Found my first real real estate mentor

Excellent!

I went for lunch (sushi) with a friend-of-a-friend, a guy who has been a real estate investor for about 6 years and owns a number of cashflow positive rental houses which have very low turnover and high occupancy complete with tenants who are more respectful of their property because they're paying over $1000/month in rent on an ongoing basis. He's also bought and sold about 30 properties on top of the ones he's retained for passive income. He's in his mid-thirties and has already retired but then came back to work because he got BORED.

Yah, this is an excellent mentor for me to have been lucky enough to be referred to. And as a superb bonus, he's one of those people who finds joy in helping other people get to the same financial freedom he's attained and he offered to walk me through my first couple of deals from start to finish!!! I'm really excited!

He's going to hook me up with some realtors, give me the names of the different lawyers he uses for different aspects of his real estate ventures, and take a peek at some of our personal financials and our house to see if there's equity that can be realized to fund getting the first rental property and postive cashflow situation set up.

My first action from here, once I get the details through email, is to contact the realtors and start getting out there and looking at homes. Since my afternoons can be dedicated to this, I expect to have a lot of "looking at houses" posts coming up very shortly :)

And in closing, I'd like to say that I was pleased to note that one of the laywers I had selected to call on my own was actually one of the lawyers that TJ uses :)

TTFN!

Jill

Slow and steady...

I spent a lot of time on the weekend working on my new business website (not live yet) and on educating myself.

I found a bunch of local sites that gave me information on my city, its laws and real estate associations, and after a few hours of reading a bunch of really great stuff, my head was humming with new information to sort through and store.

I spent a few hours working on my new website as well. I probably worked 20-30 min on my site, then 30-45 min reading and collecting useful informational links online, then back to working on my site again... this tends to be the way I work.

I'm not a strong HTML'er but I can hold my own given a template to start from, so I found a free web template online and started doing my work cleaning the content of the template out so I could put in my own content cleanly. I haven't figured out what my content will be, exactly, but I have a few ideas that are simmering in the back of my brain. I'll post the URL here when the site is launched.

As I surfed around and found sites and articles that gave me reason to think, I created a questions list for the different mentors I have to find. Now that I have some questions, it's easier to be motivated to make the call to start to test some people out for the role.

I called this afternoon and left a message with a local real estate lawyer I found by searching online. I reviewed his bio and history and that of his colleagues and I feel this guy is the best choice. We'll see how it goes :)

Jill

Conversation #1, oops

Oh man, I got some excellent advice from a member advisor by the name of Liz, and I THOUGHT my tape recorder was recording, but alas... I had it on a voice activation setting and for some reason that didn't kick in.

So, I'll try again today with some new questions.

Jill

Recording conversations for my own use

I'd imagine most people wouldn't like to know their phone call has been recorded, no matter for what the reason. But I'm going to record my phone call with my mentor advisor today, just the same.

I am not going to share the phone call, I'm just going to use it for my own things. Specifically, I hate knowing DURING the conversation that I'm probably going to forget more than half of what I'm being told, and I'm going to have to ask again later on. I tried to type up some things that Reid said last night on my first call but I'd really rather just talk and think, not talk, think, formulate and type. Sooooo... I'll record this one.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to record the whole thing however, because my recorder device hasn't been used for about 5 yrs and I'm sure the batteries will die quickly, because they're from the same time period. But it's a start and I'll make sure to buy more batteries - rechargable ones of course.

Speaking of rechargable batteries, who outside of my family remembers the purple-colored rechargeables from the 80's? They rocked :)

I'll post about how the convo went, later.

Jill

Keeping the focus on the seller

I paid just over $25 to put my first classified ad in the newspaper this weekend. Its target audience is those who are behind in house payments and looking to avoid foreclosure or stop the proceedings that have already recently begun. I submitted the ad through a web interface, however, so I don't remember exactly what I put into the ad. I'm hoping I said "Looking to stop foreclosure and save your credit?" as the opening line, because that "save your credit" thing is important.

I talked to a Member Advisor last night - Reid was his name. It was an interesting conversation, quite useful, I will be calling back to bounce my thoughts off of other Member Advisors for sure. I wonder how many of them there are...

At any rate, he reminded me of an important thing I'd already learned in the past, that the focus of what I'm doing needs to be on how it will benefit the seller - that will be a huge difference between myself and others who may be contacting them about selling their home due to their financial difficulties. The big key is to make sure it's clear that while yes, I am a private investor in this business to make a profit, I am also a private investor who believes in finding mutually beneficial solutions even if that costs me some of my profits. I am a problem solver, but I am not looking to get all I can get, I'm looking to help someone out of a difficult situation but still make a profit while doing so.

When people call this weekend as a result of my ad in the classified, I was advised to start the call like this:

(after hello's etc)

Thank you for calling. My name is Jill and I am a private investor here in OurCity. I help people save their credit rating by buying a house being foreclosed on. May I ask you a few questions about your situation?

Of course, I hope to have plenty of opportunity to hone this starting chatter down when practicing against real people on the weekend... and since these people are calling ME, I can be a lot more frank with my questions.

Another important question after finding out about their financial situation will be:

How much, above and beyond what you owe on the property/house, would it take for you to save your credit, selling your home to me today?

This question above I have questions for the Mentors about again, however - they say deals should be done at the kitchen table, in person - not on the phone. But is this question above just a way to determine if this is a motivated seller or not? I could also see it being a question that could open up more conversation about things like CC debt that needs to be paid off, or other loans, etc. I'd imagine if folks are going into foreclosure, they don't have room on their CC's and they're not able to get loans either, so it's an important consideration.

I am looking forward to getting this practice in. It would be neat if I found a good deal as well, but I'm not really counting on it. I still haven't found anyone to buy/sell the homes, and the Member Advisor advised me to option the property to a real buyer instead of another investor, because then I can make more profit, still sell the property under market value, and everyone's happy.

In theory, anyway.

Another productive day

My short term, day-to-day goal with this "real estate thing" is to do four or five things every day that have to do with it. I believe this slowly-but-surely attitude is best for me, and really when I look back at things they'll progress quite quickly even though I feel like I'm laying back in terms of pressure on myself.

Today I did the following things, in no particular order of importance:

• Fed some of the goals that were swirling around in my head into My 43 Things To Do List
• Made my first call to a realty company in an attempt to start the process of finding realtors to help me find quality investment property
• Looked up real estate lawyers in my city, and pondered how to talk to them about my goals. Planning to make this my first question to the Member Advisors I have access to as a result of the seminar I took.
• Recorded my bird-dogging attempts to this point
• Listed a $25 classified ad with the local newspaper, with a "stop foreclosure" bent. It'll run one day and I've listed my cell phone as a contact number. I plan to chat with my Member Advisors about this before the ad goes into the paper this weekend.
• Registered a domain for stopping foreclosure in my local market. I tried to put up a basic one-page site to get the site indexed by some search engines but ran into a temporary snag. Instead I put up a one-page thing on another domain I own (sorry won't list it here) which links to the new domain. This page can be indexed and then at a later time, re-direct visitors to the new domain.
• Updated my personal site http://www.somechickslife.com - added a Canadian Real Estate Resources section, complete with a few links to sites I've found useful myself. Added Google ads to the site - text only so they're not flashing or graphically annoying. Hopefully I'll get some click-thru's once in a while, the passive income is the goal after all!

Now I don't feel bad venturing over to my other passtime... Runescape ;)

Things I need to do

http://www.43things.com/person/valdesta

Neat little site.

Jill

My initial/immediate Real Estate goals

I've decided I'm going to start with Assignments - that is, I'm going to hunt down deals for private investors according to what they're looking for, and I'm going to pass off the deal to them, getting an assignment fee for my efforts. From there, the private investors will have to deal with securing funds, closing the deal and selling the property, but that won't be my responsibility initially.

I don't expect that I'll be doing too many Assignments before I feel confident enough to do the whole thing myself, but it's a mental place to start that gives me boundaries to work within and goals to acheive and still offers enough $$ value to more than pay for my legwork time.

There are other things I've started in motion as part of making this decision and actually moving forward with it:

• I have gotten back into contact with our 'financial guy' (I really DO have to find out what he prefers to call himself and then call him that) and am asking to set up our next in-person meeting within the next week or so, so we can discuss questions I have about the finance tracking I'm doing in Simply Accounting, plus answering my beginning questions about how to do things correctly within my real estate business entity. Also, I'm going to see if he knows anyone who deals specifically with real estate financials who I might be able to work with for RE-specific things. Last time Gil and I met was just over a month ago so we have a lot to talk about.
• I've contacted a couple of my fellow students from the Robert Allen course and let them know my intentions to be available for Assignments, and I'm setting up "coffee dates" over the next two weeks to chat with them about their goals and see if I can fit in with them, and if nothing else, chat with them on a semi-regular basis to keep in contact with like-minded people.
• I'm getting my non-blog website updated in the back end so I can expand the site to include my Investing hobbies. This site already has content which is well-indexed in search engines and has a growing number of sites linked to it, so increasing traffic should be easier than if I started up a new site.
• I'm going to get back into Microsoft Access to start to Db the various bits of information I have - names, contact numbers, house information, etc.
• I've looked around for a local real estate investment club but I can't find one online. Joel (passive income buddy) wants to check out some Investment clubs in general, so perhaps we'll do that and I'll see if there's any inside information about clubs that already exist. Otherwise, perhaps I'll see if I can find someone to go in on running one with me.
• I called the CMHC and got them to fax me a form that lets me get notified when they're selling property that was foreclosed on in my area, I'll get that back to them and then that'll be another resource to refer to in my hunts.

So far so good. Over the next two weeks I see myself meeting with many many people, having many many conversations, and I should be already in the process of looking for deals for those investors that are willing to back good deals I may find. I am looking forward to moving forward with this.

Jill

Recommended reading list

Wow, man... Lots of insanely valuable information was provided at this seminar! I'd highly recommend it if you're looking for a crash course, but I'd also recommend reading to go with it, which is something that was assumed prior knowledge, for this course.

My recommended reading list include books that are meant to help people make the emotional and mental transitions required to allow them to be successful financially, as many of us actually have fears of success and becoming wealthy:

• Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki
  
• Cashflow Quadrant - Robert Kiyosaki
  
• Secrets of Power Negotiating - Roger Dawson
  
• The Psychology of Acheivement - Brian Tracy
  
• How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
  
• Get Paid More, Promoted Faster - Brian Tracy
  
• The Road Less Travelled - M. Scott Peck
  
• No Ordinary Moments - Dan Millman
  
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven Covey
  
• When I Say No, I Feel Guilty - Dr. Manuel J Smith
  
• Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway - Dr. Susan Jeffers
  
• Who Moved My Cheese? - Spencer Johnson
  

I have personally read each of these books and all together they are an invaluable resource for those of us switching from an 'employee' mindset to that of a true entrepreneur.

Do you have any books that you think should be on my reading list that you don't see here? Leave a note!

Jill

RE Seminar, day one

Wow, what a long day. I'm not used to sitting in one room for so many hours in a day anymore, I'm spoiled in that way.

I got to the seminar location at about 8:40 AM, and while we did have an hour-long lunch and a few 10 min breaks throughout the day, we didn't get out of there until 6:30 PM. Tomorrow promises to be equally long, and while Monday's class ends at about 4:30 according to the schedule, that's still pretty long all in all.

HOWEVER - the length is just fine with me as long as there's good materials being covered and good learnings to be offered. I did, after all, pay a few THOUSAND dollars for this seminar, and I expect to have to give a lot of myself in order to get the full value - but I expect there to be value if I'm willing to give that of myself. And so far I'm NOT disappointed.

Of the three days this seminar goes on, today was the "intro" day, of course, and also the last day that students could back out of the course, get their money back, and give the materials back and go on their merry way. I didn't talk to many people directly during today's opportunities (well, I talked to more people in the afternoon than in the morning), but the 6-8 people I talked to all said they were committed to coming back for the whole seminar.

Initially I equated the commitment in coming back for the whole seminar with the commitment of making this work for them, but I think for some people that's going to be too big of a leap, too much learning for them to do immediately, and unless they're persistent they'll drift off and never do anything with it. For me, however, the commitment of spending this money comes with the commitment for me to make it work. And from what I've been learning today, it's NOT too big of a leap for me, as my learnings from Robert Kiyosaki and Brian Tracy and many many other authors and successful business people have prepared me well for what is going on in this seminar.

If I would have taken this seminar 5 years ago, things would be much different, because my brain was wired differently in terms of looking at jobs, money and my future. The seminar wouldn't have been what I was ready for back then - it would have been interesting and educational but I would have seriously lacked the tools to feel anywhere near confident moving ahead with it. Now, however...

Today we talked about how to find appropriate sellers, assessing their property and then how to go about financing the deal if indeed it's a good deal. My writing this here makes it sound so SIMPLE, but it certainly wasn't. There are many details in there that I just can't write about with any measure of greatness. Check out Robert Allen books, I'm sure it's all in there ;)

We talked about the value of having other private investors "in your back pocket" for deals you can't/don't want to fund yourself - the value of getting a "finders fee" especially for someone who wants to get started but wants to slip their toes into the water more gently than they would if they were to buy a whole house themselves.

We talked briefly about the power of having no assets under your personal name, but controlling assets just the same, but that'll be in tomorrow's discussion of business entities.

We talked about how to start the process of gathering useful information on properties to determine whether they're a good deal or not, and then were given homework to find a property in the paper or online, locally, and make a call and gather information about the property, so we'll have this experience to chat about tomorrow during the day and during lunch during the Q&A period they're holding.

I did my homework, I actually called 2 places, but the first place nobody answered so I just left a message on their machine to call me back. The second place I got a hold of someone and I fumbled nervously through chatting with him about the home but I was dishonest about my buying intentions, not mentioning I was an investor and making it sound like this small house was all my husband and I could afford and that we were in the market for our first house. I wasn't sure how to talk about myself, the guy threw me off by asking right off if I was an agent.

Another thing I have questions about for tomorrow is about how to gracefully get out of a phone call when it's apparent the deal isn't for you or when you're just practicing like we were this first time. I lied about "talking to my husband about the houses we're calling about" as part of my exit.

At any rate, a second homework assignment was for us to call our credit card companies and ask them to drop the annual interest rate on our cards. That will have to wait until Monday or Tuesday as I can't do it through the website (make a request like that, that is) and their offices are closed for the weekend.

But, I DID my homework. I noticed while I was reading through the paper that I found a few potential people to call but I kept on looking even after I found two or three that would serve my needs at this time. A form of procrastination for sure, but I forced myself to get the ONE done (maybe two if the first one calls back?), as that's what needed to be done to get myself started.

One
Step
At
A
Time

Jill

Seminar starts tomorrow, got my materials

Got my materials, got 'em all packed in my backpack, ready for me to go tomorrow morning.

It's going to be a long weekend, I'll miss the opportunity to rest that I normally afford myself on the weekends, but I'll be learning a LOT of great stuff and I'll be excited all the while, and I'll come out ready and raring to go next week.

Ta for now, while I listen to some of the audio stuff that came with my materials.

I'm going to do it.

I sent in my registration form to the Robert Allen Institute to reserve my spot in the upcoming seminar.

I figure if nothing else, if I don't like what I see after the first full day of the seminar, I can back out.

I hope the seminar is exactly what I'm looking for, however.

I'll let you know how it goes of course!

Jill

Creating Wealth using Real Estate, Robert Allen

Wow, man. I didn't know what to expect at that Real Estate seminar that Joel and I went to on Monday afternoon, but it's now Tuesday evening and I'm still excited.

The seminar turned out to be a 2-hour introduction to a 3-day intense seminar + a year of various support services if one decided they wanted to take action and pay $4000Cdn for the Robert Allen training, but the seminar itself was INTENSELY helpful and interesting, and man if I had room on my credit card I might have signed up...

But no, mainly because that's a significant purchase and I'd never make that decision without consulting my husband, and I do believe it's an understanding we share at this point in our lives.

Still, one day I do want to take this seminar, but I think I need to move forward a little more by myself first before I can use them to launch me into being a millionaire. I'll be taking this seminar within the next year.

The premise of Robert Allen's successes are based upon "no money down" by using creative financing, and purchasing of homes from "motivated sellers" so you can buy under market value, or at market value with terms that are financially rewarding for you but still meet the ultimate needs of the seller. He does recommend you build your own credit as Carleton Sheets does, but it's not where he starts, and in fact he gives ideas for those who have NO credit and no money and no job, etc.

I came home and did some searching online and found the ebook of the course available on www.ebay.ca as well as Robert's 50 Nothing Down Techniques and an audiobook of the Creating Wealth with Real Estate system. I'm reading through the Nothing Down techniques in my car when I have a few minutes to kill, parked by the side of the road as I pick up my roommate from work every day, and I'm reading the ebook when I feel like reading, then listening to the audiobook when I feel like listening. It's all VERY VERY INTERESTING!

The ebook is excellent, although it's based on US laws, not Canadian ones like would be offered if I went to a Canadian workshop. A standard problem when purchasing online for us Canadians ;)

I think I'm going to go lay on the couch and cuddle with the various cats who like to cuddle when I lay on the couch, and I'm going to listen to the first 2 or maybe 3 parts of 32 half-hour audio segments.

My biggest problem with this whole thing right now is FEAR! I'm excited but I'm scared, too!! I will be taking action over the next few days to move towards being able to follow Robert Allen's recommendations, even though I'm not going to the seminar this time (hey, maybe I'll travel to Vancouver when it's offered there next time!), and I'll write all about it here!

Jill

Cashflow 202 the board game

Today, my Passive Income buddy Joel and I played CashFlow 202, the board game version, with someone new.

Dave was someone who was listed on the www.richdad.com website as a contact for a "Rich Dad CashFlow club", and luckily since he was the only local contact listed, he also listed as having CashFlow 202 available to play in the board game format. Personally, I've got CashFlow 101 in the board game format but hadn't purchased the cards and extra information required to turn the board game into the more advanced 202 version.

At any rate, Joel got us into contact with Dave about a month ago but nothing ultimately came of the discussions in terms of setting up a game time. Dave was going to try to round up some of the others in the "club" and get back to us. I ended up emailing Dave and Joel last week early on to re-spark the conversation, and suggested the three of us get together even if nobody else was available (because it's summer and everyone's schedule gets changed during the summer months), and Dave was game, so we planned for this weekend, Sunday at 1:30 PM.

It was great to meet Dave and chat with him about his experiences with Rich Dad Poor Dad the book, and then his personal financial experiences and business-building experiences as well. He's actually got a business going that delivers passive income that was high enough for him to move his full time job down to part time, and it sounds like a business that delivers a product that makes people feel better and healthier, which is extra-cool. There are businesses you can build that exploit people and don't give them what they expect, but they are different than ones built that make people feel better in real actuality.

I liked the way Dave had laminated the game cards and was using dry-erase markers instead of pencil and erasers. CashFlow has a lot of erasing and re-calculating of numbers, and can get messy or use up a lot of erasers. I'm going to be laminating some of my game board sheets as well, now.

We didn't make another solid plan to get together to play, but summer is almost over (sigh) and soon things will be back to normal, and more people will be able to come out. We'll probably rotate the hosting home, so eventually I've got to invite a small crowd into my house! Eeks.

RoBTV and Income Trusts

Funny, ain't it?

I turned on Report On Business TV (RoBTV) last night for the first time, and watched a half hour program at around 9 PM - Market Call, perhaps? It in itself was interesting, but what I found more interesting was the topic for the next day - tonight: Income Trusts!

I wonder how often they cycle through the same topics... I guess I'll find out over the next few months :)

Jill

Income Trusts?

My parents were visiting recently and both Mom and Dad showed high interest in my bits of chatter about my passive income goals. Dad started to talk about some Oil & Gas and Energy companies he read about in the paper recently, so I brought him to my computer area and showed him the game CashFlow, the Rich Dad site in general and my Investopedia simulator and we chatted about various investing things for a while.

During our conversation, the subject of Income Funds (AKA Income Trusts, for when I use that term instead) came up as a way to generate cashflow on a monthly basis. I had seen a number of Income Funds on the TSX over time but didn't do much research on them initially because it was Just Another Thing I needed to research in this whole "investing" thing.

It was great to talk to Dad about them, because even though not much information was exchanged, it got me thinking more about them.

I need to learn more about these Income Funds because I don't understand their ultimate premise in terms of why a company would create an Income Fund and trade it publically. From what I've read about them so far (very little - again, other priorities took precident at the time), they're funds that are created by large companies with consistent profit flows, and while the fund itself can't be expected to appreciate in value very much compared to standard stocks, the fund gives "dividends" of sorts, every month, and the payouts are tax-exempt because of how things are set up.

I probably understand about 20% of what I need to understand to feel comfortable investing in Income Trusts right now, but I will be spending time this afternoon expanding my learning in this area of investing in the stock market, because from the wee little bit I know about them, they seem to match the Rich Dad concept of investing for the cashflow, not for the appreciation of value of whatever the physical investment is... but I need to figure out why a company would set up such a fund and trade it, and I need to find the fatal flaw(s)...

I wonder if these funds aren't perhaps something to do with providing retirement benefits (above CPP) to employees of these companies? I'm not sure, but that's the type of fatal flaw I need to find, so I am more comfortable that I know enough of my exit strategy prior to entering in the first place.