All Forum Posts by: Scott Allan

I do not get the picture you are painting here Jane Doe. But...I have a few deals going with Harbour Funding. I also know a builder who is a friend of mine that has 50 contracts wth them. They have not closed one deal for me yet, but we are still in contract. I have been told that we are closing by Feb. 15, pushed back from Jan.15. I will let everyone know what the turnout is. I hope they are legit. It's either going to turn out really good or really bad. Stay tuned. I still have faith in them since they officially are still moving forward. We'll see.

Jane Doe, Have you entered into a contract and gone forward with Harbour to write these statements? I'm curious to know if you did, have you received your 10% back from the attorney BASED out of New Jersey? If you entered into agreement and the loan went to processing you would have had to send 10% into escrow. Just curious on where you get your info.

I will also vouge for james smith. No specific reason, I just have not heard anything bad about the guy and I do a bunch of research on speakers since I am one myself. FYI, i don't take RipOffReport seriously. People use that platform to bash others and there is no way to prove anything on it.

Here is what NOT to do...get sucked into paying thousands of dollars to so called gurus that prey on vulnerable newbies.

Here is what I did. I went to a lot of forums and blogs...read them all. Got a book, read that, and started networking. Get your RE license and hang out in a real estate office a few hours a day. You'll be ready in a year.

If you have no interest in learning SEO, but more importantly blogging, you are limiting your productivity in my opinion. In today's real estate industry, name branding is huge as 86% of buyers/sellers start their research on the internet. Welcome to modern day business

Well in a round about way, many investors got us to the point we are at today on speculation. It's also where real estate took a beating to its integrity with too many fast talkers who don't know squat leading the sales industry. There are only incentives to offer Primary homes. And last I checked, a rental house is NOT that tenants PRIMARY residence per se. It's their rental property. There is a big difference.

My office is in Hoboken, NJ on the Hudson River. I did not see the plane descending but we saw people running to toward the water. Obviously something was up. Crazy to go out and see a commercial airliner just floating there as people were climbing onto the wing. I can tell you it was VERY cold that day and the Hudson was full of ice chunks. Pilot was awesome

Easy...John is right. There is a contingency but it's a timing thing. You can clearly disclose in the offer that you have the right to cancel for "any reasons", but normally sellers will not give you more than about 10 days. It's a very realistic contingency especially today.

Good Luck

Car magnets are good for name branding. True, you may not get a lot of calls, but if you have a catchy company name, people will start remembering you.

Hi Jon,
Thanks for the reply, but I disagree with your break even scenario. An investment property today can be financed at about 7.375% on an average 30 year loan. With a principal of roughly $1,300 per month and assuming a $250 per month HOA, you are still at about $2,000 total monthly after your operating expenses. Bad example though..I hate condos, just threw it out there.

I am also pretty bullish on today's housing market. In my opinion, I don't think we will see a declination in value like we recently experienced. The bust is over, now the ongoing correction is going to linger, likely going into the bottom by mid to end of 2009 (my opinion). So I think with what todays investors learned from the past will force them to analyze markets much more and continue to hedge their largest bets on real estate as opposed to stock.

Sure, if i wanted to make a case for stocks and how you would have been better off with them over the last 3 years on your overall return or loss I could have, but again, I think we are getting over the drastic declinations.

I have had a big volume of inquiries on whether I think real estate or stocks make a better investment. A lot of people have asked if I heard the Warren Buffett quote, "When investors are greedy, be fearful. But when investors are fearful, be greedy." Keep in mind that us normal people do not get the same benefits as Mr. Buffett does when we invest in the stock market. He has guarantees, kickers, etc...So for someone looking to begin investing and have the stocks vs. real estate questions I'll mention something very simple.

Take a condo purchase for example for $250,000 and assume you put down $50,000 as a down payment. Then your other option is to purchase stocks, bonds, etc in the amount of $50,000. Calculating a rate of annual appreciation or gain between 2% and 10% using increments of 2, your actual total return in real estate is always 5 times greater than the return on stocks, considering all things being equal.

For instance if you calculate 10% appreciation per year in real estate and 10% gain on a stock over 10 years, your total return in real estate is 500% compared to 100% in the stock market. If you calculate a 2% annual return over 10 years, your total return on real estate is 100%, versus the stock which will give you a 20% return.

It's simple math to me. Investing in the stock market is said to be investing in America's future with the DOW being so low. But it is pure speculation, just like trying to speculate on the housing market. Only thing I am trying to get across is that it is interesting to note that all things being equal, leveraging allows a 2% annual appreciation in real estate to equal a 10% annual rate of return in the stock market.

Scott Allan