Rapid Real Estate Investing Results

Do you have homeowners calling your office that DO NOT want to lose their home?
Have you heard about doing loan mods? Many of you may have heard about them, but don’t know what they really are or who would be a good candidate for a loan modification.

This is an area that I want to know more about as well and have found someone that is an expert in this area. I know some of the basics, but I like to know more about a topic before I actually try doing something, I don’t like to just know a little bit and then try to wing it.

So, what is a loan modification?
A loan modification is when you work with a lender to modify the original terms of a note to bring them more in line with what the borrower can afford. Lenders don’t want everyone to know about these because they stand to lose a bunch of money. This is very understandable. However, in the back offices of the banks and mortgage companies, they are becoming more popular because it helps keep them from having to foreclose on a home when the borrower is underwater. The other reason they are becoming more appealing to the lender is because of our Government’s involvement in the banks affairs. That’s right, our Government is pushing lenders to do loan modifications as well. You may have even seen a headline or two about it, but it’s all very mysterious stuff unless you learn from an expert.

I have a webinar scheduled for Tuesday, November 3rd, at 9PM EST with Richard Geller, one of the truly cutting edge people in the Loan Modification industry. Richard has been doing loan mods and teaching loan modification for several years.

There is no charge for the webinar but we only have 200 spots.

Register here
http://RapidREIresults.com/loanmod

Richard is going to go over the following topics, plus many others.

* Loan mods and violations, forensic audits and how they fit in to get principal reductions – this is HUGE.
* You can still do loan mods for profit and Richard will show you how to do it LEGALLY, and why you would even want to!
* Why investor owned properties NEED loan mods and how to get them.
* Turning Cash-Flow Negative deals into Cash-Flow Positive
* Repairing your credit (or your client’s credit
* How to use loan mods to attract people who want you to buy their house as a short sale opportunity.

Plus, many other great tips. He will definitely over deliver on this webinar.

Don’t delay, register now, your clients need you to know this information and we only have 200 seats for this webinar.

Register here
http://RapidREIresults.com/loanmod

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Notice: While there is absolutely no charge for this webinar, since I’m referring you to this webinar, if you decide to buy something down the road from Richard Geller, I will likely get a commission on the sale. However, the fact that I have sent you over there, will NOT change your price at all, it is just a way for Richard to thank me for sending a potential customer his way.

P.S. Do you have a website for your business yet? What about your own domain for your business e-mails? Raise your businesses credibility and get your own domain name. It’s easy to do.
24×7 support, world class service.
http://www.RapidWebDomains.com

Technorati Tags: Bank negotiation, credit repair, lender Negotiation, Loan Mod, Loan Modification, short sale invest, short sale investing

These are some basics on short sale investing that I put together because people keep asking me what a short sale is. Once they understand what it is, they want to know how best to go about working on a short sale home and how to determine if a home is even a candidate for a short sale. So, I decided to put together a list of things you will need if you are getting into negotiating short sales.
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Disclaimer: This is not legal advice or even financial advice. The opinions and information here are written to entertain and help educate you with my knowledge and experience from Real Estate Investing. As always, before embarking on any business venture, you should consult with your financial advisor, accountant, lawyer and other professionals to help you determine if it is a worthwhile venture and to discuss the risks. I make no claims about how much money YOU will make with any of my information. As in ANY business, your results will vary based on your own knowledge, determination, motivation and financial resources available to you.
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You need to be prepared for the calls and e-mails you will get. You need to have a property information sheet to gather the correct info on the property. You are going to get calls from underwater homeowners whether you are marketing specifically for them or not. When people hear that you have rental property or they know that you buy and sell houses, they will find you. I personally do not run marketing specifically for pre-foreclosures because I keep busy enough with what I’m already working on. However, I have learned what needs to be done for short sales so that I can gather the proper information and either work the deal myself or refer it out to someone that specializes in negotiating short sales. If you want to focus on this type of investing, you need to get a good education on handling these deals.

1) First and Foremost, find out where the homeowner is mentally. What do they want to do with the home? Do they want to try to stay in the home or have they thrown in the towel and just want to move on? These are TWO EXTREMELY different cases. You can not in most areas and should not charge the homeowner anything upfront for either scenario and there are specific laws that may determine what you can do in your area to help these homeowners. Consult with a knowledgeable and experienced Real Estate attorney in your local area to help guide you in the right direction.

Paperwork needed to work a short sale deal.

1) Property Information Sheet
2) Financial Information Sheet – lien holders, account numbers, employment/income information, anything that you may need to help work with the bank.
3) Hardship Letter – written by the homeowner stating what their hardship is that caused the house payment to fall behind. Some lenders refer to this as a “Hardship Letter” some even call it a “Sad letter”. Very important, this needs to be a real letter, not some canned letter, and it needs to be written by the homeowner and signed by them with a date on it.
4) Pictures of the property and condition report
5) Purchase and Sale Agreement

After you gather the information on the property, determine if it is a deal you would even want to pursue. Most of us would like to be able to help EVERY single homeowner that calls. It is in our nature as compassionate human beings to want to help others, but we have to be realistic with ourselves and our potential customers. We do not have enough time in the day to help every single person calling. Now, you could try to get close, but your business would have to get significantly larger to handle all of the calls.
So the name of the game is to focus your efforts on the most important deals. It’s all about sifting and sorting your leads. Do you have a process to determine what leads you are going to work on today, tomorrow, next week? This is something EVERY business needs. If you don’t you will be spinning around chasing your tail not getting very far.
This was not a comprehensive list. I have gone through several Short Sale courses to learn different methods to work shortsales. If you would like a reference for a great short sale course, add a comment and also, while you are at it, join my newsletter mailing list.

Happy Investing

Technorati Tags: Foreclosure, investing, preforeclosure, real estate, real estate investing, realestate, Short Sale, shortsale

Short Sale is a term that many media outlets are throwing around right now not really understanding what the term means.
The basics of a short sale in real estate are a mortgage lender accepting less than the full amount owed to payoff the note. Example: Current mortgage balance is $200,000. The owner has found a buyer for their home, but the only buyer they could find after having their home on the market for 6+ months was someone that is only willing to pay $175,000. Who makes up the other $25,000? Well, if the home is underwater by that much and the owner is not financially able to come up with the $25,000, the lender may accept a payoff for less than the full amount.

Why would a lender do this?
1) If the homeowner can not afford the house payment and it is headed for foreclosure anyway, it is actually less expensive in many cases for the lender to accept less than the full balance as a payoff.

2) Foreclosure is very expensive for a bank. I have seen some estimates that the bank expects to lose anywhere from $30,000-$40,000 on every home that goes into foreclosure. If they can find a buyer that is willing to pay $25,000 less than the full balance, they actually come out ahead by selling before the forclosure sale.

3) Once a home is foreclosed on and becomes an REO (Other Real Estate Owned on the banks books) the property is no longer properly cared for and begins to deteriorate very quickly. In fact, the longer an underwater homeowner stays in a home, the likelyhood of the home deteriorating while they are there goes up as well. If someone can’t pay their mortgage and knows they are going to lose the home in foreclosure anyway, what are the chances they are going to spend any of their hard earned money on keeping their house in good working order.

Someone heading for foreclosure is usually in a very bad place mentally. It is an extremely stressful time for the family and often times is caused by some major life event. Coupling that major life event, e.g. job loss, death in the family, major illness, etc, with the prospect of losing their family home can be extremely stressful.

I receive calls frequently from homeowners that are underwater. Some of them can be helped, others may just need to go through the foreclosure process. I am coming up with a way to handle more of these cases, but it is never the easiest type of deal to work.

Technorati Tags: Foreclosure, Foreclosure prevention, short sales

This topic is constantly debated on the mass media channels. Despite the efforts of the Obama Administration, we are not at the bottom of the housing market slump yet. We have seen some shortening of the Days on Market for homes in many areas. However, I feel that this is largely due to the $8000 tax credit for first time home buyers. The fundamentals of the economy just are NOT there to support a decrease in days on market. You don’t see long term inventory shrinking when Unemployment has nearly doubled all across the country. The only reason inventory has shrunk is most people are not trying to sell their home unless they are in either a distressed situation or they are moving out of the area. What used to be caused by a “credit problem” has now turned into a very real employment problem.
Going forward, we have many factors still fighting against a recovery in the housing market.

1) High Unemployment
2) Decrease in available credit
3) Tighter credit standards for individuals and businesses
4) More foreclosures coming
5) Lower demand for home purchases due to the expiration of the tax credit.

The First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit is increasing sales of lower priced homes in many areas. Why the lower priced homes? Because that is where first time home buyers are able to spend their money. Especially if they are young and at the start of their careers. The other force driving this is uncertainty of the job market. If a first time home buyer is looking for a home and being smart about their purchase, they are going to buy something they are sure they can afford, plus the banks are going to look more closely at their income and require a minimum of 3% down (On an FHA loan, more on a non-FHA). The only no-money down financing available to homeowners is the RD loan (Rural Development) which is administered by the USDA. Well, let me qualify that statement, you could get a no-money down, 100% financing home from a savvy real estate investor that is offering this in his/her own programs.

Folks that already have their own homes are not interested in selling right now unless they have to because it’s very unlikely they will ever get what they have invested in the home. The only way someone is going to get more than what they paid is if they have been there for 10 years or more. Why? Because, that is where home prices have fallen to in many areas, not all areas, but many many areas throughout the U.S.

As some unscientific prooof of this idea, I have tenants that just moved out of one of my homes a couple of weeks ago. They had been looking for a home to purchase for well over a year after moving here from out of state. They complained several times that they just could not find anything that was going to work for them. Most of the homes they were looking at were run down to some degree, an indication of a very distressed market. They did not want to go in and have to dump a lot of time and money on their next home. They were willing to spend money on a home they didn’t need to do any work to but they couldn’t find a home in good shape for their price range. The median price range in my neck of the woods is around $200,000. They were looking in the $300,000-$350,000 range. The people that own those priced homes are mostly sitting tight because they know that with all of the foreclosures everywhere, they will not get what they need from their home to be able to close without losing a bunch of money.

If you are a Real Estate investor, you need to seriously consider this when purchasing a home for investment purposes. My recommendation is to only go back for comparable sales a maximum of 6 months. Don’t complain about an appraisal that has only gone back 6 months.

I would even look at prices of homes selling up to 12 months ago just to see if they were lower then, because I think we are artificially high right now in some areas and if prices have risen since last winter, we are going to see some dipping back down again. Yes, that’s right, I said it. We are artificially high in some areas of the U.S. even though the market is down across the country. The reason I believe we are artificially high is because the $8000 Tax Credit is creating artificial demand, or it is just pulling demand forward that normally may have waited until next year to purchase.

How could we possibly be high in some areas? Because, we have not seen the peak of foreclosures yet. The government and the Mortgage Bankers Association are urging ‘Workout plans” such as forbearance agreements and loan modification instead of Short sales and foreclosures. Why would they do that? My theory is, this is one last attempt to grab more money from their customers before statistics catch up and they lose their home anyway. Do you know what the percentage of successful forbearance and loan workouts have been historically? They are rather low. Here is the general problem. You have a stressed home owner that is trying to get back in the good graces with their lender. The lender says, “sure, we’ll work with you. Your payments will increase while you catch up your loan.” Homeowner, “Great, I can do that” but they are really thinking “Wow, I’m already behind, how am I going to afford a larger payment?”

This is especially true now with unemployment numbers where they are right now. At close to 10% unemployment in many areas, many people are taking jobs with lower pay just to get back to work. How is that person supposed to afford a HIGHER payment?

Buckle up everyone, we are not done with this roller coaster.

We still have many adjustable rate mortgages that will start adjusting upwards over the next 2 years. That will put a further strain on the housing market.

See thie Smart Money article for further discussion.
http://www.smartmoney.com/personal-finance/real-estate/Why-Loan-Modifications-Often-Do-not-Work/#

Technorati Tags: First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, forbearance, Foreclosure, Home prices, short sales

Do you have a way that all players can access what they need to see to make sure the short sale process runs smoothly?

I came across this system a few weeks ago and it is unbelievable.
You have to check this out if you either already invest in Pre-Foreclosure Short Sales or if you help homeowners through a short sale process as a Realtor. This system will make the paperwork process so seamless, you won’t know what you did without it.

Go get it here.
Click here to visit this site

Who is this short sale automation system IDEAL FOR?

• Investors
• Brokers
• Realtors
• Sellers
• Negotiators DREAM SYSTEM

Reason You’re Crazy to Not To Get this Point – 1

- Cory and his partner Tracey manage over 400 short sale files using THIS EXACT SYSTEM.

Reason You’re Crazy to Not Get This Point – 2

- Just last week Cory submitted over 500 new short sale packages directly out of their system and auto tracks every single one of them.

Reason You’re Crazy to Not Get This Point – 3

This is a brand new technology that you will be FLOORED by when you see what it can do for your short sale business.

What can it do for you exactly and how powerful is it?

• Build a short sale package in 10 minutes (watch it happen)
• Completely paperless short sale submission
• Easily Fax short sale packages right out of the system
• A Complete remote document collection
• Build the short sale packages inside the system
• Email/Fax out the short sale package directly to lenders
• Easy Web management from any computer
• Create Individual logins for Buyers/Sellers/Realtors and Negotiators
• Loan modification tool to generate leads
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac used comparable data for sold properties

Imagine never having to worry about keeping track of any short sale paperwork again for the rest of your life. Then take that thought and multiply it TIMES – A THOUSAND!

Go get it here.
Click here to visit this site

If you are working on or you plan to work short sales, you need this system.

Last night’s webinar with Jim Fleck was packed with folks asking questions about Jim’s new program.
I am hoping to have Jim Fleck do another webinar for us.

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Update: I got word earlier this evening that there will not be any more webinars this weekend. Jim has sold out all of the DVD orders that he had made up.
So, go ahead and join my mailing list below.
I will keep you posted on any new webinars that will be coming up.
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However, at this time we do not have another once scheduled.
If you came here looking for the webinar, go check out the product he was going to be telling us about at the link below.

It is free product (Just cover the Shipping and Handling Charges).
Basically, you are getting a ton of great content with the hopes that you might want to purchase it coaching program.

Check it out here.
http://www.RapidREIresults.com/fleck1

Thanks for visiting my blog.
Also, sign up for my newsletter at the box below and I will send out some great freebies to you and keep you updated on when we have webinars coming up, including a rescheduled Jim Fleck webinar.

To your success
- Marshall

Did you actually set goals for 2009?
Maybe you are new to Real Estate Investing and did not set Real Estate specific goals. Or, you are seasoned but not succeeding the way you have always envisioned your RE investing career.

What do you want to get out of real estate investing?
The most critical part of starting or being successful in any business is knowing what you want to get out of it. What do you want the results of your efforts to be?

If you have not set meaningful, specific goals, you have a very high probability of not succeeding, or at least making it very difficult to succeed in business and in life.
One of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes is “Are you a wondering generality, or are YOU a meaningful specific?” If you don’t have a specific goal, how will you ever hit it?

If you have never read or heard anything from Zig Ziglar, you should definitely put that on your list.

Are you getting what you want out of life right now or are you living a life of quiet desperation?

For real estate specific goals, if you have not gone out and seen the Jim Fleck videos, you have to do this. I’m telling you, the videos will inspire you, especially the one titled “”Secrets” that I left for Ivanna.” The first two videos that Jim did were just some fun to set a story line. Short videos and entertaining. You need to check these out though. The content keeps getting better.

http://www.rapidreiresults.com/fleck1

Go check it out.

P.S. Jim talks about setting your goals, very specific goals and how to attain those goals through Real Estate Investing. Then he helps you map out how to get there.

In the interest of full disclosure: The link above is an affiliate link and I will get a little commission if you decide to purchase something from Jim later on. There is nothing to buy right now, I just think you should check these videos out and download the E-Book that he has out on the site. If you decide that you want the program when it is released later this week, I will offer some cool bonuses if you decide to purchase through my link. Don’t worry about that though, check out his free stuff now and see if what he is teaching and how he teaches might be right for you.

In the interest of full disclosure: The link above for Jim’s video and E-book download is an affiliate link. This means that I will get a little commission if you decide to purchase something from Jim later on. There is nothing to buy right now, I just thought you should know. I also think you should check these videos out and download the E-Book that he has out on the site. I have seen them and they are great. If you decide that you want the program when it is released later this week, I will offer some cool bonuses if you decide to purchase through my link. Don’t worry about that though, check out his free stuff now and see if what he is teaching and how he teaches might be right for you.

I have seen and hear a bunch of evidence of foreign investors looking at tons of property to buy. They are looking at our depressed housing market and salivating over it. I mean, why wouldn’t they? You can buy a $230K house for $150K in many areas of the country right now. This is a no-brainer. You hold that property for a few years and you are sitting on a very nice piece of equity.

I love to take advantage of free and low cost training whether it be Real Estate, Marketing, Information Technology, etc. What can I say, I’m a junkie. If someone wants to give me something in exchange for my e-mail address to join their list, I’m fine with that as long as it is good quality educational material. The free stuff is a great way to see if the guru is worth spending money on down the road. You can usually tell how high of quality someone’s paid for products are by what and how much they give away for free. Consider it your free sample like you get sometimes at the grocery store.

http://www.RapidREIresults.com/fleck1

Also, I love to see how people are marketing their products.
If you haven’t seen Jim’s video yet, it’s definitely worth checking out. It’s a very good story line and you might just get some very good money making ideas from it. Jim is giving away a ton of free information to you just for checking him out. I met Jim about a month ago and have heard nothing but great things about him and he has been very helpful to me with some marketing questions I have had. He’s also doing a great job in his Real Estate investing business. Check out his video, there is nothing to buy right now anyway, just go get the freebies.

http://www.RapidREIresults.com/fleck1

In the interest of Full Disclosure:
Yes, that link is my affiliate link which means, if you decide to purchase Jim’s program down the road, I will get a commission for sending you over there. However, there is nothing to buy at the end of that link. Jim has some very unique marketing going on at that site and I thought you might like it if you are involved in Real Estate or if you just like good marketing material. If you do decide to buy his program later, I will make it worth your while too. More on that later though, just go check out the video!

One last thing, sign up for my newsletter to stay informed. I have some very exciting topics that I’m working on to show you how to finally make money in Real Estate and get your business moving. Leave me some feedback on what you are looking for too.

One of the biggest issues most Real Estate investors are facing right now is with finding funding for their deals. What have your experiences been over the past year? Have you figured out a way to still make it happen.

Please leave some feedback on what you are doing to get deals done. Also, I’m working on finding a way to help you to get these deals done and will hopefully have a webinar over the next several weeks.

My favorite exit strategy right now is to sell properties to owner occupants below full market value. However, this presents a challenge if you are purchasing and trying to quickly turn the property over. (There is nothing wrong with doing this as long as the value of the property will support the price you sell it at. Do not sell your properties for more than they are worth. You are setting someone up for failure if you do this.)

If you have a property you have held for 90+ days, your options are much more open. However, if you are still trying to rehab and then sell to a retail buyer, you have some challenges in this market. Some lenders are requiring you hold the property for a minimum of 30 days and FHA is requiring at least 90 days of title seasoning (you, the seller needs to be on title for 90 days before reselling to an FHA buyer). Do you have the funds to hold this long if rehabbing or doing short sales? I have found a solution to this problem. Let me know if you want more details.

Here is a list of many of your options.
(This list is not a comprehensive list of ways to finance a home and you can use combinations of different methods as well).

1) Use your own cash
2) Use your own credit
3) Use someone else’s cash
4) Use someone else’s credit. (No not identity theft type stuff, credit partners).
5) Find your own sugar daddy to fund (LOL)
6) Use retirement funds from a self directed IRA account. Now this is a really cool way to do things but there are some very specific rules you MUST follow or get pummeled by the IRS.
7) Use someone else’s retirement funds and pay them a fixed rate on a note secured by a mortgage on the property. (This is one of my favorite ways to do this but again, you need to know the rules, and there are many)
8.) Get the owner to hold the financing until you can resell.
9) Find a BIG money 50/50 partner. Now this is great if you can find someone or a company/institution that will do it. This is definitely a more expensive option than some of the others, but what if you could do 3 deals instead of 1 per month and still make the same amount per deal because you could move quickly?

You see, success loves speed. Your most important quality in business and investing is speed of implementation. If you act slowly, someone else is going to beat you to it. That’s why it is important to have ready access to funding for your deals.

I’m going to elaborate on these topics over the next few weeks. If you want to stay on top of this or would like more information about one of these methods in particular, let me know. I have tons of material to help you out.

-MM

P.S. Sign up for our membership site below so you will be notified when I have a new post and when we have our next webinar. You don’t want to miss these webinars, you will learn a ton of great information on them that you can begin implementing right away. Some of the webinars will have something to buy at the end, but they ALWAYS have extremely valuable free info.

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Disclaimer, some of the stuff I present will cost some money. Also, some of it I will get a commission on if you purchase through my link because I have affiliate relationships set up with many specialists in the industry. If you do purchase through my links, it WILL NOT change your pricing for the product at all. In fact, some of my links offer you a discount or extra bonuses from the vendors or with some things I may even offer you a bonus if purchasing through my link. Either way, I always check things out before putting a link to them on my site. I won’t put a link on my site unless I have at least done initial investigations of a product myself.

I’m looking for feedback from you regarding your challenges in real estate investing right now. As a thank you for joining my subscriber list, I will also give you access to a video and an MP3 that you can listen to pretty much anywhere. Just enter your e-mail address in the form below and I will e-mail you the link to the video and the MP3 file.

I will be posting an article about this and I’m planning some webinars over the next several weeks with a few creative thinkers out there. What do you most want to hear about regarding Real Estate funding, either for investments or owner occuppied properties? Leave some feedback. I’m going to tailor the webinars to whatever you are looking for most.