This was the lead from a Major Business Magazine

“Few people these days have confidence in the real estate market. Sellers are anxious, buyers are cautious, and prices across the nation are tumbling, month after month. But for a careful investor, fear and uncertainty can set the stage for opportunity.”

Finally someone in the media has the stones to tell the world that there is opportunity and not just doom in the real estate business.  If your a careful and calculated investor there has never been a better time to invest.

If your a speculator looking at appreciation, your probably broke and out of the real estate game.

Get The Most Rental Income
Marcus & Millichap came up with a ranking of the markets where apartments provide the most rental income for the least amount of investment. These are metro areas that, for the most part, are affordable for folks who don’t have millions to invest. Single-family homes and condos in some of these markets can sell for less than $100,000 and a 20-unit apartment building can be purchased for less than $700,000.

Topping the list was Dallas-Fort Worth, where apartment buildings sell for an average of $30,000 a unit and every $3.76 of investment (in terms of the sales price) produces $1 of rental income. By comparison, investors need to spend about $8.19 on average nationwide for $1 of rental income.

Other low-priced markets that ranked high were Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Houston, and Kansas City. Many of these metros—like high-dividend stocks—come with the risk that both the income and the value of the property could fall off. Dallas’ job market is weakening, and many new apartments are under construction, which will create more competition for landlords. Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa, which also made the list, have plenty of bargains, but you’d be competing for tenants with condo owners who are renting homes they cannot sell. And the manufacturing-heavy Midwest is in serious economic decline.

To read the rest of the article click here

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It just sounded good.  Come along and see what a Heart Attack on a bun looks like.  Watch it in HD on the bottom right.

Guess the calories in comments below and please subscribe to my RSS channel.

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This is some of the stuff that comes out of the dark parts of my brain.  I believe we are put on this earth not to over come our demons but to organize them.  To keep them in the back parts of our mind subdued, caged and never to be acted upon………..

Until Now!!!!

Stop Paying Your Payments -

Before I explain why, let me provide you some background.  Everyday nice people, having terrible luck call my office looking to me for help solving their housing situation.  Most of the time I can, some of the time I can’t but today’s call pushed me into that nasty part of the brain.

The couple lets call them my couple, owned a business that made good money over the years.  In late 2008, five of their largest clients went bankrupt.  Those clients actions meant a huge down turn in my couple’s business receivables.  They tried to hang on for as long as they could.  They sold assets; cash in retirement funds everything they could to stay afloat.  They retold stories of eager creditors making all sorts of threats in order to collect the debt.  Those stories reminded me of my early career when things were looking bad, those calls are not fun.

Today the good people of America like “my couple” have a wonderful program called HOPE for Homeowners.  This program will help Americans keep their homes, Right?

WRONG!!

CNN reported about a month ago that 300 Billion has been set aside for this program.  HOPE allows people like my couple the opportunity to refinance their old loan into a new and affordable loan.  Seems like a great solution for today’s real estate market, except the reporter from CNN, found out that HOPE has received 752 applicants and only funded one loan.

One of the first requirements of HOPE is that the homeowner’s current lender must agree to participate in the HOPE program.  For giggles, I called my lender to see if they participate in HOPE.  They replied with  “we are not participating in HOPE, please make sure you get your mortgage payment to us on time.”   If the program went according to plan 400,000 families would benefit from HOPE.

What happens to everyone else?  What do the 600,000 families who are part of the “Ghost Inventory”, what do they get?  Nothing!

Let’s change gears to Chris Dodd.  If you live in Connecticut and you elect this jackass again, you should be expelled as a state. Seriously, we should throw your ass out.  How can you be the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and have the global economy fall apart on your watch?  Before you open you mouth Chris we already know about Phil Gramm the “de-rugulation man”.  Don’t blame him, you could have prevented most of this if you weren’t to busy getting money from AIG, which you gave back to them in bailout funds.

Who introduced us to HOPE for Homeowners?  That would be Chris Dodd.  If you going to put Madoff and Stanford in jail then you need to put Chriss Dodd away with them.

So, “What would happen if everyone stopped making payments on their debts?”  Would that smart ass at American Express find himself in a financial bind because he’s now lost his job?  Would the mortgage company change their attitude and beg you to come back to the negotiating table with your proposed loan modification?  Would our elected officials be so arrogant with tax payor money?  Would they still be singing “here a bailout, there a bailout, everywhere a bailout?”  Would we be better off if we all stopped paying and wiped the slate clean?  The decisions and fighting as to who gets what, and where, and how much is exhausting.  It makes you wonder doesn’t it

One day I will ask you to unite behind this cause but until then, I will still get the calls from “my couples” of the world and I will still buy the houses and my kids and yours will have to deal with our mess.

Please Leave me a comment and subscribe to my feed.

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Gordon White was my guidance counsel in Junior High and he hated me.  That was perfectly fine with me because I hated him just as much.

He was noted for tirades and tantrums like the one below.

If you grew up in the 80’s then you know what the answer is.

To all the Mr. Whites of the world, guess what?  I’m on iTunes.  Not as a singer but as a podcaster.

Now you can access some of my training teleseminars and audios on iTunes as a podcast.  No more fumbling with the downloads and uploads, iTunes will do all of that for you.  You can download the audio right to your iphone or ipod and listen at your leisure.

To access the podcasts, open up your iTunes software, click on podcasts in the iTunes store, click on power search, enter Real Estate Maestro as the author and you should see the podcasts.  At the time of this post, one of the podcasts is available to download and the others are under review.

Or Subscribe Here

Go to iTunes now!   Then come back and  share a comment.

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I AM WARNING YOU – This is not a post for every one.!!

To me, life is a thought process and a learning experience.  This is one of those things I have had to learn as I’ve failed my way to were I’m at.  Did you get that FAILED.  Not every deal went perfect, not every business venture paned out but over time I have learned to ask myself “what can I learn not to do the next time”?  I learn stuff from my kids, management (that’s the spouse) and I even learn stuff from movies.

Over at Lateral Action they have a brilliant post from a movie I saw that really made me think.  It starts out with………

We all want to do remarkable things, and lead remarkable lives.

No one wants to spend the day engaged in mundane productivity in pursuit of a meaningless consumer existence. Certainly not you, right?

So why do we find it so hard to break out of our rut and do truly innovative things?

Because it’s hard. Because it often requires us to significantly alter our perspectives and step outside our comfort zones.

It’s almost like becoming another person.   Click Here to get the complete article – They Drop An F-Bomb So Be Warned.

Come back here and share your thoughts on rule #8.

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The other day I went off on the Donald for his comments (Click Here) on CNN.  He said that you should only be doing real estate deals that involve “seller financing”.

I have gotten emails and phone calls from people who were very upset that I “had the nerve to attach the Donald”.   From this public out cry I discovered;
1.    The Donald is loved and cherish by a lot of people.
2.    Seller financing means different things to different people.

My definition of seller financing is.
1.    The seller agrees to receive monthly payments with interest over time
2.    The borrower can be either a person or an entity
3.    The qualifying consists of a financial statement and a credit report
4.    I have the first right of refusal if the seller decided to sell the note.
5.    I can substitute other collateral
6.    I have full and complete exculpation

It is true that you can go into your multiple listing services and find banks that “claim they will finance you.  If you have to qualify under their normal requirements its not seller financing its just a bank loan.

I would love to hear you comment and please subscribe to my feed.

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If your new to my experiment click here and read how this whole thing came about.

Day 1 Summary
Yesterday was a very interesting day.  The blog post went up, I asked my twitter followers for help and immediately had 5 people unfollow.

I did see a little increase in traffic but nothing to write home about. Remember that my followers are mostly internet marketers and real estate people.

If you’ve ever had the feeling that your talking to yourself, that’s what day one felt like.  I talked, I posted my links twice because I didn’t want to offend.  Lord knows we get enough DM’s requesting “serious entrepreneurs” only,  so many that i one guy follows and unfollows me daily just so he can send his DM.  I find it interesting that someone hasn’t punched him in the face.

Comment count is at zero but tomorrow is a new day and this is a 5 day experiment.

Day 2 Summary

I reposted my link once (trying to be link sensative)  no increase in traffic, no comments.

Day 3 Summary
I reposted my link once (trying to be link sensative) no increase in traffic, no comments.

Day 4 Summary
I did not repostmy link and no increase in traffic, no comments.

Day 5 Summary
I did not repost my link and no increase in traffic.

I believe my 4 friends who I see and talk with on the phone and who follow me on twitter are the only ones who are listening. NOT ONE internet marketer, not one twitter guru, no one has said one thing about this twitter challenge. No one has said “hey I read your stuff and it sucks and so do you, shut up twitter rules!”

I do find it comforting that I get 5 DM’s a day from people who “guarantee me 16,000 followers in 30 days. Do I want the followers or do I want the communicators and listeners?

If you reading this and you have communication with your following and followers…..tell me how your doing it. Please leave and comment and if you subscribe to this feed, you will have 190,000 followers. (Just kidding)

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I can’t say it enough, “buy real estate now!”  The reasons are pretty obvious

1. Technology allows you to buy in any state, not just the one you live in.
2. Its cheap – as you will see in the video from my Midwest Property Buying Tour
3. Buy and hold strategies are producing great cash flow.
4. Did I say its cheap

The Deal

• The asking price was $15,000
• Quick sale in today’s value $62,000
• Repairs $17,000
• Rent $850.00 per month

Purchase cost with repairs and closing $37,000 – payment $353.59 (15 year loan at 8%) Taxes and insurance $125.00 Total monthly payment is $478.59 and the rent is $850.00 per month.  Watch in HQ on the bottom right

Would You Do This Deal?   Leave me a comment and please subscribe to this feed.

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Comment on Couple Living in Camper After Foreclosure – Is it the … – [...] a great post over at Generation X Finance about a story that ran on CNN. This is an older post but as a real estate investor, coach and mentor this questions comes up all the time.  I have my opinion but I want you to leave me your opinion.  Read this post and then bounce back here and leave me your comment.  The story was about a couple who lost their home to [...]

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A couple of months ago at one of my seminars, a guy came up to me at the break and said, “Why do I need your coaching?  I can go to any library or buy a book from Barnes and Noble.”

I smiled and said “ok”.   He asked me what the grin was about and I started to chuckle.

I asked him to sit with me briefly.  I told him if your looking for stuff out of a book you wouldn’t be in my seminar.  Most everything about real estate investing can be found in some book, somewhere.  Remember I said most everything. I continued with “why would spend three days in my class if everything you need can be found in a book”?

The world is full of information.  Topics written about include real estate investing, 4X trading, options, home based businesses, buying franchises etc.  So here is my question to you.  If all of the answers to “making money” can be found in a book, why is the “training / seminar business” is a billion dollar industry and climbing?

I’ll bet we could walk down to Barnes and Noble, go to the real estate section and find at least 15 books on buying foreclosures and REO properties.  If everything you need to know about buying foreclosures and REO’s can be found in 15 books, why did I teach 32 “buying foreclosures and REO” seminars, (3 days each) with an average of 28.3 students in 2007?

I received this last night from my student

The answer is Application!  You read it but you don’t know how to apply it to your life.  You start asking yourself how can I apply this information? I have bad credit, a spouse who doesn’t support me, I don’t speak the language very well, I have no money etc.

Since you can figure out how to apply the information, you start chasing the next book, seminar or Reality TV Star looking for that “magic technique”.

What’s the solution?  Find someone you like, who has the experience,  who can show you how to apply the information to your life, give you assignments, keep you motivated, hold you accountable, over time, you will achieve results.

This formula can’t be found in any book, it can only be found with a coach.

Tell me your thoughts in the comments and please subscribe to this feed

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