Kansas City Real Estate Investors from MAREI

Day 2 - Continued - Engaging new markets

2010-06-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

We talked about 2 parts of our membership and I think you might be interested.

Our usually older and more experienced investors want to see more advanced topics. One that was brought up was the 1031 Exchange and it was suggested to start an Exchange club. I would love to hear from our more experienced investors as to what they would like to see at our meetings that would benefit them besides how to wholesale a house, how to rehab a house, etc.

Then we had 2 successful 20 something investors tell us how they think - and if you are a baby boomer it will help you understand your kids and or your grand kids
1) The facebook and twitter thing is because they want to feel a part of a conected community, be a part of something bigger.

2) They want to be a good member of that community - honest, integrity, green all very important to them. One spoke of doing green rehabs, that he does, costs him more. But he is also able to pull in a better quality tenant who will pay more because they are being better members of the community by being green.

3) They like instant gratification, they don't want to work at a job 30 years to finally end up well of and in a good position, they want to be in that good position next year and many are very entreprenurial and turning down good jobs because it will not get them where they want to be fast enough.

That's it for notes for today. I hope you now understand how we as REIA group leaders think and have a new insight into your kids, grandkids, employess and Gen Y tenants and home buyers.

See you at the meeting in July -

Day 2 - after lunch - legislation & speakers

2010-06-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

We moved on through out the day to talk about Legislation

and guy's if you are not staying up to date with the Calls to action that we send out, we need you to react on each one. Our law makers don't know that this paragraph here or those 50 pages there are important to us unless we tell them. So when we send out a call to action, please take the time to take action or we may get walked all over and not be able to offer lease options, owner financing, or maybe even short sales the way some things are going.

And the best part each year of mid - year seems to be the Good the Bad and The Ugly. We kick all the speakers in attendance out of the room and talk about who does a good job and who does a bad job. And I got page of good speakers to bring back and a small list of people to avoid.

Day 2 - continued

2010-06-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

Next we got to hear from Alan Langston with AZREIA in the Arizona markets. Please take a look at his site and see what they have going on.

He was sharing with us some new models for the local REIA like MAREI to work with our national Business Partners like Home Depot and Sherwin Williams and still support National REIA and the efforts that they do for us every year.

You don't know it, but the REIA groups like MAREI need money to keep going and bringing you great services, but we also want to offer your more services, education, benefits, and fund a way to track and react to legislaion at the local city and state level as well as at the Nationl Level. So we all have to play nice to create the revenue so we can offer service -

So think about it, last week we had many people who had issue with something Kansas City Missouri did. Now we all wanted to be a part of a committee that would follow up, take our concerns back to the city council and then get it changed. And to do that we can form a committee and do something and we should. But if we had the funding, we might be able to hire a watch dog whose job it is to tell us about things before the happen instead of us reacting and trying to change something once it's already a done deal.

So Alan's plan would allow us to parnter better with large National Vendors like the Home Depots and Sherwin Williams stores that would bring in more national companies with large discounts for you as members, bring in additional members that benefis us all as well as their membership dollars to fund more services, which would in turn give us buying power as a whole to negotiate larger local and national discounts and influence our lawmakers more effectively.

This probably does not make any sense, as I am still on the first cup of coffee after a late night trying to figure out how the craps tables work. I will stick to real estate or see if I can find a YouTube video instruction, cause I still don't get it.

Day 2 - continued

2010-06-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

Then we got to hear from another REIA leader who has turned around a declining group and got it growing again. Tom Zeeb from the Capital Area REIA in Washington DC He had a lot of ideas for us on how to attract new members and we plan to implement many of his ideas so we have new faces at our meetings for you to network with or share your service. And the bigger the community, the more clout we have when issues come up that are bad for investors, like billing the landlord for the water if the tenant does not pay.

And many of these ideas will translate over into your business.

1. You have to have Video on your site, so figure out how to record Video and drop it into your site. So do short 30 second to 2 minute videos and put them all over your site.

2. Use your face, and as an investor I can't figure out what investors barely put their name on the site, let along their photo - realtors personalize their marketing well - so why don't we as investors, let the people know who they are working with.

3. Take some time to reduce costs, - renegotiate contracts on your rent, your phone service, anything you pay money for on a regular basis, if you have not put services out to bid this year, do it, you might cut $100s off your expenses.

4. His group has gone to a full time quarterly membership that auto bills the member's card once a quater. They are paying a bit more through out the year, but in smaller increments - I need feedback from the members on this.

5. Their group also put together their own Lead Generating web site for motivated sellers than feeds into a call center that shares calls with the members who pay for the service in a round robin type of thing. I think all the Home Vestors Franchises had this at one time in Kansas City and they pooled their money for all the bill board ads to get the calls to go to the main web site or an 800 number and the call service had a round robin feed to each of the home vestors owners - I need to know more about this because we need to do it - bill boards and massive web sites can be cost prohibitive, but with 10 investors pooling funds, it can be more effective.

6. He talked about sub groups - their group has a womens only group ( we heard this yesterday) and they have a night owls group that meets once a week except for the week of the main meeting. They meet from 10 to midnight and it is very well attended. - I want to do subgroups more at MAREI, but I need sub group leaders.

7. He also suggested we include on our name tags what our specialty is, so that we all know exactly what the person we are talking to at the meeting does. We are going to try to implement this, so does anyone know where I can buy specialty stickers?

From National REIA Mid - Year Day 2 - Rentals.com

2010-06-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

We started out the day with Breakfast with our Industry Partners. I was able to eat with the women from http://www.rentals.com/ and learned a lot about their services. We know that we can all get a 20% discount from them on their regular pricing (discount code in the Member Library), but other than that they were a place to market our rentals, I did't know much more - so here goes: They rank usually either #1 or # 2 in google when people search for "house for rent" that means your people looking for a house to rent, start there.

Then they got technical - they have all the demographic data on who rents from them, how many clicks that get from an area, what they are looking for and other statistical data. They know that the tent to have a little better tenant looking on their site which converts into a better tenant in your houses. And they have other services to track leads who contact you via email or phone. So if you are offering any type of rental, you should give http://www.rentals.com/ a test. It's like hiring a part time employee to do a lot of your marketing work for you with out the payroll issues or giving them a desk to work at. And there were quite a few Rentals.com users or group leaders with users at the table, and they all loved the service.

National REIA Mid-Year Conference - Day 1

2010-06-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

Ideas to bring back to Kansas City from National REIA Mid Year conference - day 1.

Members, please give me feedback

I Pad - saw these on the plane on the way here - way cool. Don DeRosa is integrating them in his training program. Get an Ipad with all of his training and all of his tools preloaded with instruction. This is too cool.
Recording meetings like we already do, but then making CD's to sell them rather than downloads from the web site. If you want to make CD's or DVD's for your own markeitng we talked about a sesrvice - KUNAKI?? have not looked it up yet.
Women In Real Estate - sub group for the ladies only. Maybe in Kansas City we could combine efforts with the local WIRE chapter.
For a meeting idea - have an "As a Dumb Question Night" with a panel who answers any audience question.
Have our more experienced members create and teach a class. Great for the business associates to share their expertise and gain new clients.
Weekly Breakfast Sub Group at Ihop for the more experienced investors
Market Update once a quarter at the meetings
15 mintes of I have this to share or I need this at the beginnig of each meeting
Take real live actual deals from the audience and have 3 different investor analyze it for their way of inesting.
And I have been talking with Edwin Kelly from Equity Trust about an all day Self Directed IRA training and networking meeting to get us all working together and utilizing self directed IRA's and private lending among the group more.

That's all for today, let me know your thoughts on these ideas and share some of your own.

Will have more after today I hope.

Getting more customers as a Real Estate Investor

2010-06-16T13:23:00.000-07:00

As a real estate investor in Kansas City or anywhere in the country for that matter, it all comes down to really two things: finding the money and finding the deals.

To find either one, you are going to have to put on a good face and put out some good marketing.

I am going to assume for a minute that you have taken the time to set up a good an effective web site, but the next step is to get people to go to it and to get the search engines to find it and tell people about it on the first page of Google.com for example when a search is performed.

From what I have been reading and hearing, one good way is to write relevant articles that are key word rich and get them out there on the internet. I have been working to some extent to use article marketing for both my real estate investment businesses and the real estate investment association.

There are quite a few keys to using article marketing.

For example as using key words with in the article and in the title, words that you think your customer might search for on the internet. Another key might be writing an interesting and informative article, not just rehashing the same old thing over and over. Or maybe having a good about the author section to entice them back to your web site for more information.

After you write the article, with several different titles and slightly different content in the article, then you need to post it online somewhere.

Maybe on your blog, or on an article submission site.

One site I have been using of late is http://www.articlesbase.com/ and since I have registered for my free account with them, I have been receiving a short email about once or twice a week with a quick article about how to improve my articles, make them more effective, and get people clicking on them back to my web site.

If you have been thinking about driving traffic and search engines to your web site using articles, I highly recommend checking out this site and their how to information.

And this concept will work for anyone:

Investor site trying to drive buyers or sellers
Investor looking for private money
Contractor looking for houses to rehab
Title company wanting to do more closings
Mortgage people wanting more loans
Insurance company wanting to insure more people
Anyone.

Learn more than fluff at your Real Estate Investment Club

2010-06-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

I think in the past few articles we have covered finding the right real estate investment association and how to meet people, now let’s look at learning.

You fill find that most associations have a speaker for 60 to 90 minutes. By far not enough time to learn everything there is to know about the topic. But it is ample time to give you the highlights and the tools to go get more.

When you arrive at a meeting, don’t go sit down, you can’t network very well sitting down. Do go mark your seat to save it. And you want to sit as close to the front or an aisle seat as you can. Why? Speakers will notice you more and you might get a give away item in those locations better and more importantly if you have to ask a question, it is easier for you to get to the microphone to ask or for the microphone to get to you.

After marking a good seat you are going to go network, and this is a great time to learn. During networking you want to learn from the people in attendance.

• What is it that they do?

• How can I find out more information about that?

• Do you offer a newsletter or a web site?

During networking your objective is to meet new people and get new concepts, but you don’t have time to dive deep into the topic, save that for follow up later.

Then comes the speaker presentation. Take your seat promptly and pay attention. Take notes.

Now when I say take notes, don’t write down everything the speaker says and if they have a power point and the probably will, don’t write down everything it says. What you want to write down is

1. Key concepts.

2. Web site addresses for follow up

3. Emails and phone numbers for follow up.

If the speaker has a hand out great, if they don’t be sure to get their brochure or business card or write down their contact information and web site.

As you have questions, write them down, don’t break into the presentation as the speaker has a planned outline and your question will probably be answered later and if it is not, it is probably a little beyond the scope of what the speaker wants to share. Save the questions for the Q & A portion that most speakers have or follow up with the speaker later. Often you can take those questions to the association message board and the speaker just might be answering those questions there.

So why don’t we want to ask questions as the speaker makes the presentation. Well first of all, it interrupts the speaker and his planned flow of information. It may make him or her forget where they were or lose their train of thought. Professional speakers can handle this, but many of the speakers at the association are not professional speakers, but fellow investors or service providers. Secondly when you interrupt with a question, that takes up valuable time and make cause the speaker to have to cut out very valuable information that you needed to know. So please save your questions till the end or for follow up later.

The last concept about learning at the real estate investor association meetings is the fact that all speakers are there doing presentation for one reason – to sell you something. Yes, it’s true, 95 % of all presentations at the REIA meetings are not out of the goodness of the speakers heart but to drum up sales of something.

This gives us 4 different types of speakers:

1. Professional Trainers who are there to share with you their knowledge to a point, but if you want to know everything they know, they will be offering a training package or event at the end of the meeting. Many times this will be a Saturday event for the association that is free or less than $50 – go to these trainings you will learn a lot. Other times it will be to sell you a training program or bootcamp. If you know there will be a professional trainer at the meetings, do a little research on them in advance so you know if you may want to buy their training materials before you go. Usually any training they offer is either at a major discount from what they usually offer it or it comes with a lot of extra bonuses.

2. Service Providers who are there to share what their product or service does. For example a property management company might make a presentation on screening tenants. They will teach how you can do that one piece of their business yourself, but also how you could use their service to free up your time to do other things.

3. Fellow Members who want to be professional trainers. The professional trainers have to start somewhere and that is usually at their local real estate investment association. They will usually speak several times and offer training classes through the local REIA as a way to create their materials and perfect their methods. Then when they take the show on the road and go other places, then they will start selling a training package. The local REIA’s usually get the benefit of being the testing ground without too much selling.

4. Fellow Members just sharing knowledge. This does not happen very often because creating a presentation is work and takes time. Successful, full time real estate investors just don’t have time to create presentation. But it does happen from time to time and they are usually packed with information and many times they will help you if you call with a question. What you see most of the time is a fellow member serving on a panel for a question and answer session.

This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:

1. Where to find a real estate investment club.

2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.

3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.

4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.

5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.

6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.

7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.

8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.

About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.kansascityreia.com/ or http://www.mareinet.com/.

So how eactly do I network at the real estate investment club?

2010-06-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

You have found a realestate investment association to attend. You have your business cards and flyers all lined up. You have been to a few meetings and know the vendors and what it is that they do. You have also have meet the movers and shakers at the meeting, now what?

Now it’s time to get into the true networking and using the vendors to your advantage. Now’s the time to start approaching everyone else in the room. Look for the new people that look at little lost or that you have never met at the meetings before. Approach them with a sort of a meeting ambassador approach.

You might say “Hi, I’m Bob, is this your first time to a meeting?” . . . . “So are you new to real estate investing?” . . . or “What do you hope to accomplish by attending these meetings?” You are trying to find a little bit about them, find out what they do, and get their business card for follow up. We will talk about follow up in a future article.

Now you have a new friend, you have to find a way to brush them off kindly and go on to the next person. You are networking and want to meet a lot of people and find out a bit about them, so you need to pass your new friend on to someone else. It’s time introduce them to one or two of the Vendors or one of the movers and shakers.

So why do all of this, what is the objective.

First and foremost, you want everyone you meet to remember you. As you approached them, you asked them questions so they talked about themselves. People like it when they get to talk about themselves. Then you introduced them to new people at the meeting. This accomplishes your second objective of letting them know you are in the know. That you just might be a go to person when they need help. But they don’t know what it is that you do, so they will start asking about you to the other people at the meeting. With these two things, everyone you meet witll have a much better chance of remembering you rather than the other guy who just said “Hi, my name is Bob and I am a real estate investor.” . . . then digressed to talk about the weather and the price of tea in China.

I saw this over and over again a few years ago with one of our vendors. He always reserved a vendor table and put his flyers on it. But was he ever at his table? No, he would look for the person standing in the corner all by themselves and go up and start asking them questions. Once he had a little bit of info as to what the person did, and what they were trying to accomplish at the meeting, he would ask them for a card and introduce them to someone else at the meeting. He never said who he was or what he did. Then when the person was handed off via introduction to someone else, they would ask the someone else “Who was that? What does he do?” The response was always, “that’s the guy you need to talk to if you need a loan to buy a house, you need to get his card.” Needless to say he made a 3 or 4 loans immediately after his first meeting and was the most called upon guy in the group for loans.

So remember

1. Find the people you don’t know.

2. Ask them questions and take note of the answers

3. Get their business card and put a few notes on it for follow up later.

4. Introduce them on to someone else.

This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:

1. Where to find a real estate investment club.

2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.

3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.

4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.

5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.

6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.

7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.

8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.

About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.kansascityreia.com/ or http://www.mareinet.com/.

June Investment News is Posted

2010-06-04T09:34:00.001-07:00

Investment News - June 2010 from MAREI

Publish at Calaméo or browse others.

Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.

2010-06-03T08:51:00.001-07:00

So you have found the real estate investment association to attend, you know where to go and you know what to take with you. Now let look at getting the most out of the vendors.

If the real estate investment association you attend has a time and place for vendors to set up booths, you will find there are typically only 5 to 10 booths and they will tend to be the same 5 or 10 booths at every meeting. So you need to know how to work with these vendors to your advantage.

At your first meeting when you don’t know anyone, you are going to be a little shy and not know what to do, I have seen the new attendees and know this to be true. So turn to the vendors to get the lay of the land. Ask them how the meetings progress, ask them who you should meet, ask them who the movers and shakers at the meeting are. The vendors do business with the people at the association and they will be know who are the active investors you want to meet and talk to.

So how do you approach the vendors. Well since they probably paid for a table at the meeting, they are ready, willing, and hopefully able to answer all your questions about their business. So I would be ready with your note pad and pen and ask them a few questions:

1. What is your company and what does it do?

2. As a (new) investor, why do I need your company or when would I use your company?

3. If their services are totally new to you, ask them to briefly explain what it is they do and why and ask for a web site so you can go get further information.

4. Be sure to get a business card from them for follow up.

5. Leave your business card, they may have a newsletter they send out with more relevant information or they may be offering a giveaway for the evening.

6. Lastly, is your “I’m new here, if there were only 3 people here I could talk to tonight, who would you suggest?”

This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:

1. Where to find a real estate investment club.

2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.

3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.

4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.

5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.

6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.

7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.

8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.

About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at www.KansasCityREIA.com or www.MAREInet.com.

Networking at realestate investment clubs, it’s all in the preparation.

2010-06-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

When you finally find the real estate investment association or clubs you want to check out, you are ready for the next step: preparing to attend.

Read the web site or call and find out where they meeting, what time to arrive, do they have pre or post meeting networking. For example some groups might meet for a meal before the event or go out for drinks after the meeting for extra networking, you may want to plan to attend if you have time.

During the networking, do they have vendors with tables or a table where people can place flyers? If so what are the rules regarding the tables or placing flyers? How many people typically attend? If there is a snow storm and the meeting is canceled, how do they get the word out? Is there a way you can attend your first meeting for free or a discount? How much does it cost to join?

No matter what the rules and regulations, you will definitely want to have business cards to take with you. If you are a service provider that offers services that the average person may want, those business cards would probably be great. You can drum up extra business at the meeting while you learn your way around.

But if you don’t currently have a need for a business card, you will want to get your first real estate investor business card. For your first one, if you don’t already know what you want to do in real estate investing, you may want to go with a cheap business card with basic contact information.

You can study up on what you want on a business card as you learn more about real estate investing and buy new ones as your needs change.

You may want to create a few flyers If you have already got your feet wet and have something to offer:

• An investment property for sale

• A private lending message

• A real estate investing service you offer

• Etc

Be sure to put your name and contact information on your flyer. I tell you this because many new investors bring flyers of properties to our meetings and while the deal looks great, there is no contact information on it anywhere. And usually it is a rule to have a name and contact info, not just a web site.

You will also want to get something to take notes. You will want something small that does not take up a lot of room and a working pen to write with. You will need this to take notes or write down info from people who don’t bring business cards.

Lastly, you may find you want to bring a friend. It is always easier to approach new people in a group setting if there are two of you. So if you have an interested friend attend together. You may even find you can join as a team and save money.

This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:

1. Where to find a real estate investment club.

2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.

3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.

4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.

5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.

6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.

7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.

8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.

About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.KansasCityREIA.com or http://www.MAREInet.com.

Does your real estate investment club do it for you?

2010-05-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

First let’s decide if we are looking for a real estate investment club, group, or association.

In many cities, you may just have to take what you can get. But if you have a choice you may find there might be a difference and you probably need to check out each group in your city that offers the most. But given the choice would you want to go to an Attorney that was a member of the “Lawyers Club” or would want one that was a member of the “Missouri Bar Association.”

The word club tends to come across as people who share a hobby and do you want to invest in real estate as a hobby or invest in realestate as a business. Then when you look at group, it seems to give you a feel of a loosely associated bunch of people, so if you want to foster change in legislation for example, would loosely associated people be able to do that. Association on the other hand means a group of organized people, who share a full time goal, and work together for the betterment of all involved.

So what should you look for in a group:

1. Look for a real estate investment association that meets at least monthly if not more. This gives you a time to attend, meet people, have people meet you, ask questions, learn, network. If you have a choice this is the ideal situation. Now if the group only meets online or virtually, you might try to work with this group and see if you can’t find a way to get the people at the virtual meeting to attend a live networking events in town – be sure to work with the leader of the virtual group.

2. Look for a realestate investment association that has meetings that offer both networking time and speaker time. You want a chance to learn from the speaker as well as time to talk to other people at the event. You also want a group that actually networks, this means that people are going around the room and talking to a lot of different people, not just breaking up into their own little cliques for the duration.

3. Also look for a realestate association that has an active online presence that offers extra stuff like:

a. Webinars for bonus training opportunities. This allows you to squeeze in one or two extra training events – usually on your time as they are recorded and you can listed to whenever you want to if you can’t make the live version of it.

b. Online networking opportunities through an active message board. This means you have a place to go and ask a question to the group and get multiple responses in between meeting times.

c. Recording of the speakers at meetings. So while I know you are going to attend every meeting, you might miss something and having the ability to go back and replay a part or all of a meeting is very beneficial.

4. Look for a real estate investing association that stays up to date with what is happening with local and national regulations. You want to find an association that brings you information about rules and regulations, local trends, and market data.

Again, you have to take what you can get. So if you can’t find an association in your area that offers all of these things, you might get involved with the only one you have and help them offer these things. It may just be that they want to offer these things but don’t have the willing and able bodies to provide these things. And if you have to start your own group National REIA (http://www.nationalreia.com/) will help you provide all of these things.

This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:

1. Where to find a real estate investment club.

2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.

3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.

4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.

5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.

6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.

7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.

8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.

About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.kansascityreia.com/ or http://www.mareinet.com./

Finding a RealEstateInvestment Club

2010-05-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

You need to find a group that physically meets in the area where you want to invest so you can go to meetings, talk to people, and put faces to names. Here in the Kansas City Metro I would suggested our local Kansas City REIA (Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors).

If you are not in Kansas City, there are a few places where you will find lists of associations.

The best is the National Real Estate Investors Association found online at http://www.nationalreia.com/. This is a trade association of local REIA groups across the country that band together to present a united front when dealing with changing or influencing legislation, asking for discounts with national vendors that real estate investors use, and organizing members to present a uniform and professional way of doing business.

If you just can’t find a group in your area that is a member of National REIA, you will find other web sites that have been created to sell training material that have a networking piece as well as a list of groups across the country. Two such sites are http://www.creonline.com/ (probably the oldest) and http://www.reiclub.com/. You do need to be careful with these two sites however as it is absolutely free to post your group on their site, no membership fees, no code of ethics, nothing. So the groups there might just be a front for a single trainer person, a realtor trying to sell their investment properties, or a scammer just trying to make a buck off of you. Not to scare you off as most of the member’s of national REIA, like our group here in Kansas City are also listed on these two sites. But I want to make you aware.

Now what if there just is not a group in the area you want to be. The only way you are going to attend a live group is by driving 2 or 3 hours. That’s when you may want to take a different approach. First join the local chamber of commerce and use the networking techniques will talk about in the next few articles and find people and businesses that work in the real estate investment arena or offer services for small businesses. This will give you live face to face people to meet with, then working with these like minded people, form your own Real Estate Investor Association and become a part of National REIA.

This article is a part of a series of articles to help new people and experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team. Please watch for our previous or upcoming articles:

1. Where to find a real estate investment club.

2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.

3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.

4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.

5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.

6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.

7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.

8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.

About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.kansascityreia.com/ or http://www.mareinet.com/.

RealEstate Investing - Getting Started

2010-05-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

I see many new realestate investors come into MAREI to learn more about real estate investing. They have attended the free intro seminar from some guru, saw a late night TV infomercial, and maybe forked over their life savings for some training program that is going to make them rich.

Now they are ready to get their hands dirty and get started. Then they turn to us.

One of the first things a new realestate investor needs to do is build their real estate investing team. Every guru and mentor out there will tell you this and they are right. I am telling you this for free. Even if you fork over Tens of $1,000s to get training, this is where you need to start. Why, because your team will actually help you find the training, the funding, the deals, and help you put it together.

The real estate investing gurus tell you to go find your local real estate investing association (REIA), join and meet the people there. Beyond that you don’t get much as they want to get into the meat and potatoes of what they are trying to teach you: rehabbing, short sales, marketing. That’s their expertise, not building your team. I guess they figure everyone out there can talk to people and network automatically. But from watching new people come to our meetings I find that that could be further from the truth.

So I have decided to put together a series of articles to help our new people and even our experienced people figure out how to utilize their REIA group and build their investing team.

Please watch for our upcoming articles:

1. Where to find a real estate investment club.

2. What to look for in a real estate investment club.

3. What to take with you to a real estate investment club meeting.

4. Get the most out of the vendors at the real estate investment club meeting.

5. Networking at the real estate investment club meeting.

6. Learning at the real estate investment club meeting.

7. Follow up after the real estate investment club meeting.

8. Beyond the real estate investment club meeting.

About the author: Kim Tucker is an active real estate investor in the Kansas City Metro area as well as the director of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI. MAREI works exclusively with real estate investors who want to learn and success at real estate investing. Get more information at http://www.kansascityreia.com/ or http://www.mareinet.com./

Holiday Action Saves a Sour Shopping Season

2010-05-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

"The Money Is In The List"

AWeber proves it to thousands of businesses every day.

Learn how email marketing software
can get you more sales, too.

Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)

Usually, U.S. retailers earn 20-80% of their entire yearly gross during the holiday season. But this year, things are different. The sluggish US economy has prompted Deloitte Research’s Carl Steidtmann to fear “the worst Christmas ever” in the retail sector.

Short of going door to door in a Santa suit, how can businesses increase profits and prevent a blue Christmas? Despite economic gloom, industry leaders have found that an e-mail follow up strategy can increase sales by a cheery 35%! To weather the ailing economy, use a follow up autoresponder during your holiday campaigns.

What Does It Do?

Follow up autoresponders follow up with your leads for you. You create a series of messages, and decide when they should be sent, (daily, weekly, etc.). Your autoresponder will send the messages to each new lead automatically. With no further intervention from you, your leads will remember you throughout the winter chill. And this regular reminding will mean more sales during the all-important holiday shopping season.
Give yourself the gift of a higher conversion rate! Follow up automatically using these simple steps:

Offer Useful Information

Write your follow up messages for your leads – not for yourself. You want to talk about your great service, but your leads just want to know what they’ll get out of it!

At some point, you must have purchased something like your product. What were you looking for then? Was it information about pricing, styles, or holiday gift wrapping? Maybe just a clearer explanation of the product? Figure that out, and put the answer in your follow up messages. That’s what your leads want to know.

Personalize Your Messages

You don’t open postal mail addressed to “Current Resident”, and your leads aren’t going to read e-mail addressed to “Dear Internet Friend.” People are simply more likely to read messages that address them by name.

Autoresponders let you use variables to personalize your messages. This way, you write just one message, but Lenny Lead reads “Happy Holidays, Lenny!” while Kate Customer reads “Happy Holidays, Kate!”
Names are only the beginning of the personalization features available, though. In addition to full, first, and last names, some autoresponders let you add e-mail addresses, dates, or an ad category. The best even correct the capitalization in your leads’ names, giving your messages a much more professional look.

Track Your Leads

Get even better results from your snowballing list of leads by experimenting with follow up content and timing. Your experimentation will be much more successful if you have access to proper statistics.

Only use a follow up autoresponder that offers detailed lead statistics. Look for live, graphical stats that show your incoming leads broken down by day / week / month, all of your active leads, and leads who have requested removal from your list.

Broadcast Tailor-Made Offers

To get more bang for your holiday buck, look for an autoresponder that also lets you broadcast extra e-mails to all of your leads. Some even allow you to send tailor-made offers only to leads who meet certain criteria.

For instance, send everyone who’s been on your list for a month a special discount. Or, notify all leads interested in a certain product when a new shipment comes in.

Follow up messages keep leads warm. Use periodic broadcasts to convert them to sales!

Prevent a Crummy Christmas

Businesses of all sizes have seen their sales grow by leaps and bounds because of automated follow up. Implement your follow up strategy now to make the best use of holiday leads! Then, enjoy the season – your autoresponder is following up for you!

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Now I know you are asking what does this have to do with real estate?? Hmm, lets see -

What if you have a list of Realtors that you market to and let them know you buy houses, maybe you might have several follow up emails in December that you are a cash buyer and can close fast, do they have any REOs that their asset managers are really wanting to get rid of - (best deals here are the last week of the year closings - honest)

Or you are marketing your wholesale houses, did you know that a lot of investors made a big profit this year and want to spend some of that profit on houses before the end of the year - instant tax deduction.

Think about what you do, maybe you just want to offer a holiday party or holiday greeting, with some great freebies for your subscribers, but don't wait till the last minute. With an email marketing service, you can plan and write those holiday marketing emails in July, set them up in August, and turn them on in September and have them automatically send in November & December with no action on your part what so ever.

Realtor.org ADs

2010-05-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

Are you a realtor and wanting to boost your online presence.

Go to Realtor.org and download their new video and audio ads then post them on your blog, your web site, your facebook page, etc. You get the idea.

Will need your nrds # to access

click here to download realtor ads

Do Your Potential Customers Forget About You?

2010-05-17T13:00:00.000-07:00

Now You Can Multiply Profits AND Automate Your Business

AWeber's email marketing software makes it easy.

Learn how they can do it for you, too.

Take A Free Test Drive Today!

Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)
Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!

But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him.

Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.

Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.

Consistent follow up gets results!

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow up method really works?

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!

Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!

Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!

Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up – don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

---------------
All right, we have one more post in this series. It will be posted on May 24th, and sorry to get you all worked up, but it has to do with email marketing at holiday time, particularly the Christmas Holiday. Plan your November & December Marketing Campaigns now, set them and forget them and let them run by themselves.

How to work with Social Media

2010-05-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

We are always trying to find ways to share tips on using social media with our readers (viewers?) what ever you are.

We recently came across an article in the Realtor Magazine "Making Social Media Pay" that has some great tips on how to use Twitter, Facebook, Linked in and other tools to help grow a Commercial Real Estate business. But everything in the article would work for a Realtor, a Real Estate Investor, a mortgage lender, or anyone wanting to grow their business online.

Take a few minutes and check it out.

Open Houses sell

2010-05-14T07:04:00.000-07:00

In a recent article "Open Houses that Work" in the Realtor magazine, author Marcie Geffner outlines how many Realtors still use to great effectiveness the Open House.

Her article outlines some of the best practices for holding a house open from the Realtor perspective and that is (1) to sell the house being held open and (2) get more seller and buyer customers.

So all the marketing of the open house beforehand online and through signage that she talks about is a big plus in getting folks in the house so that either they would buy it or tell a friend who might buy it.

On the other hand they talk about packets of info that they create before hand to give to the people walking through. If you are an investor holding your house open are you really looking to get more potential buyers and sellers like a Realtor, probably not, but your packets are just as important.

For example lets say you renovate in a particular market. Having a packet that includes buying information and area information as well as other houses in the area for sale are great. The attendees may not care for the particular house you have, but they like what you have done with it. Then when they go look at all the other houses you have provided them and they find them lacking, they might come back to you wanting to see what else you might have now or comming up in a month or so.

You could also collect all those potential leads and share them with a local realtor who might in turn provide you with comps or refer the junker houses back to you. It can all be a trade off.

But wether you are a Realtor or and Investor, you need to check out the article as it has some great informtion.

Click to read

200 House Auction this week end

2010-05-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

I was reading in the Kansas City Star this am that Hudson and Marshall will be auctioning off 200 homes in the KC metro on Saturday & Sunday. Although according to the Hudson & Marsall Web site that will be Friday and Saturday

These are almost 100 % urban core Kansas City Missouri homes, mostly vacant, a few rented and a few slated for demo with a few other area's thrown in. Mayor Funkhouser is urging local area investors to come out in droves to buy these homes at mostly absolute auctions (meaning they sell no matter what price offered) so that the out of state investors don't get a chance to buy them.

Does he not get that local area investors for the most part are purchasing these cheap houses, getting them as fixed as they have to to get a warm body in the house so they can sell it as a cash flowing rental to the out of state investor. Everyone I have talked to that is planning on buying has this plan in mind.

If you are going to the auction, please take a drive by these houses today to find out what they look like. ON the mailer I received many said "absolute auction" slated for demolition. So if I buy a house for $50 and the city subsequently tears it down a week after I close on it, then they will attach the demo bill to the property, so when I go to sell I have to pay the demolition bill that may be around $8000 or so. And what am I going to do with a vacant lot that I now owe $8,000.

I bet a few people have ideas.

But please remember if you have a few $100 to spend at the auction on Friday and Saturday, to check out the property today before you go bid.

Click here to find out more about the properties and the sale

New National Property Database.

2010-05-12T06:59:00.000-07:00

There is a new national property database in the works through Realtor.org. It is supposed to be the latest and greatest for Realtors. And I supposed it is for those who want property data in an area other than where they work.

The database, from what I can tell will be populated with data from the local MLS. So if you are only focusing local, the local realtors MLS will have the data. But say I wanted data at the Lake of the Ozarks and am only tied into the Kansas City Regional Assocition of Realtors MLS, then the system would help me out.

To find out more read the recent artcile in the Realtor Magazine "A Mountain of Data in One Click" or go to the blog http://blog.narrpr.com/ and no we don't have it yet in Kansas City I dont think.

Meat and Potatoes for Your Affiliate Diet

2010-05-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

Can You Have More Sales, Too?

Helping over 75,000 businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)
Think of banner ads as the spice in your affiliate diet. Sprinkle them around, but for a heartier helping of sales, you’ll need something more solid! Learn to give your visitors longer, more descriptive pre-sales text. Revamp your affiliate advertising using these simple steps:

Pull the Reader in

To convince your audience that your text is worth reading, make your first sentence or two very interesting. Make a bold statement, say something seemingly ridiculous, or appeal to your prospect’s emotional side. Then, tie this grabber in with the rest of your copy.

Introduce the Product

What is the product you’re advertising? What does it do? Directly after your grabber, give a compact explanation of your product. Keep this explanation short, while still being very clear. This should still be a very short section of your text.

Explain the Product’s Significance

What will it do for me?
By writing your own copy, you can directly target your unique audience. Make the most of this opportunity! Clearly explain how your readers will benefit from this product.
No one knows your audience like you do. Suggest a variety of product uses just for them, and give examples. This is the time for details – make this section long and rich.

Tell the Reader to Make a Purchase

You’ve come so far – you’ve laid out exactly what the product is and how it will help your unique audience. Now, seal the deal – tell your readers to purchase the product! Include your affiliate link in this section.
This step may sound strange, but it’s necessary. Often, people hear about a product and are genuinely interested, but fail to actually make a purchase. A clear call to a simple action cuts down on buyer ambivalence. Don’t be pushy – just change your verb tenses to the imperative. Instead of:
“If you think that you fit this profile, you might want to think about buying this product.”
Say: “Click here to order an account today.”
Drive Sales – Use Long Copy

If you don’t feel ready to write long copy yourself, ask your affiliate program manager for help! Many companies release well-written articles by respected authors that you can reprint free of charge.
The novelty of the Web is wearing off. People online now are busy. Surfers won’t make a purchase unless you make a great case for what they’ll get out of it. And you’re not going to do that with just a banner ad.

Don't miss our next post - be sure to subscribe to our blog, next post is due out May 17th:

Do Your Potential Customers Forget About You? by Tom Kulzer

So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up - don't you want to be one of the few to get it right?

MAY MAREI Meeting

2010-05-10T07:46:00.001-07:00

Don't forget our May meeting is Tomorrow, Tuesday May 11th at Sylvester Powell Jr Community Center in Mission KS. 6 pm is networking and our vendors will have tables set up. Talk to Sherwin Williams about Paint Discounts, Renovators Insurance about Vacant and other types of insurance, Accurate Title about Title Insurance and Mayo Auctions. Then we will have a presentation on Auctions at 7:30.
If you have not yet read our May Newsletter Click to read.
New in the MAREI Member Library. How to find all the money you need to buy houses. A 84 page Ebook from Alan Cowgill on Private Lending. Log into the member area, click on library, and look in the financing section. Just one of about 30 packed ebooks on various real estate investing topics.

MAREI May 11th General Meeting

10 Myths of Real Estate Auctions
Kansas City's own Robert Mayo is going to dispell the myths we have about real estate auctions. Find out how real estate actions can help you find good deals and sell quickly. We have networking from 6pm to 7:15, announcements at 7:15, and Presentation at 7:30.
To register: visit our events page

Planned Vendors for this meeting:

Renovators Insurance
Robert Mayo with Mayo Auction & Realty
Sherwin Williams
Accurate Title
Still room for 2 more vendors, click here to reserve

June 2010 Meeting: Vendor Night

2010-05-08T13:00:00.000-07:00

“Hello, I need a . . . .

Realtor who works with Investors
Lender for a Rehab
Contractor to Rehab a House
Property Manager
Flooring Provider
Home Inspector
Vacant Insurance Provider
Houses to Invest In
Real Estate Attorney
Accountant
Title Company
Appraiser
Roofer
Electrician
Mentor
Fill in the Blank”

We get this call several times a week. We direct them to our Vendor Page online.

Do any of these needed service providers describe you? Then you need to be a vendor at MAREI’s Vendor Night on Tuesday June 8th from 6 pm to 9 pm at Sylvester Powell Jr Community Center at 6200 Martway in Mission, KS.

We are offering this evening for FREE for all members and their guests. Non Members can attend for just $25 for the evening, or preregister to attend for $15 through the web site.

All members and vendors to receive a FREE guest registration to invite their friend. Not yet a MAREI member, don’t know any members? Still want to attend for FREE . . .Join our Fan Page on Facebook “Kansas City Real Estate Investors” and request a FREE Guest Pass.

Other Plans for the Evening

Mini Speed Networking
Door Prizes to Be Awarded at 8:30
Drinks and Munchies

We will see you there, bring your business cards and a friend!

BECOME A VENDOR

Looking for a way to reach a room full of targeted customers? Attendees at MAREI meetings are made up of people who work in the real estate industry and from beginners to old pros. If your product or service is something a real estate professional or a small business owner would need, then this is the place to be!

MAREI members can reserve a Vendor Table for $50 for the evening (1/2 Table $25)

Non Members Pay a bit more.

Full table to present your company, product or service to our room full of targeted customers who are looking for you!

Business Card ad in the June Newsletter

30 Day Listing on our Vendor Page

Register through our Calendar of Events or request registration via email at info@MAREInet.com.

Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program

2010-05-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

HAFA

In 2009, the Treasury Department introduced the HAFA program to provide a viable option for homeowners who are unable to keep their homes through the existing Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The program took effect on April 5th.

Complements HAMP by providing a viable alternative for borrowers (the current homeowners) who are HAMP eligible but nevertheless unable to keep their home.
Uses borrower financial and hardship information already collected in connection with consideration of a loan modification.
Allows borrowers to receive pre-approved short sales terms before listing the property (including the minimum acceptable net proceeds).
Requires borrowers to be fully released from future liability for the first mortgage debt (no cash contribution, promissory note, or deficiency judgment is allowed).
Uses standard processes, documents, and timeframes/deadlines.
Provides the following financial incentives:

$3,000 for borrower relocation assistance;
$1,500 for servicers to cover administrative and processing costs;
Up to $2,000 for investors who allow a total of up to $6,000 in short sale proceeds to be distributed to subordinate lien holders, on a one-for-three matching basis.

Requires all servicers participating in HAMP to implement HAFA in accordance with their own written policy, consistent with investor guidelines. The policy may include factors such as the severity of the potential loss, local markets, timing of pending foreclosure actions, and borrower motivation and cooperation.

Online Resources:

http://www.onlinereiexpo.com/: we have had several webinars on HAFA and short sales in the past week. Be sure to check it out.

From Realtor.org: http://www.realtor.org/government_affairs/short_sales_hafa

From the Government: http://makinghomeaffordable.gov/resources.html

Working With Contractors

2010-05-07T19:55:00.000-07:00

Some thoughts on how to use a contractor and keep him on your side.

As an investor it would be nice to have all your numbers in place before we make an offer. An inspection by a contractor to give an estimate of repairs or to give an assessment of the condition of the property is helpful when making your decision to purchase. But how do we find the contractor who is willing to inspect properties for us. When you call and ask for a break down of needed repairs and a detailed repair bid on the house, most don’t even call you back. I get calls from new investors asking why they can’t find a contractor to do these bids, after all “I told him I would use him in the future.”

Has this happened to you?

Lets first talk about working with a contractor.

Investors tell me their contractor is a bum, or that he left the job site without finishing the job, or took all my money. The list goes on and on. Nine times out of ten, the investor who hired the contractor is at fault. I know I’m not popular with that statement, but lets review some of the problems.

Were there written instructions on the scope of work to be completed?

Did you specify an allowance amount for items, such as: lighting, carpet, appliances, etc.

Was there an agreement on price for services before he started, verbal or written?

Was there an agreement on when the contractor would be paid?

A bid contract from a contractor should have a schedule of payments along with his bid price.

Have you asked for an inspection, without paying for his services?

Have you ask for his advice without paying for his services?

I have found that a rehab goes smoother when walking through the house with the contractor and spelling everything out you want, and reviewing the contract bid thoroughly before signing. Expect the fact that you still might have a

change order, although under $500.00 would be reasonable. Sometimes you cannot anticipate what you cannot see behind walls.

You pay your Attorney, Doctor, and Accountant when you ask for advice or services, your contractor should be treated the same way. Assuming Contractors work for free is where the problem starts. Promising the contractor future work, is an old trick that doesn’t work. Once you have used a contractor successfully on a job, it gets easier to ask for a bid or advise, because why wouldn’t you use him again.

The best way to establish a good working relationship with a contractor where both sides win is to have an agreement up front that spells out his prices for services, and allowances. I hope everyone understands, that a good contractor will help you make money.

Initial Inspections

If you are buying properties and making bids and you have a question about the condition of the house, having a contractor you can call on puts you in a better position to buy the house right. I know it’s unheard of, but pay the contractor to inspect the house and use his services when you get the bid. On the first few houses, go with him on the walk through inspection. Let him show you the house and have him point out his concerns and problems with future repairs. It may be that after the first few, you can make your own rough estimates to make offers, and then hire the contractor to do a hard bid during your inspection period.

Think about it . . . If you look at 4 or 5 houses for someone in the hopes of getting the contract to do the rehab. You don’t get paid for any inspections up front and the investor keeps loosing the bid. Then finally, on the 5th house the investor has the highest bid and gets the house. Since the contractor did not get paid for the repair bids and may not get paid for future bids, you may find that his bids on each house get a little bit higher because he adds those “free” bids into his repair costs. So would you not be better off to pay up front for a rehab bid and have it agreed upon before the contractor makes the bid rather than having him pad his actual rehab bid on the job he does get to cover all his time spent on the bids on the houses he did not get.

Don’t always promise future work; pay him today for the work he has performed, and deal with the future when it arrives. Inspecting the house takes time and is work; it has taken him away from what he was doing to look at this house that you may never buy. We know it’s a numbers game when buying properties. You are going to be looking at a lot of houses you don’t ever buy.

Home inspectors charge $300.00 to $500.00 to inspect a house, and if you hire them they expect to be paid. This price is too high if your looking at 2 to 3 houses per week. Keep in mind these prices usually include a full write up and possibly photos, you may find that hiring a contractor who does not have to do all the write up may offer the same service for much less. (Note that many inspectors have a much lower fee if there is not write up and they get paid at the time of inspection)

When you buy the house you have been searching for, if the contractor did the inspection, they are all set to give you a hard repair bid for your rehab or for you to use when you wholesale the property. By agreeing up front what you will pay for a repair bid or inspection, paying at the time of inspection and the contractor not having to hope to get the rehab to get paid, you will have established a decent working relationship with your contractor. You will now have a contractor in place and ready to do your rehab once you close, just be sure to outline the scope of work (what you expect to be done and the quality of materials) and the payment plan in place before the project begins.

Another mistake I have seen new investors make (even the ones on the TV shows) is waiting until the day of closing to start looking for a contractor. This will cost you valuable time and holding costs and could cut into your profits eat all your profits.

Payment Plans

Keep in mind that a contractor is always skeptical when starting a rehab with a new investor. They have the same questions in their mind about you as you do about them. That’s why many will ask for 50% up front when starting the rehab. They want to make sure that they get paid enough to start the job and getting paid 50% up front is not that out of order when starting a rehab as the majority of the money needed in the rehab is spent in the first two weeks of the project: roof, furnace, air, electrical, plumbing, windows, etc are all usually done if the first two weeks and eat up a majority of the cost of the repairs.

Don’t put him on a 30-day payment plan; he won’t be around in 30 days. A good contractor has people working for him that expect to get paid every Friday and the materials that go into your rehab are not free, they need to be paid to cover these items. Expect the contractor to be able to carry a little bit of the costs, but if your contractor can afford to carry all of these costs, he is probably charging you a lot more than the competition.

Working Relationships

After you have a working relationship with a contractor, the bidding process will go smoother knowing your numbers up front before you buy. When he knows he will get paid like you promised, that you will in fact give him work, and you will hold true to your word, the contractor will get to your job faster than other people he works with and may just throw in a free inspection now and then.

Because our contractors and subs know that when they do a job for us that they will get paid in a very timely manner, our jobs may be bid cheaper and be acted upon more quickly than other jobs. When we have a small question of how something should be fixed, they will often stop by and look at it for free and give us advice, they will probably get the repair if it is warranted. And they even bring us deals because they know what we look for in a house and that when we buy it for rehab, that they will get the job.

In conclusion, approach the rehab with the knowledge that the buyer will hire a home inspector, and his job is to dig for any problems. This list that he comes up with can cost hundreds more if you have not inspected your house as thoroughly as a home inspector. If you know something is not right, fix it now before the inspection, while the contractor is set up in the house. These steps alone can save money and stress at the time of the sale of the house.

Try out some of these ideas and let me know how they work for you.

About the author: Donald Tucker has been investing in real estate since 2000 and has been in the construction and building trades working with contractors and sub contractors for the past 30 years. Currently his company Tucker One Properties (www.TuckerOneProperties.com) is wholesaling homes in the Kansas City metro area and his real estate brokerage Realty Resource (www.RealtyResourceKC.com) is helping investor buyers and sellers in the metro.

Real Estate Auctions

2010-05-07T14:53:00.000-07:00

The popularity of auction sales of real estate is increasing day by day despite the dominance of the traditional process of real estate selling. Earlier these auctions were labeled as dishonor sales done by the distressed sellers when there was no other way to liquidate a property. But this view has changed as the number of real estate auctions are increasing day by day because sellers of residential as well as commercial properties are opting to auction their property directly or turning to real estate broker houses to get top price as per market rates from the auctions.

Auction opportunity arises when a seller's mind is auction oriented with a hope that the property will fetch a fair market price. To get a fair price, his equity position in the auctioned property should be strong. With a strong equity position in the property, he will save the cost of paying a sales commission. The time of auctioning should be perfect, when the market is soaring high. The auctioneer should also try to avoid bearing high carrying costs associated with the property.

A profitable auction opportunity is created when there is limited supply of a particular type of property whose demand in the real estate market is relatively high or the market is declining with limited buyer's interest in this traditional sales process.

When a property is offered for auctioned, a sense of urgency arises to bring the interested parties together on a particular day and the sales process creates a sales price through competitive bidding among the participating parties.

In early days of real estate auctions only the properties in bad conditions or subjected to foreclosure were auctioned. But now sellers are shifting to real estate auctions to sell their homes. This transformation has occurred because the earlier believe that a seller will not take the risk of auctioning his property at a lesser price than its market value has changed. Real estate auctioneers are at a liberty to set a minimum price which is more than its market value that he will receive in any case. In addition by setting a minimum price, he will no longer have to bear the risk of buying back the property if it does not reach that price and will also save the cost of paying the required sales commission to the auction house.

Many real estate owners prefer to go for a direct auction instead of going to a auction houses to avoid payment of sales commission to real estate brokers which is about 8-10 percent of the property's value. Also the property owners have absolute control on the auction sales process. This is essential when a real estate takes lot of time to sell and the owner is represented by a real estate agent or broker. Many times, it is wise for a real estate owner to auction a property not in use to cut down maintenance expenses. Real estate auction is an exciting event both for the auctioneer and the bidding parties therefore they are always well attended.

Since auction is the best way to get true market value for the real estate, the magic of an exciting real estate auction works for the marketing of these properties for sale. Onus rests on the auctioneer to create demand or an urge to make a bid in the buyers/bidders mind and to attract the attention of the potential buyers/bidders. The potential buyers of the property are then registered after it is ensured that they are financially qualified. It is to be ensured that a considerable sum is paid by the buyer as a down payment which is non refundable and both parties are willing to close the deal as soon as possible. It is necessary to make sure before the auction that the buyer is financially secure so that the seller will not have to wait for receiving the entire payment. Many times it has been found that real estate auctions remain incomplete because the buyer or successful bidder is turned down for mortgages.

The following factors should be kept in mind before a real estate is auctioned by the property owner-

He should consult experienced and professional auction consultant who have specialized in real estate auctioning.

It should be ensured that the marketing campaign of the auction event focused properly to have a high impact.

Importance should be given on direct mail marketing to targeted bidders/buyers.

The auction event should be advertised in print and audio visual media to have a greater impact. If possible the consignment should be assigned to a reputed advertising agency to make the ad campaign more attractive.

The auction event should also be advertised through internet and email.

After the promotion or advertisement campaign is launched, the auction event takes place within a few weeks on completion of official formalities. Sellers are informed about the auction date before hand after the auctioneer is ensured that the sellers/bidders are able to meet the preset terms and conditions laid down by him.

Following are the advantages of real estate auctions for the seller-

The property owner is able to make a quick liquidation of their property.

The auction is successful in creating a healthy competition among the bidders.

Their property is exposed to a wide range of prospects.

Closing is accelerated.

The sellers are well aware about the date and time when the property will be sold.

Auctions are successful in considerably bringing down the amount of time a property is on the market for sale.

Auction gets rid of number of out of the blue events related to property sales.

Auction reduces the burden of negotiation process from the sellers mind. He is able to sell the property according to the terms and conditions set by him.

In contrast to conventional sales processes where it is mandatory for the property owner to make necessary improvements and renovations to get a fair price, these properties are auctioned on as-is-where-is basis. Potential buyers receive enough time to make a decision on whether to make a bid or not after having a good look at the property to be auctioned. Therefore it is sold with no emergency and the seller gains from it.

The buyer also enjoys innumerable advantages from real estate auctions, they are-

He can set his own purchase price.

He purchases the property at a fair market price.

He does not have to make long negotiations or bargains to finalize a deal.

Auction reduces the time to purchase a property.

He will not have to worry about emergencies because purchasing and closing dates are known to him beforehand.

Buyers are well aware that sellers are predetermined to sell.

For FREE Report and more on Profiting from Real Estate Investing go to

http://www.wealthyideas.net/

Article Source:

http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Frank_Berry

Robert Mayo of Auction by Mayo is dispelling the top 10 Myths of Real Estate Auctions at the May MAREI meeting.

2010-05-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors is hosting Robert Mayo at their May 11th, monthly meeting to disucss the top 10 Myths of Real Estate Auctions.

Kansas City, MO, May 1, 2010: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors has a monthly networking and educational meeting on the second Tuesday of the month. This month their guest speaker will be Robert Mayor of Auction by Mayo in the Kansas City Metro area to discuss the top 10 Myths of Real Estate Auctions.

Auctions are becoming a much more used way to sell real estate. Here in the Kansas City metro area we see auctions of distressed foreclosure homes and bank owned homes. New condos and homes. And in the Lake area, very high end vacation homes. Join us on the 11th to find out how you can utilize a real estate auction to your benefit.

You can find out more about Robert Mayo at http://www.auctionsbymayo.com/ and for more on this meeting, please visit the events tab at http://www.mareinet.com/ .

Other Activities

We also have a networking session from 6 to 7:15 so be sure to bring your business cards and home flyers. Meeting is free for members, $25 at the door, or pre-register on our calendar of events at http://www.mareinet.com/.

Rental.com is offering all members of MAREI a 20% discount on regular priced ads.

2010-05-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors and Rentals.com announce their partnership in offering MAREI members a 20% discount

Kansas City, MO, May1, 2010: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors has partnered with Rentals.com to offer all of their members a 20 % Discount on all Advertising on Rentals.com. To receive this discount, use the discount code listed in the Member Benefits Section of the Member Library.

Rentals.com is a leading national online resource to millions of unique visitors searching for signle family houses, apartments, condos, and houses for rent. Reach millions of qualified renters at the optimal rental search phase. Save time and money by managing your listings in one location. Obtain reliable, accurate tracking and reports. Be seen on over 30 additional sites in the Rentals.com network.

For more information on this rebate, visit http://www.mareinet.com/ (click on Why Join then Member Discounts)

John Welchert with Keller Williams Realty is the featured members of the month of May

2010-05-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors announces John Welchert Broker Association with Keller Williams Realty to be the featured members of the month

Kansas City, MO, May 1, 2010: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors features one of their members in their newsletter every month. This month’s featured member is John Welchert.

Member of MAREI since 2005, John Welchert is a real estate investor in multi-unit and residential properties. He currently owns a four-plex and two duplexes in Blue Springs. Also a licensed Real Estate Broker/Salesperson with Keller Williams Realty in Independence, MO. Retired Firefighter with degrees from Central Missouri State University and Graduate Realtor Institute. Currently serving on the Board of Directors with the Central Jackson County Fire Protection District and the Missouri Innovation Park.

When asked what he thought about the current real estate market he said that he thought that “private sector job creation will be a key to a sustainable housing market recovery” once the tax credit expires. “With the continued low home prices and low mortgage rates, we find the housing affordability index historically high. Bottom line, this is the best time to buy for both home owners and investors.”

His tip for the new investor is to “Get off the couch! Anyone Can Do It . . . Not Everyone Will . . . Will You? Find out how.” He suggests you read Gary Keller’s book “The Millionaire Real Estate Investor” ISBN 0-07-144637-0.

He has a tip for landlords as well. “90% of your problems will start with the tenant. The most important thing you must do as a landlord is to verify your new tenant’s application! Do you have a checklist to identify the first qualified tenant? On your rental application do you ask for their middle initial, nicknames, email address, facebook?” These are some great suggestions to follow to check out those tenants.

You will find John at most MAREI meetings as a volunteer helping with the check in table or volunteering in other ways at MAREI.

John would also like to offer his broker services. As purchasing real estate as a homeowner or an investor can be very complicated and time consuming, you should turn to a Realtor to assist you if you don’t know what you are doing. John’s goal “is to help you negotiate the best price with the least amount of problems in the shortest amount of time.

In parting, John offered “Do you have an interest to become a Realtor, purchase a home or make an investment in your future? Experience and education makes all the difference. Call me I can help.” Contact John at http://www.johnwelchert.com/ or give him a call at 816-268-3849

Thinking about becoming an investor agent?

Thinking about becoming a licensed agent and investor? Call John to get some tips.

MAREI's Investment News for May 2010 is published

2010-05-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

Investment News: May 2010

Publish at Calaméo or browse others.

John and Donna MacNiel with YellowLetter.com are the featured members of the month of April

2010-05-04T13:16:00.001-07:00

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors announces John and Donna MacNeil with Yellow Letter.com to be the featured members of the month

Kansas City, MO, April 1, 2010: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors features one of their members in their newsletter every month. This month’s featured member is a husband and wife team from Florida, John and Donna MacNeil. John & Donna began their Real Estate Investing career after meeting Ron LeGrand 10 years ago. In fact, Donna worked for Ron as his executive assistant and eventually they became partners in his personal real estate investing company in Jacksonville, Florida. Now running their own successful real estate investing company. They have also attended more than 80 Real Estate Investing seminars and learned so much from some of the best investors and trainers in the industry. They have put that knowledge to the test with their own company, learned the do's and don'ts, made their share of mistakes, and honed theirour skills to get successful results every time. To find out more about John and Donna, go to http://www.yellowletter.com/

They also offer lead lists and direct mail marketing

To read the April 201 Newsletter, please go to http://www.mareinet.com/ and click on Member Resources to access our Newsletter Archives. There you will find out more about John and Donna and their Yellow Letter Marketing System.

Sherwin Williams featured Member Discount of the Month of April

2010-05-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors announces Sherwin Williams to be the member discount of the month.

Kansas City, MO, April 1, 2010: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors features one of their member discounts each month. This month’s featured member discount is the discount card that all Real Estate Investors and Contractors and other members of MAREI receive when they join. This discount card enables all MAREI members to receive up to 40% off all Paint and Supplies at any Sherwin Williams Paint in the country. This member discount card works similar to a contractor discount account with Sherwin Williams Paints, but this card is based on discount pricing on a national based contractor account that links all members of National REIA together through their account, links their buying power, and results in a better discount than what the local Kansas City area painting contractor might receive.

To find out more about this discount card for Sherwin Williams for all members of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors, please go to http://www.mareinet.com/ . Click on Why Join and then on Member Discounts.

Read the April Newsletter

To read the April 201 Newsletter, please go to http://www.mareinet.com/ and click on Member Resources to access our Newsletter Archives..

Ron Kraft with Accurate Title: Featured Member Profile of the Month.

2010-05-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors announces Ron Kraft with Accurate Title to be the featured member of the month!

Kansas City, MO, March 1, 2010: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors features one of their members in their monthly newsletter. This month’s featured members I Ron Kraft with Accurate Title. Ronald L. Kraft, Esq. Is the President and Legal Counsel for Accurate Title Company. Graduate of University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law in 1971 and practicing attorney for over 39 years in real estate, trust and estate, probate, banking, and business law. Member of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association and the Missouri Bar and a licensed title insurance agent in Missouri and Kansas.

Ron has been a valued member of MAREI since our first full year as a real estate investor association in the Kansas City Metro in 2004. He has been offering title and escrow services as well as 1031 Exchnage services to real estate investors in the Kansas City Metro since that time and before. To find out more about Accurate Title’s services and to contact Ronald Kraft, please visit their page on http://www.mareinet.c/om in the vendor section or go directly to his company web site at http://www.accuratetitleco.com/.

Also a Practicing Attorney

Ronald Kraft is also a practicing attorney offering services in real estate and small business.

March 2010: Home Depot Rebates- Member Discount of the Month

2010-05-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

Home Depot: offering 2 % Rebate for all purchases at Home Depot for members of MAREI

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors and Home Depot announce a membership benefit for all members of MAREI who register.

Kansas City, MO, March 1, 2010: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors has partnered with Home Depot to offer all of their members a 2 % Rebate on all member purchases made at the Home Depot Stores with registered accounts at stores in the Kansas City Metro and across the country. To receive this discounts Real Estate Investor members of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors log into the member area at www.MAREInet.com to obtain a special link to a section on the Home Depot web site where they can create an account, register their accounts they use when shopping at Home Depot. Then with every purchase made with registered accounts, the Home Depot cash register track the sale so the accounting department can issue a 2% rebate check on a bi-annual basis. For more information on this rebate, visit www.MAREInet.com (click on Why Join then Member Discounts)

Also offering Volume Discount Pricing

Home Depot stores are also offering Kansas City area Real Estate Investors, Contractors, and home owners discount through their pro-desk on volume discount purchases made in the amount of $2500 or more. So if you are planning a major renovation, plan ahead, make a shopping list, and take it to the prodesk to find out what your savings. On average between 10% and 15% on most purchases. For more information on volume discount pricing at Home Depot, visit your local Home Depot Pro or Contractor Desk

Spam: Where it Came From, and How to Escape It

2010-05-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)
In 1936, long before the rise of the personal computer, Hormel Foods created SPAM. In 2002, the company will produce it’s six billionth can of the processed food product. But that mark was passed long ago in the world of Internet spam.

Who Cooked This!? (How did it all start?)

The modern meaning of the word “spam” has nothing to do with spiced ham. In the early 1990’s, a skit by British comedy group Monty Python led to the word’s common usage. “The SPAM Skit” follows a couple struggling to order dinner from a menu consisting entirely of Hormel’s canned ham.
Repetition is key to the skit’s hilarity. The actors cram the word “SPAM” into the 2.5 minute skit more than 104 times! This flood prompted Usenet readers to call unwanted newsgroup postings “spam.” The name stuck.
Spammers soon focused on e-mail, and the terminology moved with them. Today, the word has come out of technical obscurity. Now, “spam” is the common term for “Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail”, or “UCE.”

Why Does Bad Spam Happen to Good People?

Chances are, you’ve been spammed before. Somehow, your e-mail address has found it’s way into the hands of a spammer, and your inbox is suffering the consequences. How does this happen? There are several possibilities.
Backstabbing Businesses

Businesses often keep lists of their customers’ e-mail addresses. This is a completely legitimate practice and, usually, nothing bad comes of it. Sometimes though, the temptation to make a quick buck is too great, and these lists are sold or rented to outside advertisers. The result? A lot of unsolicited e-mail, and a serious breach of trust.
Random Address Generation

Computer programs called random address generators simply “guess” e-mail addresses. Over 100 million hotmail addresses exist – howhard could it be to guess some of them? Unfortunately for many unsuspecting netizens – not too hard. Many spammers also guess at

“standard” addresses, like “support@yourdomain.com”,

“info@yourdomain.com”, and “billing@yourdomain.com.”
Web Spiders

Today’s most insidious list-gathering tools are web spiders. All of the major search engines spider the web, saving information about each page. Spammers use tools that also spider the web, but save any e-mail address they come across. Your personal web page lists your e-mail address? Prepare for an onslaught!
Chat Room Harvesting

ISP’s offer vastly popular chat rooms where users are known only by their screen names. Of course, spammers know that your screen name is the first part of your e-mail address. Why waste time guessing e-mail addresses when a few hours of lurking in a chat room can net a list of actively-used addresses?
The Poor Man’s Bad Marketing Idea

It didn’t work for the phone companies, and it won’t work for e-mail marketers. But, some spammers still keep their own friends-and-family-style e-mail lists. Compiled from the addresses of other known spammers, and people or businesses that the owner has come across in the past, these lists are still illegitimate. Why? Only you can give someone permission to send you e-mail. A friend-of-a-friend’s permission won’t cut it.

Stop The Flood to Your Inbox

Already drowning in spam? Try using your e-mail client’s filters – many provide a way to block specific e-mail addresses. Each time you’re spammed, block the sender’s address. Spammers skip from address to address, and you may be on many lists, but this method will at least slow the flow.
Also, use more than one e-mail address, and keep one “clean.” Many netizens find that this technique turns the spam flood into a trickle. Use one address for only spam-safe activities like e-mailing your friends, or signing on with trustworthy businesses. Never use your clean address on the web! Get a free address to use on the web and in chat rooms.
If nothing else helps, consider changing screen names, or opening an entirely new e-mail account. When you do, you’ll start with a clean, spam-free slate. This time, protect your e-mail address!

Stay Off Spammed Lists in the Future

Want to surf the web without getting sucked into the spam-flood? Prevention is your best policy. Don’t use an easy-to-guess e-mail address. Keep your address clean by not using it for spam-centric activities. Don’t post it on any web pages, and don’t use it in chat rooms or newsgroups.
Before giving your clean e-mail address to a business, check the company out. Are sections of its user agreement dedicated to anti-spam rules? Does a privacy policy explain exactly what will be done with your address? The most considerate companies also post an anti-spam policy written in plain English, so you can be absolutely sure of what you’re getting into.

Think You’re Not a Spammer? Be Sure.

Many a first-time marketer has inadvertently spammed his audience. The first several hundred complaints and some nasty phone messages usually stop him in his tracks. But by then, the spammer may be faced with cleanup bills from his ISP, and a bad reputation that it’s not easy to overcome.
The best way to avoid this situation is to have a clear understanding of what spam is: If anyone who receives your mass e-mails did not specifically ask to hear from you, then you are spamming them.
Stick with your gut. Don’t buy a million addresses for $10, no matter how much the seller swears by them! If something sounds fishy, just say no. You’ll save yourself a lot in the end.

The Final Blow

The online world is turning the tide on spam. In the end, people will stop sending spam because it stops working. Do your part: never buy from a spammer. When your business seeks out technology companies with which to work, only choose those with a staunch anti-spam stance.
Spam has a long history in both the food and e-mail sectors. This year, Hormel Foods opened a real-world museum dedicated to SPAM. While the museum does feature the Monty Python SPAM Skit, there’s no word yet on an unsolicited commercial e-mail exhibit. But, if all upstanding netizens work together, Hormel’s ham in a can will far outlive the Internet plague that is UCE.

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I hope you are learning a lot from our series on email marketing, didn't know it had so many rules did you. Don't miss out on next weeks post: Meat and Potatoes for Your Affiliate Diet, this is for you folks that not only are sending out emails about your houses for sale or real estate related services, but also are going to include a few post about other companies that are going to pay you a referral fee through an affiliate program .

Subscribe to our blog on the right ----> Over there ------------->

And stay up to date with the latest and greatest in Kansas City Real Estate Investing.

Discount Business Cards for Real Estate Investors

2010-05-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

Here at Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors we have been using these discount links at Vista Print to buy business cards and other print items for years. We have found their service to be exceptional and even at regular price and regular shipping, our order is usually in our hands in 5 business days, sometimes less.

If you need business, cards, use these links to save up to 75% of premium business cards. Example, we ordered 3 different sets of business cards, printed front and back, we received 1000 of each, our costs was around $120 and they arrived in 4 days.

Vista Print: For all your online printing needs
Click for FREE Business Cards
Click for 75% off Premium Business Cards
Click for 50% off all Postcards
Click for 30 % off Letterhead & Brochures
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Direct Mail Marketing from National REIA

2010-04-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

Power Point-Direct Mail with RealInvestorLynx

Please click above and review Power Point

Exclusive marketing tool for National REIA Members
Initial release will help you find homes to buy
Our list partner is First America Core Logic
Selects include
- Home Value, LTV, Length of ownership
- Owner Occupied/Absentee Owner
Pricing is all inclusive (List/Print/Postage)
Credit card checkout

Urban Core Properties

2010-04-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

I am going to relate a story, you may see yourself in this story or a similarity. But if you live in say California and are investing in - say - Kansas City Missouri Urban Core Properties, this might be you.

On Wednesday I received a call from suzie seller from out of state, she had a lovely home to sell at 33rd and Askew (not the real address). She was selling because she "needed the cash" . Home was worth about $77,000 in todays market, she only wanted $35,000 for it and the home was in excellent condition.

Great, but being a smart investor, I wanted to do a bit of due dilegence on this deal. (not a good deal at all by the way)

So I went to MLS and looked up this property to see it had been listed as a short sale in MLS and that listing had just expired 4 days ago. From the photos on mls it appeared to be a 2 story home, that was boarded up, and looks like it had been roughed up a bit and probably needed repair. And knowing vacant urban core properties, it probably had its plumbing and HVAC ripped out by vandals.

I related this information to the out of state seller.

I received back today that out of state seller had just purchased it 2 weeks ago and she was "told" it was in excellent condition and was rent ready. She only wanted $28,000 for it today. She was unaware that anyone had it listed in mls in the past. Being the good samaritan that I was, I decided to send a copy of the mls listing with the interior photos so she could see what she had purchased 2 weeks ago.

Lo and behold the MLS listing had been relisted at $9,500 by the same listing agent who had it listed a few days ago, same boarded up 2 story home in the photos and the listing now states that the home is in overall decent condition but that it does need interior and exterior repairs and the HVAC system is missing.

My offer on the house was if I had to buy it, I would pay maybe $1000, but not a house I would want to buy. The highes price sold with in a 1/4 of a mile was $6,000 on one house and $9,000 on the other - in the past 200 days. There were active listings for less.

For our out of state buyers, buying in the urban core - before you plop down your hard earned cash on a clunker, get a dis interested third party go look at it and take photos and get you some comparables of houses around the area. Hire a buyer's agent or just hire someone to do comps and go look at it for you. Don't buy sight unseen and don't trust the seller or seller's agent - even if it's me.

Even the most honest of seller or agent can miss things. So for example when I sell a house I try to send photos to my out of state buyers and give them a good list of what needs fixed, I still miss things.

Sorry guys had to vent, I have had about 10 out of state sellers trying to sell me some beautiful $5,000 house in our lovely urban core for $50k, $40k, $30k, $20k and going down. Our standard offer if we buy it is $5,000 or less and on some, we would need to be paid to take it. There is someone in Kansas City or some bulk reo seller selling houses for way too much money with really big stories of values.

The true value right now in our urban core for the most part is in the cash flow in the property. So for a fully renovated, with all it's working parts, AND a paying seasoned tenant in place, you can expect to pay between $30,000 ($600 month rent), $40,000 ($700 month rent), or $50,000 ($800 month rent) on average. These values might go up a bit in revival areas where there are a lot of nice, clean, owner occupied homes.

And this is probably going to be fairly standard in other midwestern urban core properties, not just Kansas City Investment Properties.

Kim

Build your Real Estate Investing Team in Kansas City

2010-04-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

The guru's all tell you that your first step in real estate investing is to build your team.

So if you are new to investing, or just new to investing in Kansas City, you need to build your team in Kansas City. The best place to start in team building is the Vendor Page our web site.

We currently have about 500 current and previous members who utilize our Vendor Page on a weekly basis as a place to start when they are looking for a service. We also log about 20 phone calls a month at the office for referrals for service providers. We always send them to the Vendor Page first, then we go through MAREI members.

If you need a product or service, start on our vendor page, if you can't find what you are looking for, log into the member's area and click on profiles to browse all of our members and see who does what. More than likely you will find the service you need.

Real Estate Events in Kansas City

2010-04-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

Do you have a real estate event to share with the public?

Get it on MAREI's calendar of events and share with the public.

Investor meetings and networking events.
Auctions and sales.
Legislation & Regulation
Cash Flow Games

As long as your event is not a real estate investor training event we can publish on our calendar for $25.

If you have a real estate training event, we would love to look at your training outline and joint venture with you on the event.

Real Estate Investment Groups - Why Join MAREI

2010-04-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

"You CAN Get Rich in Real Estate . . .

But Not Without Help!"

"The best thing about MAREI for me has been the access to the knowledge of others. When I have a question or need a referral for a title company, an attorney, a home inspector I can go to the message board and pose my question to the entire membership and get multiple responses.

Your best resource for successful real estate investing is a group already succesful investors as well as people learning just like you in your own area. When you read Napoleon Hill's book, "Think and Grow Rich," he talks about the "Mastermind Group" necessary to achieve your success . . . think of MAREI as your mastermind group. Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors is a vital part of your real estate investing plan. A source to find partners, funding for deals, and a support group of people who have been exactly where you are today! Ask any guru or read any how to book, and they all tell you to build your investing team and to do that they tell you the best place to start is your local investing group.

"I can't think of any better resource in Kansas City for investors than joining the

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors. The resources and networking you will gain access to are invaluable and the dues of only $99 a year make it very affordable."

Membership in MAREI gives you accountability; we have a code of ethics that all of our members are required to adopt. As a member of MAREI we expect you to conduct yourself in an ethical manner, and can expect other members to do the same. Plus we find that members of MAREI tend to do business with other members.

Membership is just $99.00 per year (add a family member or business partner - using the same address for just $50) and includes free admission to monthly meetings (a $275 value), plus free admission to our sub-groups across the city. If you have a business that you would like to promote through our association (very effective, indeed), Please click here for more information about Business Membership.

Mainstream Press Reports Benefits of Real Estate Investor Clubs

All of these mainstream publications have reported the benefits of joining a local real estate investors association.

"Real estate investment clubs have helped many to learn the business and launch a successful real estate investment operation." - About.com

"Real estate groups aren't about joint decisions or communal investments. Instead, they're about education and networking." - MSN Money

"Where landlords go to schmooze" - CNN Money

"One of the best things about being in a club... is the access it provides to reliable contractors, suppliers and other skilled people." - New York Times

Through our website, our social media and at our meetings you have access to hundreds of other investors who are like-minded ("creative" real estate entrepreneurs). You can find a lender, a property locator, title people, and any number of other business associates who can be a vital tool of your investing team and your success. Our meetings feature both local and national professional experts who speak on topics that help you think "outside the box" in real estate investing. We also feature a number of special seminars and workshops, that are offered at a discount to our members.

Access to the Online Membership Area

Members get access to the secure online area, which features priceless benefits to the Real Estate Investor.

Interactive Message Board

Meet our other 500+ members and discuss deals, share advice, get referrals, find partners and more!
Property listings

Post a property for sale, for rent or rent to own in our classifieds and our message board.. Upload a picture of the property. Offer a referral fee and get your property sold or rented faster!
Calender of Events

View and register for events and download information directly to your Outlook calendar!
Real Estate Articles

Read our daily news feed of industry news and articles on the real estate industry.
Document Library

Download legal forms, including deeds, mortgages, notes, contracts. Read dozens of special reports and e-books valued at hundreds of dollars!
Audio recordings

Listen to streaming audio recordings of webinars, teleconferences and meetings. Yours FREE as a member!
Member Discounts

We have partnered with local and national vendors to bring you money saving discounts.

Can you believe all of this is just $99.00 per year? For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you can get all of these benefits! Since 2003 there's been no better value or better resource than membership in the Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors.

Online Marketing on Twitter

2010-04-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

Twitter is another tool that Than Merrill discussed when he spoke in April. As real estate investors, we can attract both buyers and sellers using social media, and there is a lot of tools out there to get all the social media pages to either do things automatically or talk to each other.

For example it is possible to sit up all these social media sites and then make one post on just one site and have it talk to all the others.

Three sites you need to be on are:

http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.twitter.com/

If you join these pages, look up us up:

Kansas City Real Estate Investing or MAREInet

Let's Talk some Tools:

Hummingbird is one of the cool tools Than talks about. When you are on Twitter, you want a large following. To get people to follow you, you need to follow them. This takes a lot of time and you can either hire someone to do it for you, or buy this tool for $97. It can complete about 8 hours of work with just about 10 to 20 minutes of set up time on your part, then set up time goes down.
SocialOomph is another great tool. So you are going on vacation and don't want to take the time to post 4 tweets a day or to get on facebook and make posts on your schedule. Using this tool, you can prewrite posts and preschedule them. You can even save them to repost again at a later date.
Twitterfeed allows you to feed one web site into twitter or the other way around
Ping.fm is one we really like, it allows you to post one post on Ping and have it repost on just about any other page. You can even create posts using email. This one is improving.

If you use the Hummingbird page, it has a bunch of online videos that explain not only how Hummingbird works, but the whole concept of using Twitter as a marketing tool.

So a sample online marketing plan would be to

1. Set up accounts at all o the above tools
2. Get all posting sites talking to each other and posting in sequence
3. Using Hummingbird once a week, work to get more followers on twitter
4. The write a series of short blog posts with a free report for your blog page
(schedule them to appear one a day or so in advance & include a way to sign up to get a free report)
5. Blog will post on schedule, then feed to twitter & linked in

You can set up a series of short articles and a free report:
1. How to stop foreclosure to get short sale dels
2. How to sell fast, for just about any kind of seller
3. How to get started as an investor, to build your buyer's list.
4. How to be a private lender
5. How assignments and double closings works - for a title company marketing
6. How insurance works for rental and vacant properties

Hope these ideas help you in your marketing, and think outside of the box to fit your business.

Putting The "Service" Back In "Customer Service"

2010-04-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Posted by Sean Cohen
The future of customer service is here. Technology has made seeking out support faster and easier than ever. But, has your digital age company sacrificed true service in the name of automation?
Today, finding customer support is as simple as writing an e-mail or picking up the phone. But, even though you’re not face-to-face with your customers, you still leave a lasting impression. Do you come across as caring and competent, or menacing and mechanical?
Offering stand-out service on the Internet isn’t as hard as it is rare. Take these simple steps towards old-style service in the digital age:

Give Each Customer a Personal Response

When a customer sits down to e-mail your company, it’s because he needs help. He chooses e-mail because it’s quick, but his request still warrants a satisfying and personal response! Companies eager to save time and money often take automation too far in their customer support. Each customer has a unique question, and deserves a unique answer. Even if you save time by copying and pasting stock replies, change the opening and closing to make the message sound less robotic.

Be Clear, But Sincere

Offer Live Customer Support

help

Make Sure Your Support Reps Have All The Answers

The presence of phone support will do no good if your staff doesn’t know your product! Customer support reps should be warm and friendly, and willing to help with any aspect of your product. What a good feeling it is to talk to someone who feels confident in his product. It’s even better if he’s knowledgeable enough to solve your problem without transferring you all around the company!

Provide Stand-Out Service; Gain Lifelong Customers

every

http://www.mareinet.com/

New Lead Paint Regulations that started April 22nd.

2010-04-25T19:17:00.001-07:00

Lead Safe Work Practices

MAREI in the News

Effective April of 2010 (and earlier in some State), the EPA final Rule, referred to as the “RRP Rule” (Renovation, Remodeling and Painting Rule), will take effect. One of the many requirements of this new EPA Federal Regulation is that construction related activity persons (Carpenters, Roofers, Painters, Remodelers, Renovators, HVAC Persons, Electricians, Plumbers, Carpet Installers, etc) who will impact 6 square feet or more in total (some States are using 2 square feet) of any and all surface coatings (paint, stain, varnish, shellac, polyurethane, epoxy, sealers, etc) or lead-contaminating materials in a pre-1978 structure, as well as all commercial Daycare centers and Kindergarten facilities, will have to receive the mandated Lead-Safe Work Practices (LSWP) training from an approved Professional Training Provider.

State or EPA certification /licensure will be required for construction related activity persons (Contractors) and those persons must receive training from an approved Professional Training Provider. When the new RRP Rule takes effect on April 22, 2010, Contractors will have to take the mandated training from a Professional Training Provider that has been accredited by tht EPA or in the specific State in which the Contractors want to provide services.

Resources

Replay March 2010 Meeting - Down load MP3
Brochure on RRP from Kansas Healthy Homes
Information for Property Owners of Rental Housing,
Information for Property Owners of Rental Housing,
Information for Contractors
Information for Realtors and Property Management Firms
Read about lead-hazard information for renovation, repair and painting activities in the EPA lead hazard information pamphlet Renovate Right: Important Lead Hazard Information for Families, Child Care Providers, and Schools (PDF) (20 pp, 3.3MB) | en español (PDF) (20 pp, 3.2MB)
Read about lead-safe work practices for contractors in the EPA pamphlet Contractors: Lead Safety During Renovation (PDF) color, in English (2 pp, 826K) | color, en español (PDF) (2 pp, 334K) | HTML version | Other formats

Web Sites for Real Estate Investors

2010-04-25T18:45:00.000-07:00

When Than Merrill was in Kansas City in March to talk about Marketing and Wholesaling real estate, he talked about a lot of tools to help real estate investors work smarter, not harder.

One must have tool he talked about was a web site.

We have several options from free to for a fee.

You can do a lot of stuff yourself using wordpress.com or google sites.

Just be sure to have a message that is targeted to your audience and then give away something like a free report in exchange for name and email address:

We have found a great tool to add forms to your site:

http://www.emailmeform.com/ allows you to create a form to collect information and have it send an email to where ever you want and redirect the viewer to another page with the free report.

Now you can use the free sites to create your own web site or you could turn to a premade web site that has templates that are fully customizable, property marketing, email follow up, auto responders.

One web site that Than Merrill recommended and that we have used in the past with great satisfaction is
INetUSA They have prices from $24.95 a month to about $75 a month depending on the different services you access. And if you visit Than's CT Homes web site, you will see he is currently using .INetUSA

It also has one other option, you can "turn on" google ads fairly easily and if you get any amount of traffic to your web site, you may be able to collect enough clicks on the google ads each month to pay for the web site.

Confirmed Opt-in Myths Exposed

2010-04-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Posted by Sean Cohen
Confirmed opt-in as defined by SpamHaus, who is one of the most respected anti spam organizations in the world:

Known as “COI” in the legitimate bulk email industry, also known as “Confirmed Opt-in”, “Verified Opt-in” or sometimes “Double Opt-in”.
With Closed-Loop Opt-in the Recipient has verifiably confirmed permission for the address to be included on the specific mailing list, by confirming (responding to) the list subscription request verification. This is the standard practice for all responsible Internet mailing lists, it ensures users are properly subscribed, from a working address, and with the address owner’s consent.
In the event of “spam” accusation:
The Bulk Email Sender is fully and legally protected because the reply to the Subscription Confirmation Request received back from the recipient proves that the recipient did in fact opt-in and grant verifiable consent for the mailings.
Source:Spamhaus Website

Numerous myths have circulated regarding confirmed opt-in and its effects. There are many misconceptions out there, and we’d like to help clear those up.

Myth 1: My List Size Will Decrease Because Of Confirmed Opt-In.

Some addresses entered into your form will not confirm — that much is true. The percentage of addresses that don’t confirm depends on many factors, including the quality of your traffic and how effective your thank-you page, confirmation message and incentive for confirming are.
Percentages aside, there are compelling reasons that having fewer addresses on your list is a good thing.

Sometimes Less is Better

I know. You may be asking, “How can a decreased list size be a good thing?” Well, let’s consider:

5-20% of all web form submissions are undeliverable right off the bat.

This means that of your total list size you can cut that by 5-20% because these email addresses are simply dead. Remember these are not temporary undeliverable but permanent dead addresses.
Now, add on the bogus and malicious sign ups that undoubtedly will happen. For example, someone comes to your website and decides to put in bob@aol.com. Well, bob@aol.com was once a real email address and because you were not using confirmed opt-in you are now classified as an unintentional spammer.

A recent study by MarketingSherpa and KnowledgeStorm found that only 68% of users always enter a valid email address.

So, nearly a third of respondents knowingly enter bogus email addresses.
- Source

ISPs do not differentiate between unintentional spammers or actual spammers. The potential for you to be blocked or even worse, blacklisted, remains the same.

Less Can Be More Too
A study done by AWeber shows that using confirmed opt-in also reduces unsubscribes and complaints. This means that you keep more of your subscribers (the ones that actually want your email).
Read more about that here.

Myth 2: My Mailing List Is Different! I Don’t Need Confirmed Opt-In.

Let’s be clear, confirmed opt-in is for all businesses, plain and simple. Anyone collecting subscribers and in turn sending email needs to confirm that those people intended to sign up to your mailing list and want to receive your email.
In this age of email regulations and massive volumes of spam email, deliverability can be an issue. Why increase your chances of not getting delivered by putting yourself at risk.

Myth 3: No One Else Uses Confirmed Opt-In. Why Should I?

This is simply not accurate. Our own campaigns here at AWeber use confirmed opt-in for all email marketing activities. When someone signs up for a Test Drive of AWeber, they must confirm.
After setting up an account, if they want to receive our customer training email course, they must confirm. The same goes for our affiliates and their email training. Even when someone subscribes to our blog, they must confirm.

Ok, but AWeber must practice what they preach, who else?

If you want to sign up for the mailing lists of these organizations you will need to first confirm:

CNN	Microsoft
Oprah, CNet	bellagio.com
IRS.gov	weather.com
ign.com	maxim.com
tgifridays.com	olivegarden.com
pbs.org	visitpa.com
Whitehouse.gov

The list goes on and onâ€¦

Myth 4: Subscribers In My Market Don’t Know How To Confirm.

The simple solution is to tell them. The first page after someone fills in an opt-in form, commonly called a “thank you page” should tell the visitor exactly what to do next. Often this is done most effectively with a picture showing visitors what the confirmation email will look like.
An excellent example is our test drive sign up video on the thank you page showing visitors what to do.

One variation of this myth is:

“Subscribers in my market don’t know how to click an email link.”

Honestly, if they can’t click a link then you probably should be marketing your business offline. If someone can find your website online I guarantee they can click a link.

Myth 5: My Sales Will Decrease Because Of Confirmed Opt-In.

Have you tested this assumption? The answer is always, “No, but I just assume” or “No, my colleague told me it would hurt sales”.
It’s best not to assume anything, but rather to seek out your own answers by testing and observing your own campaigns. We have found from our own testing that while the raw number of email addresses on our list declined when we switched to confirmed opt-in, sales did not.
This means that the people who did confirm were the ones that truly wanted the information that they had to offer and the ones that didn’t were not left to bloat the mailing list.

Grow Your Business Without Risk

Will your results be exactly the same as AWeber or even anyone else? This can only be determined by proper testing and measuring.
Use confirmed opt-in as an opportunity to make sure that your lists are 100% clean and that you know without a doubt that 100% of the people receiving your mail have specifically requested it themselves.
Spend your time and energy building your business with subscribers who want to hear from you rather than dealing with issues created by people who don’t want to hear from you.

Free Video from Our Confirmed Opt-in Seminar

Ready to optimize your Confirmed Opt-In process?
Join our Education Team for a recording of a recent live seminar for a demonstration of what you need to know to maximize the number of responsive subscribers on your list.
Watch the Confirmed Opt-in Seminar Video

Don't miss the next post in our series, Putting The "Service" Back In "Customer Service" by Sean Cohen

The future of customer service is here. Technology has made seeking out support faster and easier than ever! But, has your digital age company sacrificed true service in the name of automation?

Be sure to subscribe to our blog on the right ----------------------->

Email Newsletter Open Rates

2010-04-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

Posted by Justin Premick

Multiply Profits AND Automate Your Business

AWeber's email marketing software makes it easy.

Learn how they can do it for you, too.

Think you know the best day and time to send your email newsletter?

Ever wonder if your fellow email marketers are all sending at the same time you do?
Convinced your open rate is too low (or amazingly high)?
Some recent statistics pulled from all AWeber users may help you answer these questions:

What Kind of Open Rates Are People Getting?

If you’re sending HTML emails, you probably use your open rate to help gauge your success.
Even though it’s not a perfect measure of whether people are actually opening and reading your emails, it’s useful as a relative measure:

If it goes up over a short period of time, more people are probably reading

If it falls over a short period of time, it’s almost certain fewer people are reading.

Plus, all other things being equal, it can give you some motivation (if your open rates are lower than other senders’) or satisfaction (if your rates are higher).
So, here goes…

Average Open Rate Last Month: 13.6%

When Is/Was The Best Day To Send?

You’ll often hear (at least, I often hear) that Tuesday is the optimal day to send, because on Monday people are catching up from the weekend, and that on Tuesday morning you’ll have their undivided attention before they jump into their work for the upcoming week.
Do the numbers back up that theory? Let’s see.
The breakdown of open rates by day of the week:

Monday

13.67%

Tuesday

13.21%

Wednesday

14.07%

Thursday

14.52%

Friday

13.25%

Saturday

12.09%

Sunday

13.26%

Last month, Tuesday was actually the second-worst day to send, at least if you’re measuring by open rates.
(While we’re breaking assumptions, I should point out this, too: the hour of the day that got the best open rate was not 8-9AM, or 9-10AM, but in fact 2-3PM Eastern Time — email newsletters sent during that hour last month enjoyed a 19.1% open rate.)

Does This Mean I Should Switch My Campaigns To Thursdays?

In a word: No.

Don’t break with your readers’ expectations just to try to follow the latest day of the week stats. You might actually reduce your open rate by doing so.

In both March and February, Thursday newsletters got the 3rd-worst opens vs. the rest of the week.
I hesitated a little to publish these stats, because I’m concerned that people might flock to sending their newsletters at the day or time that happened to get the best results lately.
Please, don’t drastically change your sending times/days just because you see that the average last month, or any month, happened to be higher on a different day or time.
Yes, you might eventually be able to shift your sending schedule, or split test some broadcasts, but if you up and move everything, you may throw off subscribers who are used to hearing from you at the usual time.

“It’s So Busy, Nobody Goes There Anymore”

To get at the other reason for not shifting your sending based on these stats, let’s paraphrase Yogi Berra (see above).
If everyone switches their sending schedule to send on say, Thursday, then recipients will start getting a ton of email that day, and start paying less attention to each individual email.
One possible reason for Thursday’s success last month may be that it wasn’t as popular as say, Tuesday or Wednesday for sending email:

Percentage of Newsletters Sent by Day

Monday

16.0%

Tuesday

17.7%

Wednesday

16.9%

Thursday

16.6%

Friday

15.2%

Saturday

8.8%

Sunday

8.8%

Those higher-volume days mean more emails in readers’ inboxes, which might contribute to reduced open rates. Following that reasoning, some people may look at the low weekend volume (more email newsletters were sent on Tuesdays than on Saturdays and Sundays combined) and see an opportunity to get their audiences’ undivided attention.
My main point in showing these is to point out that our assumptions about what works are often quite wrong, and that you ultimately have to test for yourself to see what best suits your audience.

Some Inspiration… And Some Help

Are you getting better open rates than this?
If so, GREAT! Give yourself a pat on the back…
…but don’t get complacent. Open rates aren’t the be-all, end-all of email metrics. They don’t guarantee that people are reading your emails, only that they have images turned on and that they probably saw your email for at least a moment.
Plus, there’s always room for improvement, right?
Some ideas that can help you raise your open rates:

Ask people to add you to their address books. Some email programs will display images from senders who are in the recipient’s contact list.

If you are putting pictures in your emails, use the ALT text for those images to pique readers’ interest in what the picture is, so that they enable images. Or, just directly ask readers to turn on images!

Add a picture of yourself to your emails, near/next to your signature. People like seeing your smiling face, and if they see it in one of your emails, they may be more likely to turn on images to see it again later.

------------------------------
Don't miss out on any of our articles on email marketing for our real estate investors in Kansas City and across the country, be sure to subscribe to the right of this post. Our article next week will talk about Confirmed Opt-in Myths - do you know what confirmed opt it is? When you subscibe to an email newsletter and it then sends you a confirmation to make sure you have opted in. This is the scoop that you need to know - will be posted next week.

April Meeting - Real Estate Investing for the Regular Guy

2010-04-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

If you sincerely want to make more money in a slow real estate market, this could be one of the most important meetings you will attend this year!

Here's why:

Our speaker is a Kansas City man who routinely makes 40%, 60% and more in real estate profits for himself and a select group of private investors who literally fly in from around the country to invest with him.

He's perfected a simple, but amazingly profitable turnkey system for creating real estate wealth on demand. He's so good, he's been written up in local newspapers and featured in a national magazine. But he's not one of those late-night guru types. He's an average guy making above average profits in real estate.

Meet Dan Reedy, the man one magazine calls the 'King of Kansas City Cash Flow Real Estate'

What makes Dan Reedy, co-founder of the Missouri Real Estate Exchange, so worthy of this distinction by a national magazine?

Simply put, he's a 'real deal' investor who weathered the ups and downs of a slow real estate market to bank nearly 1,000 transactions in the past 5 years - generating millions of dollars in turnkey real estate wealth. Its no wonder smart investors line up to invest with him... and why we asked him to share how Regular Guys and Gals at MAREI can get started investing, just like he does.

Meeting
Tuesday April 13th
6pm check in
6pm networking
6pm vendor hall with 5 vendors
7:14 Announcements
7:30 Presentation

Cost is $25 at the door - No charge for MAREI members and pre-register online now for discount.

April Investment News is posted

2010-04-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

April Newsletter is Posted

Table of Contents

2 Member Profile: John & Donna MacNeil

6 The Kansas City Gold Rush

7 April General Meeting: Real Estate Investing for the Regular Guy

8 Open House Preparation: National Open House

10 Rehabbing: What to look for in a house

12 Marketing: The do’s and don’ts for your real estate marketing

14 Rentals: Applicant References

Advertisers

2 Yellow Letter.com*

5 Sherwin Williams**

7 MAREI General Meeting

9 Realty Resource of KC

11 Home Depot* **

11 T.O.T.L. Renovations*

13 kcmoHomeBuyer*

15 Accurate Title*

16 Become an Agent

Network Nationwide

2010-04-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

Social Networking

We are all on Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, and others and we should be. But these are out there for all kinds of people. There have been several private social networking sites set up for the real estate investor community where you could network with all kinds of people and share deals, but many of these want $39.95 a month.

Now there is a totally free social networking site just for real estate investors and you should check it out. It has several uses.

1. Posting your profile and networking with others

2. Sharing Ideas

3. Marketing your wholesale properties

4. Finding wholesale deals.

So check it out now - go to www.realtyjoin.com/marei right now to sign up.

1st Steps:

1. Create your profile
2. Browse around and see what other people's profiles look like

3. Edit your profile

4. Join some groups

5. Invite a friend

While you are there look up Kansas City Real Estate Investors and join us in talking about Kansas City real estate.

www.realtyjoin.com/marei

Now for those of you who are working to increase your google rankings you may find that links back to your web site from posts on this new site may help you. Try it out.

New Reality TV Show

2010-04-08T08:21:00.000-07:00

PROJECT ENGAGE

OVERVIEW

Now more than ever, people of all ages are concerned about making the right decisions to protect their retirement and provide for their children’s future. And…never before have people been more interested in taking active control of their own investing.

Sponsored by a large financial institution and distributed by MSN.com to an audience of millions, “Project Engage” is a new reality web series that is focused on helping real-life investors representing a broad cross section of American life with how to gain the skills necessary to become more actively involved in
their investment decisions. The goal of this series is also to facilitate a dialogue about common financial issues that a wide range of individuals deal with but rarely discuss openly.

Our investors might differ in their amount of investable assets, their life stage or their financial goals, but each of our cast members will have one thing in common, the desire to take more control of their investment decisions. To help achieve this goal, we’re bringing together an elite team of financial advisors and specialists to assist our investors in honing their money management skills in order to strengthen their portfolios and
eventually, transform their lives.

If you or someone you know is interested in receiving the tools to become a more actively engaged investor, than this could be your once in a lifetime opportunity. If you’re ready to get more involved in planning for your financial future, please contact our Coordinating Producer, Bryce Gipson at Generate LA at 310-
255-0460. Bryce is also available via email at
brycegp@gmail.com.

When is a real estate auction called for? - thanks to Robert Mayo for the Article

2010-04-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

Most properties are salable by auction. All types of real estate, including residential property (e.g., town homes, condominiums, cooperative apartments and single-family homes), commercial and industrial property, vacant land and even boat slips are sold at auction. Not all property, however, is suited for auction. If a property will only appeal to a narrow market, auction may not be the most effective marketing method.

Ever wonder how you can tell if a property is well suited to auction? Think of your listing, then take the Two-Thirds Rule test!

One method to determine if auction is the best marketing strategy is the Two-Thirds Rule. This involves analysis of the market, property and seller situation. Generally, if two of the three parts (market, seller, property) lean towards auction, then auction should be offered to the seller as a sales option.

Market (Buyers) -- A good auction situation is one where the market is:

• A changing market

• A dull market; too much product but buyer interest is expressed

• Not enough of the property type (unique, lake front, etc.)

• An emerging market -- new developments could kick off a sales program, once some of the properties were auctioned

• A seller's market where there is known high demand and a lot of competition can take place

Seller -- A good auction situation is one where the seller:

• Needs immediate cash

• Has a partnership or marriage break-up

• Is moving out of the state

• Wants to liquidate an estate

• Is retiring

• Is an auction-minded seller

• Has a listing that is about to expire

• Has already purchased another house

• Knows the auction will bring a fair market price

• Has financial problems

• Has high carrying costs on the property

Property -- A good auction property is one that:

• Has a lot of equity (25 percent or more)

• Is unique -- there is enough buyer/market interest to encourage competition (unique properties are difficult to appraise)

• Has a lot of high carrying costs for the owner

• Is vacant -- vacant properties may encourage vandalism

• Is difficult to appraise

If you would like additional information regarding real estate auctions, or how you can keep your listing and have an auction without being an auctioneer, please give me a call at 816-361-2600.

Thank you,

Robert Mayo - CAI, AARE, ATS, GPPA-D

2007-08 Kansas State Champion Auctioneer

Auctioneer - Real Estate Broker - Asset Appraiser

Mayo Auction & Realty

8253 Wornall Road

Kansas City, MO 64114

robert@auctionbymayo.com

www.auctionbymayo.com

816-361-2600 - MO

913-390-9393 - KS

816-699-9883 - Cell

Email Deliverability Tips

2010-04-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

Can You Have More Sales, Too?

Helping over 75,000 businesses like yours raise profits and build customer relationships using AWeber's opt-in email marketing software for over 10 years.

Take a Free Test Drive today!

Posted by Tom Kulzer (AWeber CEO)

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL: Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

Words/phrases: Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images: Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments: With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

-------------------

So be smart in your email marketing as a real estate investor, a mortgage broker, a realtor, a contractor, title company or anyone else out there trying to build and maintain your business. Don't miss our next email in this series Email Newsletter Open Rates to be posted next week.

Email Marketing

2010-04-05T18:44:00.000-07:00

As real estate investors, realtors, mortgage lenders, contractors or just about any business out there in the Kansas City Market from Liberty to Spring Hill and Grain Valley to DeSoto or anywhere in the country for that matter, we will be utilizing Email Marketing. And if you do your job right you will be emailing to more than just 10 or 12 people. You will be working to build an list of people who receive your emails in the 100's of email addresses.

Once you are sending out emails to more than 10 people you start hitting snags in remembering to use Blind Carbon Copy, getting your email past spam filters, being able to just click one send button and send out more than 50 emails at once. To do all of this, you need some sort of email marketing service provider.

Three email service providers you should check out are:

aweber

constant contact

infusion crm

All 3 have templates, can send out 100's of emails at once, have tools you can embed in your web sites to collect emails automatically for your newsletter, and I think have free trials.

And be sure to stay tuned because over the next few weeks we will be sharing a few articles to help you understand how to use email marketing:

Email Deliverability Tips
Email Newsletter Open Rates
Confirmed Opt-in Myths Exposed
Putting the "Service" Back in "Custmer Service
Spam: Where it Came From, and How to Escape It
Meat and Potatoes for your Affiliate Diet
Do Your Potential Customers Forget About You?
Holiday Action Saves a Sour Shopping Season (yep, not quite Christmas, but we need to know early)

And to save you time, we are not going to spread these out over so many months that you forget you were coming back to read our posts, we should have one article a week starting this week. Be sure to subscribe to our blog at the right so you don't miss an article. Once they are all posted, we will try to come back and link this article to all the other posts.

Success Tips for Real Estate Investors

2010-03-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

By: Than Merrill

At many of my real estate seminars I am often asked the question “what does it take to become a successful real estate investor?” More specifically what are the intangibles that separate successful real estate investors from their less successful counterpart’s? If I had to boil it down to three components it would be knowledge, systems, and action.

Knowledge

Knowledge is power. This statement is paramount in its application to real estate investing. In the real estate game, the most knowledgeable players are always the most successful. (Why do you think Alex Trebek has half of the universe on a 6 month option?) Knowledgeable investors thrive on information and they are consistently seeking and finding resources to improve their knowledge base. The information they seek is specialized knowledge, the finer details you might say, within the niche in which they operate. If you do not continue to acquire knowledge at a rapid pace, you will fall behind the curve. To stay on the cutting edge in any field you must continually seek new information. With the ever changing real estate market, those who are educated will always be in a better position to succeed.

Business Systems

Systems run businesses. When you create a solid system and implement that system in your business, you are setting up the infrastructure to be successful. Truly efficient companies have detailed systems in place. This allows them to insert new people at any time into any position and not skip a beat. By doing this, you can remove yourself from certain responsibilities as well as replace employees whenever the need to do so arises. This allows you to run your business rather than have your business run you. If you are not able to create an effective system, you will always be a prisoner within your own business.

Business Systems allow you to duplicate your business in other markets. All successful franchise operations have detailed business systems that allow them to efficiently and effectively replicate their businesses at new locations. Whether your plan is to open one store or a hundred stores, a solid business system will make this process possible.

Action

Without action, knowledge and business systems will not accomplish anything. You can go out and acquire all the knowledge you wish and create an excellent business system along with that knowledge, but if you do not take action and implement your ideas, they are wasted. This is the step that many people will never accomplish. Action separates those who do from those who only dream of doing. Many people are afraid to take action and as a result never become successful. While taking action is a risk, through education and system development you can minimize that risk. Successful business owners take action everyday and as a result expose themselves to risk and failure. This is inherent in any business, including real estate. With great risk come great rewards.

So take Action TODAY, register for our workshop Saturday March 27th at JCCC in Overland Park where you will get a ton of KNOWLEDGE and my tips on BUSINESS SYSTEMS. Go to http://www.mareinet.com/ to register right now!

Direct Link Only 50 Seats Left and they are going fast!

Finding Real Estate Deals – The Power of Network Marketing

2010-03-19T13:21:00.000-07:00

By: Than Merrill

Every successful investor has a passion for their business and can’t wait to talk to people about it. However, there has to be a system to your efforts in order to maximize positive response. So what is network marketing, anyway? Network marketing is establishing business relationships for purposes beyond the reason of the initial contact. These relationships can lead to more business either directly or indirectly through a referral. Networking is a very proactive form of marketing. It takes a daily commitment to establish and keep relationships alive. It’s not any different from your personal life. You must continually work on relationships in order to make them successful. The biggest mistake that investors make is focusing on themselves and their own needs first, but if you remember that HELPING SOMEONE ELSE IS THE SUREST PATH TO HELPING YOURSELF, you are bound to get lots of benefits from networking with various groups of people.

Finding Real Estate Deals Tip #1: Understanding why investors need to network market

Networking is one of the most essential parts of a well-crafted marketing campaign. The reason networking can be such an effective avenue is because people you deal with can associate the business with a face and a personality. This is where your individual charisma makes all the difference in the world. People like to work with individuals they know and like. Therefore, let your best qualities shine and establish a level of trust. The primary way to accomplish this is by showing sincere interest in people - who they are, and what they do. The overall goal of networking is to promote the business and to educate the widest possible audience on services offered by your company. Broader exposure often leads to new opportunities, prospective clients and new ideas and there’s no better way to achieve this goal than through networking.

Networking opportunities are truly endless and only limited by your imagination and the willingness to interact with people around you. There is virtually no one you come in contact with that you shouldn’t make aware of what you do and what services you have to offer. One of the great aspects about real estate investing is that it naturally relates across all types of social, economic and professional backgrounds. Shelter is one of the core human needs, so you should have no trouble initiating a conversation about real estate and finding a common ground for a conversation. Whether it’s a prospective home buyer, seller, renter, real estate investor, or a private lender, you should let them all know what business you are in and how you may be of service to them. All these contacts are a valuable asset to your business, and if you take advantage of opportunities that present themselves from networking, they can also become a significant source of revenue for your business. You will find that in most instances you are offering a service which is sought after among the people in your close social circles.

Finding Real Estate Deals Tip #2: The best places to start networking

The first place to start networking is your local Real Estate Investors Association. At your local REIA you will find dozens if not hundreds of like minded investors all with different experience levels. This is your market whether you are looking to buy or sell. We have wholesaled dozens of properties to people we met at our local REIA in Connecticut. Likewise, we have bought dozens of properties from people we have met at the monthly meetings.

Another good place to network is your local homebuilders association and apartment owners association. The homebuilders association is a different type of association whose membership usually consists of builders and suppliers. These relationships will be very valuable in case you get into land development or serious remodeling work. Local landlord associations can also be very valuable and a great source of wholesale buyers for your multi-unit properties.

There are also events specifically organized for purposes of networking. They are an excellent avenue of meeting other professionals that work in real estate and non real estate related fields. It’s a very efficient way of establishing new relationships, because everyone has the same agenda, which is to make most possible contacts that can benefit their business. It’s like going to a singles bar, where everyone is there to mingle. This eliminates any awkwardness about getting right down to business. You will meet many people who will be valuable assets to your marketing campaigns. At various networking events, We have met ad agency reps, media buyers, printers, and a lot of private lenders.

Finding Real Estate Deals Tip #3: How to network effectively

Don’t skip this portion of the course thinking it is not important and that you already know how to meet people and network effectively, but this isn’t an area you want to overlook. Becoming a charismatic person that people like and want to do business with is not easy for everyone. It’s something that takes effort and practice.

Building rapport quickly is something you must do when you are networking. First, find out as much about the other person as you can and let them do most of the initial talking. Next, ask them open ended questions to get them talking. People love to talk about themselves. It’s funny, but the more you listen, the more people will like and respect you. After finding out as much as possible about them, you will usually give them a little 2-3 minute talk about your business and how it can be of service to them. People always want to know how you can help them so let them know. If you take initiative and introduce them to someone they would like to know or you help them in some way they will forever be grateful to you. Whenever you take time to help a new investor, you’ll find that the generosity will be returned to be many times over in deals they will bring to you.

Another important thing to remember is to not try and network with the whole room. When you attend a networking event you should try to connect with only 3 or 4 new people and find a reason for following up with them. It’s the follow-up component that usually leads to opportunities for you as a real estate investor.

One of the best things you can do is read “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. This is the best book you can read on influencing others through the power of effective communication.

Find out more about networking to find deals and take time to nework at the wholesaling workshop on Saturday March 27th being presented by Than Merrill and Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors. Details online at http://www.mareinet.com/. (Find out how you can attend for FREE)

Wholesaling Real Estate

2010-03-19T11:58:00.000-07:00

By: Than Merrill
click here for details.

There are many different niches of real estate investors specialize in. Some investors prefer rehabbing, others choose to lease option, and others only buy and hold. All niches can be extremely profitable if you educate yourself and purchase the property below market value. However, in my opinion wholesaling is where all investors should start out. (In fact, you will be deemed clinically crazy if you start out in any other niche.) In this series of articles I will discuss the benefits of operating as a wholesaler.

Wholesaling Produces Quick Cash

One of the great things about wholesaling properties is the deals can happen relatively quickly in contrast to other value added exit strategies like rehab projects and other larger developments. Anytime you get involved in developing or redeveloping properties, the timelines are much longer, and the checks can be far and few between. Wholesaling, on the other hand, generally produces revenue within five weeks or less depending on the magnitude of the transaction. The average time your wholesale deals will take from start to finish is about five weeks to complete. That includes every aspect of the deal from the time you put the property under contract until the time you are cashed out by your ultimate buyer. There have been deals Paul and I have been in and out of in a week, but these are the exception rather than the norm. Either way, you will not find any other niche of real estate with timelines this short.

Wholesalers Have Very Little to No Risk

Real estate investing always involves some level of risk. Your job as an investor is to always understand those risks and try and minimize them in any way you can. Wholesaling, on average, is not nearly as risky as some of the other niches of real estate. This is one of the main reasons I encourage most new investors to start out wholesaling properties. As a wholesaler you can eliminate 99% percent of the risk if you educate yourself properly. In fact, if you know how to fill out a purchase and sale agreement correctly, you should be able to structure deals with virtually no risk at all. 90% of the properties I put under contract have a deposit of less than $500 dollars and an inspection clause which would keeps my deposit safe if I am not able to find a buyer for more than I have agreed to pay. Often these clauses are written in the form of an inspection contingency. Many of the contracts I sign with sellers give me an inspection period up until the day of the closing. This is a very one sided contract, however we as investors should never be afraid to protect ourselves in every way possible.

In summary, for $500 dollars or less I can control a property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for a certain period of time. I will have the ability to sell the property for more and collect the spread with virtually nothing on the line. Where else can you earn tens of thousands of dollars with little to no risk what-so-ever? Nowhere! The only risk you have as a knowledgeable wholesaler is your time.

Wholesaling Has Unlimited Income Potential

Wholesaling is the perennial wealth builder, and the transition from working a job for pennies, to achieving unlimited wealth through real estate is an obtainable goal and increasingly well documented. There is no secret that a lot of people choose to go into real estate because of the endless opportunities for enormous wealth. I know plenty of wholesalers who made over $200,000 in their very first year working the business with no prior real estate experience at all. I also know plenty of wholesalers who make over a million dollars a year every year they remain in the business.

Want to learn more, get the entire story on the Dan Reedy Radio show Saturday March 20th at 9 am on 1510 AM in the Kansas City Market and then again on Saturday March 27th at Than's all day Workshop at Johnson County Community College. Workshop is $20 at the door, but you can preregister for $10. If you want to go for FREE, click here for details.

Marketing: The Foundation of Your Real Estate Business

2010-03-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

By: Than Merrill

At my real estate seminars I am often asked by my students what area of the business they should focus on first. I can relate to their concerns because I know how much there is to learn when you are building a real estate investment business. Unfortunately, some investors flounder the first couple of years in the business because they try to learn a little bit of everything without mastering anything. As a speaker and educator, I think the opposite approach is better. Instead of trying to dabble in every niche, I think you should spend the majority of your time studying the areas of the business that generate revenue NOW! You can learn the rest of the business as you go along, but what is important now is to get your phone ringing off the hook. You are looking for motivated sellers willing to sell you their properties at 50 to 65 cents on the dollar. In order to do this you must become a Master Marketer!

Your knowledge of marketing will be the foundation from which your business is built. Marketing is what makes the phone ring and generates leads. Leads are the lifeblood of your business. They are the oxygen your business breathes. The more leads you have the more money you will make. So how do you become a better marketer? First, you must understand the principals all successful marketers live by.

Real Estate Marketing Principal #1: Define Your Target Market

You must understand that only 5% of all sellers are truly motivated and will be willing to sell their property at a significant discount. Therefore, you will want to gear your marketing efforts towards people who have a reason to sell their property under market value. There are many reasons why someone would want to sell their property at a discount. Death, divorce, bankruptcy, and foreclosure are just a few of the many examples of why someone would want to get rid of a property quickly. You can find many of these lists through the public records with a little effort. Once your target market is located, you must then reach out to these people through your marketing efforts.

Real Estate Marketing Principal #2: Create a Compelling Message

Once you have narrowed down your target market you then must compel the prospect to take action. Distressed property owners are by nature procrastinators and thus unlikely to respond to a generic offer. Therefore, you must create an irresistible offer so compelling it gets the prospect off the couch and over to the phone. The message must strike an emotional chord within the prospect if it is going to be effective.

Real Estate Marketing Principal #3: Create Systems for Outsourcing and Deliver

Most prospects don’t respond to your marketing efforts until they have seen your message at least seven times. Successful marketers realize they need a system to accomplish this. It is virtually impossible for any investor to fulfill all of their marketing campaigns by themselves. Without systems you will continually be short on time and short on quality leads.

If you ever have the pleasure of visiting my office you will see that we have a system for every one of our marketing campaigns. For example, we mail to homeowners in bankruptcy every Monday. Every week my marketing assistant grabs the new list off the internet. She then downloads the names into our database for tracking purposes before emailing the list off to an intern. The intern then uses the pre-designed letters and postcards on file to fulfill the mailing. The mailings are then organized and mailed out on Tuesday. The beauty of the system is that I have nothing to do with the process and all I have to do is pick through the deals when they come in.

It is your job as the business owner to understand the importance of using systems that can be outsourced to other people. Otherwise, you will forever be stuck in your business and will never free yourself from the drudgery of WORK.

Real Estate Marketing Principal #4: Test and Track

One of the most common problems real estate investors make is not testing and tracking their marketing. When it comes to marketing and running a business the devil is in the details. Marketers are usually ultra-creative people and often times allergic to the bottom line. However, there is nothing more important when it comes to building a business. Your goal as a marketer is to have a system to concisely test and track your marketing and understand the numbers. Measurement eliminates waste and tracking your results will help you build a profitable real estate investment company.

I sit down every month and review my marketing expenditures. I look at how much was spent, how many leads came in, and which campaigns produced actual deals. I then make decisions for the next month shifting money from one marketing campaign to another so as to maximize the return on my investment. If you don’t have a tool for testing and tracking your marketing then precious dollars will slip through the cracks. I created a tool to track my marketing and it is highly effective and has literally saved me thousands of dollars over the years. To find more wealth building articles like this one click here

Than Merrill, CEO of FortuneBuilders, INC and CT Homes, LLC is currently a full time real estate investor, speaker, and one of the most successful investors in the nation. He is also the star of A&E’s hit TV show “Flip this House.” In the past few years his company has bought and sold over 260 properties across the nation. Than’s clients are some of the most successful investors around the country as a result of the cutting edge marketing and wholesaling systems he has developed.

Than is a graduate of Yale University and he currently resides in New Haven, CT. After college, he played in the NFL with the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before moving on to real estate development. To learn this week (ok on March 27th) from Than Personally right here in the Kansas City Metro area, be sure to attend the Continuing Education Course from Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors at Johnson County Community College. Cost at the door is only $20, Pre-Register on our Web site for $10, Click here to find out how to attend for FREE.

Real Estate Investing Basics – Where Should I Begin?

2010-03-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

An article with Tips on Real Estate Investing Basics

By: Than Merrill

At my real estate seminars I am often asked by my students what area of the business they should study first. With so much to learn and so many different niches it can sometimes seem overwhelming for many new investors. I see a lot of investors flounder the first couple years because they don’t know where to spend their time. I started buying rental properties and quickly learned this was not the niche to begin with. Likewise, I spent a lot of time studying areas of the business which were meant for year three and four of my development. I strongly urge my students and most investors to start out wholesaling and rehabbing until you build up significant capital reserves. However, whatever your niche of choice is you must understand and spend significant time studying how to find deals. In fact, FINDING DEALS SIGNIFICANTLY BELOW MARKET VALUE is your number one job. In order to do this you must begin to think of yourself as a marketer first and real estate investor second. So congratulations you are NOW A MASTER MARKETER not a real estate investor.

Real Estate Investing Basics Tip #1 – The Best Investors Understand Marketing

Marketing is the first area of the business you should study as a beginning real estate investor. Marketing is what makes the phone ring and generates leads. Leads are the lifeblood of your business. They are the oxygen your business breaths. The more leads you have the more money you will make. If you don’t have leads, then you won’t buy any properties. If you don’t buy any properties then you can’t make any money. If you can’t make any money then you can’t build a business. As a result you should spend the majority of your time figuring out how to get your phone to ring with motivated sellers. (The same thing can be said for dating!)

Successful marketing is an art, and those who understand marketing set themselves apart from other investors. There must be a mindset shift as an investor. You are not in the business of flipping homes. You are in the business of generating leads from people who want to sell their home under market value. If you can do this you will control the market and you will figure out the rest of the business very quickly. If you have a potential $80,000.00 dollar pay day on the other end of the phone believe me you learn quickly. (Ask me how I know this…)

There are many different forms of marketing you can utilize to get your phone ringing. Direct mail, billboards, TV, cold calling, and networking are all marketing strategies you can use to find deals. The key is to narrow down your market and find your target, develop a compelling message with an irresistible offer, and consistently touch these people with multiple marketing mediums. Then you will want to develop marketing systems so you can repeat this process over and over again.

Real Estate Investing Basics Tip #2 – Wholesale Properties to Build Your Cash Cushion

Once you find the deal now you have to find someone who is willing to buy the deal from you at a higher price. This is where wholesaling comes into play. Wholesaling is the business of finding bargains and selling the deals to bargain hunters at a higher price. You are not adding value to the property. Wholesaling properties should be essential part of every real estate investors business. It is a way to generate income with little to no risk. Many times, you never take ownership of the property - you simply are the transaction coordinator. In essence, you are bringing a buyer and a seller together. Through your marketing efforts, you locate deals and then you assign them to other investors that you locate through your various forms of marketing. If your marketing machine is in motion, you should have no problem finding buyers. Successful marketing and networking in the real estate community will enable you to find wholesale buyers.

Real Estate Investing Basics Tip #3 – Rehabbing for Large Profits

Rehabbing is when you redevelop the property yourself instead of wholesaling the property to someone else. This is where the larger profits lie. The reason is you will be selling the property to a retail buyer who will be willing to pay full market value for the property as opposed to a another investor who is looking for a discount.

Rehabbing is an entire business in itself and there is a lot you need to learn about this niche. It is important if you choose to include rehabbing in your business that you spend time educating yourself first. Learning pricing of labor and materials as well as whom are the qualified contractors in your area is essential to rehabbing properties.

Being able to add value to properties through renovations is a not only very profitable, but also very rewarding. You are providing a great service, not only to the city in which you do business, but also to the end buyer of your newly remodeled home. When you become experienced at rehabbing you will have the confidence to be able to take on projects that many people would never even consider. This separates you from the other investors and creates more opportunities for you in that real estate market.

Than is coming to Kansas City on Saturday March 27th to teach Building a Real Estate Investing Business at Johnson County Community College for Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors. This event is open to the public, cost at the door is $20, preregister for $10. Click to find out how to attend for FREE.

Seats are filling up fast, get registered today

Email Marketing

2010-03-12T09:55:00.000-08:00

I was asked the other day which was better Top Producer or Constant Contact. As I have used both I can share my thoughts.

First Top Producer. This is a web based system that works something like Microsoft Outlook and in fact can be set up to sync with Outlook. It is a great tool if you are working with traditional Realtor Lead Generation web sites that will feed into it and want to have multiple auto responders set up.

Where it excells is at being able to set up an unlimited number of marketing plans and have it remind you and in the case of the email send it for you. So if you have contact a that needs a phone call in 2 days, and email in 5 days, a printed letter in 10 days, another phone call in 20 days, and then a follow up email every 20 days after that, you can go in and prewrite all the emails and letters, and set up scripts for the phone calls and then turn it on. It will tell you when to call, merge and send the email, and then merge and tell you to print and mail a letter. You can set up 100's of differnet plans and turn them on as you ad contacts. Perfect for the realtor.

But what if you have gone through all the follow up email and you want to write and send a fairly current email newsletter to everyone at once. Get too many in your pipeline and Top Producer bogs down, then you need a direct email service that will send a lot of emails at once, get past the screening filters on the receiving end, and be consistent in formatting and sending what you want sent.

Constant Contact is the answer for this:
1. It is the most consistent about sending out the email you created. I have used similar services and what I had in my preview window and what my recipents got did not match, this can be real pain when you had photos and links that either don't show up or don't wor, or even rearrange everything.

2. The other thing you run into in email services is needing the recipents to confirm that they want to receive emails from you. This is fine and dandy if they are filling in a sign up box online somewhere. But if you have a preexisting email list or are collecting emails at a live event, having to input them into the system yourself, and having them have to confirm they want emails from you 1 or 2 times just does not work. Constant Contact will allow you to import a list (they will want to screen it, but no double opt in as they call it).

So if you are just starting out on building an email marketing list, start cheap and use the email service you have, but once you start getting over 100 people to email, look into Constant Contact. And if you want to try it out, under 100 contacts for Free for 60 days, click here.

Analyze This

2010-03-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

hat is a good deal?

We all get wrapped up in finding deals, but would you know if it was a good one?

When determining how much we should pay for a good deal we are going to look primarily at 3 things:

Comparable Values
Cost to Repair
Holding Costs

Today we are going to look at Comparable Values or comps.

You are going to want to find comparable values for what the home would be worth all fixed up. So as you are looking at resources for comps look for homes that are in good or repaired condition. And be sure you are comparing apples to apples or rather you have homes with similar size, style, age, and amenities.

But the next big question is where to find comparables to review? Tim Randle mentions in his online article “How to Get Comps” that you have four resources:

Doing your own research
Internet searches
Service Companies
Access to MLS

So let’s break these down:

Doing your own research: By far the hardest, but you should use this to some extent as it will educate you more on your market place.

• Review ads in the newspaper and online to see what people are asking.
• If your county or state records sales prices, visit the recorder of deeds office.
• Take a look at tax appraisal values.
• And over all get to know the neighborhood by staying up to date on everything listed, touring when they are for sale, and tracking what they sell for when they close.

Internet Searches: Next you can take a look at several different real estate web sites that offer homes for sale and see what valuations they might offer. Sites like:

• http://www.zillow.com/
• http://www.trulia.com/
• http://www.homefinder.com/

These are good sites to find a rough estimate of value, but are not very accurate.

Service Companies: There are companies that offer an online valuation service. These sites glean their data primarily from recorded data from the courthouse, not actual recorded sales and then they calculate a sales price from the data, like the mortgage price recorded. Sites like:

• http://www.facorelogic.com/
• http://dataquick.com/
• http://netronline.com/

While these sites have some value, it is advisable to check your results with our next method. (Another use of these sites is to build marketing lists for direct mail marketing for motivated sellers.)

Access to the MLS: By far the best way to get access to comparables for your property analysis will be with access to the MLS. The MLS stands for Multiple Listing Service and is the local site where Realtors list properties for sale and record pending sales, expired listings, and actual sales values.

To gain access to the MLS, you have four choices:

1. Hire a Realtor to do comparable searches for you, but after one or two freebies, be prepared to pay for the service.
2. Become a Real Estate Appraiser.
3. Become an assistant to a local Realtor and have them sign you up for your own access as their assistant.
4. Obtain your own Real Estate License so you can have access as a Realtor and gain some of the other benefits of being a realtor.

Learn more about analyzing deals at the March 9th General Meeting

6:00 - 7:15 Networking
6:00 - 7:15 Registration
6:00 - 7:15 Vendor Hall
6:30 - 7:00 Ask An Expert
7:15 - 7:30 Announcements
7:30 - 9:00 Presentation

So you see a deal on the marketing table, you get an email, or seller calls you on the phone. Is it worth your time to go look at the property? Could it be a deal? What would our experts do with the deal? Find out, with our live deal analysis on Tuesday March 9th at our General Meeting

Real Estate Marketing Tips - "The Power of Marketing"

2010-03-01T12:43:00.000-08:00

Real Estate Marketing Tips
- “The Power of Marketing Systems”

A series of articles on Real Estate Marketing Tips and “The Power of Marketing Systems”

Part 1 of 4

By Than Merrill

Note: Than Merrill offering an all day training on Marketing in Real Estate on Saturday March 27th at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park KS. Click here to find out how you can attend this real estate investing workshop for free!.

How did you find that deal? That is the number one question I am asked by other investors at my real estate investing seminars whenever I go through different real estate deal case studies. If you are an experienced real estate investor you can probably relate to this statement. The answer is the “Real Secret” to the business. Unfortunately, most real estate guru’s only touch on the importance of finding deals. Touching on the importance of marketing is not enough. YOU MUST SERIOUSLY FONDLE THIS ISSUE! Most of these so called real estate guru’s will give you ideas of how to find deals, but ideas are not enough! I have seen many entrepreneurs fail who have had good ideas. What investors really need is to understand the importance of marketing and marketing systems. Marketing is your business and marketing systems are what bring your deals consistently!
Real Estate Marketing Tip #1 – Become a Marketing Major

The most successful real estate investors have dedicated their time to learning the details of their business. These people have usually sacrificed numerous weekend vacations and instead spent the time learning more about their business. These elite investors understand that successful marketing takes hard work, continual follow up, and a thorough knowledge of marketing. In this game the most informed players always win and the more you know about the subject the more money you will make. The top-tier of investors, who are buying 50-100 houses a year, are continually learning, testing, and improving their marketing campaigns.

Real Estate Marketing Tip #2 - You Must Become Systems Orientated!

You are now a systems producing machine! Congratulations I have given you the highest possible compliment one business person can give another business person. You see, the best marketers are systems-oriented people. They understand ideas are only so valuable and without a system you can not leverage and execute an idea consistently. For example, I can give you an idea of how to find real estate deals below market value by telling you to mail people who have recently inherited properties. However, if I don’t show you how to get the data, create a list, and design a system you can outsource then I have not helped you. In fact, I have only confused you and frustrated you which can lead to burnouts and increased male pattern baldness! Developing the systems behind your marketing is the most important thing you can do. Without systems you will continually be short on time and short on quality leads.

Real Estate Investing Tip #3 - Death to Ideas

Ideas mean nothing to you now unless you can build a system for implementing them. Death to ideas! Your new favorite word is Business Process Automation or BPA for short. (No not T&A…Paul). All businesses are made up of a series of processes which can be automated. For example if you ever had the pleasure of visiting our office you would see that we have a system and checklist for everything. From our sixteen different marketing systems that get our marketing out into the marketplace, to our deal analysis and due-diligence systems, to our rehabbing systems that run our projects, and finally down to the way we market our properties. Everything is a system run by different individuals trained on running that part of the business. These systems are what allow me to travel the country speaking without having to worry about my business producing revenue.

Real Estate Marketing Tip #4 - The Bible of Systems

If you don’t understand the importance of systems, you need to rip up this article right now and pick up the book entitled “The E-Myth” by Michael Gerber. The E-Myth, or Entrepreneurial Myth as Gerber laments, is single handedly the best book on how to systemize and run a business effectively. The book does not specifically talk about developing real estate marketing systems, however it does have specific case studies of how some of the most successful business owners use systems within their business. Last time I checked, Howard Schultz the founder of Starbucks, did not serve you your morning “3 Pump Grande Vanilla Latte.” One of his employees did. One of his employees who was working the systems he spent years building.

This idea can be directly applied to your real estate business. If you don’t have marketing systems to get motivated sellers calling you every day then you will struggle to find any good real estate deals. Likewise, if you don’t have marketing systems you can outsource to others then you will never be able to remove yourself from your business.

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This is part one of a four part series on real estate marketing tips and the power of marketing systems for real estate investors. To find out more about our marketing systems and live real estate seminars go to: www.FortuneBuilders.com or call 203.789.1111.

Real Estate Marketing Tips - “I Can’t Find Deals”

A series of articles on Real Estate Marketing Tips and “The Power of Marketing Systems”

Part 2 of 4

By Than Merrill

I can’t find any deals in my area. This won’t work in my area. Why would anybody want to sell their property under market value? You can’t buy a property with nothing down. The earth is flat. A man will never walk on the moon. The Red Sox will never win the World Series.

All of these statements have been made by thousands of people and all of them are completely false. Blasphemy! Bologna! Not true! You see what you believe to be true is true for you, not everyone else.

I guarantee you can find deals in your area. As long as there are houses within the vicinity there will be deals. You just have to start marketing and put a little elbow grease into your marketing campaigns.

Real Estate Marketing Tip #1 – Get Started

Whenever someone tells me they can’t find enough deals, I always ask them one simple question: What marketing campaigns did you run this month? Inevitably, whenever I ask this question the answer is always “very few” or “none.” Well, how do you expect to find deals if you didn’t do any proactive marketing? Unfortunately, a space ship is not going to land in your front yard and hand you a bunch of deeds to properties under market value. If you want something you have to go after it! You can not rely on realtors to bring you all your deals. You must get one on one with the seller. In order to do that you must start marketing to them directly.

Your goal should be to get one new marketing campaign going every other month. At the end of a year you would have six campaigns running simultaneously. I guarantee you if you do this one thing you will be purchasing at least one real estate deal a month!

Real Estate Marketing Tip #2 – It Takes a Little Capital…So Look in Your Friends Couch

It does take some initial capital to start marketing and get your phone ringing. You don’t have to a huge budget, however I would recommend you start out with at least a budget of $500 a month. If you don’t have any capital don’t be discouraged. You will just have to be more creative and do some joint venture marketing campaigns with other professionals.

Fear and lack of knowledge are what stop 95% of people from getting what they really want in life. Most people consider it too much of a risk to spend a $500-$1,000 dollars on marketing for deals, yet they will blow through that same amount in a weekend trip to Vegas. (Just ask Paul) What you may not realize is that a well planned marketing campaign can be implemented with as little as $500 to $1,000 dollars which will most likely bring in at least 1 or 2 deals. Not too bad when you consider most deals will have a minimum profit margin of $15,000 to $20,000.

Likewise, I have found that real estate investors are generally afraid of spending money on bigger ticket marketing mediums, in contrast to business owners in other industries. Why do you find smaller furniture companies spending thousands to market themselves when they generally work on much smaller profit margins than most real estate investors? It makes no logical sense because most real estate investors can earn a very substantial income fairly easily if they just chose to spend money on marketing their businesses.

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This is part two of a four part series on real estate marketing tips and the power of marketing systems for real estate investors. To find out more about our marketing systems and live real estate seminars go to: www.FortuneBuilders.com or call 203.789.1111.

Real Estate Marketing Tips - “Be Consistently Bold”

A series of articles on Real Estate Marketing Tips and “The Power of Marketing Systems”

Part 3 of 4

By Than Merrill

All marketing experts know the importance of being consistently bold. I have seen some great marketers with a bold message out perform one shot wonders with a more compelling offer. In fact, I think you can probably think of some business owners in your area whom are just plain outrageously consistent with their marketing.

I have experienced this first hand in the world of real estate investing. For example, I was sitting across the kitchen table from a seller one time and asked her why she had decided to call me instead of the 30+ other investors who had mailed her. She said it was because I was the only one wouldn’t stop mailing her these outrageous letters and postcards. That deal was worth over $50,000 to my company’s bottom line. You think being consistently bold is important now? You bet it is!

Real Estate Marketing Tip #1

With so many investors in the marketplace, your message can sometimes get lost in the marketing shuffle. That is why you need to do something bold when it comes to your marketing campaigns if you want sellers to remember you.

For example I know of one investor in California who used to run a full page color newspaper ad every week saying “Why Use a Realtor?” The best part was that the ad used to run in the middle of the Realtor homes for sale section of the Sunday paper. Now I am sure he upset many realtors, but his bold marketing tactics are why he is the most successful investor in his area.

Real Estate Marketing Tip #2 – Consistency with Your Marketing is Paramount

On an average day, the typical American sees literally hundreds of advertisements and marketing messages. Of these, only about 10% are actually internalized by target customers. Therefore, you can’t expect someone to do business with you after you have contacted them only one time. There is no such thing as a “one-time wonder” in the world of real estate marketing. There is no special secret or magic formula to finding deals as most new investors usually think. Effective marketing requires a compelling message and continual follow-up. On average, a person will not decide they want to do business with you until the fifth or sixth time you have contacted them. For example, our direct mail campaigns usually consist of five to six different letters depending on the list.

Likewise, multiple methods of marketing always work better than one. For example, if a seller drives by your bandit sign, sees you in the newspaper, and then they gets a postcard from you I guarantee they are more apt to call you then if you only run one marketing campaign consistently.

If you are on a fixed budget, make sure that you don’t pour all of the money into one or even two different forms of marketing. For every $1000 dollars per month you are willing to spend you should be able to find three or four different methods to employ. As your budget grows, the number of different forms you use should grow accordingly. There are a lot of very inexpensive forms of marketing you can begin with so start with those and ad more expensive ones as you grow.

Additionally, you must have patience with your marketing. Don’t expect something to work the first time every time. Some of the best marketing campaigns we have ever run started out lackluster. Only by having patience, adapting, testing, and tweaking the campaign did we get it to produce.

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This is part three of a four part series on real estate marketing tips and the power of marketing systems for real estate investors. To find out more about our marketing systems and live real estate seminars go to: www.FortuneBuilders.com or call 203.789.1111.

Real Estate Marketing Tips - “Track Your Marketing Numbers”

A series of articles on Real Estate Marketing Tips and “The Power of Marketing Systems”

Part 4 of 4

By Than Merrill

One of the most common problems most real estate investors make is not tracking their marketing. When it comes to marketing and running a business the devil is in the details. Marketers are usually ultra-creative people and often times allergic to the bottom line. However, there is nothing more important when it comes to building a business. Your goal as a marketer is to have a system to concisely track your marketing and understand the numbers. Measurement eliminates arguments and tracking your results will help you build a profitable real estate investment company.

Real Estate Marketing Tip #1 – Determining your ROI

Any marketing decision you make should be based upon the past performance of your prior marketing campaigns or research you have gathered from other investors. If you did a good job tracking your marketing expenditures by campaign type and the number of deals you bought from them, then you should be able to calculate a Return on Investment. Return on Investment or ROI for short, is a mathematical calculation that determines how much money was returned by your initial marketing investment. For example, if you invested $1,000 dollars and at the end of the year it generated $2,000 in income then your return on investment is 100%. For real estate investors this is important to note because certain marketing campaigns may be much more expensive than others, but if they bring you deals with a higher profit margin, the ROI is going to be much higher. Ideally you should want to make $20 dollars on every $1 invested in your marketing campaigns. This is a realistic goal, but something you will never achieve if you have no way of tracking your results.

Real Estate Marketing Tip #2 – Time is Your Most Valuable Asset

Unfortunately, ROI is not everything you need to consider when you are making marketing decisions. Time is a very important element that is much harder to get a grasp on. Some marketing campaigns are very time intensive so there is an opportunity cost associated with your involvement. If you are spending half your week fulfilling your marketing campaign this means other areas of your business may suffer. The only way to factor this into your marketing decisions is to associate a pay rate for your labor hours into your ROI calculations. If you value your time at $100 an hour, then you need to outsource every other job under that pay scale to someone else. This is not easy to do especially if you are used to trying to do everything yourself. Remember - don’t skip over the dollars to save dimes.

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This is part four of a four part series on real estate marketing tips and the power of marketing systems for real estate investors. To find out more about our marketing systems and live real estate seminars go to: www.FortuneBuilders.com or call 203.789.1111.

Private Lender, Angel Investor – What? I need money to invest!

2010-01-18T13:59:00.001-08:00

As a leader of a real estate investment association in Kansas City and an investor who does a bit of marketing for private lenders, I get calls on a very regular basis from people who want to know

“Who are the Private Investors? Where do I find them?”

I am sorry to burst their bubble, but Private Lenders, Private Investors, Angel Investors, Silent Partners are not out there advertising for people to lend money to, the people who do that are called BANKS. And you can’t call up a local investor or association to find out who the private people would be, or then they would not be private, but possibly a rehab loan company or maybe a Hedge fund.

If you are looking for a company that offers funds for investing commercially, you might do an internet search online for a few terms like:

· Rehab Lenders

· Transactional Funding

· Hard Money Loans

There are a few companies or rather web sites out there that are go betweens for angel investors, but I have not found them to be very effective.

But if you are looking for that true, private investor, they don’t just fall into your lap, you have to do a bit of work to find them, to win them over, and then set up a deal with them.

So here’s the big secret with private investors, the steps to success if you will:

1. You have to do a few deals, sorry, but most people are not going to trust you with any kind of money until you have done some deals, unless you are very highly trustworthy, and have an income to pay off the loan from the private investor, even if the deal goes south.

So as you do deals, keep a record, all the facts and figures on each and every deal, it will come in handy later.

2. Be sure to be a little bit of a bragger, “yea, I just closed another deal and made $2,000” or what ever. When friends and family see you are making money, they always want to get involved – there’s your next private lenders.

3. Get all the needed forms and documents to secure a private loan against your next property. Talk to your attorney or title company and they can set you up.

4. Write down your elevator speech and practice it.

5. Create a presentation showing how it works and example deals

6. Then let everyone you know that you invest in real estate and ask people if they might be interested in investing by becoming a lender for you!

It’s not really a hard job to find private lenders, but it is time consuming and you have to be prospecting for lenders all the time. Go to the ball game, talk to the guy next to you. On the plane, talk to your seat mate. At the dentist, talk her up. At the bar, talk to the bartender and the people around you.

Everyone , everywhere is your potential private lender. There is no magic list of these private lenders, they are all around you, and you have to be working all the time you are out in public, networking online, or talking on the phone – you never know who will be the magic guy or gal that makes all the deals happen.

Now if you want to brush up on how private lending works , the paperwork you need, how to find them, and how to approach them, I have some resources for you.

1) This Saturday January 23^rd, 2010 I will be teaching 3 Professional Housing Provider Workshops on financing – one on owner occupants, one on investor financing and one that is advanced financing for investors that includes both private lending and self directed IRA. These are offered for members of Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors at $25 each or $69 for all 3. Non-members cost is $35 a class. Only 9 seats left.

2) Then on Tuesday Evening of January 26^th, Alan Cowgill will be teaching on a teleconference his method of finding private investors. Cost for this is free, but you have to be pre-Registered. To pre-register, click here

About the Author: Kim Tucker is a real estate investor, real estate broker, and director of a REIA group in the Kansas City market. She has been in real estate and real estate investing since 2000. And if you would like to earn a good return on your investment by lending to an investor on real estate transactions secured by real estate, you might give her a call. She has 100’s of completed, profitable transactions that she and her partners have completed in the past 10 years.

Advanced Financing for Real Estate Investors

2010-01-17T15:15:00.000-08:00

Advanced Financing for Real Estate Investors

With the current market, traditional lending is not working so well. But there are new options and no banks needed. This workshop is designed to share with you alternative methods of financing our real estate.

We will focus on:

Using a self directed IRA for funding
Finding and using private lenders for funding
How Unsecured Business Lines of Credit
We will also touch on other options as we go.

Workshop to be held from 2-4 on Saturday January 23rd in Waldo. It is one workshop out of three in our Professional Housing Provider Series.

Cost is $25 for members of MAREI or $69 if you take all three classes on Saturday. Non-member pricing is $35.

At time of posting we only have 10 seats left, and you must be pre-registered.

click to register or go to http://www.mareinet.com/ and visit the calendar of events or call 816-523-4400 x 2222

Real Estate Investor Financing

2010-01-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

Financing for Real Estate Investor

Wheter you are a Real Estate Investor wanting to find out about financing for you or you sell properties to Real Estate Investors . . .

Our 2 hour workshop is designed to teach you what you need to know :

Traditional Mortgages for Investors
Hard Money / Rehab Lenders
Commercial Portfolio Lending
Non-Recourse Loans
Seller Financing

If you are new to buying or selling investment properties, then this workshop is for you.

Workshop includes a workbook to take notes during the class plus a digital version of the leader guide with clickable website links when you review at home.

If you are buying to properties as an investor or are selling homes to an investor you need to understand financing options that are available for you.

Taught by Kim Tucker who has been an Investor and Realtor selling homes for 10 years in the Kansas City Market.

Offered on Saturday January 23rd from 11:00 to 1:00, in the Waldo area. One part of a three part Professional Housing Provider Series offered on Saturday. Seating is limited and you must be pre-registered.

Cost:
For member's of MAREI: $25 for 1 workshop / $69 for all 3 workshops held that day. Non-member pricing is $35.

Visit http://www.mareinet.com/ and click on calendar of events to register or call 816-523-4400 x 222

Financing for the Occupant Buyer

Advanced Financing for Investors

Financing Owner Occupant Buyers

2010-01-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

Financing Owner Occupant Buyers

Realtors and Investors when you have a house to sell, one key component of selling the house is knowing how the financing works.

Our 2 hour workshop is designed to teach you what you need to know so you can market and speak inteligently with potential buyers:

How credit works
Different types of loan programs for home buyers
How to figure out mortgage payments
How to implement financing in our marketing
How to handle buyer calls
How to qualify buyers
Suggestions to buyers if they have too much debt
Suggestions to raise buyers income
Suggestions to improve credit
Suggestions to increase down payment
How to babysit the process and get paid
And seller participation financing, if the buyer does not qualify

If you are new to selling houses then this workshop is for you.

Workshop includes a 42 page workbook to take notes during the class plus a digital version of the leader guide with clickable website links when you review at home. Workbook includes sample marketing flyers and buyer pre-screening worksheet.

If you are buying to rehab and sell owner occupant houses. Or buying to wholesale to owner occupant buyers, you need to understand how the financing works. This workshop will give you the tools you need.

Taught by Kim Tucker who has been an Investor and Realtor selling homes for 10 years in the Kansas City Market.

Offered on Saturday January 23rd from 8:30 to 10:30 am, in the Waldo area. One part of a three part Professional Housing Provider Series offered on Saturday. Seating is limited and you must be pre-registered.

Cost:

For members of MAREI: $25 for 1 workshop / $69 for all 3 workshops held that day.

Financing for the Real Estate Investor

Advanced Financing for the Real Estate Investor

All 3 Workshops

FHA Appraisal Procedural Rules Pushed Back

2010-01-15T10:59:00.000-08:00

Two FHA rules that seek to protect appraisal independence will take effect Feb. 15 instead of earlier to give lenders time to adjust their procedures. The rules were supposed to have taken effect on Jan. 1. Access the rules in Mortgagee Letter 2009-51, on completion reports, here. Access the rules in Mortgagee Letter 2009-28, on appraisal independence, here and scroll down to ML 2009-28.

http://www.hud.gov/offices/adm/hudclips/letters/mortgagee/files/09-51ml.pdf

http://www.hud.gov/offices/adm/hudclips/letters/mortgagee/

FHA Short-Sale Rules Protect Against Misuse

2010-01-15T10:53:00.003-08:00

New rules from FHA on using federally backed financing after a short sale aim to help troubled FHA borrowers while protecting against misuse by those looking to take advantage of market conditions. FHA borrowers who enter into a short sale so they can buy another house at a low market price face restrictions on when they can apply again for FHA financing. Access the rules, in Mortgagee Letter 2009-52, at HUD.gov.

REMINDER: Home Inspection Changes Effective Jan. 1

2010-01-15T10:51:00.000-08:00

On Jan. 1, legislation went into effect that requires home inspectors to register with a new state board, regulates the home inspection industry and prohibits home inspectors from limiting their liability for errors and omissions to less than $2,000 per home inspection. For your business, it is very important that you review the summary of these requirements to familiarize yourself with the major provisions of this legislation that will affect the real estate industry. For more information, please contact Luke Bell, KAR Vice President of Governmental Affairs at lbell@kansasrealtor.com or at 785-267-3610 Ext. 2133.

Top 5 Reasons Why Pre-Approval Letters are no good

2010-01-03T04:26:00.000-08:00

So here's the scenario: You have a house for sale, you have an interested buyer who has written a contract and is preapproved. At the 11th hour the financing falls through because . . . .

1) You are selling a fixer upper home and while the lender is willing to lend money on a fixer upper home, they will not lend if the house is missing any one or more of the following vital components: heat, air, kitchen, bath, plumbing, carpeting . . .

2) You are an investor who just acquired the home as an investement and have owned it for less than a month, the lender requires the seller to have owned for 6 months or more . . .

3) You are working with a home buyer assistance program, buyer is pre-approved for the loan and the program, but the house has to pass inspection. You find a few faucets need to be replaced and a GFCI outlet needs to be installed in a bathroom. Your handy man does the repairs, the assitance program wants to see proof the faucet was installed by a licensed plumber and the outlet by a licensed electrician.

4) You bought the home, rehabbed the home, priced it comparable to other renovated homes in the surrounding areas based on the repairs you made. Appraisal came in too low because the lender selected an appraiser from out of the area and that appraiser only used foreclosed homes as comparables.

5) You sold a home lease to own, and lender last year said if lease to own tenant made lease payments on time for a year and it could be proven, they could get them financed. Tenant made payments on time, but used money orders, still has no credit, and the lender & the loan program is no longer around.

As home sellers there are many scenarios we are faced with every day. And right now we are faced with 100's of good deals we can acquire and sell on to owner occupant buyers, but we need to be smart about the financing. All real estate deals eventually hinge on the financing and if we can understand how the financing works, both for ourselves and our buyers, we will be able to sell a lot more houses and make a lot more money.

Join us in January 2010 at our General Meeting to discuss financing our owner occupant buyers.

Click here for meeting details and to register.

Have a story to share? Comment here.

Would you like to be one of our panelists, email info at MAREInet.com.

Commercial Training from National Association of Realtor

2009-12-16T08:21:00.000-08:00

NAR Commercial Education Connection

Prepare yourself and your business for 2010 by registering for the final two Top Dogs sessions brought to you by NAR Commercial. On December 17 and 18, Top Dogs is offering two webinars at a deeply discounted rate of $49 per session. The two hour sessions are regularly priced at $89, but if you use one of the following discount codes fhosuddnkr or rihequpimu, you will receive an immediate $40 discount. The Top Dogs webinars will give you the opportunity to learn from Peter Droubay and Bob McComb, the co-creators of the Top Dogs commercial real estate training programs.

The December 17 session Tools You Need to Have and People You Need to Get to Know covers the tools you need to have at your disposal if you are going to succeed as a commercial agent or broker. Top Dogs' December 18 webinar The Best Reputation to Have: How to Be A Take-Action-Today, Do it Now, Finisher is all about attitudes and strategies for personal productivity and will show you how to elevate your personal productivity. These sessions are a deal, priced at $49 per session for two hours of fast paced, ready to use information!

Webinar Session Description and Registration: December 17: Tools You Need to Have and People You Need to Get to Know (beginner level)

Webinar Session Description and Registration: December 18: The Best Reputation to Have: How to Be a Take-Action-Today, Do It Now, Finisher (expert level)

All sessions are first come, first-served and limited to 200 attendees. Visit the NAR Commercial Education web page to learn more about the education resources available to you from NAR Commercial and the Commercial Institute Affiliates. For Top Dogs webinar registration questions, contact Top Dogs at 888-894-5772. For general questions, contact NAR Commercial at 800-874-6500.

Are you ready to covert your IRA to a roth

2009-12-14T09:36:00.000-08:00

In a recent email from Equity Trust Company (http://www.trustetc.com/) they have an article about moving your money to tax free investing by converting your self directed IRA's, to a Roth.

There are changes coming in 2010 that includes no restrictions, the Modified Adjusted Gross Income limited on a ROTH will be lifted for conversions - so just about anyone can convert an existing IRA to a ROTH.

Read More from Equity Trust by clicking here

It's an Online World: Are You Prepared

2009-12-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

I recently attended a broker series class at KCRAR and wanted to share some of the notes I took about current marketing trends for real estate and beyond.

http://www.secondlife.com/: were all very busy learning how to use Facebook and Twitter, but the next thing is SecondLife, and if you are really in to Second Life you may find yourself buying and selling virtual real estate in a virtual world and selling real stuff in a virtual world.

Google Maps for Real Estate Google is allowing people to search for real estate for sale using their mapping feature. You can get your listings on google maps through one of the syndicating web sites out there or load them yourself into google base. If your properties are not on this, figure out how to get them there.

Neighborhoods: we talked about buyers wanting to live in walkable neighborhoods, where they can walk to work, shop, and play, more urban and less suburbs.

Realtors: buyers are looking for buyers (or home sellers) who are honest, good listeners, know the market, and can explain the process, and are connected to all the answers

Websites that consumers are going to get more information

http://www.houselogic.com/ from the National Association of Realtors
http://www.commercialsource.com/
http://www.incredibleagent.com/ and http://www.incredibleagents.com/
http://www.outrageousagents.com/
http://www.homethinking.com/
http://www.realestateratingz.com/
http://www.agentrank.com/
http://www.yelp.com/
www.ziprealty.com/

Because it is an online world, we need to keep an eye on what other people are saying about us and our companies. There are many tools that will monitor the web and report back to you based on key words you set up. Check these out and set up an alert on your name, your company name, & your top competitors to see what they are doing.

Google Alerts
StepRep
Trackur.com
Backtype

There was a big to do a few years ago about IDX, and allowing competitors to put all MLS listings on their sites for their customers to see. Now it is VOW which allows

Immediate Responsiveness with comments going directly to listing agents email / smart phone
Lead Management
Relationship Managment Applications
So now for example when a Realtor list a property through the Kansas City area's MLS, properties can be immediatly syndicated out to a bunch of web sites and may will allow the viewer to comment on the listing that will get back to the listing agent to act on very quickly

For Realtors who are a member of NAR, the following are all tools you can access and the general public can also access a great amount of the information on Realtor.org:

Information Central
ProQuest
Field Guides on all types of topics
Research Statistics
Tool Kits
Community Outreach Programs
PodCasts and other training

And last we talked about Brokerages needing to develop a blog policy for their agents and staff to follow, this will also be very important for investors, mortgage people, and just about any business.

We have posted a sample Blog Policy in the Business Management Section of the MAREI Library. go to http://www.mareinet.com/ and log in to access.

December Meeting in Review

2009-12-09T11:27:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to everyone who braved the rain, the ice, and the snow to attend the December 09 holiday meeting. We had about space for 30 reserved and we were packed from about 6:30 to 7:30. We had people from all over the metro as well as visitors from the Omaha group and an investor visiting from Florida.

Lots of business cards were changing hands, deals were being talked about, food being consumed and pool being played.

Check out some of the pics . . .

Focus

2009-12-09T08:41:00.000-08:00

At the networking last night we talked a lot about having focus. Then this morning as I sit at my desk I have a window open on my computer to order a Christmas gift, a camera hooked up to download photos on a house, a house file on my desk to look up comps, the MAREI schedule on my desk to work on next years meetings.

I need focus, and when I come back to what I did in a previous life it comes down to making a list. Sit down at the end of the day and write out everything you want to accomplish tomorrow and prioriize. Then the next morning, review, start at the top and mark off as you go. Then at the end of the evening, go through your list, see what you accomplished, mark it off, and plan out the next day.

This really works well for me, but of course when life happens through out the day, you need to decide, do you write the new life issues on the list for tomorrow or deal with them as they come. I am unfortunatly a deal with them as they come, even if they are interrupting something more important. And I know I need to work on this, keep focused on the project at hand and add the little fires that need delt with to the list to look at at least after I am finished with my current project.

What do you think? Please comment and let me know how you stay focused or not and what works for you.

Activities at MAREI this week

2009-12-07T08:02:00.000-08:00

MAREI members:

We have a lot packed into the schedule this week, and hopefully we will have a 3 week break until we start marketing for January events.

First is our Virtual Food Drive running the whole month of December. We have partnered with Harvesters to raise funds for 10,000 meals. We currently have 550 meals in our donation pile. To find out more go to: MAREI's Food Drive

Second is our meeting. We have canceled the regular meeting at the Marriott and instead we are having a holiday networking "happy hour" from 5:30 to 8:00 at the Fox & Hound at 103rd & Metcalf. More info: 12/08/2009-2009 Holiday Networking Meeting - Happy Hour

Third is our webinar on Wednesday with Mark Klee & Caryn McKinney on buying houses from people in bankruptcy. Find out how you can turn misfortune into a win win for everyone. More info: 12/09/2009-Webinar - Turning Bankruptcy into Gold

Fourth is our webinar on Thursday with Dan Doran. He is going to share how to buy REO properties for pennies on the dollar and have all the work done for you. Check it out: 12/10/2009-How to buy REO’s without doing any of the work!

If you missed the December Newsletter, be sure go go to the web site to read: Current Newsletter

And last we will have a new meeting location starting in January, Sylvester Powell Jr Community Center at 6200 Martway in Mission (Johnson Drive and Nall north of Shawnee Mission Parkway, by the license plate and drivers licenses places sort of)

December Newsletter Sponsors

2009-12-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

Realty Resource of KC . . . is a real estate brokerage for investors by investors. Our agents are investors themselves, so they know the ropes. They have bought and sold property, rehabbed, and managed rental property. They have the contacts and the know how to assist you with your real estate investments on both the buying side as well as the selling side. Find out more about our properties for sale and how our agents can help you by going to http://www.realtyresourcekc.com/

TuckerOneProperties, Inc. . . . and their partner company ROI Realty buys and sells houses through out the Kansas City metro area. Focusing primarily on Jackson County in Missouri and Johnson County in Kansas they buy houses and because of their line of credit, can pay cash and close fast. If you have a house that you need to sell, or a great buy on a house that you can't quite take down, give us a call. If you are looking for fixer uppers in better areas, check our site for current inventory. All properties are offered as is before we start rehab. Find us online at http://www.tuckeroneproperties.com/

Accurate Title Co . . . has over 50 years of experience in the real estate industry. Offering title insurance, ownership and encumbrances, closing and escrow, and 1031 exchange services. If you need it closed, the team at accurate can get it done. If you buy and sell in Kansas or Missouri, or do a little bit of wholesale selling, you need to call and talk to the staff. Find our more about their services at http://www.accuratetitleco.com/

YellowLetter.com . . . is owned and opperated by National Trainers John and Donna MacNiel, the investors of the original Yellow Letter marketing tool. They offer direct mail services with their Yellow Letter as well as Pre-NOD lead lists nationwide. Find out more at http://www.yellowletter.com%20and/ sign up for their newsletter to find out about their special deals and promotions.

Monthly Advertisers

T.O.T.L. Renovations with members Tony and Emily Culp offering full service renovation services. They are licensed and insured and accept most major credit cards. See their ad here .

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors announces it's December Newsletter Is Posted

2009-12-04T09:21:00.000-08:00

Stay up to to date with the activities at Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors, Kansas City Real Estate, and Real Estate Nationwide.

Read the current newsletter here:

click for newsletter

Special Price on Broker Classes at CES

2009-11-30T17:40:00.000-08:00

SPECIAL ½ PRICE OFFER ON
BROKER PRE-LICENSE CLASSES!

If you sign up and pay for a broker pre-license class now through the end of December, you can attend either our December, 2009 or February, 2010 broker pre-license class for ½ price. Call us for details as well as requirements to obtain your broker's license. Offer applies to Kansas City, St. Louis or Wichita classes.

Must have 2 years experience as an agent.

More Info

MAREI Next Meeting: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors meets on the 2nd Tuesday of the month for their vendor hall, networking, and education. Check out the current meeting on this month’s calendar. December 8th, at the Fox & the Hound

2009-11-30T17:36:00.001-08:00

Lowes for Pros

2009-11-27T16:25:00.000-08:00

If you are a realtor, you may or may not know about this link: http://www.lowesrealtorbenefits.com/

This is set up for National Association of REALTORS®, through their REALTOR® Benefits Program, but it seems that just about anyone can actually use the service.

Benefits

send free, personalized direct mail and e-mail with special Lowe’s coupons to your buyers and sellers
gives you a 5% discount on Lowe’s gift cards purchased online
plus free videos, web banners, and Monthly Newsletters.

This is a great tool for investors to send their buyers and tenants coupons to use in their new homes and make you and your company look very professional.
MAREI Next Meeting: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors meets on the 2nd Tuesday of the month for their vendor hall, networking, and education. Check out the current meeting on this month’s calendar.

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors and Harvesters Community Food Network

2009-11-27T09:39:00.000-08:00

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors (MAREI) is supporting Harvesters – The Community Food Network, and will sponsor a fund drive from Monday, Nov. 30 through Wednesday, Dec. 23.

Members and friends are encouraged to participate in the drive to help Harvesters’ network feed those in need throughout Kansas City metro area by donating at their local grocery store or going to the Harvester’s web site to donate at http://marei.harvesters.org/

It is hard to believe that in Kansas City and across the country that people are going hungry. But the reality is that there ARE people who are hungry every day in Kansas City. Harvesters and their agencies provide assistance to nearly 60,000 people every week. And half of those are children and the elderly.

A contribution from Nov. 30 – Dec. 23 means much needed help, and hope, will be available to those who need it. And while you can donate items at the local grocery, Harvesters can do a lot more with cash. At the store you can spend $1 and buy maybe up to 3 food items. But $1 donated to Harvester’s combined with the companies they work with can provide five meals. So donating the $1 is much more cost effective than 3 cans of beans.

What’s in it for you? The good feeling of helping out a family in need. And remember, it could be you, your parent, your child or grandchild that needs help tomorrow. And it may be that you help one or more of tenants in your rentals put food on the table so they have the funds to pay for utilities or rent.

Don’t have an extra $1 to donate, then check out their web site to find out how you or your organization can donate time and labor.

For more information about Harvesters, visit http://marei.harvesters.org/.

MAREI Member Resources: Visit for real estate investor articles, real estate investor events, real estate investor properties, investor continuing education, free bonuses, general meeting archives, Kansas City area info, Real Estate Investor Message Board, Newsletter Archives, and more.

National Property Database

2009-11-27T09:16:00.000-08:00

National Association of Realtors - NAR recently announced that their Second Century Initiatives include the creation of REALTORS Property ResourceTM (RPR), an online real estate library/archive that will provide real estate professionals with data on every property in the United States.

This will provide access to a national database of property info and provide real estate professionals with the best access to real property information needced to serve their customers.

Database to include:

public record information,
details of prior transactions,
MLS-provided information,
zoning information,
transfer tax information,
and other relevant information.

More on Realtor.org

Press Release

REALTORS Property Resource™ Fact Sheet

NAR CEO Dale Stinton's Webcast

MAREI Next Meeting: Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors meets on the 2nd Tuesday of the month for their vendor hall, networking, and education. Check out the current meeting on this month’s calendar.

News From Washington for Real Estate Investors

2009-11-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

From HUD: 120 day period of restraint for the enforcement of the new RESPA Rules

11.13.09 - HUD has announced it will have a have a period of restraint for 120 days in the enforcement of the new RESPA Rules. Rule includes: mandatory Good Faith Estimate and the HUD-1.

HUD Press Release

HUD RESPA FAQs

FHA Removes the Requirement for 2nd Appraisals

11.14.09 - Federal Housing Administration (FHA) It was announced at the annual National Association of Realtors (NAR) convention in San Diego that FHA will soon remove the 2nd appraisal requirement on some types of loans. In a letter released from FHA (Mortgage Letter 2009-48) it oulined elimination of the 2nd appraisal on: loans exceeding $417,00, having an LTV =/> 95%, secured by properties located in declinging makets. Requirment retained if property is being sold between 91 days and 180 days after acquistion by the seller, so rehabbers and flippers, you can sell to FHA buyers if you have owned for 90 days, but house will need 2 appraisals.

Mortgagee Letter 2009-48: Second Appraisal Reporting Requirements

Mortgagee Letter 2009-08: Limits on Cash-Out Refinances

Mortgagee Letter 2008-09: Second Appraisal Requirements/Limits on Cash-Out Refinances

Mortgagee Letter 2006-14: Property Flipping Prohibition Amendment

MAREI Member Resources: Visit for real estate investor articles, real estate investor events, real estate investor properties, investor continuing education, free bonuses, general meeting archives, Kansas City area info, Real Estate Investor Message Board, Newsletter Archives, and more.

Holiday Networking Party for Kansas City Real Estate Professionals

2009-11-23T14:45:00.000-08:00

Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors or MAREI, in the Kansas City metro area is announcing its December monthly meeting. This will be a purely networking event for real estate investors in the Kansas City metro. This event will take place on Tuesday December 8th from 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm at the Fox and Hound pub at 103rd and Metcalf in Overland Park.

This event will focus on bringing together our members and their guests to discuss the current trends in real estate, services available to investors and landlords, deals, and to ask questions. This meeting is open to all real estate investors, landlords, wholesale investors, Realtors, rehabbers, lenders, mortgage bankers, contractors, insurance providers, staging professionals and more. Experienced investors as well as new investors and people just getting their feet wet in the industry.

Be sure to practice up on your 15 second pitch or elevator speech. Fill your pockets with business cards. And bring a few dollar for a drink and an appetizer. No fee to enter or to join in, open to the general public. Please RSVP on our web site at www.MAREInet.com.

MAREI meets monthly to provide motivation, networking opportunities, and up-to-date education for people who want to buy their own home or investment property in today's real estate economy. Each month, a nationally known real estate investment speaker or local specialist is featured. Real estate professionals, investors, landlords, realtors, contractors, wholesalers, rehabbers, and the general public are invited to attend our monthly meetings for educational and networking opportunities. For more information, please call (816) 523-4400 or visit www.MAREInet.com for more information

About MAREI

MAREI is one of the largest real estate investors & apartment owners & landlord association in the Kansas City Metro area and its mission is to provide educational and networking opportunities as well as business-to-business opportunities for entrepreneurs in the real estate investment community. We're firmly committed to promoting a sound understanding of ethical real estate investing principles and to help further develop our members' investing abilities.

Real Estate Investing - Getting Started

2009-11-14T13:39:00.000-08:00

After purchasing your own home, many turn to the idea of owning another or several other homes as a money investment. As everyone and their brother realizes that real estate and the housing market it way low, many might be a little scared to jump in the investment arena. However, if with a little education and due diligence, right now is an excellent time to invest in real estate.

Interest rates remain low and have dropped some in the past year. The number of foreclosur ehomes on the market are going up, which makes the number of deals that are easy to find out about and purchase has lowered the average home prices. So if you are thiking about jumping into investing in real estate, consider the following.

Financing.

As you invest in real estate, one of the biggest components to profiting is to make sure that you have the property financing ready to go. Unlike a store where you buy inventory, mark it up and sell it, real estate has a few more components. first you need to decide if you want to rent the home for a little income now while the tenants pay off your mortgage so you have a nice free and clear investment home at retirment. Or do you want to flip it for a profit now. If you are going to flip, and you know you have a great deal that you WILL be able to resell, you may consider using your own cash, a more costly hard money loan, or private lender. If you are going to hold, you will want to be able to secure a long term, fixed rate loan from a traditional lender, a private individual, or maybe even from the seller.

Get help.

You can't be an expert at everything. By all means do what you have the knowledge, the talent, and the time for. But you may find that you can pay someone to fix the toliet and get it done in less than an hour or you could learn how to do it yourself, buy several different parts with several trips to the hardware store, and have it all fixed and working in 3 days. So if it is not something you know how to do, ask for help, get referrals, and check out prices to make sure you are not paying too much.

Learn your market

Market trends are very important. If you are going to fix up a house, you need to know what is renting or selling in your area, or you could waste you rmoney on somethign that is no longer in. Just yesterday we learned that oak is out while dark wood is in, brick is out while tile is in, vanity cabinets are out where furniture look is in.

Manage your Real Estate Investments as a Business

Do not treat it as a hobby or things will end up cosing you more money and time than it should. Real Estate Investing is a business, so treat it like one.

Education

You have many choices in educating yourself on real estate investing. These choices range from free online events, to books in the $20 range, events from your local real estate association in the $30 to $100 range, home study courses between $500 and $1000, and then bootcamps from $1000 to $10,000 and even more. I strongly recommend checking out your local real estate association and accessing all the training they have available before you start spending the big bucks. Get an idea of what it is you want to do, get focus, do some research and find out what training is recommended by fellow investors at the association, and do some online research before you break out the credit card to shell out $10,000 for training.

You will find a complete list of real estate investment associations from across the country online at http://www.nationalreia.com/. And in the Kansas City Metro area, we highly recommend Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors (http://www.mareinet.com/) Membership in MAREI is just $99 a year and you will reap $1000x in educational materials, networking, and money saving benefits.

MAREI Library

2009-11-14T13:17:00.001-08:00

Members of MAREI have access to our library online. It is jam packed with:

Past Newsletters
Articles
Forms
Contracts
E-Books

For a brief overview of topics and Highlights of items in the library, click here.

Incorporation

2009-11-13T13:56:00.001-08:00

Do you need to incorporate your business for 2010?

You should always consult with an attorney and your CPA when doing any type of new incorporation. But if you are bound and determined to do it yourself, MAREI member's can access a do it yourself incorporation kit. Log into the member's area at http://www.mareinet.com/ and visit the library under asset protection.