Day Step-By-Step Action Plan

Transcription

1 Day Step-By-Step Action Plan ( For more real estate investing ideas visit CreatingWealthClub.com ) Below is a detailed guideline that will show you a path to get you up and running. If you re new to real estate investing, this will be very helpful. If you re already an active investor, this will be a good refresher of things you can and should be doing to help grow your business. This is your path and your probate investing business. If there are some activities below that you d like to replace with others, go right ahead. As you get more exposed to different investing strategies, you might gravitate to some. That s a good thing. Simply replace or substitute some of the activities below with ones you enjoy more. That s what makes this fun. You re in control! The beginning of this action plan will be heavily weighted to finding buyers. The reason is simple: unless you re a buy and hold investor looking for properties to rent out, you need buyers to sell your properties to. If you don t have buyers, you don t have an exit strategy. Without an exit strategy you may find yourself holding a property you can t sell. That can be very uncomfortable and costly. If you have a list of active cash buyers, you can find out what they re looking for and supply that demand. That can make this process more comfortable knowing you have people who want what you re selling. Many of the actions below you will do once to get things rolling. Other actions will be ongoing. These actions are purposely spread out over a number of days to give you a chance to actually do them and build momentum. If you re red hot to jump all over this, you can do many of the days actions at the same time to expedite this process. Take your time to lay down a good foundation. Let s begin

2 Day 1-3 Start interviewing real estate agents to help you find cash buyers and probate property leads. Your target real estate agent that you're trying to create a relationship with is one that's new whose hungry and motivated to find you leads. You're looking for someone who will appreciate you so you can build a long term relationship. Agents that have been around a long time and have lots of business aren t the perfect candidate. You're looking for someone new and fresh to the business. Since these agents have access to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), have them pull CASH transactions that have been recorded in the MLS in the last days. You can get a map of the results, or a copy of the spreadsheet they downloaded using the MLS. With that information you can begin zeroing in on the price points that properties are selling, along with the hot cash buyer activity areas by zip code. The reason for this is you're finding out what the cash buyer market is buying. That way you can supply the demand. You do that by targeting your marketing to acquire these types of properties. Then you'll want to begin separating that list by zip code. You're looking for the areas that have had the most discounted cash buyer activity. In the beginning, narrow your focus down to 3-5 zip codes that have the most cash transactions. If you're finding a lot of zip codes, to help narrow down your search, look for desirable amenities in the area the homes are in that will help sell your properties. For example: close access to transportation, freeways, shopping, entertainment, parks, good school districts, lower crime, etc. This criteria will help you find more desirable areas that people want to buy and live in. Have your real estate agent or investor friendly title company help you find out information on the particular cash transactions that are discounted and appear to be investors. You re trying to track down who bought the property. Check property tax records if necessary to find buyer information on these deals. Once you ve got contact information for these people and businesses, contact them and let them know you saw that they bought the property at 123 Main Street and wondered if they were in the market of buying more. If so, find out exactly what they re looking for and ask if they would like you to put them on your buyers list and be alerted the next time you have a property available that they might be interested in. Also Google "wholesale properties" and "I buy houses" to find cash buyers as well. People who place these ads online, in newspapers, on bandit signs you see on corners, are investors. Call them up and see what they are buying. Ask if you can put them on your buyers list.

3 Day 4-6 Find a title company that is investor friendly. When interviewing title companies, ask to talk to their most experienced agent. Ask them if they are familiar with a wrap-around mortgage and contract for deed. Ask if they can handle a double escrow. Keep interviewing title companies until you find an experienced and competent title agent. One place you can find out about such investor friendly title companies is by talking to other investors. You can find them at your local real estate clubs. Also when you re calling "I Buy Houses" ads to find cash buyers, ask these people if they know about investor friendly title companies they could refer. If so, ask for the name of a title agent there and contact them. Day 7-10 From what you learned from your real estate agent s research on the MLS, get mailing lists from your title company in the areas where the most cash buyer activity is happening. Ask if they ll provide that for free in exchange for your future business. Start marketing in these areas to find motivated home sellers. Become the area expert. Send postcards on a regular basis to these people. If you're on a tight budget, start with a small list of 100 addresses and work your way up. Pass out flyers if you have to. You're looking for people who need to get out from under their payments ASAP. You're looking for MOTIVATED home sellers. When you get unmotivated home owners looking to sell their house for a retail price, simply refer them to the real estate agent you're working with. Your agent will love you for it and continue to work hard for you. Day Create a Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account that talks about areas you invest in. Invite people to get on your buyers list from there. You can become the area expert who has the best deals.

4 Day Continue building your cash buyers list. Join your local real estate club, target rehabbers that flip properties; buy and hold investors. Other wholesalers are good to know for a number of reasons. Get on their buyers list to find out what prices they're selling their properties for. Ask if they are actively buying properties. If so, ask if they d like to be on your buyers list. Find out what their criteria is for buying the type of properties they're offering so you can search for those types of deals to offer them. Find out what type of homes they re looking for, price range they re paying, what areas, age, size, number of bedroom and baths, etc. This also gives you a point of reference for the type of deals that are out there in your area and what you might consider paying and selling them for as well. Day Get online and visit websites like Craigslist.org and BackPage.com. Look for ads that have words like Motivated Seller, Owner Will Carry, No Down Payment, Fixer Upper, etc. You re looking for ads placed by investors. Contact them and see if they re actively buying real estate. If so, ask if they d like to be on your buyers list. This is another great source to find active investors in your area, or areas you d like to be investing in. Remember, you re looking for what s in DEMAND and then SUPPLYING what the demand is for to the people who want it. Day See if anyone on your buyers list is willing to "co-wholesale" their deals with you. That simply means you can promote their homes to your buyers list and if they buy the home, you get a piece of the deal. You're essentially a bird dog for real estate "buyers". This is a perfect strategy to be able profit from selling property even if you don't have a property you've bought personally. This gets you in the game and let's your buyers list know you're a player who can provide them with deals. If you can hook up with a few of these active property sources, you might be promoting properties a month to your list. If you re able to sell just a few of these properties a month, that can add up to a nice passive income. Plus, when you set up your arrangement with the wholesalers whose properties you re promoting to your list, make sure that you get compensated when a buyer you referred buys subsequent properties. That way you re multiplying your efforts and your potential income.

5 The wholesaler should be happy to do that for you because you helping them by supplying them solutions to getting their properties sold fast. As a result they re getting paid quicker. Not to mention they don t have to stress out worrying about how they re going to sell the property and cover the holding costs. Day Find out where your county sells foreclosed homes. It could be the court house steps or some other designated place. Notice whose bidding on properties at these sales and introduce yourself. Let them know you're a real estate investor and would like to know if they'd like you to put them on your buyers list. Then ask for their business card so you've got their contact information. FIND OUT WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING FOR! That way you know what kind of properties YOU should be looking for. You're finding what these CASH BUYERS demand is and you're supplying it to them. Try to meet as many of these buyers as you can so you start building a STRONG buyers list with people who can make decisions quickly and have the cash to close quickly. Put all these people in your database under VIP Buyers. These buyers aren t dreamers. They re in the trenches and the stakes are high. They obviously have access to cash so they can close quickly. That s how it works with these types of auction deals. Treat these buyers with the utmost professionalism and don t waste their time. The way you do that is by finding out exactly what they re looking for. When you have a deal you know they want and the numbers fit their criteria, reach out to them quickly and let them know they re getting first crack at the deal buy they HAVE TO ACT FAST. Give them a time deadline such as, I need an offer by 5pm today. After that I m blasting this to the rest of my list. Let them know they are on a SMALL list of action takers who are seeing this first. That way they feel there s competition for your deal which there is! They will appreciate the priority you re giving them. At the same time they ll realize there s urgency and be more likely to act accordingly. (NOTE: If you have more available time, or you re incredibly motivated, what was just covered in the first 30 days can be done the first week. That way you can be locating buyers, a real estate agent and investor friendly Title Company to first lay down the foundation for what comes next making offers.)

6 Day Now that you hopefully have some active cash buyers on your list so that you have a viable exit strategy, you need to start your marketing to find motivated home sellers. Since you know the zip codes that have the most buyer activity, and you ve talked to cash buyers to find out what they re looking for and the areas they re interested in, you can start to target those areas. Create a list of probate attorneys and attorneys that specialize in estate planning in those areas. Let them know you re an investor who can buy property in estates quickly. Also regularly search the legal notices in those areas for probate listings. This way you re precision-targeting houses owned by potentially motivated home owners looking for a quick sale that you already have buyers for. This will help you sleep better at night knowing you have an exit strategy already set up. By finding your buyers first, you ve created this positive scenario for yourself. Day Consider sending direct mail pieces to a recently inherited property list or inheritance list to find people who have inherited property through probate. You can find this type of list at This site specializes in discounted investment property leads, so be sure and go there to see how it might help you. For people who have recently inherited property, this can be like found money for them. Especially if they live in a different state than the one where the property is located. In that case the property can quickly become a hassle for them. Your marketing piece will let them know you re interested in buying at possibly the very moment they may want to sell. This might be the answer they re looking for to get their hands on this new found cash. You can consider sending these people yellow letters that are customized and personalized. These have been reported to get some of the best response rates. Here s a little bonus to find even more motivated homes sellers via direct mail Another way to target motivated home sellers is by going to If you want to target properties that have equity, you can search for leads that have small mortgages. That will vary depending on your area. A rule of thumb might be a mortgage amount that's 50% of current market value or less. Have the transaction date on the property start at 15 years back or older. You're looking for properties that have equity with no new loans on it since the original purchase.

7 Then add to that search criteria "absentee investors" for your area. These are out of town landlords. Over time, landlords get burned out and are ready to sell. Send them a letter or postcard letting them know you re interested in their property. Your marketing may produce sales now or in the future. On the marketing piece somewhere say, Save this card/letter for when you re ready to sell! I might still be interested. This might implies you might NOT, which psychologically means they should act now. Day Now that you have ways to find motivated home sellers, you should have leads starting to come in. Follow up on every one and make offers on the ones that make sense. Remember, every offer you DON T MAKE will not get accepted so make offers and see what happens. Many will be rejected, and some will be accepted. That s how it works. But it STARTS by making offers. The more offers you make, the better your chances are for getting deals you re excited about. In the beginning we suggested you find a real estate agent that will help you find cash buyers. They can also search for listings that have been on the market 60 to 90 days or more, expired listings, short sales, bank owned homes, vacant homes, etc. Besides all the leads that are coming in from your other marketing that you can be making offers on, also consider making offers through your real estate agent on the types of listings mentioned above. Here s a generalized offer process example for consideration: Get your feet wet by making 1 LOW offer a day through your agent for listings they find on the MLS. Once you feel comfortable with that, increase the amount of offers you re making to 5 a day. Assuming you re making offers Monday-Friday for example, that s 25 offers a week and 100 offers a month. The above example is merely something to consider. You may want to submit more or less offers depending on your comfort zone, the current market condition, and if you have access to the amount of cash buyers needed to buy the properties once you ve bought them. NEVER over extend and place risk on yourself by not having a solid exit strategy in place. Also something to consider is the amount of money you have available for an earnest money deposit for each offer you make. Ask your agent for advice on how to best handle the earnest money deposit when making this many offers at the same time in your locale. If they re not sure, join them in consulting with their Broker. You want to follow the rules. If this becomes an issue, reduce the amount of offers you make on MLS listed properties so that your earnest money issue is handled. Ask your agent if a proof of funds letter might help in this scenario.

8 Combined with your other marketing efforts to find deals, you ve now got a real estate MACHINE designed to have leads coming in, offers going out, and deals being made. At the same time you re limiting some of your risk by not over extending yourself by making offers on properties you don t have an exit strategy for. Day At this point you ve got a lot of pieces in place. Review the list and make sure you haven t missed anything or stopped doing the things that will continue to get leads coming in. Determine what is slipping through the cracks and start to focus in again on making those things happen. Continue to place updated ads marketing homes on Craigslist.org and BackPage.com so your ads are being found. This is how you can continue to find cash buyers on an ongoing basis. Look for wholesale SELLERS on these same websites. Find out if they re willing to sell cheap to you so you can flip the property. If there s not enough profit for you to do this based on their wholesale asking price, see if they d be willing to co-wholesale the deal if you were to market it to your buyers list. See if they have other properties they d like to sell or co-wholesale. Day Add For Sale By Owners (FSBO) to your target marketing. Some of these people might be prime sources of pre-foreclosure deals. Don t spend a lot of time with any one FSBO as many will be holding out for a retail price. However, some may be offering the house for sale on their own because there s not enough equity in the property to pay a real estate agent s commission. In this case they may be willing to sign over the deed for little to no money if you were to take over payments. This may be someone who d be open to hearing about a Subject-To deal. For those sellers intent on getting a full retail price, refer them to your real estate agent so they can follow up and possibly generate a listing for themselves. This will help them which will make them more willing and motivated to help you. Day If your area allows it, put out signs in areas where you have a house for sale to help attract cash buyers. This is something you should always be doing whenever you have a property to sell. You should also be blanketing these same areas with flyers advertising the house for sale. This flyer should also state that you buy houses and can help people that are behind on their payments.

9 You are creating a marketing machine. Every time you have a house for sale, look at that as an opportunity to advertise for Cash Buyers and Motivated Sellers. Don t overlook this moment in time. SEIZE IT! You have something SPECIAL to offer. Take full advantage of it to help grow your cash buyers list, along with acquiring even MORE properties to sell to them in the exact area you know they re currently looking to buy. Congratulations you ve made it to Day 60! At this point you have a lot going on. Keep the momentum going by continuing your efforts to find more buyer and seller leads by implementing what you ve learned so far. Here are a few more things to add to your efforts over the next 30 days. We ve spread out the timeframe so that you can ease these activities into what you re already doing... Day Look for ways to outsource some of the work. Contact local colleges to find interns who would be willing to work for free in exchange for the experience. If you like the person, you might offer them a part time job. Hire a virtual assistant. These are people who can do all kinds of things for you remotely from any place in the country or world. If you hire these people to talk to potential sellers, make sure they have a good understanding of the English language and are able to communicate well. You can usually hire virtual assistants on a part time or full time basis. Do an online search for virtual assistant and research some until you find one you like. 123employee.com is a place that offers virtual assistant services of many kinds. Visit their site to get more familiar with the process. Day Start researching online and offline classifieds under For Rent in areas you re interested in. Start ing and calling these landlords to see if they d be interested in selling the property. Ask if they have other properties they d like to sell. If they re not interested in selling that particular property, see if they have any OTHER properties they d be interested in selling. Ask them if they know of anyone who has property they re trying to sell. Find out if they re interested in buying more properties. If so, ask if they d like to be put on your buyers list and alerted the next time you have a property available. Ask if they have cash to close quickly, or if

10 they would need to get financing. This will give you an idea if they re someone who should go on your VIP buyers list, or your general buyers list. Call at least 5-10 landlords a day. This is a great source to find experienced investors who might be able to create more business for you. You will sometimes uncover people who aren t investors at all. These might be people who couldn t sell their house for whatever reason and had to move. They have chosen to rent out their property to help cover the monthly loan payment. Do you think they d be interested in hearing from you? This can be a great motivated seller lead as chances are they re making 2 monthly payments. They obviously have a problem they need to get solved. Listen to what they have to say. If the numbers work, provide them a solution by making them an offer. If they accept and you re looking to rent the house out as well, ask them to forward any future leads they receive on their ad to you. Day Create a flyer to hand out at real estate club meetings that highlights your services and what kind of properties you re looking for. Mention that you have a hungry buyers list and that you re always looking for deals to supply to them. Also pass out your business card. When you go to these meetings, introduce yourself to other investors, hand them your flyer/card and ask what type of deals they re looking for. You want to ask a question and LISTEN. This is how you make a good impression by being interested in what someone else has to say and you are! Plus this way you can find out who the players are very quickly in the conversation. If they re a player, continue the conversation with ways you might be able to help them in their efforts of finding good deals by finding out what they re looking for. Ask if you can put them on your buyers list. Ask if they know of other active investors they can recommend or introduce you to. Set the goal to find at least 10 active investors to build relationships with each time you go to a club meeting. Continue to go to meetings and look for new active investors to meet. If your area has more than one real estate club, go to all the meetings with this goal in mind. If you can meet more than 10 active investors at a single meeting, that s even better. You re trying to grow your reach in the area. These people can be like gold to your business. They can help sell property you have if you re willing to share some of the profits. If you are, then ask if they d ever be interested in promoting a property of yours to their buyers list for a cut of the deal. Here s something to keep in mind. Considering you re both doing business in the same area, it s possible you each have some of the same people on your buyers lists. With that in mind, it s best to make sure

11 YOUR buyers list knows about the property BEFORE another investor promotes the property to their buyers list. If you re under the clock and really have to sell the property quickly, you might not care. It s something to take into consideration so you have all your bases covered. Day Find real estate forums online where you can network with other likeminded investors. This is a place where you can learn what s working for others, ask questions, and network to find other deals. This is also a place to find cash buyers who might be interested in your properties. One way to make yourself stand out is to supply answers to questions people post when you have them. This way you can become a valuable resource to people and someone they want to know. This is also a way you can branch out your real estate investing in other locals virtually. You might be able to learn about other areas you like, invest in them and be able to sell to some of these people without ever actually seeing the property. This is a specialty all of its own and you would need to educate yourself on the process. It s just another aspect you might want to consider down the road. Day Refresh your activities by going back over this list and making sure nothing that was working before has accidently slipped through the cracks and no longer being done. Assess what that might be and once again give it priority. Things that work shouldn t be overlooked. See if you might be able to outsource the work to a college intern or virtual assistant to make sure it gets done going forward. Reevaluate the professionals you re working with. Is your real estate agent doing a good job? Could they be doing more for you? If you re not sure ask them, Is there anything else you could be doing to help me find more deals? The more deals I do, the more money you ll be able to make as well! Listen to what they have to say. If they re a newer agent who was eager to work with you in the beginning, they might not know more ways they can help you. If you re happy with them so far, suggest them ask their Broker for suggestions on ways they can find you more deals. The broker usually gets a nice cut of the agent s commission, so they should be happy to give suggestions. Start looking for more investing strategies to add to your real estate machine to find even more deals.

12 We ll end this for now. Please realize you re in charge of the ultimate order and timeframe of this road map. Have fun with this and try to make some progress every day. For more strategies to add to your real estate investing machine visit Earnings Disclaimer: The statements in this are not to be interpreted as a promise or guarantee of earnings. As with any business, your results will vary and will be based on your desire, dedication, effort, ability to follow directions, and an infinite number of variables beyond our control. In most cases, people's results are zero. One reason for that is because they don't take action with the products they invest in. So please be sure to put into action the strategies you learn from the items you get to help your odds for success :-) NOTICE: The authors and publishers of the material are not accountants or attorneys and so are not qualified to give accounting or legal advice. All information is based on their research and is presented in good faith. They are not responsible for errors and omissions. Contracts and agreements are exhibits only and should not be used until approved by your real estate attorney. No legal advice is being given in any of our material. Laws and real estate practices change from time to time. The reader is advised to keep up to date on activities in their locale by consulting with a real estate attorney before doing any investing. You understand this to be an expression of opinions and not professional advice. You are solely responsible for the use of any content and hold CreatingWealthClub.com, LLC and all members and affiliates harmless in any event or claim, demand, or damage, including reasonable attorneys fees, asserted by any third party or arising out of your use of, or conduct on, this product and/or website. Worldwide Copyright CreatingWealthClub.com, LLC. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without the express written permission of the copyright holder. All Rights Reserved