Real Estate Investing Made Easy By Brian Haskins potx

I started doing multiple projects at the same time and everything was great until the real estate market took a huge nose dive and I couldn’t sell any of my properties.. I got stuck hold

Real Estate Investing Made Easy

By: Brian Haskins

Copyright 2012 By Brian Haskins

Smashwords Edition

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Introduction

What I am about to share with you is my journey from struggling and broke to a

successful real estate investor

I will share with you my struggles and failures, as well as my successes and some of my student’s stories as well

What I will teach you can be done, even if you have no money, no credit or any previous experience

I am a living case study I went from broke, wondering how I would pay my rent and not knowing where my next meal will come from to a completely successful, wealthy real estate investor

I can now work when I want and how much I want I set my own schedule and live the life I want

Now I need to point out, what I am going to share with you is not a “get rich quick”

opportunity

It will require some work but if you follow what I teach you and the simple systems that I have perfected and taught hundreds of other students, you, too, can find success as a real estate investor

You will have the opportunity to provide the life you want for your family, and like me walk in to work and fire your boss forever

What were going to cover

How I went from broke with only $100 in my account to $96k in 9 months

How to do this in your spare time - working around your 9 to 5 job

Which strategies work best and how to profit fast

How to negotiate with sellers to get the best deals

How to sell your properties lightning fast and profit big

How to take your business to the next level and fire your boss!

Why Did I Write This Book?

I wrote this book because I really had a hard time making this whole real estate thing work I struggled and only wished there was someone that was giving away this kind of great information when I first started

I told myself if I ever figured out how to make money in real estate and put together a system that worked well I would share it with everyone

It's just my way of giving back …

Chapter 1

How I Got My (Rocky) Start…

I got started in real estate as a very young cocky kid who thought he could do anything

I was completely broke living paycheck to paycheck

I hated my job Just thinking about waking up every day and making someone else rich made me sick

I was working construction and it was long hours for not much pay

I was watching TV one Saturday morning and I saw a TV show called “Flip This House”

If you're not familiar with it, basically it shows people rehabbing houses for a profit It would show them working on houses for a few weeks and then selling them the same day for as much as a $50,000 profit

All I could see were dollar signs I was completely hooked the first minute I saw this show

I knew I could do that, and do an even better job

I started to learn as much as I possibly could about rehabbing houses

I begged my parents to help me get a loan for my first rehab project They were very skeptical but in the end they agreed and said they would help me with my first house for

a split of the profit

To make a long story short I failed miserably I bought a house that needed way to much work and we went way over budget and the repairs took months since we all had full time jobs

In the end we sat on the property for almost a full year and made no money

I begged my parents to help me get a loan for my first rehab project They were very skeptical but in the end they agreed and said they would help me with my first house for

a split of the profit

To make a long story short I failed miserably I bought a house that needed way to much work and we went way over budget and the repairs took months since we all had full time jobs

In the end we sat on the property for almost a full year and made no money

Being young and as hard headed as I was, I told them I knew I could rehab another house and be successful, knowing what we knew now

My parents couldn’t afford to help me with another project so I had to look elsewhere for

I started doing multiple projects at the same time and everything was great until the real estate market took a huge nose dive and I couldn’t sell any of my properties

I got stuck holding half a dozen properties paying the mortgages and taxes which

quickly led me to being broke again…

I quickly started researching ways to make money again and a friend of mine invited me

to go to a local Real Estate Investors group that met and networked once a month in my area

I was reluctant, considering the experience I just had investing in real estate, but I was

so broke I would have done anything at this point

So we went to the meeting and I will never forget the day It was the biggest turning point in my life

That night I was introduced to a simple, yet highly profitable investing techniques that I could use to get me out of my slump and to help me get on top of the game again That strategy was Wholesaling

In the next chapter we’ll cover wholesaling and why it’s such a powerful strategy, yet still simple enough anyone can do it

You don’t need any cash to get started, you don’t have to get any loans, and you don’t need any experience

Wholesaling, unlike rehabbing or any other real estate strategy, can be done in any kind

of real estate market, good or bad

It can be done in every city across the nation big or small Nothing really affects it It’s almost bullet proof!

Chapter 2

What Is Wholesaling?

Before we get started I want to take a moment and explain why I told the entire story of how I got started (I know it was kind of long.)

The reason is, I wanted you to know that I am nobody special I have failed several times and I wanted to show you that even a failure like me can make money

Wholesaling

Wholesaling is a very simple concept Wholesaling is not something new It's been done literally since the beginning of real estate sales

It's one of the safest strategies and it doesn’t require you to buy properties like

rehabbing or rental properties

It doesn't require you to fix them up or deal with tenants This is the only strategy to actually work in all kinds of real estate markets, good or bad

There are only 3 steps to a wholesale deal

1 You find undervalued properties people want to sell

2 You contract the property

3 You then find a buyer that is willing to pay you more for the property than you have it under contract for You then sell them your contract and profit

There is no holding the property You never buy it You never fix it or put any money into it

The rest of the book we’re going to take each step and break down exactly what goes into putting a wholesale deal together

Before we go into all the details I want to walk you through a deal so you can get a better understanding

Let's talk about my first wholesale deal

Loughborough Property

Let's talk about how I found this property

I posted some signs around my neighborhood that said We Buy Houses with my phone number on them

I got some calls but they weren't really motivated

I finally got the call from this seller She said you can have the property for what I owe

on it I just want to get out of the property

I was pretty intrigued so I met with her

The house needed tons of repairs Almost a full rehab

The good news she only owed $40,000 on the property and fixed up it could sell for

$160,000!

The house needed about $60,000 in repairs, which would total about $100,000

investment for someone and they could sell it for $160,000

I thought this was a home run, so I said ok We filled out the contract for $40,000 and I was able to find a buyer to pay me $50,000 for the property

After a few small fee’s and closing, I got this:

I hope you can see the opportunity here.

Now I know I have done a lot of talking about myself already, but I want to give you a little more background so you know that I am actually qualified to teach you about

wholesaling

Since I got my start wholesaling, I have since closed several hundreds of deals, in multiple states selling over 100 million dollars of real estate

I have taught hundreds of students in all 50 states and even in other countries

I still run a real estate wholesaling business and flip houses on a regular basis

So what do you need to get started wholesaling your first house?

You do not need a whole lot to get started wholesaling houses You basically need an internet connection, a phone and that’s about it

It is also helpful to have a scanner or fax machine, a website and also a VOIP phone system that allows some flexibility and extensions

Let's take a look at these tools and why you would need them:

1 Access to the internet - It's great to have access to the internet for researching deals and finding deals as well If you don’t have access to the internet you can go to the public library and get access for free

2 Phone - You need to be able to have some way for people to contact you when wanting to buy or sell a house

3 Scanner or fax - It’s a helpful idea to have some way to scan and email or fax

contracts and other paperwork But it’s not a must when first starting out and something that can be added later

4 Website - A website is a huge part of your wholesaling business It’s a great way for buyers and sellers to find you and a great way to automate your business It's not a

must when you’re first starting but something you might want to look into once you get started

Here is the websites I use in my own business and also the websites most of my

students use http://www.CheapREIWebsites.com

These websites are about the most affordable you can find and they are easy to use and customize

How To Find Undervalued Houses?

Before we start talking about the strategies I want to make one thing very clear

Before you start getting creative and trying to find your own ways of marketing make sure the people you are targeting are people who are motivated sellers

I see so many people chasing houses, but they don’t know if the seller is motivated or not

We want to find people who need to sell, not people that want to sell Let me repeat that because it’s a very important take away

You want to find people that NEED to sell, not people that WANT to sell

The second big take away is you need to find people with equity

If they don’t have equity, then more than likely we won't be able to work out a deal with them The properties need to be worth more than what they are asking

We'll talk about how much equity they will need to have in another chapter

Where will you find these types people and what kind of people are we going to

be looking for?

These are going to be people:

Who maybe have recently lost their job and can't afford the high payments anymore, but have been paying down their mortgage for a while

People who have recently inherited a house they do not want

People who have recently been transferred

People who have 2 mortgages Maybe they bought a new house and couldn’t sell their old house

One question I get all the time is, “Why would these people sell for a discount?”

It’s a great question

Most of the people who end up selling to an investor usually have tried selling the

conventional way with a realtor or for sale by owner

They are running out of options and it gets to the point they would rather give up their equity and just be done with the problem

Now you have the basics set up It’s time to find wholesale deals

There are hundreds of ways you can find motivated sellers

What we are going to focus on today is going to be the 5 best ways that are all either low cost or no cost

The reason we're going to focus on low cost and no cost marketing strategies is

because if you are anything like me, when I first got started, I didn’t have any extra money to spend

I always recommend to my students they start out with low cost strategies instead of spending their money on more advanced strategies right out of the gate

This will allow them to get their first few deals under their belt and get a little money built

up before moving into more advanced strategies

The following strategies are the 5 best low cost strategies I have found after years of testing

These strategies work nationwide and in all kinds of real estate markets

1 Bandit Signs

Bandit signs are a great way of finding motivated sellers

Bandit signs are the plastic signs you see hanging from telephone poles and on the sides of roads

The key to bandit signs is that you need to rotate the areas and placement of your signs

If people get used to seeing them, then they won't notice them

Here is an image of a bandit sign

Typically you want to keep it short and simple, 2 or 3 lines max

You want something eye catching I like to say something like

I'll Buy Your House

For Cash

(xxx) -xxx-xxxx

I buy my signs from a company in Texas called Dirtcheapsigns.com They are the

cheapest I have ever found

I like to get my signs with black letters printed on yellow signs

I also highly recommend this cool little tool to save you tons of time and get your signs

You want to keep the letter simple

I typically tell them what I am up to and let them know I am now in the real estate

investing business and if they know anyone looking to buy or sell a house, to let me know and I will pay them a finder's fee

The finder's fee is typically $200 and what is so great about that is, I only pay them once the deal closes and I make money

There are no upfront costs

People jump at the chance to make a few extra bucks and they want to help you out since it's your friends and family

3 Driving For Dollars

This is an old strategy but it's still a good one, as long as you are smart about it

In the past, investors would go out and drive certain neighborhoods looking for vacant properties It's not that practical now with the cost of gas

What I like to do is some research and find some great neighborhoods that investors are buying rental properties and fix and flip properties in I target these areas since I know that’s where they are already buying

I like to then go out to the neighborhood and take a little flier or door hanger with me and hang them on all the doors in the neighborhood

This does a few things for me

Once I hang them, I wait a few days and go back out to the neighborhood and look for houses with the fliers still on the door

If it's still there, it’s a good chance it’s a vacant property which might be a good deal

It also gives me an “in” with the neighbors

On the flier I put that I pay finder’s fees for properties

I get calls from all the neighbors who want to make some spare cash and tell me about all the vacant properties in that area

A lot of times they know where to find the homeowners which can be one of the hardest things about investing in vacant properties

4 Birddogs

Birddogs are one of the best ways to find deals

A Birddog is someone that goes out and finds properties that fit your criteria, and then they hand the leads over to you

It's your job to work the lead and then once you close the deal and make money, you give them a finder's fee

Their job is to only find the leads and you work the deal

Typically the finder's fee will be anywhere from $200 to a few thousand dollars

depending on the deal and what you negotiate

I have created a great birddog training which you can check out here

http://www.BirddogArmy.com

5 Craigslist

Hands down the best way to find great quality leads right away is through craigslist Craigslist has changed quite a bit over the years and the way you find leads on

craigslist has changed

Instead of posting ads and waiting for people to respond, you can find a lot more deals searching the For Sale By Owner section of craigslist

You can search for certain keywords like Motivated or Motivated Seller and you will see hundreds of instant free leads

You can contact them and see how negotiable they are

I have been doing this for the last year and a half and its one of the best ways for finding deals in today's market

I will tell you it's extremely time consuming but it does work great

I have started using a cheap and simple software tool to actually do this for me every day on auto pilot

It works like a charm and gives me back the time I was spending every day searching myself

Here is how the software works

You enter in the keywords you want to search for and the sites you want to search

It will go out every day and search the terms you entered and it will even automatically email the motivated seller a custom message that you can design

Every day I wake up with responses from these motivated sellers who are contacting

me to buy their house

Some other great things about this software are it searches any site you want, not just craigslist, and it does it every day for you on auto pilot You just have to spend a few minutes setting it up once

If you want to check out the software you can see how it works right here

http://www.BrianLikes.com/craigslist

If you invest in it, just send me your receipt and I will send you a complete list of

keywords I use and the pre-made emails that I use for my own business

I will even give you a list of all the sites that I search on a daily basis

So those are my top 5 traffic sources for starting out on a limited budget

There is one last marketing method I want to cover before we move on

REO properties A REO property is a foreclosed property that is listed with a real estate agent

Typically the property went into foreclosure and then the bank tried to auction the

You can find REO properties through a local real estate agent

Just contact any agent and they can send you the REO properties in the area you want

Chapter 4

How To Know If It’s A Good Deal

Once you get the leads coming in, you’re going to have to learn how to evaluate the deal, but before we jump into that, I need to give you a few simple pointers for talking with motivated sellers

People are either going to be contacting you by phone or through your website,

whichever one you set up

If they contact you by phone, you need to collect as much information from them as possible so you can properly evaluate the deal

You want to find out as much information about the house as possible Also, make sure you find out all the repairs that they think the house needs

A few other things you want to make sure you ask are:

Why they want to sell the property, how much they are selling for, what is the least they will take, and if possible, how much they owe on the property? (Some people will say and others won't).

You have a few options on how to collect this information

You can create a lead sheet and write it all down on paper or you can use an online lead management tool

I highly recommend using an online lead management tool for quite a few reasons

1 You can keep all your leads in one place

2 It's much easier to search and find information

3 You won't lose your papers

4 You can access your leads online from anywhere

The list goes on and on…

The tool I use In my business is called Freedomsoft

You can check it out right here – http://www.BrianLikes.com/freedomsoft

I highly recommend using it It’s made a huge difference in my business, and saved me tons of time and headaches

It’s the tool that has made the most impact on my business

Once you have the information about the house, it's time to start evaluating the property

to see if it’s a good deal or not

The best way to do this is by running comps or searching comparable sold properties in the area

You want to make sure you are only searching sold properties, not properties for sale

Here are some tools you can use to search comparable properties:

1 Zillow.com - Zillow is not the most accurate but it’s a good quick tool you can use that doesn’t cost anything

2 Realquest.com - Realquest is a paid tool but they are much more accurate than Zillow

3 The MLS

The MLS is by far the best tool and the most accurate

It’s the tools used by realtors and appraisers to determine values on properties

You should contact a realtor or your local Realtor's association to see if you can pay to get access

When searching for comparable properties you want to make sure you are comparing apples to apples

You want to search properties that are similar in amount of bedrooms and bathrooms and you want to compare houses that have similar square footage

You also want to take into account the repairs or condition of the house

You then want to take the average value of houses in the area and see how it compares with what the seller is asking

If it's close or if they sound negotiable, then it's time to go out and look at the property

Chapter 5

Going On The Appointment

Once you determine if the deal is a good deal and there is some equity, it's time to go

on the appointment and look at the house

Your main goal, when going to look at the house, is to double check the information you got from the seller Make sure they told you about the repairs needed on the house and

so on

When you get to the house, you want to make sure you have a few things with you:

1 Print out of the comparable properties you found

A quick tip on building rapport:

Find a common interest If you see a set of golf clubs and you like golf then take a moment and ask them about their game

Or if you see a big fish mounted on the wall and you like to fish, you can talk about that

At this point, you want to take notes of all the repairs

You can see cracks in the walls or if the carpet needs to be replaced and you want to test everything like the furnace and air conditioner

Now I know you aren't going to know exactly how much these things will cost to fix and I

am going to cover this shortly, but you want to make sure you take notes of all the repairs

Once you have gone through the house, it's time to talk numbers with the homeowner and make your offer

Before I walk you through the offer and contract process, I want to talk about how to estimate repairs on a property

You have a few options:

1 Hire an inspector or contractor to teach you how to estimate repairs