Summer is fully in swing now and we are actively and aggressively taking advantage of all of the opportunities to invest that are out there in the market right now. Buying Foreclosed Properties At Auction Many of you who have listened to us speak recently are aware that we have been working in Las Vegas with a group to purchase bank owned properties at foreclosure auctions. The market in Las Vegas is active and filled with eager buyers for properties in the $250,000 and under range and there are typically over 100 properties per day (yes per day) on the auction block. We connected with a group of real estate agents there who represent several large financial institutions and they are doing the analysis and purchasing at auction for us. We ran them through a pretty extensive screening and due diligence process to determine their track record with their own investments in this market and found that they personally had over $1 million invested and had average returns per property of about 20% with an average turn time of about 90 days. That means 20% on your money turned 4 times per year (every 90 days) for a total return on average of about 80%. Now that got out attention! What We’ve Done So Far So, after doing that due diligence and research, we went to Las Vegas and met the guys, visited their offices, looked at properties they had purchased and went to the auction to check it out. It all checked out as a real business, so we made the decision to invest. On May 13th, 2010, I headed to the bank and got $1,250,000.00 in cashier’s checks and hopped on a plane to Vegas. The next day, I went to the auction and we bought our first property. Since then, we’ve purchased about 12 total properties and have fully invested our $1,250,000.00. Now, on July 7th, we have 1 of those properties in escrow and about 6 more under contract in the process of heading into escrow. Our returns on these properties is running from about 15% on the low side to almost 50% on the high side. We’re projecting an average return of somewhere between 15% – 20% to be realistic. We do believe that we should be able to liquidate all of these properties by August 15th, so that would put us within our 90 day turn target. Extrapolating all this out, it looks like we really will be averaging 15% – 20% per transaction and turning our money about 4 times per year, for a total net return on investment of between 60% and 80% annually. Using Private Money For Real Estate Investing To Leverage Our Position As soon as we complete our initial “proof cycle” we’ll be going out to raise about a total of $25 Million. We already have commitments for a second round of investments of about $3 million for the Las Vegas adventure. We’re not accepting any new funds right now, because we do want to get through the first turn so we have all real numbers from a live investment to share with our private lenders. We’ll be offering them the ability to invest through limited liability companies that average around $1.2 million to $2.4 million, with whoever invests at that particular time being able to participate with 2 – 6 other investors to spread risk over 10 – 20 different properties at a time. While our initial investments have been in Northern California and Nevada, we will also be extending our activities into Phoenix, Arizona soon. Can You Do This? Yes, of course you can! That’s why we’re sharing it with you here now. You can find serious players in your area who are successfully working the auction markets. Just go to the local real estate auction for several auctions in a short period, say one month. Note who the active and consistent buyers are and just strike up a conversation with them. Let them know that you have funding and are looking for someone to take care of the actual buying, fixing up and turning of the properties. Once you have made your connection, check them out by asking for a history of their investment activity and performance. Once you are satisfied that everything is in order, go through a “test” transaction with them for a smaller amount, then after it proves up, gradually invest more. We’ll keep you posted on how we’re doing with this project as it continues to evolve. Related Websites

• The Number One Mistake that Would-be Real Estate Investors Make I met with my friend's wife this weekend to learn more about her thriving real estate business. She helped to confirm what I suspected to be the number one mistake that new investors make: they expect to make good returns by paying "retail" prices for real estate. By "retail" prices,......
• Sarasota Real Estate Faces Double Whammy As Commercial Real Estate Breaking Down! Sarasota real estate braces for more despair, claims Eugene Ludwig whose dire predictions regarding commercial real estate "softness" are coming true...followed by more Sarasota homes for sale. This is the first time we are announcing this publicly! My partner, Rob Powell, is working on buying a $15 million deal in Texas, and we want you to follow along in real time as he works this project. Follow on Twitter: http://twitter.com/RobAPowell and Subscribe to this blog for......
• How to Get Out of Trouble in the Real Estate Market If you invested in the real estate market recently and are now regretting that decision, there are a few ways that you can get out of financial trouble. For awhile, the real estate market was very solid and property values were going up. Many experts advised investing heavily in real......
• Ben Stein Not Hot On Real Estate Here's an excerpt from Ben Stein's column about why he thinks real estate isn't such a great investment.That means the house has kept up with inflation -- barely.In fact, when I do the math, I realize that it hasn't fully kept up with inflation. Plus, the owner would have had......

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At the last commercial real estate investing workshop we held in Dallas, Texas, one of our students who attended the very first Commercial workshop came up to the front of the room to share some of his experiences with the group. First and foremost, we want to thank him, his name is Stephen Eaton, for doing that. Stephen was a huge hit with the crowd and after they heard what he was doing with mobile home parks and self-storage unit investing, Stephen couldn’t move in the room without a huddle of interested investors following him around! So, you may have heard that there’s a small group of real estate investors making a killing by accommodating the American public’s propensity to store junk. Stephen was able to put together several deals where he had no money of his own tied up in the deal and capitalize on this American propensity to collect and store. In this post, we’ll explore what he did and whether this is right for you. Exposing the Myths Perception is not always reality and this couldn’t be truer than with self storage. I believe there are false perceptions among the real estate community that keeps investors from diving into the self storage business. Test yourself and see how many of these were embedded in your mind about self storage. Myth #1: There is a self storage facility on every corner. I can’t make money with all of that competition. It’s true, self storage is a business that has grown from out-of-sight garages in industrial areas to modern multi-use facilities. A billion dollar industry has sprung up in the past twenty years all geared toward development and building. There are more than 45,000 facilities nationwide which equates to over 6 square feet of storage for every U.S. citizen. However, there are investors making phenomenal returns even in overbuilt markets. The key is in purchasing an existing facility at the right price based on actual income and increase the cash flow by operating the business effectively and efficiently. Stephen however was able to purchase a property that needed some repair, where rents could be raised almost immediately and repairs were mostly cosmetic. Despite the competition in the busy Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, he was able to purchase and profit from a self-storage facility in a very short amount of time. Myth #2: I either need to build a new facility or buy a newer one to make money. Most people think that self storage buildings must be cheap to build since they are just metal buildings with doors. Yes, they are cheaper to build than most other commercial buildings, but there is much more to developing and building than meets the eye. In most cases, it’s a laborious process that takes months, if not years, to complete. Then all you have is an empty facility with a large debt service. It may take several years to break even and this is definitely not a fast track to success. The smart investors are buying existing, older facilities that are poorly operated and need minor repairs. These properties are not on the radar screen of the big companies and can be picked up at great prices. With these facilities, you often start with a positive cash flow and once the repairs have been made and you operate it professionally, the money really starts rolling in. That’s just what Stephen did. He purchased an older facility that really wasn’t that attractive physically. It was not new and it was not modern, but it had potential just because of that. Stephen has been upgrading the property and installing more modern conveniences that enable him to earn an even faster return on his efforts with the property. Myth #3: It takes a lot of money to get in the self storage business and financing is difficult to obtain. In many cases, you can purchase a 30,000 square feet, 20 year old facility for less than a single-family home in California. Sure, it is going to be more expensive than most rental houses, but financing is extremely easy to obtain. There are an abundance of lenders nationwide who are fighting for self storage loans and will even finance up to 90 percent of the purchase price. Self storage has some of the best loan programs available in the commercial market with great interest rates and terms. It is due to fact that this asset class has the lowest default rate among all commercial real estate types. Stephen actually was able to purchase a property with none of his own money down by using the funds he obtained from a private money lender. You can do exactly the same thing. So, what are the benefits of this type of investment and is it right for you? Now that we’ve dealt with the most common myths that keep investors from looking at self storage, let’s concentrate on the benefits of this business. Once you grasp these strategies, you will begin to understand why few, if any speakers have ever showed up at your real estate club exposing this great investment. Benefit #1: Scale – The powers of numbers…An average size self storage facility has 300 units and let’s say that a 10 x 10 unit rents for $60 per month. I typically increase the monthly rental price by five percent each year at my facilities. So, the $60 unit would increase by $3 to $63 per month. $3 times 300 units will increase the cash flow by $900 per month or $10,800 per year. If there were no increases in expenses, the value of the facility just went up over $100,000 due to a $3 per month rental increase. How many jobs out there allow you to increase your income over $10K and add $100K to your retirement every year? What if you could do this every 8 months instead of annually? Benefit #2: Fees - Better late than never…Late fees are unbelievable in the self storage business. It’s not uncommon for many tenants at my facilities to pay an additional $20 in late fees each month on a $35 per month 5 x 10 rental unit. I have one facility that averages 8 percent of the gross income each month in late fees. This particular property averaged $1,165 per month in 2006 in late fees. Talk about free money and cash flow, it added up to almost $14,000 last year. Not only was it found money (the previous owner didn’t charge late fees), it also increased the value of the property by over $140K. Benefit #3 : Admin Charges – Give them something for FREE and still make money…One of the easiest profit centers to set up in this business, as long as it is done correctly, is the administration fee. I charge every new customer a $15 administration fee, but give them a new, sturdy cylinder lock as a gift. This lock would most likely cost them about $15 if purchased at a local store, but my cost is only $3 since I buy them in bulk. I have very few customers complain about the fee because they feel like they received something of equal value in return. Bottom-line is I make an additional $12 every time someone moves into a unit. At one facility, we get 15 new customers each month which equates to an additional $180 per month in income from administration fees. This adds another $2,160 per year in income and over $20K to the value of the facility. Benefit #4: MULTIPLE Profit Centers – These are only three of more than 30 profit centers that I can generate from a self storage facility. Some of the others include record storage, ebay consignment, mailbox rental, moving supplies, outside RV/boat parking, packing and shipping services, notary services, fax services, copy services and the list is as long as your imagination. Self storage can truly set you free financially and it’s one area where you don’t have to trip over other real estate investors looking for deals. It obviously worked for Stephen, and it is an area that we are planning on getting much more involved in at the beginning of 2011. Related Websites

• Visualizing How the Things You Own, End Up Owning You Due to the popularity of the visualizing how your stuff owns you post from several weeks ago, I thought it would be beneficial if I documented exactly how I use a simple monthly calendar and a few personal finance metrics to visually represent how many hours, days, even weeks, I......
• Things You Should Know To Trade Currencies Profitably Forex currency trading market has become a home-based business available for each and every. A great amount of people speculate currencies across the globe. Forex market is considered to be profitable and accessible and that's why so many people are involved into trading. Despite of the well-known fact that the......
• $3,202.52 in Online Income For July 09 Summer is flying by really quickly. It seems like I just wrote about my $7,353 in Q2 online income and now its time for another update! July has been a stellar month and I managed to pull in just over $3,200 in online income. As usual, Ebay was my biggest earner with nearly 33%......
• Disturbia in Suburbia - A Permanent Decline in Residential Property Values? Residential Real Estate is in Decline (But is it Temporary?) It is no secret that residential property values in numerous urban and suburban centers have substantially declined in recent months.  The accepted cause of such declines has been the collapse of the credit markets, overextended and under-employed homeowners, and the resulting......
• NC Wholesale Real Estate Explained for Investors       What is ‘Wholesale Real Estate’? It is simply the act of providing discount priced real estate deals to ready, willing and able investors, and sometimes ‘retail’ buyers as well.                 For the sake of defining ‘wholesaling’ you need to know if you are actually a candidate for a wholesale deal.  An......

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Okay there are 3 tips and they are all in the same area, staging. The purpose of staging is to make your house as appealing as possible to the buyer. First, The Not So Secret Tips You want your property that you are trying to sell to look big, open, spacious and welcoming, so the first step is to empty the house out as much as possible, leaving just a few key pieces of furniture to help set the mood. Make sure all necessary repairs are done. Clean the carpets, walls and especially the front lawn and your doorway, as that’s your buyer’s first impression. Make sure the front door is clean or freshly painted. The 3 Staging Secrets Secret #1 – Scent Most people don’t realize how important scent is. Out of the five senses, scent actually has the strongest direct link to our emotions. Since most buyers in your area are going to buy based on emotions, it’s vital that you make sure your house smells great. Scented Air Fresheners or Candles will work wonders. Pet odors are a major turn off and will require extreme cleaning. Secret #2 – Lighting Most people underestimate how important lighting is when it comes to staging. Open all the curtains and turn on all the lights. If it’s still too dim, get some extra lamps to help with lighting. A brightly lit home seems cheery and inviting, while a dark home seems gloomy and depressing. Secret #3 – Collect Contract Info and Follow up Collecting the contact information of your potential buyers or their agent’s contact info, allows you to drastically increase the chances of them returning or making an offer. Less experienced real estate investors are less likely to want to make “warm calls” (cold calls from leads,) so be sure you’re either willing to do that yourself, you hire it out to someone who will do it, you have a partner who will take care of this for you or your are working with an agent who’s willing to do this. Very often Buyers will be considering more than one property and can be convinced to take a second look. If you follow all the common sense tactics of home staging, then on top of that make sure you home has a great scent that accentuates the house, is properly lit and you follow up with your prospects, you’ll be far ahead of the curve when it comes to selling your home. Related Websites

• Real Estate Listings in Orlando Whether you’re buying or selling a home or land, you’ll want to check out the number of real estate listings in Orlando available online. View every available property anywhere in the country that is on the multiple listing service or MLS, and find just what you’re looking for at your......
• Housing Update Interesting update on some markets from the Real Estate Journal. Utah homes worth their salt Utah apparently has missed the news about the end of the housing boom, with median selling prices on the way up. For example, Utah County's Alpine area saw median selling prices rise 57.2% to $529,000......
• Ben Stein Not Hot On Real Estate Here's an excerpt from Ben Stein's column about why he thinks real estate isn't such a great investment.That means the house has kept up with inflation -- barely.In fact, when I do the math, I realize that it hasn't fully kept up with inflation. Plus, the owner would have had......
• Investor Mistakes: How To Avoid Making Common Mistakes Investing in Commercial Real Estate Part 2 Greetings from New Mexico! I just screwed up my blog and so I am retyping the first paragraph....and I cannot remember what I wrote. I am having all sorts of problems with my blog. First of all, I just figured out that by adding video to my blog, the HTML......
• Sarasota Real Estate Faces Stiffer FHA Home Financing Rules! Sarasota real estate benefits from $8,000 tax "gift" and modest FHA financing guidelines. Soon, the rug will be pulled out from under house hunters not able to take action before change occurs. Recent Sarasota housing numbers suggest optimism - encouraging news to beleaguered sellers, business owners & real estate......

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Maximizing the income potential of your investment property can be quite the task, but necessary if you want to be competitive in a surging market. The demand for quality rental homes, condos and properties is at an all time high and Destin is no exception to this trend. The real estate market is one of the strongest in the world as millions of people flock to the USA on a yearly basis for vacations and relaxation. This has caused a boom in the tourism industry and the creation of jobs, services and an abundance of housing. The first thing you should decide is what kind of rental property is your investment going to be. Is it going to be a long term rental or , are you going to market to the vacation rentals market? Both have their definite advantages. The advantage of long term rentals is the fact that there are dependable (hopefully) tenants. Tenants that are paying monthly and that is a major attraction if you want to have that property paid off quickly and with a minimum amount of concern. The vacation rentals market can be a little more worry some, but the weekly rental rates can compare easily to a monthly rental price. Once you have chosen which vein of rentals you are going to market to, you should consider any renovations that need to be done to appeal to your chosen market. Long term renters will be looking for things like proximity to work, schools, shopping and the like. Location is extremely important for renters. Vacation renters are looking for a different type of convenience, mainly that the rental is within driving distance of major attractions, beaches and restaurants. If you have chosen to go with the vacation rentals market there are a few things that you should do to ensure that your home stays rented for as much of the year as possible. One thing that is extremely important it the actual marketing of your home to consumers. There is no better way to do this than with an excellent website. Also, be sure to keep the home in pristine condition. You home must look appealing to prospective renters from across the country and the world. Likely the only look they will have at the home before they arrive is online. Make sure that your home looks they way it does online when they arrive. Maybe they will recommend your home to others! Renting homes in either market is a tried and tested way of making some great money. Not only do the homes pay for themselves, but you are accruing equity the whole time, and that will only allow you to increase your net worth and maybe pick up another home or two to expand your real estate portfolio. Related Websites

• What Is Your Work From Home Investment? One of the first questions I get asked all the time is what is it going to cost me to work from home? First don't think of it as a cost rather think of it as an investment. The best thing you can invest in right now is yourself.  To......
• Investing In Commercial Real Estate - Using A Lease Option To Buy Commercial Real Estate Greetings from the lush green grass of a football practice field..... I am sitting here watching my oldest son (Colt) at football practice. Colt is only ten years old and he has practice four times a week and a game every Saturday. And...he loves it....and I love it too. ......
• Your Home as an Investment? Let's Re-think this. Mr. ToughMoneyLove engages in many debates over "good" and "bad" debt and the logic of having substantial equity in your home or even paying off your mortgage.  Regarding the latter, some folks insist that their home is an investment and resist building equity through their own efforts (such as making a......
• Should You Sell Your House in This Market? During the process of hunting for our first house, I got to thinking about the difficult position many Americans are in with the declining value of their homes.  In ways, it seems to be a great time to purchase a home if you have the ability to qualify for a......
• Best Orlando Real Estate Thinking of buying or selling a home in Orlando? Orlando Real Estate professionals in Kissimmee, Celebration, Maitland, Lake Mary, Winter Park and other locations throughout Central Florida will assist you in buying or selling your house, condo, townhouse, or rental property.  Browse Orlando Florida Magazine for the best in......

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Ask anyone who has ever owned rental property and they’ll tell you… It was great except for the tenants! Tenants and managing an income property can be one of the toughest challenges you ever face in your real estate investing exploits Property managers say they have a hard job to do everyday. They say that they have to deal with angry customers all day or do rough manual labor. Even some people say their job is hard because their manager above them asks them to do work they are not paid for. Let us look at the facts. Everyone that has a job will always find something difficult about it and want to tell others how hard it truly is. No one is going to say that their job is not as important because they do not work hard for what they do for a living. In America, there are a variety of jobs out there for the average person. There is retail, construction, customer service, etc. and they all have different expectations and pay for a good honest day of work. Most of these people when they are off work get the opportunity to go out and enjoy life it they are not too tired to do so. Most people can get in there cars and drive home, put their feet up and not have to worry about their jobs until they come in the next day for work. There are people out there trying to make an honest living that do not get to do some of the simple things listed above. People involved in some types of rental property management have one of the types of jobs that you do not always get to go out and do what you want. In rental property management, especially the mangers that deal with self storage, their days and nights revolve around their property. These managers most of the time live on site and have to deal with some late night calls from tenants, the police showing up due to a security breach or something just as annoying as the security gate not working. In rental property management, you have to deal with it all for the most part. After your hard day on the property, answering phones, maintenance, etc, sometimes they would like to go out and unwind. Unfortunately, with most properties, they are the only manager that can deal with issues that might arise. So that evening out does not happen. Now that is one extreme of some people in rental property management. Some properties have relief managers in place so the actual property manager can go out and enjoy a quiet evening not having to worry about their facility. Most people could not imagine not being able to go out and do what they desire after work. Some people in rental property management cannot because they want to ensure that their clients know someone will always be available when they need assistance. That is most of the time a great selling point for managers to tell their prospective customers. Think about it. Would you want to live somewhere or rent a storage unit from a facility that had someone readily available if you were having troubles with your unit? It is believed that most people would. That is why most people involved in rental property management do what they have to do to get more business. This type of career is not for everyone. It does take some getting use to. So next time you are complaining that your job is hard and so forth, at least be grateful that you can take off early or after work to go enjoy yourself. When most people leave their jobs for the day, their job is an afterthought. With some on site managers, they sometimes wonder how many calls they will have to take tonight to take care of facility or customer issues. Related Websites

• Real Estate Listings Decoder Planning to do a little house hunting this weekend?  Grab your local newspaper, or browse any real estate website, and you'll find the market is filled with real estate listings.  The best real estate agents are also great marketers, and they know the language to include in listings to generate......
• Real estate gurus and expensive seminars The June 2005 issue of Money features real estate -- a topic on many minds for sure. An article called "No-Money-Down Mania" by Joan Caplin and Scott Medintz surveys the renewed interest in seminars that offer techniques to make money in real estate with little or no money down. Real......
• Your home's value and your net worth Few people would argue that real estate appreciation was very kind to homeowners during the first part of this decade.  It really was a pleasure to own a house in many parts of the country, especially the ones with appraisals that defied gravity.I bought a house in 2001.  (Well, actually,......
• Work At Home - Training Many people are looking to the Internet to work from home earning money. Many will succeed, while others barely make it or fail. Why is it that some are successful and others are not? Well I think at least part of the problem is that many people will try and......
• 10 Things I Have Learned From Working At Home. A lot of people have emailed me over the last 7 months about my working at home. Just so everyone knows, I did have a desk job...in fact I worked in offices for 12 years until this past October, when I gave notice at my job to go out on......

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