Savannah REIA Blog

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I have heard it 100 times over…

That wholesaler, fill in the name, totally ripped me off.  False rehab costs, false appraisals, false inspection reports, false ARV…and on and on.

Last month we talked about experienced wholesalers.  This month, let’s flip it over to the new Buyers.  They are new, excited and hungry.  And they are prime targets to get taken advantage of by some wholesalers.  Unfortunate as it is, there are wholesalers that are less than credible.  I have seen quite a bit of less than ideal advertisements.  Some examples:  Read More >>

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One of the Questions I am frequently asked by students wanting to implement a direct mail campaign is where to get the lists of sellers to mail to. While there are several resources available, I find they vary greatly in price and in quality of the lists. It is important for you to find a good, reliable source for your lists. When doing direct mail campaigns, their success is going to be based 70% on the list and 30% on the direct mail piece you are using to contact these motivated sellers.

There are a couple of resources for lists that I find to be especially reasonable in price and the quality of the lists is excellent for your use. One of those resources is very easy to find and simple to use use. Just go to your property appraiser, auditor, or assessors’ office and ask them to put the lists together for you. You will need to target specific types of sellers you want to do deals with. If your county is online preparing this list is usually pretty simple for them to do. I will suggest to you that you go down to their office and ask them for their help in person to customize these lists for you. If you just call them, you may get “blown off” by someone who doesn’t want to do the extra work, or you may get someone on the phone who doesn’t understand what it is that you need. I know all of this from personal experience with counties I have worked with. In addition, if you live in a particularly large county, they have plat maps you can look at to subdivide your lists by specific areas you want to mail to. This is just another way for you to hone in on the area and type of seller you want to work with.  Read More >>

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People from all over the world have a common trait. No matter what the product, the word SALE always draws our attention.

When it comes to real estate, that same line of thinking stands.  The phrase "you make money when you buy, you realize that money when you sell" continues to ring true. The challenge is being able to spot that awesome deal amongst many poor or inadequate deals.  I cannot stress enough proper real estate investing education should be your goal. Using REIA comps to analyze every new deal you do is the avenue that will help you make such a distinction.

There are many people venturing out and searching for additional ways to make additional income.   Investing requires knowledge of different techniques which can be used when trying to buy, sell, negotiate or repair a house.  Having proper investing education to stand on can mean the difference between success and failure.  Read More >>

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After beefing up its film incentive program in 2008, Georgia has emerged among the top places in the world for film production.  In less than a decade, Georgia has quickly become the “Hollywood of the South” with more movies and TV shows filming in the Peach state than most places around the world. A recent study has put Georgia as the third largest film industry in the world only behind the United Kingdom. However, with the recent BREXIT issues, Georgia’s film industry is expected to exponentially grow and possibly become the number #1 filmmaking location in the world.

For those that don’t know, Georgia gives film, television and digital entertainment a tax credit of up to 30 percent. Georgia’s Entertainment Industry Investment Act provides a 20 percent tax credit for companies that spend $500,000 or more on production and post-production in Georgia, either in a single production or on multiple projects with no caps on amount spent. Then, the state grants an additional 10 percent tax credit if the finished project includes a promotional logo provided by the state. If a company has little or no Georgia tax liability, it can transfer or sell its tax credits as well. These credits create significant cost savings for the production companies producing feature films, television series, music videos and commercials, as well as interactive games and animation.  Read More >>

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This year will be different.  Has it happened?  Has the flame gone out? Is the passion gone away? Have you followed through?  One way that I keep the passion alive, is to have access to more money than I can use to produce great investments. Raising capital is not very hard. Getting over the psychological parts of making “the ask” seems to be the difficult part for most people. I have been approached over the past year by a number of people who want me to fund their projects. I can get excited about this because I can see they have a project which will work and make us a lot of money. 

I was at a networking event recently. There where people in the room who wanted to invest in real estate projects and earn a great rate of return. There were people who did not have a clue as to what lending is all about, that there are multiple alternative investments, other than the traditional ways Wall Street gets your money. There were individuals who were reluctant to dip their toes into the pool of lending to investors. There were people there who had projects, which they wanted to get funded. So the environment was ripe for synergy to happen.  Read More >>

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“If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.” ~ Benjamin Franklin

I didn’t think Timyo was going to be a game changer for me. I already felt like I had great management tools using Gmail in the first place. A friend recommended that I check out this new app so I tinkered with it for a while. It is an email inbox management system that works best with Gmail, Office 365, Outlook.com and Hotmail. I have tried other inbox zero apps but I’ve felt like it’s a waste of time for me to go through all my emails weeding out the junk. I have used Gmail options before but it still seemed like I was getting a lot of emails that were not a priority first. My time is valuable since I’m running multiple projects, what I focus on needs to be what moves me along to the next step in line.  Read More >>

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Having met with numerous new investors and/or wholesalers, I am always asked, “How do I get more properties? Where can I find more deals? What kind of marketing do you do to get leads?” The questions continue with the same idea in mind. I understand that you are eager to start and begin marketing in order to get your first deal done, but are you truly ready? In most cases I would say, NO.

Marketing is not cheap and you may be throwing away money if you do not have a good foundation in sales, or better yet problem solving. Over the years, I have made more money solving problems than “selling” a person on selling me their property. In fact, I am rarely the highest bidder. I attribute this to being able to come up with the best solution to the seller’s problems. Most would assume that the property for sale is the problem but many times that is only the start. Usually a person is selling a property to get rid of a headache and/or to realize a profit in order to solve another lingering problem. Problems can be as small as not being able to repair the property to as big as being behind a year or more on mortgage payments. Let me give some examples to demonstrate what it is I am referring to.  Read More >>

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I am writing this article because I mentor so many people who desire to become successful in real estate; however, their life gets in the way of educating themselves.  Making offers on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is a great way to find Sellers, yet, when you submit an offer to the Seller, the Realtor really doesn’t know the answers to the following questions.  Is there a mortgage on the property?  Are the Sellers in foreclosure (unless it is a short sale)?  Is it a probate matter and how many heirs are in the estate?  What permits have been pulled for the property and what dates were items like the roof or A/C installed (this information is sometimes provided in a Sellers Disclosure)?

After talking with a Seller and/or finding a Vacant Home, the research you do is a vital part of your business success.  I provide students with over 43 ways to find motivated sellers without using the MLS.  Knowing in-depth information about the Seller’s situation, ownership and mortgage balance allows me to negotiate and close more deals than just listening to what a Seller has told me.  In fact, Sellers normally tell you what they want and not what they NEED.  In order to make a deal work for all parties, we need to find out what they NEED, not what they want, then see how/if we can create a win-win situation.  Read More >>

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Are your property taxes too high?  If they are, in the past three years, how often have you attended your county commissioners’ meetings to voice your outrage? 

My mother taught me early on that silence is a form of acceptance.  Most times at these county commissioners’ meetings the silence was deafening!

If your property taxes are too high and if you don’t speak out at the public government hearings, then you lose your right to complain.  Instead, just step up to the window and pay the nice lady what you owe without one complaint!

Since 2006, Kim and I have fought our property taxes 142 times.  We’ve won 122 times – that’s an 86% success rate.  I don’t say this to brag; I say this to let you know that you can fight your property taxes and win!  Just know that it’s a learned thing, not a born-knowing-how-to-do-it thing, and it begins with standing up and speaking out!  Read More >>

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2017 is here. Now’s the time to do your end-of-year QuickBooks tasks.

Since early January of this year, you’ve been faithfully creating new records, entering transactions, and recording payments. You’ve run basic reports. You’ve done your collection duties. You may have paid employees and submitted payroll taxes.

Now the end of the year is rapidly approaching. In the midst of holiday get-togethers, gift shopping, and perhaps preparing for travel, you probably have a list of work tasks that must be completed by December 31.

Is your annual QuickBooks wrap-up on that list? It should be. Here are some of the things we suggest you fit into your busy schedule sometime this month.  Read More >>

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The recent series of wildfires here in our own Smokey Mountain region of North Carolina and Tennessee has been devastating. The fires around Gatlinburg, Tennessee late last month resulted in at least 2,460 structures that were damaged or destroyed, and the death toll has reached at least seven.

Lots of people have lost their homes and businesses – and surely many of them were uninsured for wildfire damage, or will find that they were woefully underinsured.

The real estate investment community, including real estate IRA owners, can and should be active in this environment. By offering a fair price for fire damaged properties that we have the capital to repair and resell or rent, investors will be vital players in helping a traumatized community get back on its feet and rebuild.  Read More >>

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Quick question for you: Are you talented? Or do you have skills? THAT is the question of the day.

And before you answer that, let me define what they each mean, because it’s vitally important to know the difference between the two. :)

Then after we define the difference, we’re going to help you leverage one in order to maximize the other so that you’ll be able to get whatever you want with minimal effort.  Sound good? Let’s get started...

What is TALENT? Simply put, it’s what you’re born with. Your God-given gifts. Your natural tools. For example, the ability to run really fast or sing extremely well. Other examples would include being mathematically-inclined, naturally charismatic, graceful & coordinated, or naturally artistic.  Read More >>

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No Charge to Attend for Members or Guests
Who Attend Online via GoToWebinar.com!

The Beginning Investors Group Online (The "Big O" or BIGO) is an new online educational group that currently meets on the 4th Wednesday for new investors who are just getting started in real estate investing as well as “new again” real estate investors who’ve taken a few years off and are looking to get back in the game.

Each month, we will be bringing in local and national real estate experts to teach new investors how to survive and thrive in our ever changing economy and real estate market. The entire purpose of this group is to help new investors get their first deal and help new again investors get their next deal.

Don DeRosa will help us kick off our first meeting of the New Year 2017 on Wednesday, January 25th at 7:00PM ET. Don is a full-time, active real estate investor, coach and trainer who had done all types of real estate deals such as wholesaling, creative financing on pretty house deals, rehabbing and retailing, rentals, short sales, foreclosures, new construction, private lending and much, much more. This year, Don is focusing on fixing and flipping and doing creative deals with his coaching students.

Join Don at BIG Online as he teaches you the quickest and easiest way to get started in the real estate investing business with limited time and funds. He will also talk about his upcoming training workshops and boot camps for 2017 that he is doing as the Property Protege Group and Coaching Program.

TO ATTEND ONLINE: 7:00PM Start Time. To attend the Beginning Investors Group Online via your PC, smart phone or tablet, Register Here for the Meeting on GoToWebinar.com and you will be emailed login instructions for the event.

No Charge to Attend for Members or Guests
Who Attend Online via GoToWebinar.com!

Once you get your Webinar Confirmation Email, you can login on about 5-10 minutes prior to the 7PM start time to reserve a spot using your PC, Mac, Tablet or Smart Phone. You can download the GoToWebinar App here on iTunes App Store or the Google Play Store.

Read More >>

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The January 2017 Edition of The Profit Newsletter is now available for download. There are 50 pages this month full of upcoming meetings, workshops, educational articles and other valuable information for your real estate investing pleasure and success. Download it and check it out!

The Profit is Atlanta REIA's digital, interactive newsletter for serious real estate investors delivered as an Adobe PDF file to read on your PC, Mac, Smart Phone, iPad or other mobile ready devices. Many of the articles and ads in The Profit contain many hyperlinks you can click to get more information online! The high res version of The Profit is "print ready" for those who want to print the newsletter on their home or business printer.

Be sure to Subscribe to The Profit by Email or Subscribe to The Profit by Text so you don't miss a single issue.

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Chuck and Gina Biter have shared their knowledge with thousands of real estate investors around the country through Robyn Thompson's training events. They are coming to Savannah, Georgia for a full day workshop to teach cutting edge strategies that will produce huge profits in today’s market on January 21st at 9AM at the Savannah Board of Realtors located at 7015 Hodgson Memorial Drive in Savannah, GA (map). They have done over 50 properties in the last 4 years and will be here to share their expertise with you.

At the workshop, they will teach you:

• Their Buying Machine
• Where to Find Properties to Rehab for Profit
• 9 Types of Houses to Never Buy
• The Rehab Process
• Locating and Hiring the Best Contractors to Get the Job Done in a Timely Manner and On Budget
• Prescreening & Controlling The 8 Contractors to Create a Rehab Dream Team
• The Magic Buying Formula to Ensure Huge Profits
• The 3 Critical Steps to Selling Houses
• The 21 Critical “WOW” Factors to Sell a Home
• 8 Marketing Strategies to Attract “A” Credit

As you can see, this will be a knowledge packed day full of excitement and education. This is a “don’t miss opportunity” for all serious investors that want to start earning Big, Fat Checks! We look forward to seeing you at this great event on January 21st!

*BONUSES: Chuck and Gina are bringing over $250 in gifts for each attendee!

TAKE ACTION and REGISTER for this Workshop Now!

Read More >>

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How do you succeed as a real estate investor?  How do you succeed as a person?  Simple: Stay the course!

But what course?  Whose course?  Heck, how do you know if you’re even on the right course?

Your course begins with an idea – YOUR idea!  What feels right to you?  Answer this question: What were you put on earth to do?  Ever thought about this?  I mean, after all, you’re here for a reason, right?  What’s that reason?

For eighteen years, I sold Electrolux vacuums door-to-door.  It paid me a lot of money.  Only one problem: I wasn’t put on earth to sell vacuums door-to-door.  So why didn’t I quit much sooner?  Because everyone around me told me that I’d be a fool to walk away from the huge money-earning potential Electrolux offered.  Read More >>

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Last month, we talked about the words we use and how powerful they are. This month, we’re going to take it to the next level.

So there’s a famous study that was done a while ago by Dr. Albert Mehrabian, that showed that only 7% of our communication is conveyed through words, 38% is from our vocal tonality, and the rest (55%) is through ‘nonverbal elements,’ such as your posture, gestures, and facial expressions.

Based on what I wrote in my last article, I believe that our words represent a lot more than only 7%, but that’s not what this article is going to be about. No, in this article, we’re going to get into that other stuff - specifically: Tonality - HOW we say what we say. 

Call me crazy for trying to write about something you HEAR.  Obviously, this would be a lot easier for me to demonstrate in a video, or on an audio recording. But we don’t have that luxury here, so I’ll just have to flex my writin’ skills!  Read More >>

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When looking for an investment opportunity it is always worth considering buying foreclosure properties. You should absolutely take the time to explore all avenues to make this the most profitable. The best thing you can do for yourself is learn about ways to purchase a home any party lost. As they say, “their loss could be your gain”.  REIA Comps can help you navigate the twists and turns of the buying process. 

Unfortunately, homeowners being foreclosed on know that once the bank forecloses, their house with be up for auction. At that point, the property will be sold to the highest bidder. By working with homeowners before their foreclosure is finalized, you can pick up their home at a fraction of the price before it goes public. It's a common practice among real estate investors and brokers. I want you to keep reading and learn how to pick up these deals.  Read More >>

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Atlanta continues to be one of the hottest real estate markets to rebound since the recession continuing through third quarter 2016.  But, before we analyze the numbers, sellers must realize the following:

1. Price and condition account for 80% of buyer interest and acceptance for any property. What needs to be done to present your house in the best possible way?
2. Nobody can dictate at what price your house will sell. The market will determine the price that buyers are willing to pay. When you price your house too low, the market will raise the price due to multiple offers over the price
3. Rather than using emotion, guesswork or assertions to arrive at your listing price, a good agent helps the Seller understand the real Atlanta market data, showing what actually happened to other sellers in the current market, as it reveals the most likely outcomes of pricing strategies for you. Using overall metro market statistics provides good agents with a large enough data set of real outcomes to feel comfortable that they will be likely to happen in future transactions, allowing us to take advantage of this knowledge to price your property to achieve your goals

For the purposes of this article, my statistics for the third quarter are about the numbered areas below.  Read More >>

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We all know that developing an effective marketing strategy is essential to getting any business off the ground. Educating yourself and discovering how to locate and motivate potential sellers to contact you is a must in making your real estate business a success. You must be able to locate prospects who want to do business with you. You must find the sellers who need to sell, not just want to sell their properties. This is essential to your success as a real estate investor. Coming into the new year this will an important step to growing your real estate investing business.

Marketing is also a numbers game, the more leads that come in, the more opportunities you will have to make deals. You won’t buy every deal that comes your way, but when you develop a machine that brings in quality leads, you will be able to pick and choose the deals you want to do. You will quickly learn to recognize quality prospects.  Read More >>

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As we get ready to start the new year, I would like to start with a basic question…would you close on your own deal?

I am an investor who loves wholesaling so I ask this question with sincerity.  Would you close on your own deal that you send to your Buyers?  Seriously, assuming you had the money in cash, would you?

If you  have to think about the answer, then is it really a deal you should be sending out to your Buyers?  Of course one can say ‘well it is not an area I invest in but others do’ and I would respect that of course.  However, what I have found is a lot of wholesalers are not confident enough to where if they had to close on the deal, that they would actually do it.

In which case, I ask, why would you present that deal to your Buyers?  Read More >>

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Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about the different ways real estate investors can achieve their goals and dreams in the fastest way possible. I get asked this question frequently by students who are just getting started in the real estate investing business. As I thought about the different strategies of how real estate goals can be achieved, I came up with the three most common ways most investors use today.

First of all wholesaling is what I hear about the most. The problem as I see it with wholesaling is two-fold. First, wholesaling real estate is to me just like having a job. Once you get a property bought and either “pre-habbed” or if you assign your purchase agreement you are creating the Hamster On the Wheel way of doing business. You buy the property, you fix the property then you sell the property. At that time hopefully you get a check. You use some of the money you get to pay for your living expenses and if there is any money left you might use the excess to pay for a portion of the next deal you do.  Read More >>

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On the Front Page of The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday Nov. 30, it stated “Home Prices Hit record levels”. If you read this article, you will think it is over, the window of the “massive profits in real estate” opportunity has slammed shut. If you did not buy any property since the great recession, you have missed the boat. In your old age when you go into the smelly retirement home, that your Social Security or what’s left of it will pay, you will remember this lost opportunity of buying real estate in the 2012-2016. Yes, it is true the national average states that prices have recovered. If you sat on the fence, you have missed that once in a lifetime opportunity. You decided that the market wasn’t right and you would wait. Those who waited have lost the greatest opportunity in this decade or life time to hit it big and coast into retirement. You might as well go to your “JOB= Just over broke” opportunity and sell your health, back, brain and soul to the company. Don’t invest in any more real estate courses… Save your money, you will need it for your retirement.  Read More >>

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Expected returns are hard to come by. Stocks are at elevated P/Es on a historical basis, and yields are near all time lows. With economic growth sluggish, at 2-3 percent per year, any major gains will have to come from multiple expansion – and who can count on that? Earnings multiples can fall as easily as rise. This is what caused many of us to gravitate to self-directed IRA strategies in the first place!

Bonds aren’t much better, in the publicly traded market. There’s some downside protection, in theory.

Fortunately, electing to use self-directed IRA strategies allows you to transcend the limited publicly-traded stock and bond world, and explore hidden opportunities that are invisible to most investors – but which still offer reasonable yields – at acceptable risk levels, or at least with some security.

One such opportunity for self-directed IRA investors: Discounted Owner-Financed Real Estate Notes.

Here’s how it works:  Read More >>

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As an Investor, having a Realtor to work with is important in your business if you are buying or selling houses on the Multiple Listing Services.   Many new Investors rely on their Realtor to send them “good deals” to buy, hold, fix and/or flip.  However, a Realtor does not know what good deal means to an Investor.  A good deal for us could be the cash flow that you receive on a rental property or it could be the profit that you would receive from reselling the home.  As Investors, you are taught a MAO “Maximum Allowable Offer” Formula in which you use to make offers on homes for buying, fixing and reselling.  The formula varies based on your own situation.  The average formula used for Investors who have to get hard money to purchase the home would be:  ARV (After repaired Value) x 65% - Repairs = MAO.  Let me give you an example:  $100,000 (ARV) x 65% = $65,000 - $10,000 Repairs = $55,000 Maximum Allowable Offer.  This formula would then leave you with $35,000 for holding costs, cost of money, closing costs of purchase and resale, and then profit.  Your MAO formula would be different if you are purchasing the home as a Landlord and/or you have your own money to fund the deal.  You may be willing to pay between 70-75% of the After Repaired Value for the home - Repairs = Your MAO.  Read More >>

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