[Anonymous]

Anonymous

Every time the market changes I have to make changes too. It seems just when I get comfortable doing one thing the market changes and I have to switch gears.

Well folks, as you all know the market has changed a lot in the last 6 months.

What are YOU doing different in your real estate business to take advantage of the NEW opportunities?

What you YOU doing to AVOID getting stuck making monthly payments on a property you can’t sell because it is harder to find a retail buyer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous

This reminded me of an email I sent to my group last year:

Four or five years ago, when interest rates were higher, I was able
to buy houses subject to the mortgage (with an owner financed wrap)
all day long. There were weeks when I would do 2, 3, 4 deals a
week. Life was good.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that you can buy too many
houses too fast. But it was hard to resist all these houses, and
the equity, that sellers wanted to just “give away”

I kept some as rentals and would sell some with a lease option and
sold most with a contract for deed.

Then Texas changed the laws to make it impossible to do contract
for deeds. One investor cheated some people and they changed the
laws to affect all of us. Well, we actually can do contract for
deeds but the rules are so ridiculous that no one in their right
mind would do it. I won’t go into all the details here.

Time for a course correction.

If I wanted to get top dollar, I had to sell with owner financing
and take my chances that I would not have to foreclose. With a 21
day notice of default in Texas, even foreclosure was not too bad.

Everything was humming along just fine. I was routinely getting 10%
down and a 10% interest rate when I sold with owner financing.

Then 9/11 happened and it seemed like everyone in the United States
was just holding their breath.

I could not rent, lease option, owner finance or sell anything. If
people had any money in the bank, they were holding on to it…
just in case there was another attack. Like money would solve the
problem!

Then, to make matters worse, interest rates started dropping.

My tenants started buying houses and leaving me with vacant houses
to fill. Finding new tenants was not so easy. I tried selling
with a lease option or owner financing but the dynamics all changed
after 9/11 – buyers were being more conservative and it was hard to
get more than 3% down.

Well – here we go again…time for another course correction.

I went back to rehabbing some houses and selling to retail buyers.
I’ve never liked rehabbing much but with low interest rates, I
thought this would be a good way to go.

I was wrong.

I think all the good buyers had already bought houses by the time I
switched back to selling to retail buyers. I did not time the
market right and missed some great opportunities. All that was
left was the bottom of the barrel buyers who needed down payment
assistance and someone to pay all their closing costs and their
realtor to boot. I just can’t stand dealing with people like that.

So, time for a quick course correction.

The first 4 or 5 years I was in real estate I just focused on
wholesaling properties. I love wholesaling! I made a lot of
money but I was not building wealth OR CASHFLOW so that’s why I
switched to building up my rental portfolio.

Since nothing else was working, I knew it was time to pull the
wholesale trick out of my bag again. And that’s what I’ve been
doing for the last couple of years.

Over the years, I’ve figured out some incredible wholesale
techniques that NO ONE ELSE IS DOING. This enables me to work in
my real estate business and do more deals in 6 months than most
investors do in a whole year… meanwhile I make a ton of money
quickly so I can take off the rest of the year to work on other
projects.

But… in my market, retail houses are just piling up! The number
of days on the market is going up, up, up. And that’s happening
in cities all over the place.

So… that creates all kinds of new opportunities for CREATING NEW
real estate PROFIT CENTERS!

I’m smelling new opportunities! Maybe it’s time to do another
course correction!

As you can see, real estate is not a linear business. If you just
keep doing the same thing over and over again, if you just stay on
the same course all the time, you will miss out on huge profit
centers and opportunities!

You’ve got to change as the market changes! And boy is it
changing…

The opportunities over the next few years WILL BE INCREDIBLE for
those who know how to take advantage of them!

Continuing education will be essential to your success! Don’t
think of it as an expense, think of it as an investment in your
future. But, it’s got to be the RIGHT kind of education.

Stay away from the late night infomercial crowd. Stay away from
the “guru” with the full page ad inviting you to a free one day
seminar… only so they can upsell you into a more expensive event.
Stay away from those $2k, $3k, $5k and up seminars.

I’ve been to those seminars. I wasted the money. And as far as I’m
concerned the information is SUBSTANDARD compared to other
educators out there.

I’ve also been to seminars by Jack Miller and I can tell you that the quantity and
quality of information he provides far surpasses anything you’d
ever get from the infomercial guru