Let’s face it: making deals complicates our lives.  

    When we first become involved in real estate, buying a property can be very anxiety-provoking: I mean, really, even though we’ve done all our due diligence and run the numbers 15 different ways and talked to our favorite mentor about it and it STILL looks like a great deal, how do we ever REALLY know? And this leads to self-esteem problems, as we’re constantly second-guessing ourselves and berating ourselves over our lack of confidence. 

    And even for seasoned investors, taking on a new deal is stressful—an accepted offer means that we must find a buyer, start a rehab, or put an ad in the paper to get a tenant. Plus, there’s the additional bookkeeping when the checks roll in, and, of course, the taxes to pay on the profit at the end of the year… 

    Since stress and anxiety lead to psychological and medical conditions, including high blood pressure, overeating, bad hair days, fear of success, and a whole host of others, making deals should obviously be avoided at any cost. So, I think it’s important, for the sake of our own health and well-being, that we all learn how to NOT get trapped into making a deal. Here are some suggestions: 

        1. Make Sure You Know EVERYTHING Before You Do ANYTHING. You can avoid
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            One of the most boring topics – to most real estate investors, anyway -- is insurance.  That’s why so many get themselves in trouble when it’s too late to do anything about it. 

             As a real estate investor, you NEED to understand the basics of insurance that directly impacts your business.  Property insurance and liability insurance are the backbone of your business’s asset protection plan. Having a major insurance issue – and not having the proper insurance coverage in place – could easily cause your real estate business to go OUT of business, and take all the wealth you’ve built up over time down the drain with it.

            Our goal, thru these articles, is to provide a better basis to your real estate insurance knowledge so that you can ask the right questions and make the right decisions when it comes to your insurance.

            The first topic, as a basis of understanding, is to discuss “reconstruction value” versus “street value”.  Too often people use street value—what the property would sell for today—to try to determine what value they need to use to insure a property.

      &n
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That is the question every rehabber asks himself/herself.  Many cities and states don’t legally require that all contractors be licensed (though most require that plumbers, electricians, HVAC contractors, and the like are). But even in places where a license IS required, there are plenty of unlicensed folks who are happy to do jobs ‘under the table’.

The natural thinking among real estate investors is that we can save money by not using licensed folks: that if I use a licensed contractor the job is going to cost me more money.  

Yes, I have asked that question myself.  And I have tried to cut corners by hiring the “handyman” who is not licensed.  Here are a few of the results I have seen.

1. On an early project I discovered the contractor who was doing excellent work, had a cooler on the job.  I didn’t think much about that until I noticed beer cans on the job site.  So, I dropped in one day unexpectedly and discovered my contractor was drinking beer on the job.  When questioned, he replied, “I’m doing fine.  I am perfectly OK to do the job while drinking.  To prove it, I can trim my thumb nail with this power miter saw and will not cut myself.  Here, let me show you.”  He didn’t get the ch
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              Beginning investors have a tendency to get stressed out by the very thought of “negotiation”.

              They put off calling sellers (or calling them BACK) for days and days. They worry about what the seller might say and what they should say back to the seller.

              It’s as if they believe that something they could say to the seller—or fail to say—would make that seller motivated or not motivated.

      The truth is, sellers come to you already motivated or not motivated, and what YOU say doesn’t change that one way or another. And since that very important fact is completely out of your control, that means that the only thing you actually need to worry about in a “negotiation” is

1. Building rapport
2. Getting the information you need
3. Protecting your time

              To that end, there ARE some things that experienced real estate entrepreneurs do, and do consistently, to maximize that chances that any given seller negotiation will be a successful one.

•               Balance your need to get the information quickly
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It’s the little things like a free dessert or beverage that makes customers feel special and appreciated.  There is nothing difficult or expensive about paying attention to your customers likes and dislikes (Wayne’s Eggs) — remembering their names and keeping track of their buying preferences.  Little things frequently produce big results.  Unfortunately, many business owners miss the small things and then wonder why they lose the business to a competitor.  Here are just a few of the “little things” that can set your business apart from the rest.

• Smile
  A smile is contagious and makes people feel welcome.  Oh, and by the way, it takes fewer muscles to smile than it does to frown.  Plus, research from the 1970s and 80s suggests that your facial expression might influence your mood.  (Try putting a smile on your face and see if you feel happy.)  So, make sure you have a smile on your face when you’re dealing with your customers, so they know their business is important to you.

• Take Responsibility for Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes and training your customer service team to quickly apologize for mistakes and rectify them is one of the mos
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For whatever reason, a lot of real estate investor have this idea that a career path in real estate is strategy-based; we’re all supposed to start with wholesaling, move on to the bigger checks (and bigger complications) of retailing, then buy single family rentals, and then, we we’re really knowledgeable, wealthy and experienced, end up in apartments or notes.

In real life, there’s no such prescribed life cycle; lots of people start out in rentals, or even note-buying; I myself discovered wholesaling only after nearly 5 years in the lease/option business.

But there IS a path that we should all recognize and be on that has nothing to do with our age at entry, or our favorite asset class or exit strategy, and that’s the journey from trading our hours for (highly-taxed) dollars to having our lifestyles completely paid for by our assets.

This metamorphosis takes place in 3 stages, the terms for which were coined by the great Pete Fortunato.

     Starters are folks who are still learning and exploring the trade. They’re willing to do what it takes to get educated and to do the hard work of finding deals, which means that, in a sense, they’re still trading hours (spend finding, constructing, and managing properties) for dollars. If they&rsqu
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      I’ll admit, I had an advantage over many of you when I got started in real estate:

     I had no money and no way to get any.

     I was just out of college, effectively self-employed, had a mountain of debt weighing me down, and had no assets that I could borrow against. Let’s just say that the nice bankers I met with were anxious to work with me…in a couple of years.

     How is any of that a good thing?

     Well, it meant that it was “Creative finance or die” in Venaworld. I had no choice but to offer to assume loans, or buy on land contract, or ask for seller carrybacks, or some combination of those things, if I wanted to buy and hold a property.

     But for many years, I had a limiting belief about seller financing: that the sellers who did it did it for the same reasons that banks and private lenders do: for the “return on investment”.

     In other words, I thought that they were doing math in their heads that went something like:

     &ldq
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              Ah, for the good old days of 2009.

              Finding deals was SO easy.

              We didn’t even need a marketing budget; there were literally thousands of bank-owned and short sale deals just sitting right there in MLS, and a day of looking at 15 houses and making offers would usually turn up at least one at literally fifty cents on the dollar.

              Of course, figuring out what “fifty cents on the dollar” meant was a guessing game; so few houses were selling that coming up with comps was nearly impossible.

              And getting those deals sold was a teeth-gritting, anxiety-producing process, too; even at a 40% discount, there weren’t a ton a motivated cash buyers in the market, and when we called 10 who’d specifically identified that kind of property in that area as their favorite, they’d all say, “Yeah, I might be able to get there in the next week or 2”. Buyers saw no reason to go running down the hill with their hair on fire about any particular deal, because there were SOOOO many deals available.

          &
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Why it’s Hard to Learn Creative Finance (or Anything Else You’re Struggling With)

When a topic (say, real estate, or creative real estate), or anything else) is brand-new to you, it's easy to hear, read, watch, whatever it is you do, something that strikes you as true and valuable...

But because your brain doesn't have anything to relate it to, it seems to store it in a place that's not accessible when you want it.

It's like there's a set of organized files for some things (I know how to quilt, or play the guitar, or drive to the grocery store) that if something else comes in that can be related to those "(I'm learning how to make collages, oh, hey, it's similar to making quilts. Here's a ukulele, oh, it feels like a tiny guitar, but oh, hey, the tuning is different this way. I need to go to my friend's house, oh, it's go to the grocery store and then turn left, right, left") it's easy to process and remember.

If there's nothing in there that the brain can relate to what you just learned, the new info seems to go into a junk drawer--or get misfiled.

"They're talking about options on houses. Those sound awesome. Apparently, you need some cash, which I have, and a seller who doesn't really want to sell, whi
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Entering into escrow on a home can be both exciting and stressful. The excitement comes from knowing you are close to moving into the new home. The stress comes from issues that will arise.

Budget for Closing Costs, Prepaid Loan Interest, and Home Insurance Premiums

As part of any closing, you need to go through certain steps to make sure you are both getting what you think you have purchased as well as paying for it. Each of these steps has an associated cost, known as closing costs. You have to pay them before you can take possession of the home. If you do not, the deal will not close and you will lose the home.

When going through escrow, costs associated with closing can accumulate quickly. Here is a closer look.

Cost Considerations

Prepaid loan interest is an ugly little surprise for many first time home-buyers. The lender will often require you to pay the interest that accumulates between the day the loan is funded and the day you are actually scheduled to make your first loan payment. Many people mistakenly believe they have roughly a month before they have to start paying. This is rarely the case. The sudden requirement to pay a hundreds or thousands of dollars can be a nightmare. If at all possible, you should try to get the lender to fund the loan as close as possible to the actual closing date, even on it. Try to avoid closing the loan on a Monday. The lender will have to fund the loan the previous work week, which mean
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