Live Tele-seminar where you'll learn simple step-by-step process to develop your own Property Management Program for Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches.

Imagine the money you will save by simply avoiding one bad tenant (can you say $1,000's). Now imagine having good tenants that pay on time and do not call you with minor problems and allow you the time and energy to focus on buying more real estate and growing your business.

Well this program will give the knowledge to achieve these goals.

To learn more about Property Management Secrets for Real Estate Investors and listen to a 30 minute audio please click here ===> http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Who is Property Managements Secrets For?

• Prospective property owners and landlords
• First time property investors
• Portfolio builders who need their properties to work for them
• Experienced multi-property landlords looking to get the most from their property

This course starts Thursday September 10, 2009 so sign up tonight at http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Thanks

Mike

http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/

I have compiled a list of the Top 10 Real Estate Investing blogs – several of them I use on a regular basis and recommend you do the same. I try to take the good and interesting blog post and routine post them on my blog at http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/.

Please bookmark this site and I will update from time to time, so stay tuned.

Enjoy the list, and if you like or know other blogs too, e-mail me or include them in the comment field, and I’ll take a look.

The Top 10 Real Estate Investment Blogs

http://www.realestateweblog.org/

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/

http://www.investorwealth.com/blog/

http://www.equityscout.com/blog

http://www.investing-secrets.com/

http://topsites.blogflux.com/real-estate/

http://www.investorloft.com/blog/

http://www.inman.com/blog

http://www.reiblog.org/

http://www.realestatewebprofits.com/rewp/blog/real-estate-blog.php

Thanks

Mike

http://www.LearnRealEstateInvestingBlog.com/

Many of you are aware that I started a property management company
about 3 years ago. We currently serve over 100 real estate
investors and manage about 200 rental properties.

As part of starting this company, I have had the “privilege” of
making just about every mistake known to man. We have done stupid
things like

• Advertised with a typo in the phone number and wrong house number;
• Misplaced a lease and was not able to find it later;
• Putting tenants into a property and the tenant never made another rent payment after that; and
• Used a contractor and actual paid him before they did the work – Mistake……

Why do I tell you about my mistakes…to show you that I have made
all these mistakes and now I can teach you how to avoid them and
possible save you from making the same mistakes and save you
thousands of dollars?

As part of the Property Management Secrets for Real Estate
Investors tele-course starting September 10, 2009 we will spend a
lot time talking about things like

• Professional management versus “Mom and Pop” management and why a professional management style is the key to long term success
• The Advantages of Professional management

i) Improved profits
ii) Maintain your property for long term value
iii) More fun dealing with better tenants and more cash flow

• Part-time versus Full-time property management and how to balance

If you would like more info on the Property Management Secrets
starting September 10, 2009 and get FREE 60 minute audio please go
to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Thanks
Mike Lautensack
http://www.LearnRealEstateInvestingBlog.com/

Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Manage Your Own Investments Properties for Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches!

A recent USA Today headline states "Rate of Owning Homes is Plunging - Analysis forecasts drop to 1985 levels".

Homeownership in this country peaked at about 70% in 2005. Since that period the homeownership rate has declined to 67.4% this year and is projected to continue to drop dramatically to pre 1980 levels of about 63% by 2020.

During the late 1990's and early 2000's there was a strong push by our government to increase home owners with the view that home owners improve neighborhoods and the American quality of life. They pushed the mortgage industry to find ever more ways to make it easy to get a mortgages and buy a homes. In hind sight, we know we push too hard and were putting people into homes and mortgages they could not afford. These folks should have remained renters and
avoided all the foreclosure headaches.

This process is now unwinding and we have all seen the dramatic impact it has had on the financial and mortgage industries. But what does this all mean for you and I. It means more and more people will be renters.

The impact of going from 70% to 63% in the homeownership rate means about 23 million people will become renters versus home owners over the next decade. That is right - I said 23 million new renters.

The home building industry has already seen this trend and is shifting to building more apartments and condos versus houses. We also saw data this month that the average size of new homes is down 15% to about 2300 sq. ft. versus 2600 sq. ft.

This is very good for people catering to the rental market and has huge implications if you want to buy real estate for renters and hold for long term wealth. Landlords and property managers will be on the right side of the market for a generation or longer. This is very bullish for rental real estate once some of the current dust settles.

For more information on our upcoming FREE Tele-seminar titled Property Management Secrets for Real Estate Investors please go to
http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS-Signup1.html