All Forum Posts by: Daniel Burbol

1st of all, I'm not a pro.  My wife and I are just getting started with Notes --but we threw ourselves into learning as much as we could in 30 days before going to the Note Investor's Summit 2015 in San Diego (so we wouldn't be dazed and confused for the whole convention) and it was 100% worth the effort.

There is another conference come up in Las Vegas put on by Paper Source.  I thought I might share the crash-course my wife and I used for anyone thinking about going to an event like that. (My wife and I also got tickets to the Paper Source so I hope to see some of you there.)

Here's how we wrapped our mind around the basics of Note Investing in about a month...

1. We saw Gordon Moss talk in person, which was lucky. (I know you can't do that, but keep reading). (I think this might have been a free talk at a REI Club)

2. We went to Gordon Moss' website and watched all of the videos on his blog.  (starting with the oldest one on his blog)  (FREE.)

Gordon Moss' blog: http://realestateandnoteinvesting.com/blog/

Some are high-level and some are more in depth. Gordon personally focuses on "non-performing 2nds" but touches a lot on how they are different from "1sts" and "performing" or "under-performing" notes.  (Please hear those words.  Gordon has his preferred method but it's not the only method.  I'm not saying his way is the only way, I'm saying, you can use his site as a springboard to educate yourself.)

3. We slowly walked through all Gordon's "Module 10" videos with a pen and paper, pausing and rewinding often. (Free)

Here is a link to the first of those videos: http://realestateandnoteinvesting.com/2012/12/note-investing-mentoring-1/

These "Module 10" videos do NOT have in-depth teaching.  Rather, they are a summery of a course he once held (or something).  They walk you through his whole process, end-to-end, and are a wealth of great topics and keywords to google for more info.

4. We actually googled those keywords and topics (Free)

5. We started to do the same to all of Gordon's Links (people he mentions as looking up to). (Free)

http://realestateandnoteinvesting.com/amazing-link...

6. I also read his book (which, by this point, only reiterated what we already knew from carefully leveraging his blog) ($10)

on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J35GWFA

7. we went to the Note Investor's Summit and didn't get lost :)  (Gordon wasn't present, but was positively mentioned often by speakers and attendees alike.)

8. (As of writing this) we are currently getting setup (legally speaking) to buy our first notes without exposing our privacy, etc.

9. We hope to have already purchased a few notes before the next conference happens (Paper Source, in Las Vegas about a month from now)

Paper Source: http://papersourceseminars.com/paper-source-note-symposium-cash-flow-profits-2015/

the end.

Okay, I hope that is helpful.  Also, if I'm way off base or if anyone has better resources, please chime in.  How did YOU learn the basics of Note Investing?  

(PS: special thanks to Katrina Jonah's great questions that inspired this post.)

Note Investor Summit was hosted by Travis Tollestrup and Aaron Halderman.  Both gentlemen were really great to hear speak and the speakers they got were pretty amazing.

I got a real sense of integrity and win-win approach from all the speakers, on and off the stage.  Also, every attendee I spoke with was serious about the topic of Notes and wanted to help everyone they interacted with.

At one point Travis or Aaron mentioned how people who operate with integrity tend to stick together while people who don't operate with integrity also tend to stick together.  So if you operate with integrity and are very transparent, open, and up-front about that, people who don't operate with integrity will naturally avoid you because you will naturally expose them.

All the speakers where great.  Q&A was encourage and also great. 

David Fagan's (rushed) talk was the only one that sounded a little sales-pitchy, but, as it turned out, it was because he was there to talk about building your own brand and he was using his own brand as an example in his presentation AND instead of getting 30mins, he only got 10.  We caught his full presentation the next day and it was really good.  It didn't come off like a sales-pitch at all, instead it was "here's my story and the image I project.  Here's how it helps me and opens doors for me.  You should tell your story and be conscious of your image too."  So in the end, David Fagan had a great talk and we're glad he got the full time to give it again. 

Bob Zachmeier's talk was my biggest take-away from the conference.  He instantly became my hero.  I got the pleasure of sitting with him the following night and chatting about how he does things and his current personal goal to give 1 million dollars to charity while still alive.  This man operates on a win-win scale that is nearly unbelievable.  Watch some of his youtube videos and listen for his "robinhood close".  Amazing.  I was counting "winners" on one of his deals and got up to 8.  EX: Buyer wins because they got a house when they couldn't get a loan from a bank; Seller wins because they sold at a premium; Investor wins because he got the 2nd at 50 cents on the dollar; Realtor wins on a commission at a premium price; Neighborhood wins because a house just got recorded as selling above market; Investor's Nephew's college fund wins because he was allowed to invest $100 and collect interest on the Note along side the Investor; ... it continued like that...

Note Investor Summit 2015 in San Diego: I'm really glad I got to go.  I would highly recommend it.  

Side Note: The hotel's conference setup was great.  However, the rooms, service, and prices were not great.  They charged us 4-star prices for 2-star quality.  Next year, we will stay at a near-by hotel instead.

Thanks for posting this Q&A.  I was just wondering the same thing about the Paper Source Las Vegas event.  Especially since their website is overflowing with up-sales and $1 e-books, 'buy our course" and "give us your email", etc.  

I was starting to think the event would be a big sales pitch.

How does it compare to Note Investor Summit in San Diego? (which I got to go to last week and was really, really great).

wow, thanks for the warm welcome! :)

I just cleaned up the book list and put it on my blog. It's 150 books!

Here are the top five.

Times Mentioned on BP Podcasts - Book Title
39 - Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
29 - The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
25 - The E-Myth and/or The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber
11 - Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
11 - The Book on Flipping Houses by J Scott

I didn't want to spam 150 books in here, so the full list is on my blog:

http://www.dannyburbol.com/2015/01/top-investment-...

Greetings,

My wife and I moved to Vegas about 2 years ago.  We've been finding real estate investing a little different out here (came from SF Bay Area).  Then we discovered Bigger Pockets and it's been super inspiring.

currently we have a couple properties we are holding for cashflow in CA and we are in the middle of flipping a property in Vegas (our first flip ever).

We are currently looking for the right business model to approach vegas investing with.  Our goal has been to buy and hold... as soon as we find a deal with a return worth holding --which is always the hard part, right? :) 

We also just discovered the Outback investment club here in Vegas and it looks really promising. 

One question:  I listened to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts on my commute.  I listened to a bunch of BiggerPockets podcasts and I love the book recommendation.  I got inspired and I went through all of the podcast show-notes and put all the book recommendations into a spreadsheet, then compiled them down and sorted them by the number of time each book was recommended.  It's basically my new prioritized 'to-read' list and, so far, it's been hit after hit.  Is this something others would be interested in?  should I post it somewhere?  I don't really know my way around the forums here yet and didn't want to post it in the wrong place.

Thanks! I look forward to meeting and working with everyone!

~Danny

Regarding the California out of state owner tax:

We've been doing some digging.  Yes CA is requiring our management company to report our tax on the gross rents per quarter, but we are starting to find a paper-trail that would let us deduct the expenses on a different tax form.  we know we can deduct at year end.  we are currently trying to determine if we can submit this 2nd form per quarter and make this issue go away.  I'll update with details when I have the final results. 

A small word of caution: While living in CA, I owned and rented property in CA.  Then I moved to NV.  Now CA started hitting me with an out of state owner tax that is based on the Gross of rental income (not the Net).  So as soon as I moved away, CA started cutting into most of my cashflow.

My word of caution is: You might want to investigate how taxes on the deal will work in both states before jumping into a deal.