If you are just putting together the pieces of your real estate business, I want to tell you something that has taken a long time to sink in with me: you got to have a personal “Not To Do List” .

Everybody has a To Do List that they carry in their Palm Pilot or laptop or day planner or even on a piece of paper in their pocket. Forget that. Before you even start putting together a To Do List, you need to put together a Not To Do List, simply because unless you have the later securely in place, you will never get to the do the former.

Think I am kidding : known fact in the management circle is that most business owners spent less than 1 hour a day growing their business – bulk of their time is wasted dealing with day to day crap.

This is more than true in real estate investment business where most investors are running a one person or two person (them and spouse or some other partner). Very rarely you will see a whole support structure behind a real estate investor. Conventional wisdom is that you need to grow first than have other people coming into the door helping you.

I am here to tell you that conventional wisdom in this case is wrong!

Your real estate business will never grow unless you put together a well thought out machine that will pretty much run on autopilot or with minimum intervention.

First step is to create a Not To Do List for yourself.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ah, the start of the holiday season – gifts, days with family, lots of food and (gasp!) writing goals for 2005!

Let me make a confession here and get it over with: I hate writing goals! I cannot read any motivation books because they all insist that writing goals is the first step toward really becoming successful.

There is nothing more dreadful to me than starting at a blank computer screen, forcing myself to come with up with a plan for the next 12 months – with deadlines! Because nothing will happen unless we have a deadline. Deadlines are the best, most effective invention for people like me. Otherwise nothing will ever happen.

But last night I read something truly profound, on the last page of Forbes magazine The 400 Richest People In America (Hint: lots and lots of them have one thing in common: real estate). On the last page, a quote by Oprah Winfrey, one of the great entrepreuners of our time (forget the daily talk show stuff; The Lady is a genius when it comes to discovering hidden opportunities in businesses and people. I mean look at Dr. Phil!)

Here is the quote:

“I will just create, and if it works, it works, and if doesn’t, I’ll create something else. I don’t have any limitations on what I think I can do or be. “
- Oprah Winfrey

So here is my take: whether I like or not, it is hard to do anything worthwhile in my life or to make difference in other’s life or give back if I don’t have a plan. So in the next three days – Friday, Saturday and Sunday – I am going to sit down and write my personal (family, vacation, education) and business (acquisition, new ventures, big deals) goals for my real estate business.

I suggest, in entire humbleness to you, that you do the same.

Waiting for December 31st is an exercise mostly wasted. Write them now, then look over them over the next 30 days and craft a plan – with monthly and quarterly deadlines. You will be amazed how much you have going on in your real estate business in three short months if you do so – today and not delay in anymore.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Not a day goes by that I am not grateful to all the people who make a difference in my life. People who have taken time to come to the seminars, come to the coaching calls, my Gold and Gold Plus group, my Apprentice group who is already showing signs of exceeding all my expectations. Good things have happened to me – some instantly, some with a period of time – in my life, my business ever since I started teaching others what I do every day in my real estate business.

I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart – and I want you to know that this is just the beginning. I am always trying my best to go out and find the best, most cutting edge information that you can take and use it in your real estate business. The coming year will not be different but even better.

I can tell you from personal experience that getting big checks is gratifying but getting an email from somebody who bought a course or came to a workshop and now they just closed their first deal with a check in their hands – Oh boy! I can tell you that nothings makes my day better than that. It is an extremely satisfying moment.

To all of Mark Ijlal’s Inner Circle members, Thank You!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mark Ijlal

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Day 7: The Single Most Important Trait That All Successful Investors Have

One of the great books of all time is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Hill spent years interview successful people of the times to discover not what they all did but what they all did which was common between them.

Think And Grow Rich is that collection of common things.

I have done extremely well for somebody with no clue about real estate four short years ago and I hang around some pretty successful real estate investors.

One thing that stands out amongst all of us and if you ever come to our training workshops and met some of us and myself you will see that in action!

We don't think of ourselves in the real estate business or in the money business.

I am in the “Problem Solving Business”!

Somebody asked me how can anybody give me a house with thousands of dollars in equity, knowingly??

To which I answered that homeowners never ever give equity away, they just trade equity for peace of mind.

Big mental shift coming your way!!!

I am here to tell you and I am 100% confident that I am absolutely right!

You will get locate ONE deal within the first 30 days of reading and implementing what I have taught you in the previous e-mails! Guaranteed!

Now if you don't have right mindset, you will not be able to convert that lead into ONE HUGE CHECK!

And I am all about getting CHECKS!

But this is the Catch 22 of this business. Most investors get obsessed over making money so fast that they forget that there are people involved in this pre-foreclosure thing.

One thing that has worked great for me over the years is to tell the truth when I talked to homeowners.

No false hope, No B.S. promises that I cannot keep. I tell them what can i do and what I cannot possibly do.

Straight Talk delivered via web, voice mail or postcards.

Gets you very profitable results, every single time.

But the mindset is always the same!

If I can help them save the home, I will help them save the home.

If I can trade equity for peace of their mind, I will do that too.

If they want to sell their homes themselves or at least try to do so, I will help them.

If they want to use a realtor to sell their homes (Whoa!!!) I will refer them to some really good realtors that I have used in the past.

But get this,

No matter What They Want To Do,

I will help them!!

I will gain their trust!!!

I will tell them the truth!!!

I will create a relationship that will bear results!!!

Its all about having the mindset.

So what can we do to get the right mindset???

Make sure when you talk to people in pre-foreclosure, you, your business cards and your web site all evoke the same message.

You know that they have a problem

You can solve that problem.

Ever wondered why people go into foreclosure???

Ever wondered why they don't do anything to save their homes, most of the time waiting for the last minute before they call you or me?

Look, nobody goes into pre-foreclosure happily or willingly. There is something bad happening in their lives that is so horrible, so big - loss of job, divorce, death, substance abuse - that losing the house has become a secondary issue.

Ever saw a deer frozen in incoming headlights on the freeway?

Pretty much the same situation here also,

They are so scared, so disturbed, so embarrassed by what is happening that they cannot move, they are just paralyzed in fear.

What they want in you is a FRIEND!

Get it in your head and money will come easy!

Your have to help them first and they will do deals with you.

This concludes the 7 Part Series on Locating Your First Foreclosure Deal in 7 Days!

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Next: Day 6: Your Web site - Pre-Foreclosure Magnet:

Your web site is the single most important piece in your pre-foreclosure machine.

If you don't have a web site, designed to attract and convince pre-foreclosures home owners to do business with you - you are leaving thousands of dollars on the table.

Sometimes I just wonder. Last week during a training session for New Real Estate Investors, I did a show of hand of how many people in the room have business cards - on them right now.

Not even one hand went up!

Some times I just wonder!

Next I asked, how many people have formed LLC’s to protect themselves and their families and to get maximum tax benefits.

50% of the hands went up.

O.K. that was not that bad but I still wonder about the ones who have not bothered to take 10 minutes and couple of dollars to form a LLC.

Then I asked how many people have a web site - forget good, bad or ugly or designed specifically for ONE purpose - to convince homeowners and investors to do business with you!

Not even ONE hand went up!

As I said, sometimes I just wonder!

How is anybody supposed to know that you are in the business of buying and selling pre-foreclosures???

The best thing, the ONE thing that you have nobody else has on you is........

YOU!!!

Your web site is a best tool to paint you in favorable light to homeowners .

It is also the quickest way to establish credibility to investors and homeowners like.

Truth is you probably have a full time job, cannot answer you phone all the time and you really cant act like Donald Trump on the weekends - your kids and dogs get you down!

Guess what, I am in the same boat too.

My daughter Hailey is 23 months right now and a complete terror - she will not even let me touch a cell phone or do anything on weekends.

All of my free hours are hers.

And that is the best thing about this business.

And that is the best thing about having a web site that runs 24/7 for you. Of all the major relationships that I have in my real estate business came from the internet.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Day 5 : Launch Your Marketing System

I value my time and I other people to value my time. When it comes to doing pre-foreclosures is this -

All I want to come out of my marketing is three things :

Finding the most motivated sellers out of the bunch.
Directing them to a system that does not includes my personal interaction - web site, automated voice mail system (the advance seminar system audio's include a complete marketing system - postcards, letters etc. that we have tested over the years to get the best possible response.)
Explaining to them the options available and how I can help them.

Now a good marketing system - letters, postcards - has only job for me :

Get rid of everybody who is not ready yet to make a move.

Find me 3-4 100% motivated sellers and I got a deal.

It is as easy as that.

Don't make the mistake of marketing too wide and not too enough.

Once I have 3-4 homeowners calling me, asking for my help in solving their problem - I have nothing to distract me to make a deal.

By the way, the worse thing you can possibly do is put your cell phone number on your marketing pieces.

Remember what I said about valuing your time! If you put your cell phone number on your postcards or you letters or your web site - rest assured you will spend almost all of you waking hours explaining the same things over and again.

Better and a tested strategy that produces success is to direct them first to a system - your web site (undoubtedly the most important piece of the equation, don't miss the next e-mail where I will show you how a focused web site can make all the difference in your business) or a voice mail message.

4 Essential Ways To Ensure Your Marketing Brings Results:

1. Make a mailing calendar - you have to mail than once to the same house to get profitable results.
Always handwritten the envelopes - remember these homeowners have credit issues, if their house in foreclosure, they are probably getting all kinds of threatening mail from banks, credit card companies etc.
2. Last thing you want your letter to look is like a very official letter.
If you are too busy or too lazy to write these envelopes, give somebody $20 to do them every week. But get them done.
3. Do not use a automated machine to stamp them like Pitney Bowes or Stamps.com, they will look like junk mail. Use a live stamp.
4. Also go to www.vistaprint.com and order some regular mailing labels for yourselves. You can get them like 250 for $14. These are the same labels you would get from charities soliciting donations.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Day 4 : County Clerk Office - Mining For Gold For FREE

When you are hungary, where do you go?

You go to a restaurant, right, because that's where the food is.

When you want foreclosure deals, where do you go?

You go to where the pre-foreclosure deals are happening , that is your county clerks office.

Now here is the big secret about county clerks office. That what the pros know and the new real estate investors don't.

County Clerks Office and the people who work there are public servants. Meaning they get paid from the taxes you and me pay.

They are supposed to help you. All the information you want on a house, is FREE under the Freedom of Information Act and is public knowledge.

I used to hang around my county office one day a week for two hour just playing on the computer systems and pulling information on homeowners in pre-foreclosures.

3 Things You Need To do , very easily, for FREE :

1. Walk into a county clerks office, go to Registrar of Deeds room and ask the nice person behind the counter to help you find some information about a property.

2. They are going to take you by hand to their computer terminals, log you in and show you how to use it.

3. Whip out the list of addresses that you made from the Legal Newspaper, start punching them in, one by one. In half an hour you will know how much they owe on their homes, 1 mortgagee or 2 mortgages and most importantly the names of the banks who are holding the liens.

Now lets recap what we have gathered so far from nothing:

We have a list of homeowners who just went into pre-foreclosures.
We know their addresses, amount of money owed and who do they owe this money to.
We have pinpointed cities that we want to operate.
We have done research at realtor.com to get a price range of what 3/4 bedrooms are going for in those towns.

Day 5 : Launch Your Marketing System

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Day 3: How To Pick Deals That You Can Get

Once you have a list of homes going into pre-foreclosure, how do you pick the houses that you can be absolutely sure you can get?

Let me tell you what everybody does - most investors try to find deals with the most equity and get them.

The problem is with that strategy is very simple - what you can see obviously in couple of hours, so can everybody else, so these homeowners are getting 10 letters and postcards every day, with a language which is dumb and threatening most of the time.

After some time, they just stop opening these letters and throwing them in the garbage.

Phone calls - GOOD LUCK! Either they have already disconnected the phone because of all the creditors calling them every day or they have switched to cell phones and don't even answer their home phones anymore. Also if they have a unlisted phone number?

I don't care what equity they have - what equity they don't have, I can create EQUITY out of thin year - it is not something that I can teach in 10 minutes because if you can pull a “Short Sale” off , you are looking at $30,000 - $50,000 of extra profit on just ONE deal . This is such a powerful concept that it takes me almost 4-5 hours during my Real Estate training workshops.

So lets not worry about the what equity these houses may or may not have - Equity is easy to CREATE! Instead focus on the building the list of houses you want to market to.

Also stay focused on the areas that you initially picked (BE LOCAL) and more importantly, look at the amount of default that houses are going under. So big amounts that are over $300,000 - unless you have somebody lined up already that will take these homes off your hand.

The best and easiest homes to sell once you have bought them are in the range of $100,000 to $175,000 - ideal Starter Homes for first time home buyers.

Next: Day 4: Mining County Clerks Office For Gold

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eric Hanpeter asked a great question about the big problem in getting insurance on vacant REO’s. Unfortunately that has become the norm lately but here is some solution -

Michigan Basic will insure a distressed property for upto 90 days under rehab. They are strict in their inspections which they periodically check upon on you. They will cancel your policy if it does not meets their standards. They are the only insurance company that we know will let you insure under rehab. Although we are strictly talking fire insurance only, structure only. No liability coverage.

Next, you can go to any other insurnace company, after the rehab is completed. Put a live alarm system with active montioring on it and that should satisfy the vacancy requirement after rehab. You can also board up the windows (although that has to be the worse possible solution) and that will also satisfy their criteria.

Insurance companies are becoming very strict on vacant properties - too many false claims coming in. And they have decided to just punish everybody. Unfortunate situation, but a necessary bitter pill to play THE GAME!

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

DAY 2: Smart Marketing

During my last Maximum Foreclosure Profits Training, a very nice lady got up from the audience and asked me that if I had to name one killer technique that is bringing me 10-15 great leads every month.

I told her that I cannot possibly tell her what ONE thing I do every month to bring me 10-15 leads every month, but I can tell her the 10 different things I do every month to bring me ONE good deal.

And there lies the biggest challenge for all new and seasoned real estate investors - to stop obsessing over one way to bring pre-foreclosures in the door and launch a marketing machine to churn deal after deal every month.

If I dissected every single move I make to bring good, juicy deals to me - that would be a 30 pages e-mail - during my training workshops, sometimes I just spend ONE whole day talking about setting up different systems that can bring you lead after lead , week after week.

But I will give you 2 tested and proven techniques to start locating your first foreclosure deal immediately.

Direct Mail Campaign To Home Owners In Pre-Foreclosures:

Almost everybody talks about it, almost everybody does it WRONG!

If you run your direct mail campaign it is the cheapest and most profitable way of getting motivated homeowners in pre-foreclosures calling you almost every month.

If done wrong, your direct mail campaign - postcards and letters - will go into garbage along with all the other crap other real estate investors are sending out to this homeowner.

One campaign done right will bring you $10,000 to $30,000 per deal.

One campaign done wrong will bring you zero dollars and the negative thinking that this whole “real estate thing” only works for infomercials.

Let me give you the 3 big components of my direct mail campaigns:

First, I have already talked about in the first e-mail you got from me about the Importance of Being Local.

If you have already forgotten that e-mail, I suggest go back to you e-mail program, print it and read it.

Now think about this in context - let say you are in a county where houses go from $50,000 to $2,000,000 (that is millions by the way).

May be you are starting out in you real estate business or may be you have some deals in the past where you stumbled to some cash at the end of the day!

Most investors start marketing to every house going in their area. Truth of the matter is that you cannot possibly buy or deal any house - so this is the first time you are doing this, I don't think trying to get a deed for a $1 Million dollar home is a good idea simply because you probably have no idea how to market effectively to get rid of such a big house.
Or you don't have yet, an investor network that can take the house from your hands quickly.

Either way, there is no point in marketing to a house in that price point.

I will tell you one of the biggest, most important idea that I stumbled into that has made all the difference:

Instead of marketing once or twice to pre-foreclosure homeowners like most investors do, I carefully decide, based on my criterial, what houses do I really want to own and deal, and I market a whole campaign to these homeowners.

This is a huge idea and the results have been astounding.

How many credit card offers you get every month in the mail?

How many credit card offers you get, from the same company, in a three month period in the mail?

Get the picture???

There are three very important factors in getting homeowners in pre-foreclosures to sell their homes to you at a huge discounted price:

1. What your letter or postcard says? I have spend hours upon hour agonizing on what to say in my letter to make the homeowners run to the phone and call me right away. Huge amounts of testing went into this to make sure what I write make the phone ring.

2. When do the homeowners in pre-foreclosures get this letter? As they say, all life is about timing. Pre-foreclosure process striates over couple of months - the correct thing, said at the right time will make the difference in getting the check or not.

3. How many times you HIT the homeowners in pre-foreclosure? A sequential campaign, done at the right time, with the right number of times will position you as the dominant “Problem Solver In Your County” in the mind of the homeowners in pre-foreclosure.

With that in mind, you need to do things really fast:

1. Go to your county office and get the legal newspaper that usually comes out every Friday.
2. Pick out the addresses in the cities you want to market to. (Be Local!)
3. Start a mailing campaign spread over the next 6 weeks to get your first deal.

Day 3: How To Pick Deals That You Can Get

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was going through my documents folder on my iBook and found this mini-ecourse on preforeclosures that I wrote some time ago. Although I am personally not actively pursuing preforeclosures but I do get emails asking questions about if i have any information about pre-forecloursures. So I thought why not! It was a 7 day course delivered via email so that is how i will put it up here for the next 2 days.

For hard core REO dealpers - you can skip but I would probably read - good practical lessons here all learned in the trenches, hands bloodies, nose to the ground!

Day 1 The Hunt For A Preforeclosure Deal: Be Local

If I had a dollar every time I told a real estate investor to stay local.......

Anyway, here it what i means,

“Be Local” is the cornerstone of my real estate investing game plan.
To target a area, preferably - one big town or four medium size suburbs and become the predominant force in buying and selling foreclosures in that area.

I don't want another “real estate investor” where I operate - I want the best deals, I want to be known and I want first dips on everything that is going into pre-foreclosure in those towns.

Secondly, once you start focusing on a smaller area instead of 45 suburbs, I can pretty much look at a house in 10 minutes without calling an appraiser or going into MLS tell you how much the house is worth.

How can I do it? Because I concentrate on a smaller area - I know the towns like the back of my hand, I know the values of 3 bedrooms and 4 bedrooms houses (these are the only ones I do - very, very easy to sell compared to 1 and 2 bedrooms).

So how do you pick up the area that you want to dominate?

These best area to pick up is either where you live or where you work - both ways you can find time to drive around and look at houses.

When I first started doing pre-foreclosures, I felt like going back to school - I knew what kind of houses i wanted to buy and deal - I drove for six weekends in a row with then girlfriend (and now wife) Nora and we had the best time - kind of like picnic in a car.

I am a big believer in convincing your spouse to believe in your plans and dreams about successfully running a real estate business.

I mean if you cannot convince your own loved ones to believe in you - it would be an uphill battle to convince an investor or a homeowner to believe you . Good way of doing is to instead of telling her or him the money you will make - tell them why do you want to do this - layoff proof your family, no more worrying about economy and recessions, send your children to the best schools possible, retire in style - convince them the same way you would if you wanted to get a loan from somebody.

O.K. got the area, preferably four towns to begin with - you need to put your research gear on . Jump to the internet and go www.realtor.com, this is pretty much as close to being on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) as you can get without being an appraiser or a realtor.

Pull up everything that is selling in your towns that you pick up in 3/4 bedrooms range and see what is going on - I don't care about what price ranges you are looking at - pre-foreclosures are all the same. If dealing with big numbers make you nervous, stay within $150,000 - fastest deal price range you could be in .

Familiarize yourself with the houses in that price range - they have pictures there so see what kind of house you can get in that range - brick / vinyl, how many bedrooms, bathrooms, basement or not, colonial or ranch.

Know the area

Know the house that you can get in $225,000 and under price range.

Day 2: Smart Marketing Can Get You ONE Deal - Right Away.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Just because somebody sends me an e-mail does'nt not means that I have to drop everything I am doing and start replying.

This is the easiest one to answer. I recommend reading the only book on Time Management that I have found that had real new dollars in my bank account, Dan Kennedy, No B.S. Time Management For Entrepreners.

I read this book every 2 months, over and over again and every time I do I find another block of time in my day that I could be doing something productive.

Dont get me wrong - I do answer emails, I just do them at my own convenience and not on the convenience of the person sending it to me. Just becuase they did not have anything to do at that particular momemnt of time does not means that I share their liesure.

I love fax machines and I encourage everybody that I do business with to use the fax machine. My phones are rarely answered live and if they are, it is by an answering service.

I know several real estate investors who live in the perpetual fear of losing a profitable deal and hence they are sugically glued to their emails and cell phones. I used to be one of them till I figure out that if the person on the other end has relationship with me then they will wait for me.

Business is booming, my rules of engagement get tougher every quarter and so far no drop in volume or profit in sight.

I am telling you, buy the No B.S Time Mangement Book today. It is like $9.95 at Amazon.com. You will thank me in six months for making more money with less work.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dan Kennedy talks about a great deal about the joys of living in a business with bad math – meaning the odds are tilted in your favor so much that you can screw up significantly and still come out smiling.

I always thought that his concept works phenomenally well with our kind of business – you know like buying really low, fixing it and selling it at full market value – if you have $30,000 to $50,000 in equity after repairs – you have enough room to underestimate repair costs, give generous seller concessions, help with down payment assistance, buy appliances, pay bird dog fees and still makes tons of dough at the end of the day.

That is bad math at its best.

How hard it is to find deals like that – one of my appraiser friends, who I have been dogging for three years now to do real estate finally got tired of his yo-yo income due to the drying up of the mortgage refinance market and bought his first single family house for deal.

Six months ago.

Now he has sold two houses, one is under a lease and he is about to deal two more.

Net profit to date is around – realized and about to be booked – is around $77,000.

Not bad for a rookie!

Nora found a house yesterday that has around $50,000 in equity – after completion of repairs.

One of my Gold Plus students just closed on his first deal on Friday – I am going to ask him to stop by and do an audio recording with me so everybody can listen and learn a very important thing from Mike – leveraging your time to maximum profits. Our net was around $40,000.

Got a call this morning about the impossibility of finding deals – good deals – I can pretty much close my eyes and find two good deals in my sleep. No kidding.

Do you know where the good deals in your area are? And more importantly have you laid down a path for these good deals to find you? Instead of you finding them!

I had an interesting talk with new Apprentice member Jeff Herbel from West Virginia this morning – we are going to try and get everybody on tape before we start this whole program – so we can look back 120 days from and have a good laugh – and the conversation was pretty amazing. We both agreed that making $400,000 in your first 12 months in real estate is a challenge but all you need is 10 good deals. That is pretty much the number. 10 good deals in 12 months.

More about it later on how to find those 10 deals or better still how to make sure that 10 good deals find you!

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Take it from somebody who has gone from zero to $2,000,000 in 18 months – these sources is as solid and fails proof as it gets. One of the thing that has always bothered me in reading courses about real estate is much of the information seems like it is experimental – you know “if it sounds good on paper, may be it will work in real world”.

I know I should have written a warning on this blog when I first started that some people will be taken by my harsh tone on what works and what does not works in “real world real estate”. But I figured that after reading couple of posts, if somebody still does not gets it – chances are they are going to ignore the warning anyway.

But that is an entirely different post into itself. So let’s talk about the best sources of making private investors run after your money.

Private money works in phases. Unless you have rich parents / uncles who have nothing to do with their money and they just want to cut you a check, you will have to lay the ground work for getting the check from somebody who is most likely be a stranger.

But before we tremble in fear and anticipation – let me tell you a very smart way to turn that cold call into a warm embrace of a solid referral.

Source #1 for Private Money: Your Lawyer and CPA – I have never asked either my lawyer or my CPA for money yet they were the initial catalyst in starting my private bank. What I did was instead of asking them for referrals which I knew would make them a little nervous initially, after all it is a big thing to give somebody a referral for lending money to a third party – even when the money is secured by real estate.

Instead of coming out and point blank asking them to refer me to their clients with excess cash, I prepared a simple 10 page Instant Investor Credibility Kit – it contained pictures (both before and after the renovation) of several houses that I have done recently, purchase checks and also the checks from the sales of these houses) and printouts from my QuickBooks accounting software to show exactly how much I have spent and where it went. The whole thing took me may be 30 minutes to put together.

Then I wrote a letter on top of it, explaining who I was, why I needed private money and what were the rates I would pay private investors, when they will get paid, how would their investment would be secured and so forth.

At that time I picked up the phone and called my lawyer and my CPA and told them that was sending this package to some people who have contacted me via the website (which was not completely untrue, I was getting leads from people coming from my website, I just did not knew how serious they were) and I want them to take a look at the proposal and make sure that I am not saying anything wrong there.

Off course, since both to them bill every time they do something for me – they were happy to review the package. I emailed them the package, both of them called me the next day and told me that they have reviewed the package; everything looked fine and by the way am I interested in meeting couple of their clients who want to get these kinds of returns.

Which was exactly I was hoping would happen in the first place.

This is why I talk so much about relationships and why it is so important to have key people in your real estate business that would help you grow your business really fast.
You want to have these people in your business and you want to learn how to effectively leverage your contacts to help you grow your real estate investment business.

Next: How to use classified ads / website to attract private money.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)