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Jason Hanson

Real Estate Marketing

The “Unusual” Way to Boost Your Real Estate Marketing Results

by Jason Hanson | November 4, 2009
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I was driving around Baltimore City earlier this week. At a stoplight I got stuck behind an SUV with a sticker on its back window that read “lose 10 pounds in 10 minutes, call XXX”.
I immediately laughed and thought to myself, “yeah right.”
Why did I think this? Because it wasn’t honest and it wasn’t believable. [...]

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Real Estate Investing

How I’m Closing My Latest Lease Option Deal

by Jason Hanson | October 21, 2009

If you’re a new investor, you’re probably not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.

But, once you become experienced in this business, closing deals is easy… just like shootin’ fish in a barrel. It’s pretty much like every skill you learn in life. The first few times you tried to ride a bike it was obviously difficult, but now you can hop on a bike any time with no problem.

The most important thing you can do is to never give up. Just make it through the first few struggling months in this business and then you could be set for life.

I’m bringing this all up because of how easy my latest deal is going. I’m going to break it down for you step-by-step so you can see how to do this yourself.

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Real Estate Marketing

This Marketing Method Has Made Me a Small Fortune

by Jason Hanson | October 17, 2009

The marketing method I’m about to share with you always seems to elicit a lot of emotional responses. A lot of people hate it and bad mouth it, but guess what? I don’t care. Why? Because it makes money and it gets results. You should track all of your marketing methods and if they’re working keep doing them and if they don’t, then obviously stop.

I’m pretty much willing to bet that anybody who doesn’t like this method has never used it (the most likely reason) or has never gotten a deal from it because they don’t know what they’re doing (I’ll show you the perfect plan.) So what method am I talking about?

Here’s a blurb from an email I received last week, from one of my partners…

“Over the past week I have been putting out my new signs, I attached a pic of it, check it out. So far the signs have been pulling an excellent amount of calls. I’m getting an overwhelming response. For example, I put out 50 signs last night in high traffic areas and just today I got 11 calls.”

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Housing

Why Exercising Could Make You a Wealthier Investor

by Jason Hanson | October 7, 2009

I hate running. I pretty much hate any form of exercise. I have no problem doing my real estate work, but when it comes to working out, I’ll admit I’m very lazy and lack discipline.

I remember many of my mentors telling me how important it was to exercise on a daily basis and how exercising was often the first thing they did in the morning. I’ve also read the same thing in many books written by successful people. I recall one successful entrepreneur/writer saying that no matter what, he does three things every single day: 1) He writes 2) He promotes his business 3) He exercises.

This is What Happens When You Get Older

I’ve heard this advice for years and I just ignored it and didn’t think it had anything to do with success. Well, I must be getting older because a few weeks ago I started feeling run down and I didn’t have as much energy as I used to. Come 9:00 at night I’d be ready to pass out, even though I had just sat at my computer all day and hadn’t had a stressful or rigorous day.

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Commentary

Why You Need To Stop Acting Rich…

by Jason Hanson | September 30, 2009

Do you act rich? Do you flaunt your wealth, or pretend to be rich by driving a car you can’t afford?

Well, you need to stop. Thomas Stanley who’s the author of “The Millionaire Mind” (which was fantastic) has a new book out called “Stop Acting Rich and Start Living Like a Millionaire.” Now, I have not read this new book yet, but I do have some advice which could save you thousands of dollars in the long run.

Why Not To Buy A BMW

I started investing in real estate in college and was able to make some decent money in my early 20’s. Then again, any money in your early 20’s is decent. And I ended up wasting a lot of it by doing immature things. For example, I had a BMW. I only had it for a short time because I realized it wasn’t me and I felt stupid driving the car around. I’ve also wasted a good amount of money on going to Atlantic City and Las Vegas.

Yes, I certainly believe in having fun, but you need to be smart and save your money–at least 10 percent of it. However, I’m not writing to you to try to get you to save your money. That’s common sense. The reason I want you to stop acting rich is to protect your assets and keep yourself from being a target of fraudsters.

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Real Estate Investing

How I Choose My Real Estate Partners (and the criteria I use)

by Jason Hanson | September 23, 2009

If you really want to make six-figures in this business you’re going to need partners so you can leverage your time. Well, last week I wrote about one of my partners and how we’re getting ready to hopefully close a huge wholesale deal. So, this week I want to tell you how I go about selecting my partners.

Right now I have only a few partners who I work with and trust. And even through I trust these people, the first rule of partnering is to always do it on a per deal basis. I would never form an LLC with someone, or make them an “official” partner in your business. You want to partner with them one deal at a time, that way if anything goes wrong you’ve learned your lesson and you never have to work with them again.

When I first found my partners, most of them ended up approaching me about partnering. But it doesn’t matter if you approach someone, or they come up to you, the selection criteria will remain the same. You could approach a person because they have the money and you have a hot deal which requires money… or they could approach you because they want you to put up the money.

Anyway, here’s how I evaluate a real estate partner:

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Real Estate Investing

How To Make $70,000 Off A Real Estate Wholesale Deal

by Jason Hanson | September 16, 2009

I’m currently working on my longest deal ever. So far it’s been about eight months in the making. Let me show you how this deal evolved so you can learn how to make $70,000…with only a few hours worth of work.

About eight months ago one of my partners got a lead from a guy who owns a beachfront condo in Virginia Beach, VA. It’s a gorgeous condo in perfect condition. The owner is an “eccentric” individual who travels a lot and didn’t want to have to deal with the property anymore.

I met with this owner twice in person to negotiate the deal. At first I thought it was going to be an awesome lease option deal. The mortgage balance was relatively low and the place could be rented out for $3,000 a week during the peak season. My partner and I were looking at over a thousand dollars a month in cash flow.

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Real Estate Investing

Why Appealing to People This Way Will Help You Close More Deals…

by Jason Hanson | September 9, 2009

Do you want to increase your closing percentage when you talk to sellers? Well, if so, pay attention because you’re about to learn the secret to one of the most important reasons people decide to buy and sell houses.

Let me start off with an example. This is a personal example, but it proves the point beautifully. My mother died of cancer and before her death we used Hospice. The other day I got a letter in the mail from Hospice asking for a donation to the program.

It was a brilliantly written letter which talked about a family with cancer and how Hospice had helped the mother of the family live out her last days in comfort. The letter pulled on the heart strings and touched on almost every emotion.

This was obviously the perfect letter to send to someone like me, being that I could emotionally relate. (No, I didn’t donate any money. I donate 10% of my income to other causes).

The big lesson…

So what’s the big lesson from this letter? If you want to close more deals and be more successful as a real estate investor you must appeal to people’s emotions. Human beings are not logical (especially one of the sexes, I’ll let you guess which one).

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Real Estate Investing

How to Organize Your Rental Property Payments To Make Your Life Easier

by Jason Hanson | September 2, 2009

It’s the beginning of a new month which means it’s time to pay all of the bills on my rental properties. This includes multiple mortgages, multiple HOA dues and payments to owners of some of my lease option properties. So, how do I keep track of all this without going crazy?

First, I use online bill pay. If you’re still writing checks you are unnecessarily wasting a lot of time. Before I started paying my bills online I would sit down once a month for what seemed like hours to pay all the bills.

I Recommend this Rental Property Software

After I pay all of my bills online, I next record my HOA, mortgage and rent payments in Quicken rental property manager. This is the simplest property management software I have found. Plus, when tax time comes around, all you have to do is hit “print”, then hand your accountant the rental documents and he/she will take care of the rest. If you don’t have an accountant yet and you own multiple properties, ask for referrals from other investors you meet at your local real estate meetings. Or, you can use BiggerPockets.com (this website) to locate investors near you.

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Commentary

How to Protect Yourself for the End of the World

by Jason Hanson | August 26, 2009

www.cachecoin.org/krugerrand.From many of the headlines and articles I’ve been reading lately, you really would think the end of the world is near. Now, I’m not that paranoid but there are certain things you need to do to protect yourself, specifically from the coming wave of inflation, thanks to the governments spending spree of trillions of dollars. If you don’t take the steps I’m about to share with you… you might find yourself with a lot less money.

First of course, is to continue to invest in real estate. Buy as many houses as you can while we still have these rock bottom prices. Most likely we won’t see these large of discounts for another 20 to 30 years. And when inflation finally kicks in, real estate is one of the best assets to own. There will be a run-up in prices in the next few years and the more houses you own, obviously the more money you will make.

Gold?

Second, buy some gold. Yes, I’m serious about this. Gold is another great hedge against inflation. As the value of the dollar erodes thanks to Uncle Sam’s spending, gold prices will have a huge increase. So where do you buy gold and what type? Personally, I like the South African Krugerrand. It’s one of the world’s most well-known gold coins, and each coin weighs one ounce of gold. So as I write this, gold is worth $954.10 per ounce. Which means each Krugerrand is worth $954.10. The best site I’ve found is kitco.com to buy these coins (no I do not have any affiliation with this site; it’s just based on a lot of research I have done).

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Real Estate Tips

Why Deadlines Will Save You Time and Hassles

by Jason Hanson | August 19, 2009

Want to learn how to save time and headaches when dealing with sellers? Well, the other day I was working with an investor who mentioned to me that he just couldn’t seem to close the current deal he was working on. It was a perfect subject-to deal, and the seller seemed pretty motivated, however, whenever it came time to sign the contract the seller delayed and said he needed more time to think about it. This had been going on for a month and a half.

So what did I tell this investor to do? I told him to give the seller a deadline. I told him to call the seller up and without sounding pushy, tell him the following: “Mr. Seller, this is John with ABC Realty. I just wanted to let you know that my supervisors told me we will need your decision whether or not you want to sell the house by Monday the 24th. We are looking at several properties right now and by the 24th we are going to purchase our latest batch of properties for the time being. So, please let me know by the 24th if you would like to sell your house to us. After the 24th we will be unable to assist you”.

A Deadline Works Every Time

I’ve seen too many investors spend months “playing games” with a seller trying to get them to sign a contract. They could have saved themselves a lot of hassle if they would have given the seller a deadline early on. When I have a half-motivated seller I give them a week to sign the contract. I don’t want to waste any more time with a person than a week… they’re either going to sign or not.

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Real Estate

What I learned from my trip to Atlantic City

by Jason Hanson | August 12, 2009

I spent the weekend in Atlantic City with three college buddies. It certainly hurts a lot more these days to pull an all-nighter than it did when I was 21.

I ended up losing $400 while I was there, but one of my buddies was cursed and lost $3,000. As soon as I placed a $50 bet on the craps table, and then lost it thanks to his roll of the dice I made sure to avoid betting any time the dice were in his hand.

Also, I took a helicopter ride while I was there, which was pretty awesome since I’d never done that, and overall it was a fun trip of good food and gambling.

So… here’s what I learned:

People will always spend money on what they want. Some folks are worried about this recession, but the tables were PACKED in all of the casinos and people were spending money like it grew on trees.

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Landlord Tenant

Landlords: This Is One of The Many Benefits of Treating Your Tenants Like Gold…

by Jason Hanson | August 5, 2009

I ask two things of my tenants: to pay the rent on time and to treat the house with care. Before they move into a property I let them know the importance I place on these two things. I tell them that my “supervisors” are very strict and will evict people in a heartbeat who don’t pay their rent.

I even make tenants sign an additional document besides the lease, called “Company Payment Policy”. This one-page document states in plain writing that my company has ZERO-TOLERANCE for non-payment of rent. I’ve never had a problem getting anyone to sign this, and obviously if someone refused, that’s not the type of person you would want in your property anyway.

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Real Estate

Is Your Time Worth More Than $15 An Hour?

by Jason Hanson | July 29, 2009

When choosing the area you’re going to invest in a lot of people don’t create a large enough radius around where they live. For example, one of the best ways to be successful in this business is to mail a lot of letters and postcards to highly targeted lists. And sometimes when an investor tries to order a list around their home town they might only come up with 300 names. When that happens, you need to enlarge your radius because mailing 300 names will never make you wealthy.

What is the ideal radius? Obviously, it depends on where you live. If you live in the city you might not have to go far, but if you live in the country you might have to drive for miles. Personally, the radius I use is 60 miles around my house. Why such a big radius? Because some of the best deals–the bread and butter houses–are that far away from me. And when it comes to making $5,000 to $30,000 per deal, 60 miles is nothing.

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Real Estate Investing

Evaluating This Deal The Wrong Way Could Cost You $16,000…

by Jason Hanson | July 22, 2009

What’s worse than not getting any deals and struggling to buy houses? The answer is buying the wrong house. You see, many investors take an early exit from this business because they overpay for a property or because they don’t understand the correct formulas to use when evaluating a deal.

Today, I want to break down a deal that was emailed to me recently. It’s a single family house that another investor is trying to wholesale.

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