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Real Estate Investors - The 9 Top Ways to Find Private Lenders

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:20:00 GMT

I a sure you are aware the mortgage market in this country has collapsed. I do not mean "it is slow" or "down slightly", I mean it has COLLAPSED. It is almost impossible for a home owner to get a mortgage and down right impossible for real estate investors to get traditional mortgages.

The solution for the next couple of years will be private lenders. But how does a real estate investor find private lenders. Well, finding a private lender is not nearly as difficult as people think. Here are the top 9 ways to find potential lenders for your real estate investing business.

Elevator Speech: Prepare a "60 second" elevator speech and network with everyone you know including friends, family and business associates. Spread the word you are looking for investors.
Real Estate Investment Clubs: Join your local REI group and network and spread the word you are a real estate investor and looking for private lenders to invest in your deals.
Join professional networking groups: You can join networking groups like BNI and be sure to join and deliver your "60 second" elevator speech at opportunity.
Postcards: You can purchase lists of high net worth individuals and send a postcard inviting them to call you to get free information form you or attend an informational seminar about your real estate investing business and private lending.
Letters: Send letters to a high net worth list as above or send it to people that have already called or emailed you from your postcards.
Small Local Newspaper Ads: You can place ads in small newspapers offering the reader to attend an educational seminar or request a free report.
Flyers: Post flyers at senior centers and areas where high net worth people attend and traffic.
Speeches and Presentations: Offer to give a 30 to 60 minute educational presentation about real estate investing and private lender.
Internet: You can spread the word through social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook. However, I strongly urge you to simple offer to provided educational information and do NOT make an offer to borrow money through internet sources. Advertising directly through the internet will attract attention form your state SEC department and I assure you that this is not the attention you want to attract.
BONUS -- Talk, Talk and More Talk: Talk to everyone and spread the word about what you do and what services you provided.

If you would like more information on this topic or to learn more real estate investing tips, ideals or "real world" investing strategies please go to my blog at http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/.

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to Real Estate Investing Blog.

Have you ever thought that with a little help from a experienced coach might help your real estate investing business take off? Consider a mini-coaching session by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/MiniCoaching.html

So You Need Money For Real Estate Investments - Here is How to Use Private Lenders For Money!

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:42:00 GMT

If you have tried to get a traditional mortgage, or even a hard money loan, to finance your real estate investments you know how hard it is to get loans in today's post-credit bubble market. It is even harder to get "no money down" loans for your real estate investing business. If you are using traditional mortgage or hard money loans they can take two or three months to close. The problem you will quickly discover is that sellers are not willing to wait that long and get angry at having to continuously extend their contracts or wait for your loan approval.

Banks and mortgage lenders view mortgage loans to real estate investors as a higher risk than loans to home owners. They believe if the home owner is not living in the property and if trouble hits an investor will opt to pay their own home mortgage first and only pay for the investment loan if they can afford to make the payments. This puts the bank in a very poor position. As a result, most banks are looking for real estate investors to put up 30% to 50% down payment to protect their interest in time of trouble. VERY few investors have this kind of cash so it is very difficult or impossible to do deals with traditional mortgage or hard money loans.

Real estate investors still are not advised to use their own money to do their deals. Even if you have 30-50% saved for a down payment on your investment property, most real estate guru's warn, NEVER spend your own money on real estate investments. Most beginners start their investment career saving up for a down payment, but the fact is, serious real estate investors do not use their own money to do real estate deals.

So how do you buy real estate investments if it is so hard to get a loan and you do not want me to use my money to apply to a down payment?

Buying real estate without using your own money IS possible, and it's not difficult. With the right kind of deal, investment property can be purchased without a single penny of your own money.

Enter the world of Private Lenders... Private lenders are individuals with money to lend for investment purposes. They may or may not be wealthy, but they do have excess cash or assets available over and above what they need to live on. These individuals are willing to lend for a higher return than they can get with bank CD's or money markets. There are no limits on the number of private lenders you can have or the number of real estate deals you can do using private money.

If you would like more information on this topic or to learn more real estate investing tips, ideals or "real world" investing strategies please go to my blog at http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/.

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to Real Estate Investing Blog.

Have you ever thought that with a little help from a experienced coach might help your real estate investing business take off? Consider a mini-coaching session by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/MiniCoaching.html

3 Simple Ways to Start Investing in Real Estate

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:41:00 GMT

The internet is awash with creative and non-traditional ways of real estate investment. Reading one of them makes you feel that it is very simple and workable. Then you begin to doubt whether all of them actually work. The truth is they do. All these techniques have been used by someone, somewhere at some point in time. The possibilities of using these techniques are limitless. Once you start putting them into practice, you will find out that they can work wonders for you. Some of the creative methods of real estate investments that you can put into practice are as follows:

Finding money lenders

There are people, even in this slowdown, who are loaded with cash. These people extend short-term loans to their customers with a little higher interest rate than the conventional lenders. You can secure such a loan from a lender and use this short -term facility to invest in your real estate business. You can use these short term loans for flipping houses or any other short term real estate activity. The profit from the business can take care of the mark-up.

Simultaneous buying and selling

The method, though creative and workable needs a lot of hard work and quick wittedness. The phenomenon works like this: You buy a property from an owner and request him to defer the payment to a future date. Within that date you find a buyer for the same property. You ask the buyer to make immediate payment. When the buyer gives you money, you use that money to pay the owner from whom you have bought the property. So what's in it for you? Of course, you are not going to sell the property exactly at the same price at which you bought it. The difference between your buying price and selling price is your profit.

Though seemingly, the idea is simple enough, in reality it is a little bit complicated. First you need to find a motivated seller and convince him to sell his property at deferred payment. Then you need to find a buyer of the same property and convince him to make immediate payment to you. If you decide to start such a venture, it is highly advisable that you have a buyer already lined up before you make the purchase so you do not get stuck with the property.

Assuming mortgages

Another creative method for investing in real estate business is to assume mortgages. The idea is to take over the existing mortgage on a property. In addition to taking the mortgage on the property, you can also get another mortgage for the payment to the seller. The phenomenon is very much feasible since the seller gets higher interest and receives his payment in relatively shorter period of time. But, before you indulge in this activity, you must make sure that the original lender agrees to your assuming the mortgage because his consent is imperative. Also try and make yourself familiar with the local laws of the state in which you wish to operate since the laws differ from state to state and if you are not aware of the existing laws.

If you would like more information on this topic or to learn more real estate investing tips, ideals or "real world" investing strategies please go to my blog at http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/.

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to Real Estate Investing Blog.

Have you ever thought that with a little help from a experienced coach might help your real estate investing business take off? Consider a mini-coaching session by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/MiniCoaching.html

Real Estate Investors: How to Get Motivated Sellers Calling in Droves Using Post-It Notes

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:55:00 GMT

Outside Company Distribution

There are companies out there that do distribution of post-it notes. There's a company called Markot. I 'm not going to recommend them because I tried them and I was not particularly happy. There are others and you can look them up on Google under "post-it note distribution" and your city name. Try one and see how they perform with small batch before you give them more business.

You tell them what neighborhood you want, you give them the post-it notes, and they'll go out and distribute them on each and every door. They'll walk up and down the neighborhood and put them on the doors.
I had some problems with one of my vendors. First, was they'd tell you they were delivering them this week, and then something would happen and it would be next, and then the following week. I had some problems getting them to deliver them on the dates they chose.

Second, I was always concerned when they did finally get around to it, because it seemed like my response was fairly muted compared to when I would have the post-it notes delivered myself by my people I trusted. It always made me wonder if they were getting out there in the exact number they stated.

Hire Someone to Distribute

Again, there's nothing wrong with paying somebody to do it. In fact, that's what I recommend, that you eventually get somebody to hire to go out and put them on doors. It's very easy if you know some people - some young kids, 15 year olds or something like that. You can pay them 10 or 15 cents per post-it note to deliver. They can do it after school or on the weekends. It's a nice part-time job for a kid.

For the most part, if you know the kid and you can trust they'll actually deliver them and they count how many they delivered - you pay them after they're completed. You should know when they're being delivered almost to the moment they're being delivered. That's how often you'll get calls.

If they start delivering them on a particular street at 4:00 in the afternoon and they deliver 300, 400 or 500 of them, it is almost inconceivable that you wouldn't get a couple of calls. That's how effective these are.
Some of these calls might not be very productive. You might even occasionally get a cranky person calling to complain. Tell them you're sorry, apologize, and maybe you'll have the kids run over and pull theirs off the door of something. Just deal with the cranky calls.

You will be getting calls almost immediately so you will know that they're being delivered. I know for sure the date they're being delivered because I get calls. If they deliver on Tuesdays and Thursdays, then I get calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If they don't deliver on Wednesday then maybe the phone is quiet on Wednesday. That's how effective these are.

If you would like more information on this topic or to learn more real estate investing tips, ideals or "real world" investing strategies please go to my real estate investing blog at http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/.

The Pros and Cons of Renting to Section 8 Tenants?

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:09:00 GMT

You may be a brand new investor or a seasoned investor looking for new ways of increasing your income. Some of the real estate guru’s have made big money selling real estate investing courses touting the benefits of government programs, specifically Section 8 housing, and how you can make money hand over fist. Others take a more cautionary approach, essentially arguing just the opposite.

With two opposing views, who’s right, who’s wrong, and what’s the difference?
There are a couple of Pros to Section 8 investing. But as you will quickly see the list of Pros is much shorter than the list of Cons.

First, if you rent to Section 8 tenants, you know you’re going to get your rent money. As a general rule, it’s going to come in like clock work. You’ll have your money each and every month, conveniently deposited into the bank account of your choice.

Second, if you advertise the fact that you accept Section 8 tenants, you will have no shortage of prospective tenants lining up with a housing voucher ready to move in on a moment’s notice. When tenants are hard to come by, say in a strong housing market, it’s an excellent way of guaranteeing a steady flow of renters willing to be your tenants.

Unfortunately, this is where the list of positives ends.

Section 8 tenants can present a host of challenges and problems to you from a variety of angles.

First, as a property owner, you may be lured by the easy money that renting to Section 8 tenants can generate, but if you think the Paperwork Reduction Act applies to Section 8, you have a lot to learn.
Whenever you deal with any government bureaucracy, there are massive paperwork considerations. If every I isn’t dotted and every T crossed on every form the government throws your way, you’re in jeopardy of not being paid, having your payment delayed or even worse being declared a slumlord.

We have also seen when all the paperwork and other delays can take anywhere from 3 to 5 months to complete. During this period your property sits empty with no income.

Second, Section 8 requires property inspections. In order to participate in Section 8 you first have to qualify as a property owner, which means an inspection. If the inspector finds deficiencies of any kind, they have to be corrected on the government’s timetable. Once you’ve met the timetable, you have to repeat the inspection process. When you’ve waded through all the red tape necessary to accept tenants, you really get into the heart of the problem of the Section 8 program dealing with tenants.

Third, there are Section 8 tenants who are attentive to your rules, but there are plenty of bad apples. If you have a troublesome renter one that can’t/won’t pay their rent on time or is a constant troublemaker, your inclination is to give them their walking papers (i.e., eviction). But if the individual you’re trying to evict is a Section 8 renter, you have to follow due process rules that are stricter than any state laws anywhere.

Once you’ve begun eviction proceedings, Section 8 tenants are entitled to free or very low cost legal assistance. Once an attorney enters the picture, this turns into an expensive, time consuming process. You need to ask yourself at what point does a guaranteed rent payment become not worth the hassle, the expense and the headache?

Fourth, we generally see that Section 8 pays about 70% to 80% per month of what you might get for normal tenant. So you need to make decision as to whether this discount is offset by the consistent payment source.

Fifth, Section 8 renters aren’t famous for taking care of your property. So unless you’re willing to entertain the thought of having to make extensive repairs with little hope of recovering damages it is probably in your best interest to not involve yourself in the program to begin with.

As you can see the Cons of Section 8 investing outweigh the Pros. Our experience is the program has many problems and we rarely recommend Section 8 investing.

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and become a member of our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html.

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to Real Estate Investing Blog

6 Steps to Develop a Private Lending Program For Real Estate Investors

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 02:10:00 GMT

Wow, has the real estate market changed in 2009! Real estate investors have been shut out of traditional mortgage money unless you have a 9000 credit score and a 50 year work history without missing one day of work (ok enough of the weak humor but you get the idea). Even hard money loans are HARD to get as they have all gone out business.

But just as the mortgage market is shunning the real estate investor - we are starting to see signs that the real estate marketing is starting to bottom and home prices have even gone up in some markets.

So how do you take advantage of this buying opportunity if you can not get mortgage money from traditional sources?

Private lending is the answer. You can start borrowing money from private lenders to fund your real estate investments. Raising private money allows you to take advantage of the low prices without ever using any of your own cash or personal credit.

There are several significant benefits and advantages of private money lending compared to mortgage money or hard money lending.

First, you can begin buying more houses for "all cash" offers and drive significant discounts from sellers who are highly motivate to get cash versus waiting and hoping another buyer will get a mortgage approval.

Second, very simple paperwork with a typical private lender transaction only requires 3 or 4 documents with less than 20 pages.

Third, you control the terms and conditions under which you will borrow money and the lender will lend. You tell the lenders what rates of interest you will pay, how long the term is and all the other conditions are set by you not a bank or hard money lender.

Finally, you can turn many non-deals with no equity into super profitable deals with substantial equity by paying off existing debt at a discount... using private money.

Six Steps to develop a private money program for real estate investors:

Develop your private lending program and the terms and conditions under which you will borrow money and repay your lenders
Build your info/credibility kit to establish yourself as real estate investing expert
Create a marketing plan with 5 to 10 different marketing techniques to attract potential private lenders
Create your group or one-on-one presentation
Schedule group or one-on-one meetings and follow-up with potential lenders
Present and close deals with your potential lenders

Given the new market realities, private lending may be the only option if you want to buy and own real estate investments and take advantage of the low prices.

I invite you to learn more about Private Lending and get my new FREE 20-page ebook titled "Discover the Secrets of How to Fund Your Real Estate Deals with Private Lenders!" by clicking here http://realestatewealthtoday.com/FREE-eBook.html

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE Real Estate Wealth Newsletter go to Private Lending Presentation Kit

Discover How to Use Post-It Notes to Get Sellers Calling in Droves

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:44:00 GMT

As we talked about, post-it notes come in two sizes - large and small. They are different style templates. One is landscape and one is portrait, so you get a sample of both.

Importance of the Headline

The headline is "Attention Homeowner." It's got a big notice going the opposite way. Again, that's the FedEx and UPS concept. I don't have the word FedEx or UPS on here. We're not going to get in trouble with those organizations. If you look at this from afar I guarantee that's the first thing you're going to think that you've got a FedEx package.

The headline says, "Our Company is seeking to purchase several homes in your neighborhood..." That leads them on to read. "Are you looking to sell soon? Your home has been identified as a good candidate for our real estate buying needs.

Why the Seller Should Work With You

"When we become your buyer we can buy your house as-is for a fair price on the date of your choice. There are no commissions to pay. You'll get immediate debt relief. You'll get fast cash and a hassle free sale. You're putting your house on the market without fixing it up. We're professional home buyers. We're not listing with an agent. We can work with existing loans and we have private funds that require no bank financing. This allows us to offer you a quick and easy sale."

How to Get a Response

Then you are into the response mechanism. "If you would like to listen to a 24 hour recorded message, here's the number to call." Guys, the very first call we want is into pre-recorded voicemail, so you should have that. They can choose to go to my website and get a free special report, and that can talk about some of the special benefits. That's one of the post-it notes.

The other one is more of a bullet point style instead of paragraph style. It has "We buy houses fast, all cash, as is, if you need to sell quickly, behind on payments, facing foreclosure, divorce." It gives a series of bullet points and then, "You can get more details at..." and your phone number there and a website.

Printing

What you would do once you've picked a printer and have changed these around, you would upload these to your printer. Different printers have different ways, but there should be a way to upload these onto the printer site. Be sure you've proofed it and made sure it's right, fits, and all that.

Typically at some point they will ask you to initial a proof and then you would order your 20,000, 25,000, or 50,000 post-it notes. They'll come to you a few days later in a box with packets of 50 to 100 post-it notes per pack.

Once you've got them, you can start thinking about distribution. You don't have to distribute them all immediately. You can do them in segments. You can do 1,000 a week. Have one or two kids go out and distribute them at 1,000 per week.

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and become a member of our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html.

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to Real Estate Investing Blog

Real Estate Investing and the Advantages of Private Money

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:44:00 GMT

With traditional mortgage and hard money lending getting tighter and tighter for most real estate investors - private lending is fast becoming the only option to finance your deals.

What is private lending? Private money is a type of creative financing that is usually provided by private individuals who have excess money that they are willing to lend at higher rates than they could get at banks or CD's. Their investment is usually secured by the property you are buying and NOT by the borrower. Unlike traditional mortgage lending, the terms and conditions will vary from one lender to another and they usually depend on the agreement between a you and the private lender.

Borrowing money from private money lenders is much easier compared to traditional banks and hard money lenders. Because a borrower only needs the approval of a single person, he doesn’t have to deal with 4 inches of paper work and a 3 to 4 month approval process only to get reject after a long waiting period. In addition, he doesn’t have to present lengthy documents and other credentials because private lenders are not interested with such things. Private lenders first want to know the real estate investment makes economic sense first before they worry about other issues.

Because of such a scenario, real estate investors with poor credit scores can still borrow money from private lenders if they are prepared and the deal makes sense. However, they must be able to show that their real estate investment makes sense and will generate enough rent to cover their interest payments and the property collateral is worth more than the loan amount. Therefore, if an investor wants to borrow $125,000 from a private lender, he has to make sure that the collateralize property’s market value will hit the $175,000 with an appraisal once repaired and renovated.

One reason why many real estate investors prefer private money over looking for a business partner who will finance a project is that they can earn bigger profits. Most private lenders ask for interest rates of 8% to 15% range while business partners are likely to demand a larger portion of the profits when you sell a property.

The key to getting private money is to be prepared and have a well thought out business plan and credibility kit. Without these two items in place it is hard to image a successful business person giving you money if you do not impress the person with your well thought out business plan. Take your time and be prepared to answer all the questions about the property such as what are the value of comps, what are rents in the area and what are the cost to fix up the property. Also spend some time to develop your credibility kit to show your experience and knowledge as a real estate investor.

I invite you to learn more about Private Lending and get FREE instant access to a 60 minute audio and 20-page eBook titled "Discover the Secrets of How to Fund Your Real Estate Deals with Private Lenders!" by going to http://realestatewealthtoday.com/FREE-eBook.html.

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE Real Estate Wealth Newsletter go to Private Lender Money Kit .

Real Estate Investors - How to Sell Your Property Before You Buy the Property - Build a Buyer List!

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:20:00 GMT

With your real estate investment business what is at the top of your "frustration" list?

Could it be trying to determine if a certain property is a good deal not? Trying to determine if your offer prices is "low" enough for you to make a profit in this market place.

For most real estate investors, this dilemma causes a lot of confusion and frustration. This is may be because your definition of a "good deal" may be skewed.

What makes a property a good deal? The answer is: one that has a ready buyer at a profit.

As long as you have a buyer ready and willing to buy that property and there is room for your profit, then you have a good deal on your hands. You can actual predict what your profit will be with the knowledge of the buy and sale price.

For example, if you know you have a property under contract for $120k and you can have a ready buyer lined up to buy from you at $130k you have a $10k profit locked in.

But the obvious question is how do you get a ready buyer?

You do this by building and maintaining a "buyer list". Building a list of ready buyers is the key. If there is a buyer from your list of buyers, who is in the market for the property you are looking at - then voila you have a good deal!

The way to build your buyers list is through aggressive marketing and here are 5 simple ways to start your list:

Post an ad on Craig's List, Backpage.com and other local internet bulletin boards with ads like "I sell ugly houses" or"Fixer Homes Avaialble". Do this once per week and be sure to capture everyones email address for future follow up.
Write down the phone number when you see "I Buy Houses" signs, ads, and websites. Call these investors and get their info, and let them know you're an investor and would like to bring them properties that are available. Add them to your list, and don't forget to get their e-mail address for when you automate!
Hand out at least 24 business cards at REIA meetings and be sure to go to as many REIA meetings as possible. If you not sure about where meeting are go to Meetup.com and search your local area for real estate investors.
Talk to everyone and tell them what you do and ask them to spread the words to their friends, family and coworkers.
Advertise in small local newspapers that you have "Fixer" homes available for sale and provided a phone number and email address.

Real Estate Investing - Learn How to Make Money in Real Estate Without Cash

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:39:00 GMT

It is a widely held belief that if someone wants to invest in real estate market, he must be loaded with cash. The idea is not entirely true. If you don't have enough money you can still invest in real estate. The notion seems unbelievable at first glance but it's true. Real estate investing with no money to put down is a viable option.

In order to invest in real state without down money, you must be creative in your approach and devise various methods for utilizing other people's money to finance your transactions. Some of those innovative methods are listed below:

Use Double escrow

If you have a finance background, you must have heard of the escrow account. There is such a term as double escrow. Double escrow means buying and selling property at almost the same time. The money received from sale is utilized to pay the purchase price of the property. The sale price is a bit higher then the purchase price which is your profit. In a double escrow, profit is realizable only after both part of the transaction are simultaneously completed. Before going into this kind of transaction you must first secure both ends of the deal or you might end up in a jam.

Use seller's financing

Usually a property owner already has one or other lending facility. What you have to do is convince him that you are going to take over his mortgage for a specified period of time until you can find a suitable buyer for the property. When the property is sold, the sale proceeds of the property can be used to pay off the mortgage. The difference amount is your profit.

Mortgage Take Over

There is a paragraph in virtually all loan agreements which is called "due-on-sale" clause. This clause stipulates that when the title of a property is transferred, the lender has the right to demand full settlement of his loan. According to this clause it is the lender's prerogative whether or not to demand full settlement of loan. If you take over a mortgaged property and make timely payments there is every chance that the lender will not exercise his right of "due-on sale". This way you can buy properties without having to go through a credit check. The properties can later be sold to prospective buyers.

You might be discouraged in the beginning when you go and try out any of the above mentioned options. But there are great opportunities of making money in the real estate market without down money. The key is to build a workable real estate investing strategy and not get discouraged by early failures.

Residential Property Management: Tips on How to Find Renters Using Newspaper Advertising

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:59:00 GMT

Importance of Headlines

Particularly with newspapers you don’t have a lot of space and it’s expensive, so you’re going to have maybe a headline, one or two bullet points, and then a phone number or website. You don’t have a lot of space so you’ve got to make sure that you do it the right way. Your headline has to be appealing.

Let’s use Louisville as an example. You don’t need to put Louisville in your headline. Everybody knows it’s a Louisville newspaper. You’ve wasted your space. We see that mistake a lot.

Putting irrelevant words in your headlines doesn’t mean too much. Make sure your headlines have relevant words. If it’s a particular neighborhood or section of town, if it’s a well-known area, make sure you put that in there, but not the town.

Be Concise

Be very concise. If you can drive them to your voice mail system or your website, that’s the best way to do it. They would go there and find out if they have some interest. They would see some photos or the video and would kind of screen themselves out and save you a lot of time.

Be Careful of Fair Housing

One thing you’ve got to be careful of is violation of Fair Housing when you advertise. Remember people are going to look at your ad and claim somehow that you’re being in violation of Fair Housing rules. This is a whole subject by itself. We can spend a whole night talking about this. You have to be careful about the words you use.

You can’t use words like church – even if it’s right next to the biggest church in town, or directly across from the biggest church in town. You can’t mention that church. That is a violation.

You can’t mention any sort of family – “It’s a family neighborhood.” If you say the words “family neighborhood” in theory you might be implying that single people aren’t welcome so you’ve got to be careful.
Or vice versa, if you use “apartment designed for singles,” it might be construed as excluding families. Be careful about the words you use. Think about them a little bit.

One of the things I’m going to do on the checklist you’re going to get from me is there are a lot of things in there in terms of words to use and then alternative words to use, particularly if you want to write an ad and you want to use the word fantastic three times.

It will give you fantastic and then give you two or three alternative words to use to try and mix up your words. My template ads are on that checklist. You’re going to get those as part of this program.

Be careful of Fair Housing. If you want HUD offers, in most areas a one day course doesn’t cost much, say $25, where you can take a Fair Housing course. You can learn all about the rules and regulations of Fair Housing. If you’re a serious property management I would do that. Go and spend a Saturday or whatever day they offer that course, take it and learn those rules and regulations and keep yourself out of hot water.

I invite you to learn more about Property Management and get a free 60 minute audio titled “Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches” by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS.html.

Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service residential property management company located in Philadelphia, PA.

Learn How to Collect Rent and Deal With the Eviction Process Without Attorneys

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Collecting rent is one of those situations where I have to use some rules of thumb, some feeling, some gut to try to figure out whether it's time to go and do the eviction or do we try to work with the tenant and see if they can get caught up. Maybe it's a temporary problem. We can do a weekly or monthly payment plan and maybe we can get them back on paying again.

In the same token, if I don't feel it's going to happen, we have to go to eviction quickly. There's no point in waiting and spending two or three months waiting around for something that's not going to happen. That takes some gut feel and experience.

Know the Rules for Eviction

We'll talk about the eviction process. There again, just like the rules and regulations, you've got to be smarter than your tenants. You've got to know the rules better than they do, because if you don't, I guarantee you they will take advantage of you. They will tell you things that are not accurate and if you buy into it you're going to end up being their whipping post.

Now every state might be slightly different and I recommend you go to Google and search for your sate and landlord regulations and study them front to back. Knowing the rules and then enforcing them is the single most important thing in terms of collecting rent.

Should you use an attorney for evictions? You guys can do it better than an attorney can. They will do almost nothing for you except the fact that they're attorneys and they'll charge you $250-300 an hour.

I can probably out perform any attorney in this area and I can do it for $50 an hour for my clients, probably one sixth of what they'll pay an attorney.

How to Retain Tenants

How to work with tenants and try to encourage them to stay tenants, making sure that you're resolving issues with them in a friendly and professional way so they say, "Hey, yeah, I want to stay another year, two years, three years whatever."

If you are late with doing maintenance, you drag your feet, you try to find excuses why not to do it every time they call you, you don't return their calls, they got a little drip here and there, you don't fix it, do you think they're going to stay that second year after that lease runs out? I don't think so.

Again, you want to keep at it. You want to work within trying to keep the tenants as long as possible. Also, we have little things in our lease that encourage tenants to sign a new one-year lease. They can go month-to-month but there are some penalties - I wouldn't call it that - but just some things in that lease that make it more onerous on them as opposed to coming back to me and saying, "I'd rather have a new one-year lease than go month-to-month."

We probably have 75 to 80% of our tenants come back to us for a new one-year lease as opposed to remaining month-to-month. It's hard for you as landlords and owners to manage if you don't know beyond 30 days whether your tenant's staying or going. It's much nicer to have a one-year lease and you know that for the next 12 months at least you're going to get rent, so we'll talk about that.

I invite you to learn more about Property Management and get a free audio titled "Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Manage Your Own Investments Properties for Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches" by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS.html

Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service residential property management company located in Philadelphia, PA.

The Advantages of Professional Property Management Vs “Mom and Pop Management”

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:30:00 GMT

One of the things we’re going to focus on is what is professional management versus mom and pop management. Now many of you may have a couple properties. Maybe you’ve read a book on property management, I don’t know, but if you ultimately want to make a business and to grow wealth and to be a serious real estate investor, you need to become a professional property manager.

That is you’re better at it than most people. You’re better at it than nine out of 10 investors. You take it seriously because you’re investing a lot of your own money in these properties, a lot of your time and a lot of your energy, and you want to get the most you can out of it.

That’s where the money is, because if you don’t manage it properly, the value of that asset declines rapidly. I guarantee you, if you’ve bought a property, put a bad tenant in there and they destroyed your property, you’re looking at $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 of damage. Not that property management can totally eliminate that possibility, but certainly professional management versus mom and pop management makes a huge difference.

Advantages of Property Management

We’re going to go through that and understand that process. We’re going to go through the advantages of property management. Why is it worth you getting on this call for two hours for a series of four calls? What are the monetary advantages of doing it? Are there monetary advantages to it? Why not just read a $12 book?

Sure, you can do that, but everybody knows reading a book is a hard way to learn. It’s not interactive. You won’t have the ability to fire questions at me. Maybe you’re pretty good at property management and you have a couple areas you’re weak at. You won’t have the ability to fire questions at me.

Again, filling a rental. Let’s say we had a $900 a month rental. Filling it 30 days earlier than you would otherwise puts $900 in your pocket. So the monetary issues here are tremendous. Keeping a tenant a second year as opposed to losing them because you didn’t treat them right or you didn’t fix the property right or whatever, reselling a vacancy is tremendously expensive.

You could be looking at two months vacancy, $900 per month, and costs you have to pay to maybe carpet in between tenants, so maintaining a tenant is again a huge monetary issue. So there are clearly some monetary issues here that can be quite overwhelming in terms of cost savings.

We’re going to talk about the importance of education, these kinds of calls tonight, the importance of doing it on a continuous basis, meaning joining your real estate clubs, looking for other resources, maybe join my coaching program at some point down the road, but continue to educate yourself further and more completely as time goes by.

Again, a professional real estate investor continues the education process and never stops. A mom and pop learns a couple things and then stops. We’re going to talk about the difference between the two. How to do things like develop contacts and network, how to work with contractors.

I invite you to learn more about Property Management and get a free audio titled “Learn the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know to Manage Your Own Investments Properties for Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches” by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PMS.html

Mike Lautensack is the owner of Del Val Property Management LLC, a FULL service residential property management company located in Philadelphia, PA.

Real Estate Investors - Learn the Most Important Element You Must Have to Make a Successful Offer!

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:29:00 GMT

The first step in the instant offer system is simply to build rapport. This is a fundamental building block to any offer. You cannot develop a deal with a seller if you're not in rapport.

What is a Rapport?

What is rapport? It's hard to define. It's not necessarily being friends. It's not necessarily having a long relationship. It's not that. It's a sense that the two of you are on the same page. There's some comfort between the two of you.

There is starting to be a sense of trust that you're comfortable with each other. You have a sense that the other person and you are kind of moving in the same direction that both of you want to go.
If you don't have rapport you cannot move forward in this system. It is absolutely the most essential of the five steps. If you do not have rapport then really the process is over.

The Importance of Rapport

If you go talk to a seller and the first couple of minutes are very awkward, maybe very argumentative or you say something that the other person doesn't like - it gets their back up a little bit - the offer process is really over at that point. It really can't proceed until you come back and you develop that rapport.

It doesn't mean you can't come back and get it, but at that point you've got to take a minute and build rapport.
How to Develop a Rapport

One of the best ways to develop rapport when you walk into somebody's home is to start to ask questions and take a little tour of their home. Make comments about some of their belongings in the house.
Maybe they've got sports memorabilia and you can make a comment about it if you're in a sports town. You can talk about the great game a couple of years ago, the Superbowl, World Series or whatever. You're developing some rapport. The two of you are developing some commonalities. You're starting to understand each other.

If the person has pictures of their kids or something of that nature you can make comments about that. If there's something about a college, maybe you can make some comments about that - you or somebody you know has been there.

Basically you want to walk through the house with that individual, spend a few minutes and just chat about relatively minor things - nothing important. That is the rapport building process. You can compliment the house. If it's decorated nice or there's something you particularly like about the property, a compliment is obviously a process of building that rapport. It's important that you go through this step. It's important that in your mind you take some time.

I know everybody wants to jump to the table and start making the offer, but this process needs to take its time. Let it build and develop naturally. If this walk through takes half an hour, let it take half an hour. Don't try to force it. Again, the rapport will happen naturally if you allow it to.

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and join our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to
Real Estate Investing Blog.

Real Estate Investors – Learn the 5 Key Elements You Must Have to Make “No Money Down” Offers

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:30:00 GMT

I would like to talk about what I call the “WOWWW” formula. It is a simple formula that you’ve got to understand and incorporate into your business if you are serious about real estate investment.

There is simply no way that you can structure a truly no money down and creative offer if you don’t understand this formula. There are just five pieces to it. Four of which are “W’s” and one of which is an “O”. The five important elements to working with a seller before you can structure an offer you must know these five pieces of information.

“W” When

You must know when. That is basically when do they want to sell? You want to understand their sense of urgency, their motivational level. If they want to sell months from now, they’re not very urgent. You’re not going to get a very good deal, and it’s really not something you should be spending much time on.
I’m not saying you don’t capture that person’s name, email and phone number, and put it in a database somewhere and follow up with them on a regular basis through postcards and what not. But they’re not going to be a deal this week or next month. They’re simply not.

If they’re not properly motivated, and the when is motivation, if they are going to be doing a deal in the next 30 days because of a foreclosure, they’re moving out of state, or they’re out of state or about to miss a mortgage payment because they’ve been trying to sell it for a year and they can’t sell it and they’ve run out of money, then their ‘when’ has really shortened up.

“W” What

What is their situation? That’s kind of related but you need to understand what’s going on with them. Why do they need to sell? Is it a foreclosure or pre-foreclosure? Is it a divorce? Is it a sale where they can’t get it sold? Is it that they bought it to flip?

We’re seeing a lot of this. People have bought things to flip them, went in and rehabbed it – spent a lot of money – and they were hoping to sell it but the market turned on them and they got stuck. So you need to understand what their situation is. That’s an important element of this.

“W” What Is the House Worth

Worth is always difficult to nail down, but you should do your homework and figure this out. You should look at comps or appraisals or whatever other sources of information you want to try to figure out what the properties worth fixed up.

It may be worth $150,000, $200,000, $300,000 or who knows. You should have some sense of what the property’s worth to make an offer.

“O” Owe

You should know what the person’s owes on the mortgage or mortgages. This is a critical element and something a lot of people don’t understand. You cannot make an offer through the MLS system if you don’t know what the other person owes. It’s very hard to make a creative offer if you don’t know what they owe.
If the property is free and clear and there’s no mortgage, then that will dictate a completely different type of offer. If they’re completely under water and the house is worth $130,000 and the mortgage is $150,000 that will drive a completely different type of offer. If they owe $90,000 that will drive the ultimate offer.
You cannot make quality offers to sellers if you don’t understand what they owe. It’s absolutely critical. All five of these are critical.

“W” What They Want

Probably the least important is what they want. That will change over time. If they’re not motivated and don’t need a quick sale – one and two aren’t really in place – most likely they’re going to want a high price. They are not truly ready to do a deal. They are not where you need them to be to do a deal.
What they want first all changes over time. It’s also probably the least important of the five items. However, you do need to know what that is. If they want some outlandish number, you don’t want to spend a lot of your time and effort on it.

That is the WOWWW formula. Use it on every deal and make much better offers.

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and join our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to
Real Estate Investing Blog.

Real Estate Investing: How to Use Voice Mail Systems to Improve Your Marketing Response Rate

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:31:00 GMT

Choose a Voice Mail System

Before setting up voice mail systems you have to choose one that will suit the needs of your business. I use a company called Freedom Voice Systems. I think there are probably 8 or 10 different programs out there that are somewhat similar. A typical voice mail system will have a couple different price points depending on your needs.

A basic system may only have 10-20 different voice mail boxes. A more advanced system, the one that we use, has I think has 1,000 boxes or maybe 900. I think it starts at 100 and goes to 999, so I guess that’s 900 total boxes that we have available within the voice mail system.

A typical price for a voice mail system of any real quality is going to be somewhere around $20-40/month, a very minimal investment in terms of the amount of money that you put into that.

Using Voice Mail to Improve Response Rate

What a voice mail system allows you to do, once you’ve got it in place – let’s say you want to start marketing to sellers. You want to go out and you want to create some marketing pieces. You’re going to have let’s say a newspaper ad, you’re going to have a postcard, maybe you’re going to have your business card, and you’re going to have one or two other pieces of marketing, whatever they might be.

With each one of those various pieces of marketing, you’re going to put a different box number. You’re going to put Box 100, Box 101, Box 102, Box 103. The reason for that is that every time somebody calls you off of one of your pieces of marketing, the system will record where that came from.

Let’s say at the end of your first month you’ve got 10 calls on Box 103. Let’s say Box 103 was postcards, so you know that if you sent out let’s say 1,000 postcards and you got 10 calls back, that’s a 1% response. That’s not a bad response. Now maybe there’s some things you can do to make it better, but you know at least on your first mailing you got a 1% response. That’s not bad. It allows you to know precisely what your results were. You can know it mathematically.

So now what you can do the next month is maybe you send out another 1,000 postcards. Maybe you change the headline, maybe you make the offer a little bit nicer, maybe you change some of the information. You change the postcard, you do it again, and this time you get 15 calls the next month. Obviously what you did that second month is better than what you did the first month. Now you’ve improved your system and it’s gotten even better.

I invite you to learn more about Real Estate Investing and join our FREE weekly tele-seminar class where we teach tips and strategy on how to grow your real estate investing business and how to raise Private Money by going to http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/TuesdayTipsSignUp.html

Mike Lautensack is a full-time real estate entrepreneur, coach and mentor in Philadelphia, PA and creator of the Private Lending Presentation Kit. This powerful done-for-you kit is loaded with tools and techniques to attract and develop a consistent stream of private investors into your real estate business. To learn more about this kit and receive your FREE eBook go to Real Estate Investing Blog.

Why Private Lending is HOT!

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:43:00 GMT

We are all aware that real estate prices are down anywhere from 15% to 40% across the country. In the past, you might have invested $15k to $30k to buy rental property that rented for $1,000 per month and netted the investor 10% to 15% on their investment.

Now you can buy that same property for dramatically less but the rent has remained the same, or even gone up slightly, over the last couple years. So the return to the investor has gone up substantially and 30% to 50% returns on your investment are ordinary today

The hard part right now is being able to get a bank loan. Banks want to see 20% to 40% down from real estate investors AND excellent credit, traditional employment, and personal guarantees. If you do not meet these criteria you are essentially lock out of the traditional mortgage market and will be unable to borrow money from banks. Many of the other non-traditional loans such as “no-doc”, ALT-A and no money down loans have all disappeared due the financial crisis.

So what is the solution for real estate investors that have been locked out of the traditional mortgage market?
Private Lending is the answer!

Private lending is a consistent source of funds with which to purchase real estate deals and to which you can often go back to again and again and again. In fact, the more you use, the more will become available as you develop relationships with more private lenders.

The reason why private lending is HOT today is so many people are lock out of the traditional mortgage market and private is their only option to get money for real estate investments.

What is private lending and who are private lenders?

The definition of a ‘private lender’ is an individual that you can negotiate directly with on a personal one-on-one basis from whom you wish to borrow money for real estate investments. The money can be used to purchase rental real estate investments or to supplement funds borrowed from a bank to cover down payments.

Private lenders come from all walks of life and may not know the first thing about the real estate business. But what they do have is extra cash or assets that they can invest in your real estate deals. These individuals are generally middle class people, who have some extra funds to lend. They can be retired business people, corporate executives, professionals such as doctors, lawyers, or business owners or even blue collar workers.

Private lenders are looking for returns substantially above the 3% to 5% they get at the bank with CD’s or money markets. Most private lenders are looking for investment returns in the 9% to 15% range and secured by local rental real estate.

For more information please go to http://www.private-lending-secrets.com/.

Property Management Secrets for Real Estate Investors

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 22:52:00 GMT

One of the best ways to build up long-term wealth and passive income is by buying and holding rental properties.

While being a "landlord " isn’t a glamorous job… if you run your rental property business correctly, it can be a very rewarding, easy, and profitable way to invest in real estate.

In just 72 hours we are starting a power packed 3 4 Night Live Tele-seminar where you'll learn simple step-by-step process to develop your own Property Management Program for Maximum Profit and Avoiding Tenant Headaches.

Imagine the money you will save by simply avoiding one bad tenant (can you say $1,000's). Now imagine having good tenants that pay on time and do not call you with minor problems and allow you the time and energy to focus on buying more real estate and growing your business.

Well this program will give the knowledge to achieve these goals.

To learn more about Property Management Secrets for Real Estate Investors and listen to a 30 minute audio please click here ===> http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Who is Property Managements Secrets For?

Prospective property owners and landlords
First time property investors
Portfolio builders who need their properties to work for them
Experienced multi-property landlords looking to get the most from their property

This course starts Thursday September 10, 2009 so sign up tonight at http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Thanks

Mike

http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/

The Top 10 Real Estate Investment Blogs

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 19:40:00 GMT

I have compiled a list of the Top 10 Real Estate Investing blogs – several of them I use on a regular basis and recommend you do the same. I try to take the good and interesting blog post and routine post them on my blog at http://www.learnrealestateinvestingblog.com/.

Please bookmark this site and I will update from time to time, so stay tuned.

Enjoy the list, and if you like or know other blogs too, e-mail me or include them in the comment field, and I’ll take a look.

The Top 10 Real Estate Investment Blogs

http://www.realestateweblog.org/

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/

http://www.investorwealth.com/blog/

http://www.equityscout.com/blog

http://www.investing-secrets.com/

http://topsites.blogflux.com/real-estate/

http://www.investorloft.com/blog/

http://www.inman.com/blog

http://www.reiblog.org/

http://www.realestatewebprofits.com/rewp/blog/real-estate-blog.php

Thanks

Mike

http://www.LearnRealEstateInvestingBlog.com/

Property Management - FREE Audio on the 10 Success Secrets of Property Management

Real Estate Wealth Mike — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:40:00 GMT

Do own a Rental Property or have you ever thought about buying a
rental property?

Have you ever had a problem with one of your tenants like
nonpayment of rent, late rent, complaints about maintenance?

How would you like to become a more professional property manager
and move beyond "mom and pop management".

I just completed a 60 minute audio titled "Learn the 10 Success
Secrets of Property Management Every Real Estate Investor Must Know
to Manage Your Own Investment Properties for Profit and Avoid
Tenant Headaches!"

If you would like to listen to this FREE audio please go to
http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Here is what you are going to learn and discover in this brand new
tele-seminar:

What is Property Management and why it is absolutely essential to be successful in real estate investing...

How to use both offline and online marketing techniques to get the phone buzzing with qualified potential tenants...

The 3 keys steps you MUST take to screen potential tenants and maximize your potential of getting good long term tenants that can make landlording a joy...

Discover the advantages of a true professionally lease designed to protect the owner versus a "store bought" lease which favors the tenant...

How to Get Your Tenants to Stay After the First Year...
And of course, a whole lot more!

If you would like to listen to this FREE audio please go to
http://www.realestatewealthtoday.com/PropertyManagementSecrets.html

Thanks
Mike Lautensack
http://www.LearnRealEstateInvestingBlog.com/