JT Foxx's First Million in Real Estate

How to Become Wealthy

A very wealthy octeganarian recently told me the secret to his amazing wealth. We were chatting at a social event and after we had been talking for some time he leaned toward me and asked, "Do you want to know the secret to how to become wealthy?" When I nodded in anticipation, he told me, "Watch what wealthy people do, learn what they do, and do it."

On July 11 and 12 I spent two days with JT Foxx learning how he did over 500 real estate deals and how he does his deals today. Because JT is an active real estate investor when he teaches he is sharing methods that work today. Unfortunately a lot of real estate investment courses are taught by folks who made a killing in real estate a few years ago and they are teaching what worked for them back in the day. And, although that "day" may return, the real estate market continues to change and anyone investing using yesterday's tactics is likely to find themselves in legal trouble, financial trouble, or both.

In the interests of full disclosure, I have to tell you that I am a mentoring student of JT Foxx. That being said, you need to understand this: I have been investing in real estate for many years now and I have attended hundreds of hours of training from dozens of different companies and investor/instructors. Of them all, I have found JT's instruction and materials and support programs to be the most comprehensive and practical when it comes to investing in single family homes.

I will also disclose that I did not always want to do business with JT. When we first met, a couple of years ago, I found him to be abrasive in a number of ways. Since I don't have to do business with people I don't like, I took a couple of classes from him and then I went on my way.

Early this year JT called me up and invited me to attend his Mega-Partnering event in Los Angeles. Yes, he called me personally - this was not a voice-blast, teleconference, or webinar. I decided to check it out and I am glad I did for two reasons:

1. JT is a true student. He practices what he preaches. He teaches that we all need to keep educating ourselves and getting the coaching we need to improve and lift our game to new levels. The coaching he received since the last time I had seen him had really taken hold and he is a much better man now than he was then. His integrity is as intact as always, but he isn't the abrasive guy he used to be. This is someone I can do business with.



2. His Mega-Partnering event was phenomenal. I don't want to take up space here talking about it, but if you get a chance to attend one, you should make the time and go. You will meet more people who can help you in your real estate investing business in two days than you could in two years. The next one will be held in Chicago in September 11 and 12 (http://www.megapartnering.com/).

So, about the course in LA I just came back from... and why it would benefit every investor I know.

Some of what JT taught is what he has done right. He also taught what he has done wrong, which can often be even more valuable. If we can learn from our own experience that is good. If we can learn from others' experience, that is best.

One of the things he taught is the importance of approaching our real estate investing like a business. This includes understanding the need and uses of bookkeeping, accounting, and management reporting. I have to confess that this is something that I wish I had heard and done years ago. Nearly every investor I know tends to approach real estate more like a hobby than like a real business.

A real business knows every month how much money was made or lost.

• Bookkeeping is entering the data and


• Accounting is making sense of the data.


• Reporting is making sure you can see what is going on in your business. There is an old axiom in business, "what gets reported get improved."
  

I had several other "ahaa" moments during the two days. I would love to tell you more about what he taught, but that would be giving away his content. So, I will have to leave it at this.

If you have a chance to attend one of his classes, I encourage you to do it. If you are serious about investing in real estate I encourage you to get involved in his coaching and/or mentoring programs.

On this last point, I have met most of his coaches. Like JT they are active real estate investors and are living by what they are teaching. As a point of reference, many coaching programs are focused just on helping you overcome the attitudinal and behavioral roadblocks that are preventing your success. While that is worthwhile, it does not give you practical knowledge of how to conduct your real estate investing business and how to buy, manage, and sell your real estate. In fact, many of the coaching providers are coaching companies, subcontracted out by the big-name instructor and they are contractually prohibited from helping you or giving you concrete instruction regarding real estate investing. JT's coaches and mentors are not subcontracted out and they deal with the motivational roadblocks and with the practical instruction in real estate investing as well.

If you would like more information on:

1. How to be a private lender see the Investors page of http://www.buyahousebelowmarket.com/


2. How to become an equity partner, contact me directly at tsheppard@adbproperties.com


3. How to become a successful real estate investor, keep reading these blogs or contact me directly at tsheppard@adbproperties.com
   

Tom ~

Why Buy Retail?

http://www.buyahousebelowmarket.com/

4 Things to Determine Market Value of a Home

DISCLAIMER: The author does not intend to offer any form of legal or financial advice. All real estate sales involve substantial risk. Consultation with a qualified attorney is recommended. Also, there may be significant tax consequences. Consultation with a qualified tax professional is recommended.

It may sound pretty basic, but before you try to buy a house at below market prices, you need to actually know what the market price is. To understand the market value of homes you have to look at several factors.

1. What is happening in the broader market? All of these factors will have an effect on how much a home is actually worth.
   
   a. Are home prices in your area going up, down, or sideways?
   
   b. Is unemployment going up or down, or have there been any recent announcements of layoffs or hiring?
   
   c. How many houses are available all over the area?
   
   



2. What is happening in the local market?
   
   a. Is the neighborhood going up down or sideways?
   
   i. Do you see vacant houses?
   
   ii. Do you see unmowed lawns and signs of repairs that haven’t been made?
   
   iii. Are there any developments happening near or in the neighborhood?
   
   iv. Is there easy access to commuting, shopping and schools?
   
   b. How many houses are available in your neighborhood and in adjoining neighborhoods?
   
   i. Do you see lots of “for sale” signs?
   
   ii. How many “for rent” signs are there?
   
   



3. What is the condition of the house you want to buy and the homes immediately surrounding it? How much will it cost to buy the property, repair it, and pay for it while making the repairs (taxes, insurance, mortgage payments, HOA dues, etc.). If you fix the house up to make it your dream home, or just habitable, will it outclass the rest of the neighborhood? If the answer is yes, then you probably shouldn't buy this house. Even though you may plan to live here for the next 30 years, things happen and you could need to sell right away. If your house looks like a jewel in a pig's nose of a neighborhood, you won't get full value for the house because of the neighborhood.
   
   



4. How much are comparable houses selling for?
   
   a. To be sure a recent sale is truly comparable to the house you are looking at,
   
   i. Make sure you look at three to six home sales within ½ mile, within the last six months.
   
   ii. Take note, foreclosure sales are almost always well below market value, but they pull down the resale value for all houses in an area. This is usually a false deflation because they usually need lots of repairs before they are ready for occupancy. Unfortunately the cost of repairs doesn’t show up in the sale records.
   
   iii. After you know the values and compute the value of the house you are looking at, drive by the comparable houses to make sure they actually are comparable in size, finish, features, and neighborhood with the home you are looking at.
   
   

Using all the information you have gathered above, figure out what is the going price for houses in the area where you want to buy. Now, you can begin to look for a house you want to buy. At the Gold Seal Homes Group, our team of experts examines all the factors above for every home we buy and sell. We do this for two reasons:

1. We don’t want to pay more for a home than we should, and

2. We want to be sure when we sell you a home, it is already priced below market.

You can spend a lot of time studying the market, studying the neighborhood, finding comparables, looking at comparables, driving neighborhoods looking for a home and then trying to buy it. Or, you can come to the Gold Seal Homes Group, tell us what you are looking for and where, and then sit back while we do all the hard work and bring a home to you for you to buy.

When we find a home, in addition to all the hard work above, then we check out the home itself to determine the quality of the home. Because we actually buy these homes and resell them to you, we are taking on the risk of buying, just like you. We don’t want to own a house that isn’t a quality home anymore than you do. That is why you can be assured when you buy a home from the Gold Seal Homes Group it is a quality home at an affordable price, below market. That gives you peace of mind.

Whether you are looking for your first home, another home, or you are looking for real estate investment properties, we can find what you are looking for and sell it to you at a price which is below market and affordable.

Contact us today at igottasellmyhousetoday@gmail.com



Tom ~

Why Pay Retail?

http://www.buybelowmarket.com/

Easy Money: Becoming a Landlord

1-2-3’s of Becoming a Landlord

Okay, so you have decided you want to rent out your house. Welcome to the world of the land lord. Allow me to help you avoid a couple of the most common pitfalls.

• Don’t rent at a negative cashflow. This may sound like one of those “well duh!” statements, but do you really know how much rent you need to have a positive cashflow? If you said, enough to pay the mortgage – Congratulations you just flunked the exam.
  
  To get a positive cash flow, you have to add up your expenses and your debt payments and the amount you need to set aside for reserves and get more than all that in rent.

Expenses: These are the ordinary costs you have as a landlord such as marketing, insurance, taxes, utility bills, pest control, landscaping, postage, travel, and repairs. These happen on a monthly basis.

Debt Payments: This is the payments you make on the mortgage, principal and interest payments to the lender.

Reserves: This is the money you need to set aside to cover unexpected repairs and other expenses that won’t be covered when the property is not rented out (vacancy expenses). These include mortgage payments (when there is no rental income), costs to paint and put in new carpet or vinyl, a new roof, or a new heater or air conditioner, a broken toilet, or to repair termite damage.

Reserves are the first place most people go wrong when renting out a house; they don’t think about reserves.

If you can add up the rent, subtract expenses, reserves, and debt payments and still have money left over, that is positive cash flow. If you subtract out all those numbers and you end up with a negative result, you have negative cash flow. Negative cash flow is not what you want with rental property.

• Always, always, always, do a background check and financially qualify your prospective tenants. If you rent long enough, it is inevitable that you will eventually have a bad tenant. You can put that off a long time by having good management practices such as background checks, a tight lease, and qualifying your tenants financially.
  

I always check to make sure my tenants don’t have a history of drug crimes, sex crimes or violent crimes. I make sure tenants have a gross household income that is at least three times more than the monthly rent. All prospective tenants have to complete a rental application with a non-refundable application fee. If they won’t pay the fee, they aren’t going to pay the rent.

You can do a lot more in a background check if you want, looking at credit scores, evictions, etc. I don’t, because it isn’t worth all the extra trouble to avoid the few deadbeats that I might eliminate.

• Know your rights and know the tenant’s rights. Make sure your lease is very tight and grants you all the rights you have under the law. On top of that, study the rental laws so that you don’t accidentally violate tenant rights and get yourself on the wrong side of a lawsuit. Your tenants will sue you if they think they can win, and there are a lot of ways you can violate their rights without meaning to. Knowing the law on these points will also allow you to set up systems to quickly and effectively deal with tenants who fail to pay their rent.
  

I know this post seems a bit negative about renting. There are many downsides of being a landlord. You will get late night calls and weekend calls. You will make appointments to show your place and have the confirmed appointment fail to show up. You will have tenants tear up your unit, forcing you make costly repairs.

However, you will also get some great tax breaks and can even get a tax loss while enjoying a positive cash flow (thanks to the magic of depreciation). You can also have the satisfaction of providing people with a decent home at an affordable price and helping them along their way to economic freedom.

The beauty of having a residual cash flow from a rental property, having someone else pay down your mortgage for you, and having tax write offs that decrease your taxable income are wonderful things. To enjoy them, you must be willing to pay the price.

I don’t mind the troubles of being a landlord. I find the rewards are sufficient to offset the risks. But, think about both before you take the plunge.

Tom ~

Why Pay Retail?

http://www.buybelowmarket.com/

Easy Money: Why Buy Real Estate?

Real Estate is the Best Investment

Real estate has been the basis for the wealth of more millionaires than any other form of investment. This is true because real estate is probably the best of all possible investments.

You can make money and have a tax loss, legally with real estate. If your annual depreciation amount exceeds the amount of income you have from the property, it will result in a reduction of your taxable income, even though you actually made money.

Banks will lend you money to buy real estate, sometimes more than 100% of the present value of the real estate. See how many bankers will lend you $100,000 to buy $100,000 worth of stocks.

A good real estate investment will give you dividends and appreciation (growth), not just one or the other as most stock brokers will try to convince you to settle for when buying stocks. Rent payments can be the equivalent of dividends for the smart investor and in spite of the recent downturn in real estate values, the historical average appreciation of real estate exceeds the historical average gains in the stock market.

The value of real estate does not disappear overnight like it can with stocks and bonds. At worst case, if you own it, you can always go live in it. Try that with a stock certificate!

Like they say in buying stocks, the secret to making money is to buy low and sell high. In real estate, we say that money is made in real estate when it is bought, not when it is sold. If you buy low and ensure you have a positive cash flow, it is pretty hard to miss in real estate.

It is a simple formula, but a challenging one to execute. Most professional real estate investors spend a lot of time understanding their markets. They see a lot of houses for sale that they won't make offers on. They know how to tell the winning deal from a loser, because of their experience and training.

Unfortunately, the amateur investor often gets taken in real estate, just as they do in the stock market. Anyone who hopes to consistently make money in real estate investing has to be prepared to pay their dues by getting the right education, getting a good mentor, and then following directions to do deals the right way instead of trying to make it all up on their own, or improvise their own approach to the market.

Because real estate is a capital intensive field, it is easy to loose a lot of money investing foolishly. There are three ways people can profitably get involved in and benefit from real estate investing.

1) Become a private lender. Find an experienced, successful and reputable real estate investor in your area and ask him if he could use a private lender. Use your IRA, move the money in your old 401K into an IRA, or use excess cash you have parked in CDs or less profitable investments. Make it available to this investor to use. Don't try to tell him or her how to find houses or which houses to buy, but require that you get four things every time your money is used:

• A promissory note for the amount loaned, personally guaranteed by the investor


• A deed of trust on the property with your loan in the first lien position


• Lenders title insurance with you (0r your IRA) as the named beneficiary


• Hazard insurance with you (or your IRA) as a named beneficiary/lender

As I mentioned, don't try to tell the investor where or what to buy. But, do feel free to ask why she or he bought the house they did. Learn all you can from the investor and don't begrudge her or him their profits. You are getting paid to learn from them by getting a nice interest rate return on your money.

2) Become an equity partner with an experienced, successful real estate investor. Seek out this investor and tell him or her that you have a sizable chunk of money (this better be at least $500K) and you want to get into the real estate investing business. You commit to providing the capital in exchange for a 50% share of the profits on each deal you do with them.

Again, be sure to pick the brain of the investor as you do each deal so that you can learn how the investor picks the winners, how s/he acquires the property and profits from the deal. Once again you are getting paid to learn.

3) Become a professional (part-time or full-time) real estate investor. First, you will need to set aside about $30K to $50K and invest it wisely in the best real estate investing training you can find (if you ask me, I will provide a confidential list of the best I have seen and some to avoid). As soon as you complete the very first course, apply it, apply it, and then apply it some more - before you attend or sign up for any additional training. Do not sign up for any additional training until after you have worked solid for six months trying to do everything the first course taught you to do. I will make an exception for a coaching program and a mentoring program that can help you apply what you have learned. You probably should sign up for those right away and work them for everything they will give you during that six month startup period.

After you have successfully used your training to buy and profit from three to six deals, then it is safe to go back in the water to sign up for additional courses.

In another post I will discuss the perils of real estate training and how it can distract you from making money.

Of the three ways I mention above to make money in real estate investing, the first two require the least amount of time and effort. The third, even if you do it only part-time, requires a tremendous amount of work, dedication, persistence and applied knowledge. The rewards are greater and so are the risks. Decide for yourself which approach suits you.

If you would like more information on:

1. How to be a private lender see the Investors page of www.BuyAHouseBelowMarket.com.


2. How to become an equity partner, contact me directly at tsheppard@adbproperties.com


3. How to become a successful real estate investor, keep reading these blogs or contact me directly at tsheppard@adbproperties.com

Tom ~

Why Buy Retail?

www.BuyAHouseBelowMarket.com