Saturday, January 31, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Twenty-Seven of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 27
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)
  3. Follow-up with everything

Day Twenty-seven: Private money! We have been talking about this for the past four weeks. That is how important this is to your business. It is absolutely vital. If you have not done this over the past weeks then you might as well quit now because you need the money to continue your business. Yes you can get some from a bank, if you have god credit and a large down payment but that will only take to two or three properties. I do not know about you but my business model involves many more properties than four. So go pull out your warm list and review how everyone on it responded to your offer. Compile a list of people who said no because you will go back to these people. We want to give them five opportunities to say no.

You have had some good lunches over the past four weeks. Though your lunches you have been talking and building your power team. Continue to talk and network with these people. They can help you in the success of your business so help them with theirs.

Remember to follow-up on all the properties you have written offers on. Follow-up is a key to the success. Check in with sellers you have talked to and made offers on. Things change over time and they maybe more receptive to your offer.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Twenty-Six of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 26
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)
  3. REOs – Talk to realtors
  4. Talk to Title Company
  5. Make more offers

Day Twenty-six: Private money! Review your warm list and how they responded to your offer. You may have to modify your presentation. You are selling an opportunity. You are not asking the person to buy anything. They are lending their money and getting an interest payment.

Have lunch with an expert. Make sure you rotate your list of experts so you grow your list of real estate experts and contacts. Remember you can also talk to them about your private money program. That will help with the action item above.

You should be constantly talking to your realtor network about REOs (Foreclosed homes) in your farm area, researching them and making offers. Any offers that were rejected should go in a file to be resubmitted in 30 days if it is still on the market. Do not go chasing deals; let them come to you.

You should also be talking to your Title Officer about deals you have in escrow. Reviewing preliminary title reports, checking documentation and removing any roadblocks and challenges that come up during the escrow. Do not assume that no news is good news.

Continue to make offers on properties that meet your criteria. It is a numbers game. Look at 100 properties for 10 offers to get one deal. That is why you tell house finders, realtors, etc. what you are looking for to cut down the time needed to find the leads. The numbers do compress, as more people know what you do and begin to refer properties and people to you.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Twenty-Five of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 25
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Review all offers made so far (follow-up)

Day Twenty-Five: More private money. By now you have had some success that will build up your confidence to go out and get more. After you have a private lender or two, give them your information packet. Yes they have seen it before, but have them look at it with the eye to explain things more clearly. What questions did the booklet answer and what did it leave out. This is valuable feedback. The information they give you will make the booklet better for the next person you give it to. Remember you can make no guarantees about rates of return. Check with you attorney to verify that you are complying with the local, state & federal laws for private money. You may have to register with the SEC. Your attorney can help you there. OK, enough with the disclaimer and warnings.

Remember to follow-up on all your offers you sent out. There is a deal in that pile.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

You Can Do More with Your IRA than You Think

Hi Everyone,
One of the many ways we fund our real estate deals in through private money. We have talked to a lot of our family and friends about lending so we can purchase income properties. We get the same first answer: "I don't have $50,000 laying around to lend or I would" We understand, we don't either. The vast majority of people in America today don't. Oh but they do they just don't know about it. The rich have been using this tax saving advantage for years. It is called the Self-directed IRA.

Now I hear you out there saying "I have a self directed IRA already and that is where I buy my stocks and bonds. I can't lend it to you to purchase real estate" That is where you are mistaken. They are right; the average IRA account at Schwab or Fidelity is not set-up for lending on real estate. Why would they? They make money on trading stocks that is what they know. But Americas are allowed by the IRS to set-up a truly self-direct IRA that will allow them to lend money on real estate. The one catch is the account has to be set-up at a firm that has an approved IRS plan for the IRA, like Equity Trust Company. Here how it works.

You contact a company with a Self-Directed IRA plan. Transfer the funds you want in the account. You contact a real estate investor, like us, and let them know that you have funds that you would like to invest in real estate. You lend the money to purchase the property that is secured by a Deed of Trust on the property for a fix rate and term. The investors either makes payments into your IRA account monthly or at the end of the term (deferred). This way your money is secured by a hard asset, the property, earning a fixed rate, that is usually higher than a bank's CD.

Now a few warnings: you want to work with a reputable company that has been around for many years. There a several companies (Equity Trust Company & The Entrust Group) that can service your needs. Also you want to make sure you are dealing with reputable real estate investor. Contrary to the newspaper articles there are reputable real estate investors. Check to see that they have done this kind of funding before. Ask for references and other private lenders they have worked with. Ask how they do on payments? Are they on time? What documentation to they give the private lender? The real estate investor should never take the money from you directly. It should always go to a Title Company. When we use this form of funding, we never receive the money until the private lender has a Promissory Note, a Deed of Trust, Title Insurance & property insurance (with the private lender listed as an additional insured).

This is a fantastic way to invest money buy you need to do your homework on it before you lend your money. To learn more about this form of Self-Directed IRA you can go to Equity Trust Company website and sign-up for a free webinar called The Purpose of a Self-Directed IRA or get a free report titled Self-Directed IRAs Growing in Popularity. You can always drop us a question or comment.

See Ya,
Mike

Real Estate Course: Day Twenty-Four of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 24
  1. Recruit bird dogs
  2. Talk to one person everyday about your private money program

Day Twenty-four: Now that you have relationships with other professionals, you want to start building relationships with other people who will look for properties. They are called bird dogs. I like to call them House Finders. They are your eyes and ears in the community. They can be places where you cannot because of time or money. They stake out a particular area and look for houses based on your criteria. The key to using House Finders effectively is giving them good and clear information about what you are looking for. Where do you find them? Everywhere you go. The mail carrier, the UPS driver, the newspaper person can be a house finder or anyone who is working in the neighborhood as part of his or her job. The landscaper who goes from neighborhood to neighborhood could see houses that are falling in disrepair that may be a sign the seller needs to sell. They make contact with the seller and collect the information and pass it on to you. You finish the research and negotiation and close the deal. You pay the house finder. There are many programs to help you with this part of the job. I recommend Andy Poper’s TeamWork Lead System. He has a system set-up to help you find and manage House Finders. Because once you have a network of House Finders you need to manage and keep in contact with to help them learn and grow.

Next you need private money and you get that by talking to everyone you know. So go and spread the word on your program and collect the money.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Twenty-Three of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 23
  1. Answer calls from sellers based on direct marketing
  2. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  3. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)

Day Twenty-three: You should still be getting calls on your direct mail piece you sent out. Start talking to sellers! Have a property information sheet and just go down the sheet. Now remember, this is an opportunity to build rapport with the seller. They may have to sell their property, but they do not have to sell it to you. People want to do business with someone they know and like. So be friendly and upbeat. Be confident that you can help them out of their problem. Don’t forget to stand when you talk to someone on the phone. You will have more energy and that will come through the line. Most of all do not worry about failing. Do not expect to be prefect in fact I have found that helps when people realize that you are human. If you have never talked to a seller about their home you will blow it big time. Just know that now. You will be nervous. You will worry that the seller will know that you never purchased a home before or closed a deal on investment property or that you wear different colored socks or shorts all the time. So just make the call.


Private money! Repeat after me-“Private money is the life blood of my business.” Now go get it.

Then have a good lunch and pick the brain of someone in the field. This is another item that will repeat over and over. This helps spread the news of what business you are working in and helps you establish relationships with other professionals.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Hey where's Day 21

Hi All,
There is nothing wrong with your browser. I missed Day 21. Fortunately it was a day of rest and playing with the family. So I skipped the day. It would be similar to Day 14 if you want to read it.

I have been spending the weekend reviewing my business and its finances. We have purchased a lot of properties and the tendency is to get lazy with the finances of the property and the business. The Real Estate Bootcamp has really got me thinking about what we spend and where. As we continue to buy property we want to keep our cash flow in mind. In the past we have purchase property that had a small negative flow because property was appreciating. Well I do not know where you are, but in California I am still waiting for the bottom of the median price to appear. We have dropped 35 - 50% in 12 months and more to come in 2009. So now is the time to buy for the long term. We are holding our properties and looking to extend our owner financing as long as we can. Private Money is even more critical as banks are making it harder and harder for buyers to qualify. Our ext strategy is Rent to Own and Owner Financing and I can only do that with seller financing and private money. So keep your toolkit update and use all the tools in it.

Well I am getting back to work buying and financing properties. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

See Ya,
Mike

Real Estate Course: Day Twenty-Two of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 22
  1. Follow-up on all calls and property visits
  2. Talk to one person everyday about your private money program
  3. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)

Day Twenty-two: By now you have a list of properties you have looked at and made offers on. Take time to follow-up on those properties. In fact you should go back to those properties at least once a month. Follow-up will get you a lot of deals. Your offer may have been rejected the first time, but time can soften a seller who needs to sell. Your offer maybe the only offer they have received. Following up may give you an opportunity to buy the property. Check your comparables for the area again and rewrite your offer. We often find that the offer will be lower because property values have dropped. We always want to buy better that will make a Lease Purchase Option or a Rent to Own much easier to cash flow.

Private money! The same old story but vitally important.

Then have a good lunch and pick the brain of someone in the field. Pick someone you may have met but do not know. You can talk about the real estate environment and how their business is being impacted. How do they see it changing in the future? You are building relationships with these people that will pay off in the future. Refer work to them or use them. If you run out of people to talk to ask people you have already met who you should be talking to about your business.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Twenty of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 20
  1. Ad for property
  2. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  3. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)

Day Twenty: Now that you have a property tied up, review your exit strategy and implement your procedure for selling the property. Remember it is about price and terms. You attract buyers by price and/or terms. Your ad on craigslist should reflect this.

Private money! Enough said.

Then have a good lunch and pick the brain of someone in the field. Pick someone you may have met but do not know. You can talk about the real estate environment and how their business is being impacted. How do they see it changing in the future? You are building relationships with these people that will pay off in the future. Refer work to them or use them.

Friday, January 23, 2009

End of the Real Estate Bootcamp

Hi Everyone,
Jeff and I are back from RoopDoran's Real Estate Bootcamp in Florida. What a week! We saw a lot great investors. We spent the week discussing how the old rules are gone. Flipping is almost entirely dead. We cannot rely on a retail buyer. We are now buying and holding for two to five years. While there is a lot of bad news to think about; we are focusing on the opportunity to help our communties by buying properties that are distressed and repairing them and reselling them with Owner Finaincing or Rent to Own to people who do not have the greatest credit and can't qualify for a loan.

We had a night when we got together with 10 investors from across the country and talked about our experiences and how we leverage our knowledge. That was a great session. I learned a lot about myself and how I should run my business. That was another theme during the bootcamp. Get your finance house in order. Streamline your operation and watch the bottom line. So the world of real estate has changed again. The fudamentals still work it is the buying and the selling that have to change. We are buying for the long term and we need to buy lower to account for the dropping prices in our market.

We will continue the 30 Day Action Plan because the it represents the fundamentals. We need to focus on the fundamental. Have a plan for each day and following it. Implementing everyday to reach our goals.

See Ya,
Mike

Real Estate Course: Day Nineteen of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 19
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)
  3. Purchase one property

Day Nineteen: Private money! Enough said.

Then have a good lunch and pick the brain of someone in the field. Pick someone you may have met but do not know. You can talk about the real estate environment and how their business is being impacted. How do they see it changing in the future? You are building relationships with these people that will pay off in the future. Refer work to them or use them.

With all the offers you have made over the last three weeks you should have gotten one accepted. The law of averages says you will. Now what do you do? First stop and celebrate your little victory…..ok, now back to work. With all the people you have talked to about private money you should have a couple of sources for it. If you do not, get on your horse and talk to everyone you have already talked to. Get more “Nos.” You need that money to close the deal. Do not use your own money in the deal. I know it is tempting to do that but that is not your job. You bring value to the deal that attracts the private money. So get out there and get the money. You can control the closing to make sure you have the money for the deal. What is your exit strategy for the property?

While you are getting the deal closed, you are going to place an ad to sell the property on craigslist. It is fast and cheap (free). Look how other people have placed their ad and how it attracted you. Copy the good ones and make sure you have pictures for it. This will get your phone ringing. Collect as much information as you can about the potential buyer. If they do not want this property you can look for other properties they might like. You are creating a buyers list. Anyone who calls about property goes on the buyers list.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Fourteen of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 18
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)
  3. Continue to answer calls from sellers
  4. Look at properties to buy

Day Eighteen: Private money! Enough said.

Then have a good lunch and pick the brain of someone in the field. Pick someone you may have met but do not know. You can talk about the real estate environment and how their business is being impacted. How do they see it changing in the future? You are building relationships with these people that will pay off in the future. Refer work to them or use them. Considering joining a local BNI group. This is another way to extend your group. This is a group of business people who refer work to others in their group based on relationships.

Your marketing through direct mail should be getting some calls from sellers. Take those calls live and talk to sellers. Get the information on the property and check for equity. You should also be calling sellers who advertise on craigslist. You are collecting the same information as stated in the paragraph above. Work on structuring your deals and write offers. That is the name of the game.

Real Estate Course: Day Seventeen of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 17
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)
  3. Review craigslist ads
  4. Review rentals in newspaper
  5. Look for equity

Day Seventeen: Private money! I hope you enjoyed your day off. But you can never really have a day off (well except Sunday). Review your warm list and how they responded to your offer. Compile a list of people who said no because you will go back to these people. We want to give them five opportunities to say no. There is no business without private money.

Lunch with an expert. Make sure you rotate your list of experts so you grow your list of real estate experts and contacts. Remember you can also talk to them about your private money program. That will help with the action item above.

Post an ad on craigslist.org for your area. This is exposure for your business. In fact review craigslist under the real estate section and see what others are posting. How is it written? How can you adapt that to what you are doing? I have looked at other items people are selling and how they worded their copy and adapted that to what I want.

Spend some time reading the paper. Look at the real estate section, read the articles and the real estate for sale ads. Call on the houses for sale and for rent. The rentals may be landlords who no longer want to own rental property. Look for opportunities.

Go look at five property leads from the realtors you have met. You are evaluating them for equity (market value – repairs – loans = equity).

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Day Two of Real Estate Bootcamp

Hi Everyone,
Yesterday's bootcamp was so good that I missed my post for the 30 Day Action Plan. Sorry about that. I will post Day 17 later to day. But the interaction with other investors was well worth the delay. I will be digesting it over the next several days and sharing it with you. One thing that is coming through loud and clear is that you need to work harder to achieve the same results as you did last year or the year before. I have met investors from all over the US and last year took them by surprise as much as everyone else. We are all having to adjust to the new environment.

Though the news maybe bad we as investors look at it as the best time to buy and hold real estate then right now. All the models and shows about Flip This House are gone because that model does not work. You have a hard time finding a buyer that can qualify for a bank loan to buy a house. Most of those people are going through a realtor. Our model has changed from flipping and selling retail to holding or selling with owner financing. Prices have dropped so much that properties, even in California, can be purchased and rented for a positive cash flow. So we are going out and buying properties that we will hold forever. Our retirement will be the cash flow off multiple properties.

I was in a discussion group last night with other investors and the word mentioned the most was leverage but I will save that for the end of today or tomorrow morning. Look for Day 17 of the 30 Day Action Plan later today also.

See Ya,
Mike

Real Estate Course: Day Sixteen of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 16
  1. Marketing in your farm area
  2. Research properties
  3. Make offers

Day Sixteen: No Private money! Take a break from talking to people. But if the opportunity presents itself, then do not hesitate.

Today is the day to increase your marketing effort. Marketing is the lifeblood of your business and you cannot stop it. You can adjust the size of it but never stop it, since it takes such a long time to get the momentum going. You start a marketing campaign it takes time for people to notice it and respond. Once they do respond you do not want to shut it off, because you will have to start again and it is about momentum. You are already doing direct marketing to homeowners, now you want to extend that reach. Bandit signs are the little 18 x24 signs you see on the side of the road that say “WE BUY HOUSES” with a phone number. You see them everywhere because they work. So today check into ordering 100 plus signs and arrange for someone (not yourself) to place them. Unless you think your time is better spent putting up the signs instead of talking to sellers. You can advertise for someone to place the signs on craigslist. Also check with your local government to see if they have any sign ordinances against putting up the signs. You can also buy a bench sign. It is simpler to do but can cost more ($100/mo). It is also stationary to one location, so pick a location careful. You are building your name in the community. There are many other ways to advertise. Brainstorm more ideas and keep your eyes open to what attracts your eye and why.

You should be constantly looking at and researching properties. Talk to your network, look on craigslist and drive your farm area.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Day One of Real Estate Bootcamp

Hi all,
Day one of the real estate bootcamp is over and the best part is the after seminar network party. I was with a group of ten real estate investor talking about what is going on in the market. The watch word here is private money. You think I am making it up in the 30 day action plan, but you need private money to survive and thrive. So take your warm list and start making lunch appointments. You need to offer everyone you know what opportunity you have for them. With private money you can go out and make offers. You will have confidence to make great offers and you will get acceptances.

So go do it.

See Ya,
Mike

Real Estate Course: Day Fifteen of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 15

  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Lunch with an expert (realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)
  3. Second USPS mailing going out
  4. Look at five properties
  5. Make offers on properties that meet your model

Day Fifteen: Private Money! Review your warm list and how they responded to your offer. Compile a list of people who said no because you will go back to these people. We want to give them five opportunities to say no.

Lunch with an expert. Make sure you rotate your list of experts so you grow your list of real estate experts and contacts. Remember you can also talk to them about your private money program. That will help with the action item above.

If you purchased a large list last week (Day 5), you should be preparing a second mailing. Why do you want to break-up a large list into two mailings? Simple logistics is the answer. You or someone else has to answer the phone and if you sent a large mailing in one batch you could get a bunch of calls all at once (over several days). You may miss some calls. Dividing it over two mailings will make it easier to take the calls. You will repeat this mailing next month following the market rule of multiple mailings.

Go look at five property leads from the realtors you have met. You are evaluating them for equity (market value – repairs – loans = equity).

See Ya,
Mike

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Real Estate Seminar

Hi All,
I will be adding an extra post this week. Jeff and I are in Orlando Florida at a Real Estate conference with others investors. We share ideas with other investors to see what is working best. We will be sharing highlights for each day.

The flight here was great. After traveling 9 hours we arrived to beautiful weather. So see you tomorrow after the first day.

Real Estate Course: Day Fourteen of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 14
  1. Day of Rest
  2. Make note of accomplishments
  3. Enjoy your accomplishments
  4. Read real estate section of the paper
  5. Review action plan for coming week
  6. Spend time with your family

Day Fourteen: Sunday, a day of rest for you. If you have followed the plan up until now you have established your business and talked to several people about your business and about your private money program. So look back and pat yourself on the back. You have taken the first steps to start your career in real estate. Look at what has gone right and what has gone wrong. What can you change to make the next week better? What can you delegate to others (staff or virtual assistance)? You want to spend your time on items that make you money.

Spend some leisure time reading the paper. Look at the real estate section, read the articles and the real estate for sale ads. Review what you will do the coming week, and most important, spend time with your family because that is why you are doing all of this work.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Thirteen of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 13
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Visit properties from calls
  3. Looking for equity
  4. Prepare offers and structure deals
  5. Talk to more sellers
  6. Talk to realtor agent


Day Thirteen: Private money! Review your warm list and how they responded to your offer. This will always be the first item on your action plan because it is so important.

Go look at properties that sellers called on yesterday. You are reviewing them for repairs required and assess how a buyer would feel about the property. Does it need a lot of repairs? What is the cost of the repairs? Does it have curb appeal? Do we want to spend the money for curb appeal? This is the bread and butter part of your business. I really like this part. I can visualize how the house will look fixed up and ready for a buyer and that is exciting.

You continue your property research to see if they have equity. Same as you did yesterday. We are developing a routine that will help you get started and be successful in this business.

You have a list of properties you have researched and visited. Start writing offers on those properties. While some of the offer will be presented directly to the sellers others will be through a realtor since they may have a listing. While it may be harder to find a realtor that will present your creative offer to a seller it is worth the effort to try and find that agent, because they will be gold. They will understand what an investor does and help your business. Look at it as another opportunity to extend your network and talk about what you are doing.

Call more people from craigslist and any rental signs you may see in the area. Another good source of leads are the “Vacant with Weeds” property. If you are in an area that has a lot of foreclosed homes this will not work as a good lead source. If not, this is a great source. Find a property that is vacant with weeds or a dead front yard and research the owner of the property and call them.

Go to an open house in your farm area. Meet the realtor and get to know them. Let them know what you are looking for. Be very specific on the type of properties you want to buy.

Promised Property Values video

Hi All,
Here is the video I promised about the getting property values on the internet. Let me know what you think.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Twelve of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 12
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Lunch with an expert (Realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)
  3. Visit properties from calls
  4. Looking for equity
Day Twelve: Private money! Review your warm list and how they responded to your offer. Compile a list of people who said no because you will go back to these people. We want to give them five opportunities to say no.

Lunch with an expert! Make sure you rotate your list of experts so you grow your list of real estate experts and contacts. Remember you can also talk to them about your private money program. That will help with the action item above.

Go look at properties that sellers called on yesterday. You are reviewing them for repairs required and assess how a buyer would feel about the property. Does it need a lot of repairs? What is the cost of the repairs? Does it have curb appeal? Do we want to spend the money for curb appeal? Is there equity?

You continue your property research to see if they have equity. Check comps with a realtor or on-line to verify property information and asking price. If the sellers’ asking price is more than the area comps then continue looking. If it is close, I will go look at the area and make an offer based on what the property can afford. I do not really care what the seller wants. It all comes down to what the property can afford and that is based on rental rates, repair costs, transaction fees and our profit in the deal.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Eleven of 30 Day Action Plan

Day 11
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Answering calls
  3. Talking to sellers
Day Eleven: Private money! Review your warm list and how they responded to your offer.

Your marketing through direct mail should be getting some calls from sellers. Take those calls live and talk to sellers. Get the information on the property and check for equity. How do you check for equity? Well let’s first define what equity is; equity is the difference between what the market value of the property and what the seller owes. It is not the difference between what the seller thinks its worth and what they owe. We have spent many an hour with sellers educating them on the changing market value. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. How do you obtain the market value? The best way is looking at comps from the MLS. That is why we are making contacts with Realtors they are a valuable asset so treat them well. (BTW a Starbucks gift card goes a long way) But if you can’t get a value from a Realtor in time there are several websites I use to get values. Be warned I use these sites as a check and I will frequently take the lowest one. They vary by a wide margin. Check back here on my Blog – I will post a video on the steps I go through for checking comps.

You should also be calling sellers who advertise on craigslist, rental signs in your farm area and properties that look neglected. You are collecting information for the property information sheet so you can check for equity. Work on structuring your deals and write offers. Writing offers is the name of the game and the game runs much smoother with private money.

See Ya,
Mike

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Tent of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Ten
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Lunch with an expert (Realtor/title officer/mortgage broker)
  3. Drive your farm neighborhood
  4. Call rentals
  5. Call FSBOs (For Sale By Owners)

Day Ten: Private money! Review your warm list and how they responded to your offer. You may have to modify your presentation. You are selling an opportunity. You are not asking the person to buy anything. They are lending their money and getting an interest payment that is usually higher than what is at the bank and secured by real estate.

Lunch with an expert. Make sure you rotate your list of experts so you grow your list of real estate experts and contacts. Remember you can also talk to them about your private money program. That will help with the action item above.

Get out into your farm neighborhood. You want to keep on what is happening in the neighborhood. It will help when you talk to sellers from these areas. It will demonstrate you do know about the area and you are serious about real estate. They will look to you as an expert.

While you are out in the neighborhood, look for “For Rent” signs. Not the property management signs but the store bought signs or hand drawn signs. These are Absentee Owners who are renting out their property. They may have had to evict the last tenant, which can be a hassle. They may be tired of being a landlord (AKA motivated seller). The seller may be another investor who you can learn from and network with. The investor may have several other properties they are willing to sell at a discount to pay for repairs on the current property or they are getting out of the business.

The same goes for FSBOs, which means For Sale By Owner. These maybe sellers who want to sell, you already know that because there is a sign in the yard saying so. Go talk to them or call them at the very least it is good practice talking to sellers. Their motivation level maybe low which translate into not willing to dealing on their equity. They may not have to move and are not motivated to work on terms for a sale. But right now you may have more time than money so give it a try.

See Ya,
Mike

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Its the Little Things When Selling Real Estate

Hi Everyone,
I know I have a post today for Day 9 of the 30 Day Action Plan but I wanted to relay just some of the things that go on around here.  We laugh about it after but it does create stress in your day.  Lessons learned: Use an established, licensed contractor and get a property inspection.

Our program that is the most successful is buying properties (Foreclosure or distressed sellers), rehabbing the property and reselling them to buyers with owner financing.  We did that for a property that we recently sold.  It was a Bank Owed home that needed a lot of work.  So much work that we gutted the interior of the house.  We figured that since we were replacing everything that we would not need a property inspection because everything is all new.  Well that was wrong.  We sold the property and everything was great, for the first month and when it was sunny.  The troubled started in December and that is when things turned sour, the roof leaked!!  This was a brand new roof it should not leak.  The first call was before Christmas, not the best time to get someone out to look at the problem.  I would love to go back to the contractor and tell him to fix it but he closed up his business and is gone.  So we have to bear this cost for our buyer's sake.  Well when the sun came out a few days later we found the problem; the roof was a tar and gravel roof and someone put a boot print on the roof when it was hot and left a bare spot on the roof that water just loved.  If only I could use CSI to identify the person who did it like they do on TV.  A property inspection would have noted that in the report prior to the sale and most importantly while the contractor was still in business and desperately seeking more work from us.

Also we had the house rewired - I should say that someone convinced us to rewire the house.  That someone being the thieves that came in during the remodel and removed all the copper wiring, how nice of them.  We had the contractor rewire the house, and as the contractor told us when he presented his price, to bring it up to current code.  He failed to tell us that the wiring would overload the rating on the main service panel.  A normal house that is 1200 square feet will have a 100 amp main electrical panel and it will work fine.  Our house had a 60 amp panel.  So the additional outlets that are required by electrical code overloaded it.  Now of course this did not show up until the Christmas time when the homeowner had all the lights on at night and a small electric heater in one of the rooms.  All that load made the lights flicker.  So another late night call this time after Christmas.  Again a property inspection would have noted the 60 amp service and made a recommendation to upgrade to current standards. 

I am very fortunate to have a very dedicated staff led by my General Manager.  She works with all our buyers and sellers and makes the process very easy.  So when you buy that first property that you are going to resell do not skimp on the cost of a good property inspector.  They will be worth their weight in gold or cold hard cash as we learned.  They can establish a scope of work for your contractor for things that are not readily apparent, good luck.

See Ya,
Mike
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Real Estate Course: Day Nine of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Nine
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Look at properties from realtors
  3. Prepare offers for properties
  4. Overcoming fear
  5. Call sellers from craigslist

Day Nine starts exactly like the days before talking to someone on your list of people about private money. Get used to it. It will be like this every day for the rest of you life or until you hire someone to do it for you. Can you do it? Sure you can. I will talk about that in the future when we talk about Virtual Assistants (VA).

From your lunches and contact with Realtors, you should have a list of properties they have sent you that match your criteria for houses you are looking for. Go look at the neighborhoods. Become familiar with the type of house the Realtor is referring. If it does not meet your criteria let the Realtor know. Will you find a motivated seller? Maybe, maybe not. But it is an action step to get you out into your market, which you need to learn and understand. It will pay off when you need to close on property quick or lose the deal.

Between calls from sellers and seeing property Realtors have brought you, you should have one deal to write an offer on. If not, write one anyway. Why not, are you afraid it might get accepted and then you would have to buy the property and then you would have to sell the property and you might make money in this business? Yes, everyone has those feelings. Congratulations, you are human. As May Kay Ash tells it, “You Fake it Until You Make It.” I do that a lot. Sometimes I step in it and sometimes I don’t.

As you found yesterday, people are advertising on craigslist all the time to sell real estate. Some are by the owners but most are by Realtors looking for a buyers list (we will develop that in later days). E-mail them about the property or call if there is a number. Call the seller or agent on houses in your neighborhood you like and fill out the property information. The more properties you look at the more likely you will find properties to buy. After all that is the name of the game.

See Ya,
Mike

Monday, January 12, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Eight of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Eight
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Get to know the process: talk to a Title Officer and mortgage broker
  3. Go to the county recorders office: How docs are recorded
  4. Post craigslist ad
  5. Review craigslist ad
  6. Talk to sellers

Day Eight starts exactly like the days before talking to someone on your list of people about private money. Do you see a pattern? If you do not have private money to buy your properties you will run out of money quicker than you can say “Bank Loan.” You will only get so many loans from a bank for buying single-family residences. Private money is absolutely critical to your success.

Study and get to know the process of buying property. Sure you may have purchased your own home once or twice but know you want to look at it from the business side. What are your responsibilities to the process, the seller, the private money lenders and what is the timing you need to have everything in place? Talk to a Title Officer – better yet, take them to lunch and pick their brain on the entire process. Even if you think you know, it will give you an opportunity to talk to one person about private money.

Next go to the county records office and ask how deeds are recorded and what documents you need to buy or sell a property. They will help you at the recorder’s office. The more lost and confused you look the more help you will get, so ham it up. The information can be invaluable when you need to record a document for a property.

Post an ad on Craigslist for your area. This is exposure for your business. In fact, review craigslist under the real estate section and see what others are posting. How is it written? How can you adapt it to what you are doing? I have looked at other items people are selling and how they worded their copy and adapted that to what I what from people – either buyers or sellers. You are posting an ad for motivated sellers. Do not expect much. You are just getting your feet wet. But it is free and you never know.

You should start to get some calls on your direct mail piece you sent out on Day 5. Start talking to sellers! Have a property information sheet and just go down the sheet. Remember, this is an opportunity to build rapport with the seller. They may have to sell their property, but they do not have to sell it to you. People want to do business with someone they know or like. So be friendly and upbeat. Be confident you can help them out of their problem. It helps to stand when you talk to someone on the phone. You will have more energy and that will come through the line. If you have never talked to a seller about their home, you will blow it big time. Just know that now. You will be nervous. You will worry that the seller will know you never purchased a home before, or closed a deal on investment property or that you wear different colored socks or shorts all the time (well maybe not the socks and shorts). You will imagine all kinds of things. By the time you pick-up the phone, the seller will be a cross between Superman and Houdini. Try to relax! This will all go away after you talk to 20 or 30 sellers. By then you will be a master of rapport building on the phone and that will allow you to concentrate on structuring the deal and solving the seller’s problems.

See Ya,
Mike

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Seven of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Seven
  1. Day of rest
  2. Make note of accomplishments
  3. Enjoy your accomplishments
  4. Read real estate section of the paper
  5. Spend time with your family

Sunday is a day of rest for you. If you have followed the plan up until now you have established your business and talked to several people about your business and about your private money program. So look back on you have accomplished and pat yourself on the back. You have taken the preliminary step to starting your career in real estate.

Spend some leisure time reading the paper. Look at the real estate section, read the articles and the real estate for sale ads. Review what you will do the coming week, and most important, spend time with your family because that is why you are doing all of this work.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Six of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Six
  1. Talk to one person every day about your private money program
  2. Prepare and study
  3. Comps – what are they – how do I find them
  4. Good Web sites for research

Day Six starts exactly like the day before talking to someone on your list of people about private money. In fact if you did not talk to someone yesterday you need to talk to two people today. This is absolutely critical to your success.

Study and get to know the process of buying property. Sure you may have purchased your own home once or twice but now you want to look at it from the business side. What are your responsibilities to the process, the seller, the private money lender and what is the timing you need to have everything in place? Talk to a Title Officer – better yet, take them to lunch and pick their brain on the entire process. Even if you think you know, it will give you an opportunity to talk to one person about private money.

Next go to the county records office and ask how deeds are recorded and what documents you need to buy or sell a property. They will help you at the recorder’s office. The more lost and confused you look the more help you will get so ham it up. The information can be invaluable when you need to record a document for a property.

Study and prepare – this is your business and you should know it backward and forward. You should be able to explain it to anyone who asks, and believe me, everyone will ask. They will want your opinion of the market, how to buy property, how to sell it, what is a fair price and what improvements they should make. It will happen, so be prepared. The more you know the more you will become the expert everyone will want to talk to. Give the information freely. Don’t hide or refuse to share it. Some day it will come back to you in another form when you help someone else out.

Know where to get comps (also know as comparable sales). This is also critical to your business. If you do not have reliable comps how can you tell you have a deal? You can find comps on the Internet. I would be careful about the source. Always check the source. (For a list of internet comp site email info@jm2buyshouses.com) The very best place is the MLS, and for that you need a realtor for access. This is why we want to talk to Realtors. They have the information you need and want and you are buying property they can either sell to you or sell for you.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Five of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Five

  1. Talk to one person everyday about your private money program
  2. Buy a list of property owners
  3. Open USPS.com account


Day five is the beginning of your search for private money. This will be the most important thing you do in your real estate business. Without money you cannot buy many properties. The bank will only let you buy so many properties and the climate we are in today (December 2008), they may not qualify you for any loans let alone one for a property that can be sold for a profit or has a positive cash flow. From your list you made yesterday, call one person and either let them know about the opportunity you have for them to make a higher rate of return on the phone or over lunch (in person). I tend to do it in person that way I can gauge their reaction and tailor my presentation of the opportunity. If they say no do not cross them off your list a No now does not mean a No later it just means they cannot at the moment.

Next you need to purchase a list of homeowners in your identified farm area. You can do this at www.listsource.com or www.melissadata.com. Both have search criteria you can use to shrink your direct mail to target a specific group of homeowners and sellers in the group. One of the cardinal rules in marketing is to hit the prospect multiple times before you move on. Your budget for your marketing campaign should be large enough to allow you to mail to the home owner at least five times. That will be enough times to give the prospective seller the opportunity to hear your offer.

Now that you have your list and your budget it is time to open your www.USPS.com account. This is a fantastic Web site. You can put together your marketing message on a postcard and mail it to your list of homeowners. In fact, within the span of a couple of hours, you can have a mailing going out to a 1,000 homeowners, amazing. You can also set that mailing to happen again in a month or 60 days or rotate it with another list or two and send it every 90 days. You can also use a virtual marketing company like SalesTeamLive. This company will buy the list in the target area you want and the budget you want and will send out the mailings without fail every month. Send as much or as little as you want, it is “Done for You Marketing.” Just visit www.salesteamlive.com and look at the opportunity.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Four of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Four
  1. Establish your private money program
  2. Talk to Realtor
  3. Locate local REI club
  4. Develop script when talking to sellers

Day Four is a critical day for your funding program. You want to fund your deals two ways (there are many ways to fund a deal but the majority that we use is by these two methods) Seller financing and private money. You need to establish your private money program. Private Money is when you ask for private individuals (friends and family) to fund your purchases (like a bank) and you pay them interest. Your Private Money Program will establish what are you going to pay your private money lenders, what interest rate will you pay them, how long will you hold their money, how is the money secured and how can they get their money out early if the need to. All these questions and many more need to be answered before you talk to anyone about private money. You can register for our newsletter (Send an email to info@jm2buyshouses.com with Newsletter in the subject) and get a free report about putting together a private money program. Once you have your program tell everyone you know about that program. It is called, “flapping your lips.” Put together a list of everyone you know and offer them the tremendous opportunity to lend money to you secured by real estate for an interest rate that is higher than their bank is paying.

Today is the day you also want to start talking to Realtors. These are people who can help you get where you want to go. Not all Realtors are the same, you want a Realtor that understands how you are going to invest and what exactly you are looking for. They can be very helpful if they understand your criteria. Be upfront about your criteria so you do not waste their time. They want to help but they need to see a pay-off from spending time with you.

You want to visit your local REI Club. This can be a good source of encouragement, help with deals, buyers for your deals and information on the local market. Go to the Web site www.reionline.com to get a list of clubs in your area.

Begin to develop your script for when sellers call. Frame your script around the information you want to collect on a property information sheet. For a copy of our property information just email us at info@jm2buyshouses.com. You want enough information to check for equity and structure a deal. You will look for motivation when you make the visit to present your offer.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Three of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Three
1. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing
  • Business cards
  • Bandit signs
  • Web sites
  • Internet listings (i.e. craigslist)
  • Fliers
2. Phone system
  • Cell Number
  • Ringcentral.com

This is the day you start laying the groundwork for all those motivated sellers who will be calling you and the systems that will handle them. The big name in this game is MARKETING. You want sellers calling you. Sure you could call people in the paper who are advertising their house for sale, but so can everyone else. That road leads to lots of competition. You want sellers who get a mailer from you and call. Even that does not guarantee they are motivated to sell their home, but it does show more interest in selling than someone in the paper with less competition. And how you reach them is through marketing. Marketing is every piece that has your name or your company’s name on it. It is your business cards you hand out to everyone. These cards should say you buy houses. It is bandit signs that say “I Buy Houses” and a phone number. It is a Web site you drive traffic to. It is Internet listings (craigslist.org), fliers and best of all, direct mailings asking if they want to sell their home. So you need to decide how you are going to run your business – under your own name or through a company? You need to discuss this with your lawyer and accountant and we do not presume to know all the ramifications of your company entity choice, but it most likely will be through a company like a corporation or a LLC (Limited Liability Company). These two entities will provide personal protection of your assets (like your home), consult a lawyer and account before deciding.

So you have set up a market program so what do you do when you have calls coming in from motivated sellers? How are you going to handle them? What number are you going to use? Is it a cell number (OK); your home number (never); an indirect number (i.e. RingCentral.com) or don’t put any number on your marketing pieces (not advisable). Research an Internet phone number that can be answered 24 hours a day with a recorded message or be routed to your cell. You can decide to answer the call or not. But why spend all the money on having motivated sellers call you and not pick-up the phone. We use Ringcentral.com for our phone system. It answers and routes all calls to different extensions in our office. We can redirect that call at anytime. It is extremely flexible. For more information go to: http://www.ringcentral.com. It is however expensive, well at least more expense than just a cell phone since you have to have the cell or office phone anyway. So by far the simplest and most direct is a cell phone that you answer all the time. You can carry it around with you at all times. As you grow you can add systems to your business.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Real Estate Course: Day Two of 30 Day Action Plan

Day Two
1. Research your market
  • Sales
  • D.O.M. / C.D.O.M.
  • Inventory
  • Buyers Discount
  • Average listing price
  • Average Sale price
2. How are you going to buy
  • Conventional
  • Seller finance
  • Private money

Day Two can be called “Getting to Know You”, just like the song. You need to get to know your market. Your market is the area you are going to operate in when buying your properties. You will need to do some research. A lot of the information you are looking for is right on the Internet. Just Google the topic with the city and state and the information will just jump right up. A better way of getting the information and one that will begin your relationship with others in the field is to just contact a realtor. You are going to want to do that anyway (See Day Five). A realtor can be a wealth of information that can help you get to know your market.

Right now what you are looking for is the following:
  1. Sale of homes last month: this tells you the activity and the type of homes that were sold last month.
  2. D.O.M./C.D.O.M.: Days on Market and Cumulative Days on Market. This tells how long it took to sell homes that are listed. The average C.O.M. will tell you the strength of the market. If a house has a COM of 30 – that means it took 30 days to sell the house. That would be very good.
  3. Inventory (Listings): This is the total number of houses for sale in your market. You can see what types of houses are for sale. This is your competition when you put your house up for sale. How are you going to differentiate your property from the others on the MLS.
  4. Buyer Discount: This shows up as the percent difference in the sales price and the listing price.

How are you going to buy? Are you going to buy conventionally with a lender and qualifying for a loan on the property? If you are then put the book down and step away. The following ideas could cause a mental breakdown. We never use banks. Ok! I am sure sometime in the future we will use a bank for financing. But right now we are not going anywhere near a bank for financing. We use Seller (owner) financing and private money. We will go more in depth on these two topics later in the book. But the short answer is – we use the seller to give us use of their equity as a note on the property to buy the house or we have private individuals that we pay an interest rate (better than their CD) on their money that is secured by the property. This is a very powerful and scalable program. We will be talking about private money on Day Four.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Our Goals & Action Plan for January 2009

Hey everyone, I know I have posted Day One of the 30 day of action plan, but I said I would tell you our goal & action plan for January 2009. So below I have list our goals for January and below that is our action plan that we will be implementing to achieve our goals. I will update you on how we are doing.

January Goals
  1. Buy 4 Properties
  2. 20 – 30 offers
  3. 2 positive write ups and articles
  4. $300,000 private money
  5. 115 new buyers on Buyers list
  6. Start planning Community event – brainstorm
  7. Plan training session for House Finder

This a piece of the goals we need to accomplish this as steps to our overall goals. Below I have outlined the action steps we need to be doing to reach these monthly goals.

Action Steps for January
  1. Send out 10,000 postcards
  2. Talk to 200 sellers
  3. Write offers for 20 REOs
  4. Review 25 Bird Dog leads
  5. Make 40 appointments
  6. Contact 25 people about private money
  7. Spend $300 on Google AdWords
  8. Set-up brainstorm meeting
  9. Set-up House Finder training meeting for planning session
So that will be want we are doing in the first month of 2009. Here's to a fantastic 2009

See Ya,
Mike

Real Estate Course: Day One of 30 Day Action Plan

Day One
1. Money for business
Time or money
2. What properties to look for
3 bedroom/2 bath
At or below median price
3. Buying & Selling Model
Buying to flip
Buying to hold
4. Get to know your market (on going)
5. Tell everyone what you do

Today is decision day. You have some thing you need to decide upon before you go forward. First you need to decide how you will run your business: Time or Money. You can find a lot of information about real estate through time-consuming research. You either do the work yourself (saving money) or hire someone else to do it (Saving time). The chose depends on how fast you want to get going. If you have no money constraint (you still have a job and you are doing this business part-time) then doing your own research is an excellent way to start. You will learn how the all parts of the business work. This will help you when you go to hire someone to do the job. You will know how it is done and how long it should take. But this business still needs money to start. While you can buy property with no money down you will need money for marketing (we will talk about this in the days to come) and other research resources you may want that will make this business easier. So you need to either take money out of savings or borrow it. The more you have the faster you will be able to spin this business up. Be warned on borrowing from the kings of borrowing. That is how we started our business: if you take this route you better have a strong constitution. Because the credit runs out quickly and you will need to show results quickly so you can pay it off.

Let’s talk about the target market you are going after. We want to make it easy to buy and sell properties quickly. You do not want to be in the business of buying properties you have difficulty selling quickly. So you want houses that are bread and butter. The median priced home has three bedrooms and two baths. Why, because everyone wants one. They are not hard to sell if they are priced at the median (that means there is an equal amount of homes priced above and below that price). By far the majority of homes sold will be in the range of the median price of homes (+/- 10%).

What business model will you be following? Will you buy and hold property. Purchasing properties that you can rent out or will you purchase property to fix up and resell. The answer to that question will determine your buying strategy. Obviously you will need to have a positive cash flow if you but and hold, but you will need to buy low enough with will buyers to buy and flip property. You need to research your market condition to tell which will work for you. The current financial climate (January 2009) in California dictates for us to have a buy and hold model. We can resell property but we must provide owner financing. Once you decide on the business model you need to research where motivate sellers are. We want sellers that are motivated by circumstance: Death, Divorce and Distress. These three problems will provide the majority of your motivated seller calls, more on this later.

Now get to know your market. Talk to Realtors and go to open houses in neighborhoods you like. Read the newspaper to know what is going on in your town. How long does it take to sell a house and at what price. What is the median price of homes in your target neighborhood? This is the research that you must know before you start making offers.

Lastly, tell everyone you know that you are looking for property to buy. Even offer a finders fee for any lead. This may motivate some people to tell you when a property is for sale. Maybe even before it goes on the market or is listed.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

2009 Real Estate Goals

I have spent the weekend reviewing the goals we have for 2009. From these goals we will establish our action plan for the week, month and year. As the year goes by we will review our results and make adjustments to our action plan to reach our goals. So here they are:

Buy 40 houses
Sell or lease the houses (purchased) within 45 days
Create 24 positive write-ups in the form of articles, public relations and social networking
Get referrals from 10% of our clients
Obtain $3,000,000 of private money
1,500 people on our buyers list
Host 4 - 6 community events
Publish Two Average Joe eBook and website
Donate to charity
Host a Christmas Party for clients and buyers & sellers.

We know these are ambition goals, but I believe in our staff and the procedures we have in place. I look for some big things in 2009. So now I will put together an action plan for the month and the coming week based on our goals. Tomorrow I will out two action plans. One will start our 30 day action plan for people who want to get started in this business but I will also layout our action plan for our company that we will follow starting Monday.

See Ya,
Mike

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Preparing for Action in 2009 - Real Estate

I am constantly working on my mental game It is a tough business. Everyday can be a challenge. A seller first takes your offer then calls to say that they do not want to sell. A buyer strings you along and decides after a long time not to buy (why would you do that - I will tell you later). After you purchase a property you find something you missed and it costs you several thousand dollars - oops there goes some profit. You need to prepare yourself for the tough times. The odds are you will start with some miss steps. If you don't - that is great you are a few of the lucky ones. I will tell you that is not how Jeff and I started. We have got here because of our determination and the odds say that is what you will need.

That is OK. W are here to tell you our story and provide an action plan that may help you succeed. Just keep a positive attitude and always focus on solutions. Let me know if you feel down and you need a prep talk. I frequently need one and fortunately I have Jeff to talk to and he keeps me focused.

See Ya,
Mike

Friday, January 2, 2009

The 1st Day of 2009

Hi Everyone,
The first work day of 2009 was a busy day. We have a number of offers out on REOs (Real Estate Owned), which are bank owned properties. We work with a Realtor and we are making 15 to 20 offers per month. I checked with our agent on the status of the offers. We also have several sellers we are talking to about buying their property. We research the comparables for houses in the area and then I put together an offer for our Acqusition Manager. So after the holiday season we are looking to close on several properties this month. We also looked over bids for two properties we are rehabbing to resell. They should be finished in the next three weeks.

Jeff and I also went to look at a property (REO) for a private money lender. We frequently lend our knowledge to help people who help us. We beileve that is the way to build a business. We do not see competitors; we see people just like us trying to make a little money and help people get into homes.

So what did you do for your first day. If you are new to Real Estate or just beginning you need to get going. I will be providing my road map, starting Monday, for the next 30 days what I would do to start my career in real estate. So have a great weekend - and prepare mentally for a new business. Remember this is a business. A fun and exciting business, but a business nonetheless. So lets make 2009 the best ever. I know we will be and I will enjoy helping you succeed also.

See Ya,
Mike

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Happy New Year. What a year it is going to be!!

Happy New Year everyone. Now that 2008 is behind us I look forward to a fantastic year. So spend time with your family and friends watching football or go to a movie or maybe start a new tradition of the family basketball game. Whatever you do, have fun and relax. Tomorrow is the first work day of the year and Jeff & I will be working harder to make this year the best ever.

We invite you to come along. Lets us know what you what to know or leave a comment for us. Tell us what we are doing right or wrong we want to know and always improve.

See Ya,
Mike