Rapid Real Estate Investing Results

On Friday, we lost two more banks due to them being financially unstable.
The FDIC walked in and closed them down at the end of the business day Friday. It marked the 21st and 22nd banks to close this year.

Last year, we had a total of 140 banks close.
Are you a real estate investor or are you trying to figure out a way to get into real estate in these troubling times?

Despite what some people may be saying in the media, you can still make money in real estate. In fact, when times are their toughest is actually when you can do even better in any type of investment strategy. The reason for that is because all of the fearful investors that do not know any better are still running for the hills to take cover.

One of the greatest things you can do right now is to learn about short sales. In fact, if you want to get into real estate, you simply MUST know about short sales because you will run into potential short sale deals every day in bad economic times.

I would like to help you learn more about short sales.
If you are interested in learning what a short sale is and how you can profit from them while helping the troubled homeowner, put your name and e-mail address below. I will send you a few e-mails with more information to really get you up to speed on short sale investing or pre-foreclosure investing in real estate.

See you on the other side.

Technorati Tags: Foreclosure, real estate, real estate investing, short sale invest, short sale investing, short sales, Wholesaling Real Estate

Guest article written By: Sean Carpenter

Are you finding deals are getting tougher to close with the new restrictions banks are pushing on applicants?

Is it taking longer to get a deal done? Have you stopped looking for new projects to acquire?

The last year has been a very difficult period in real estate history. Some markets have declined upwards of 50% in value with no light at the end of the tunnel. Not very good news if you started your “buy and hold” in 2007, but will certainly work better for you now in 2010 as you pick properties up for a fraction of their price two years ago.

Not to mention cap rates are heading into the two digits in larger metropolitan areas. For some, this is an area of the market they have never experienced.

So what can we do to get some of these declining assets?

The banks that were lending up to 125% a few years back have either left the market or cap an acquisition at 70% loan to value. The remaining 30% is up to the investor. But raising the 30% slows down transactions and your friends in Congress have attempted to help.

In July 2008, the President signed the Housing & Economic Recovery Act (HERA), which among other things, provided $4.5B to all 50 states, some territories like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia, to combat neighborhood declination by foreclosure.

These funds, known as the Neighborhood Stabilization program, were supposed to help investors, both for and non-profits, buy and rehabilitate foreclosed buildings in order to prevent the stable households from losing too much value. In February 2009, Congress added an additional $4.5B to the program, now known as NSP II, to further carry out the NSP mission.

This is nothing new. The federal government has been investing in real estate for years, at least since HUD was conceived during the Johnson administration in 1965 as part of the Great Society initiative.

HUD allocates through the individual States and territories upwards of $20B per year to facilitate economic development and housing activities. Additionally, many states have programs of their own that can match federal funds in addition to over $5B in tax credit programs available to stimulate acquisition, rehabilitation and new construction of real estate projects.

Buying and holding certainly isn’t what it used to be, but now the government wants to help you out more than ever. You just have to know WHERE to find the money and HOW to get the funds.
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Sean Carpenter is the nation’s leading expert on Government Deal Funding for Real Estate Investors and Developers and has spent the last 12 years both consulting and getting funding for his own deals. I’ll be hosting a special interview with Sean coming up on Wednesday, February 24th, 9:00 PM EST. Find out more and pre-register for the call by entering your name and e-mail address below:

UPDATE: Since this webinar was a few weeks ago, if you register below, I will send you the encore webinar information as soon as you confirm your e-mail address.

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Disclosure: If you click on a link on this website, you may be using an affiliate link. This means I may be compensated if you purchase something from the company on the other end of the link.

Disclaimer: This is not legal advice or even financial advice. The opinions and information here are written to entertain and inform you of my experiences from Real Estate Investing. I can’t possibly know your financial situation or whether you will have the ability, motivation or determination to put forth the effort that is required to put a system or idea in motion to profit from it.

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 the information shared here on this site or any other website or e-mail that I may send you.

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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Technorati Tags: Build my IRA, Cincinnati Real Estate, First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, first time homebuyer, funding solutions, government funding, Home prices, investing, investing education, Loan Mod, Out Of Area Owners, private investors, private lenders, private lending, private money, Property Inspection, Property Values, real estate, real estate financing, real estate investing, realestate, Retirement Savings, Short Sale, short sale invest, short sale investing, short sales, shortsale, tax credit, Virtual Investing, webinars, Wholesale real estate, Wholesaling Real Estate

If you are looking for the LATEST in online and offline marketing ideas for your business, you should sign-up for my newsletter.

When you do, I will also send you a 100 Page E-book titled “Beginners Guide to Internet Marketing”. While it is not Real Estate Industry specific, it will give you a great overview of how to use the Internet to market your business.

It is geared more for someone that wants to start making money online, but the concepts translate very well to Real Estate or any business that is not getting enough traffic from their online efforts.

So, sign up below and I will rush that 100 Page E-Book over to you…It’s free, at least check it out.

Technorati Tags: Finding Buyers, Foreclosure, Foreclosure prevention, government funding, Hiring Contractors, Internet Marketing, investing, investing education, Marketing for Buyers, Marketing Properties, Online Marketing, private investors, private lenders, private money, Property Inspection, Property Values, real estate, real estate investing, Retirement Savings, Short Sale, short sale investing, short sales, shortsale, Virtual Investing, webinars, Wholesale real estate, Wholesaling Real Estate

This is great news!
While I’m not an attorney, the legal speak in the pdf below tells me that FHA is now going to allow a buyer using FHA financing to purchase it even if the seller has not been on title for a minimum of 90 days.

http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/waivpropflip2010.pdf

The 90 day seasoning rule was instituted to try to keep “Illegal flips” from occuring. I have “illegal” in quotes because it is only illegal if someone is committing fraud by getting an appraiser to appraise the property for MUCH higher than the real value of the property.

This is totally illegal and I’m pretty sure you can be put in jail for that. Again, I’m not an attorney so don’t take my word for that.

However, the way most of these transactions are happening is this. An investor purchases a property either from a bank or from a homeowner in distress at a substantial discount because of the distressed situation.

Banks do NOT want to spend money to fix up foreclosed homes.

Homeowners that are having trouble making house payments do not want to make repairs either. They are struggling just to pay their bills.

Why would they continue to repair a home they are likely going to lose in foreclosure anyway?

So these properties NEED an investor buyer to step in and buy the home and rehab the home back to move-in ready condition.

Well, in these times of tight credit, it’s next to IMPOSSIBLE to get a decent rate on a long term loan for an investor. So, rather than holding the property as a rental, the investor fixes up the home using high interest loans.

The investor then turns around the property and finds an end buyer that wants to live there. Typically, the end buyer still gets a really good deal on now an updated home rather than a distressed property.

Well, when FHA decided to implement the 90 seasoning rule, that eliminated a TON of buyers, especially first time home buyers that typically rely on FHA programs to get in with low down payments.

They don’t typically have extra money to fix up a home.

So, I welcome this change for everyone involved. It is going to speed up the acquisition of these distressed properties because now the investor will have an easier time finding a buyer.

What do you think of this plan?
Leave some feedback below.

Technorati Tags: Bank negotiation, Build my IRA, Bulk Real Estate, Bulk REO, Cincinnati Real Estate, Determining Property Values, First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit, first time homebuyer, forbearance, Foreclosure, Foreclosure prevention, funding solutions, government funding, Hiring Contractors, Home prices, investing, investing education, lender Negotiation, preforeclosure, private investors, private lenders, private lending, private money, Property Inspection, Property Values, real estate financing, real estate investing, realestate, Retirement Savings, Short Sale, short sale invest, short sale investing, short sales, shortsale, tax credit, Virtual Investing, webinars, Wholesale real estate, Wholesaling Real Estate

1) Project a more professional image to customers
2) Have a place to showcase your properties
3) Ability to capture leads and track where they are coming from
4) Develop a relationship with your potential customers
5) Have a 24 hour salesperson to help promote your business

In fact, I’d like to share one of my own personal secrets with you.

I consider this guy to be one of my aces in the hole.

And trust me, I know this from first hand experience. I’ve been a member of his elite coaching system for the past 6 months.

His name is Mr. X and he has tremendous real estate expertise, honed razor sharp in a series of his own real estate ventures. Mr. X. has been studying the real estate investor community for a number of years and is deeply concerned about what is working and not working in the real estate community right now.

X as I like to call him, is worried because when he sees people who honestly want to grow a real estate investment business, follow a path to certain failure and destruction, he just gets angry.

If you’ve tried program after program after program and have still been unable to grow your real estate business, it’s probably NOT YOUR FAULT. Trust me, there are plenty of players in real estate who want to see everyone else fail.

In fact, there are several very real reasons why this has happened to you, why your business building efforts have been doomed to failure right from the start. I promise you, YOU CAN SUCCEED IN REAL ESTATE, but what we see in real estate right now is a real concern.

Because he wants to help, for an extremely limited time, X is offering a huge discount on an unbelievable system called OpenRoad. This is an online platform that is designed for the investor to make a heck of a lot more money in a fraction of the time. If you haven’t already heard about it

Click here http://rapidreiresults.com/openroad

I’ve read it. In fact, as a member of his systems group, I’ve put these ideas into practice. It’s cash in the bank.

He is giving a free gift away to everyone that registers for one of the online DEMOs that they do weekly.

P.S. Don’t delay. If Mr. X gets buried with requests, he’ll probably take the site down. Get it now, before that happens.

http://rapidreiresults.com/openroad

P.S.S. Why the secrecy with the Mr. X stuff? Well, I can’t give away all of my information here, can I. If you are curious enough to want to know more about this, just click the link.

Disclosure: Just so we are clear, that is my affiliate link above. I believe so strongly in what this company has to offer that I have become an affiliate to help promote their product. If you eventually decide to purchase through that link above, my company will receive a commission.

Technorati Tags: Bulk REO, Business System, buy houses, buy more houses, cash flow notes, commercial real estate, creative real estate, CRM, foreclosure laws, foreclosure process, generate leads, get more customers, investment real estate, Lead management, leads, money lenders, money making ideas, private investors, real estate blog, real estate investing, real estate investing blog, real estate investor tools, real estate investors, real estate software, Real Estate System, Real Estate Websites, sell houses, short sales, Squeeze page, Wholesale real estate

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