Rob Swanson’s Real Estate Investing Blog

Hey, this is a really simple question.

Are you in it to win?

In real estate I mean. Investing.

Or, are you in it to simply “not lose”?

The 1980 US Olympic Hockey team won gold because they took the dominant world team out of their game. Nearly everyone that played the Soviet team prior to the championship game sat back on their haunches and played passively devensive. They weren’t in it to win. They were simply in it to survive and not lose too badly.

The US beat the better Soviet team because they went out there to win. They went on the offense and took their opponent off their game.

You can do the same in real estate investing. Attack the market. Attack the next deal. Attack finding more money. If you’re investing based on a defensive strategy you lack one of three critical elements: confidence, education or structure.

Go on the offense, attack and win at real estate investing.

Here are three steps you can use to attack real estate investing today:

Step 1. Develop your real estate investing business plan. Know exactly what you do, why you do it and how to make it happen. If you don’t have regular, repeatable income streams, your business is destined to struggle.

Step 2. Learn the exact structures you need to follow to create cash, cash flow and equity – up to 3 profit centers on every deal you do. This will eliminate the typical feast and famine approach and will help you create regular, repeatable income streams. Master your deal flow and structure and you will immediately see results.

Step 3. Stop procrastinating. Whether you’re ready to invest immediately, need to attend real estate investor meetings for motivation and networking or you simply need to get a quality real estate investor education to learn how to make money step by step. Seek out the people that will help you succeed.

Now, get off the defensive and to ATTACK!

Hey real estate investors,

Let me share a little secret. Excel lies! Period.

Do you know what I mean? You can make a spreadsheet tell you what you want to hear. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. If you manipulate it until the output works, you’ll feel great. Right?

Well, actually wrong. When you’re analyzing your deals, if you choose to use Excel, don’t keep tweaking the numbers until it says what you want it to say.

Study your market, know your numbers and plug them in. Develop and have a very specific buying formula and criteria and stick with it. Educate yourself and then simply let Excel output the complicated calculations. But, you must know what to plug in to begin with.

Just be wary. In my earlier days, I would play with the spreadsheet for hours until I convinced myself that the numbers I plugged in made good enough sence and, until I like the output. I used Excel to justify my own lie.

So, is Excel really the biggest liar. Well, maybe it the person plugging in the data in an all encompassing effort to find that next great deal. Good deals are everywhere, great deals come with persistance and you can create a consistent flow of both by learning the business of real estate investing.

Just don’t lie to yourself and justify it with a spreadsheet. If a deal is really a deal, you should know instantly!

Do you ever find yourself consumed, totally excited about the next big deal, the huge opportunity that you just happened to find yourself in the middle of? Maybe right now you’re working long, hard hours, squeezing every last spare minute of your time toward that one deal that will change your life and your families life forever.

Let me spare you and your family some trouble (I’m not being a downer – read on because there is a very positive and profitable ending to this story). The longer you are around business, particularly as an entreprenuer, you, like I, will realize that ‘Deals of a Lifetime’ come just about every three months.

Honestly, years ago, I used to find myself consumed by the next great opportunity, that one deal that only I knew about. Guess what? I was wrong.

Here’s what I found. I realized, that the longer I was in business, the more I kept myself out there in the business world, the more Deals of a Lifetime just kept appearing. What I’ve come to learn is that deals of a lifetime come, go and come again. And, almost more importantly, what appears on the surface (at least through rose colored glasses) to be a deal of a lifetime, well, it usually isn’t.

Now, that being said, let me share with you the huge positive realization that this has brought. While I’m not a believer in chasing after Deals of a Lifetime, I am a believer in being mindful and watching for certain huge opportunities that only come once or maybe twice in your lifetime. Do you see the difference?

Run your business, strategize your investments and watch for opportunities. Don’t blindly and with great emotion chase the next great deal of a lifetime, but rather, put it through a filter test. Determine it’s merits and evaluate substance, a viable exit strategy and realistic profitability. Evaluate the character of the people involved and choose your partners, aliances and ‘deals’ wisely.

Your family, your health and your wallet will thank you! I know mine have.

I often tell newer real estate investors as well as seasoned investors that there is a relatively simple business plan one can follow to set their real estate investing career on track for success.

It starts with this. As a real estate investor, you must have cash coming into your life from somewhere. Period. That can be through other real estate deals, it can be from a business you own, your job or any number of places. Just have the ability to generate cash when needed.

Here’s the Real Estate Business Plan 101 in it’s simplest form:

Part 1. Wholesale real estate to create cash. Structure deals, create and control great real estate deals for an immediate cash resale to other investors using wholesale buying techniques, options and various forms of cash, cash flow and equity control.

Part 2. Retail real estate to raise additional capital. Retailing real estate, i.e. buying, fixing and flipping increases your credibility in the marketplace and gives you the ability to earn the respect of private investors seeking an opportunity to back your investment business.

Part 3. Hold real estate for the long term benefits and wealth building potential.

Part 1 is about being a Deal Maker and Parts 2 & 3 are about being a Deal Buyer. You can learn more, click here.

So it’s always a question of do you sacrifice time to make more money…or do you sacrifice making money to have more time?

It’s really a personal choice. However, as a real estate investor, with a little thought, you can have your cake and eat it to. Let’s think about it for a minute. Across the country, right now, there are more great deals on real estate than there have been for years.

Sellers want to and need to sell, banks have too much inventory and want out, investors from the boom years (2002 to 2005) have found themselves in a bit of hot water wondering where the apperciation has gone. All of this leads to motivation to sell real estate a significant discounts. You must then choose how will you go about finding those sellers ready to give you a great deal.

Let’s take the situation of foreclosure. Certainly a situation that can cause motivation and for the savvy investor an opportunity to help while you profit. Who will you help? That depends on where in the foreclosure process to focus your time.

Let’s just really over-simplify this whole process and say that Foreclosure is a point in time. It’s the point in time that the current owner (the homeowner) transfers their ownership to the new owner (the bank). The period of time before the foreclosure is called Pre-foreclosure and the period of time after the foreclosure is called Post-foreclosure or REO.

Now, thinking from a Time versus Money angle, where is your opportunity to maximize both? It really depends on you.

As a real estate investor you can choose to work Pre-foreclosure, Post-foreclosure or both. Here are the keys:

Pre-foreclosure: You will work directly with distressed homeowners, you will follow state consumer protection laws, you will negotiate short-sales with the lender and you will buy at a discount.

Post-foreclosure (REO): You will work directly with a real estate agent specializing in distressed properties, you will weed through mounds of potential deals to find the best, you will make all cash offers with very quick closings and you will buy at a discount.

Build your system to accomplish your real estate investing goals based on how the ’system’ works and you will succeed.

Then, come to the monthly meeting of the Real Estate Investors Group of Colorado and advance your education every month with live, and up-to-date information you can use to make more money while spending less time. Find out more about our meetings –>> www.reibootcamps.com.

The Loss Mitigation and Asset Management groups at most major lenders use certain criteria to determine how big of a discount they will approve beyond just the traditional ‘haircut’.

Whether you are a real estate investor negotiating on your behalf or are a real estate agent negotiating on behalf of your client, the list below will help you get more deals done quicker.

In order of biggest discount, the following list generally leads to the best deals and the quickest approvals.

1. Functional obsolescence – The property just does not function well, i.e. the electrical panel is too small to run the dishwasher, microwave and hair dryer at the same time.

2. Poor site & location – The property simply has an undesirable location for resale, i.e. 3 turns off of a major street is many times considered a poor location.

3. Structural problem – The property foundation, load bearing walls or roof are damaged causing difficulties in obtaining traditional lending.

4. Environmental problem – The property needs majore remediation due to an inherent health hazard such as mold, a former meth lab, etc.

5. Resale financing terms – Anything at or in the property, including Items 1 – 4 above, that limits the potential financing options of prospective future buyers.

When negotiating discounts with lenders, keep this list in mind and spend your time highlighting those things that will help you get the best deal and conform with the lenders protocol.

** Download nearly 90 minutes of REO, Short-sale & Foreclosure Audio Training right now and learn the 14 step criteria top asset managers use to evaluate your short-sale and bank offers and lift your packet to the top of their stack. –>> Go Download it Now