Few more things are more perplexing to me than a new real estate investor coming up to me and telling me that they are having a hard time finding a good, profitable foreclosure deal.

That is to me in one word summed up - astonishing. If you factor in the number of foreclosure (highest in 58 years), personal bankruptcies (up 900% in 10 years), pressure on banks to stay profitable (highest numbers of mergers and acquisitions in the last 4 years) and the overall information available on the Internet (you don’t have to drive to your county office every day) - the admittance that you cannot find anything in your home town could only be met with one advice from me - MOVE!

Because if you are looking for deals and unless extraordinary circumstances, like my good friend from Denmark BJ who informed me during the last teleseminar that only 200 houses go into foreclosure every year in his country - we have no such problem here. His problem is truly a matter of geography. But I just find it hard to believe that it is possible any level not to be able find at least 1 decent deal every month that you can acquire, renovate if necessary and sell.

I think that more importantly you need to ask yourself the question that passes the brutal truth test - what have YOU done this month to ensure that a good deal would find you?

To use an analogy of dating - your chances or attracting a gorgeous member of the opposite sex increase dramatically if you have taken a shower, dressed nice and smell great and can make fun small talk. But if you are standing quietly in the corner in a ravishing party and look like your parole office was dozing when he let you out, then you cannot blame your lack of having a date on fate or where you are standing in the room.

Your real estate investment business is YOU! Plain and simple - the LLC you formed is just there to protect you from idiots who are sue happy. But having an LLC does not guarantee you success in your real estate business the same way just because you went to the party does not means that you will walk out, hand in hand, with the prom queen.

Important things to realize early in the game are - this is truly a people’s business. Not a cliché, not a buzzword but truly the number of people on your palm pilot or rolodex will determine the number of deals coming, running, pursuing you every month.

Ask yourself that - what do you want to be? - somebody who is chasing deals every month, frustrated and pissed off because you seem to be the only rookie investor in town who cannot seem to find anything to buy or rather become somebody who attracts foreclosure deals, where deals are seemingly pursuing you and you cherry pick what you want to buy.

The first one is frustration of dangerous kind - which forces lots of new real estate investors to leave the game way too early. The second state could be engineered, in most of the cases very quickly where you become the Raging Emperor Of Foreclosures, a deal maker in your town almost overnight.

There are instruments of doing so - business cards (their design and what they say on them), what you name your business (missed opportunity of the biggest nature is misnaming your business.

(I made the mistake for 4 straight years till I figure out what was the right way of naming my business.) Your website which is easily ONE thing that nobody seems to get the importance of. Plus couple of other things that need to be done, in a certain order that I cannot discuss in this forum to ensure your objective of attracting deals every becomes reality every month.

Now here is the good news about all that - whether you have started on the right foot or not does not matter - because all the above even though done wrong from your end, could be fixed - after all I just ended up changing my corporate name after four years of testing and I am already seeing tremendous results.

Instead of giving you a summary of what needs to be done, in the future issues, I will show casing some of the best examples of becoming a deal magnet in a short time that I have seen in my business and some of my coaching group members.

Another interesting case study is my Real Estate Apprentice group who are in the process of building a brand new, from scratch real estate investment business from scratch as a group mastermind project and become known as opposed to unknown in Michigan in the next 90 days. I will be sharing their experiences in the coming months with you as they go step by step implementing my strategies in building a solid real estate investment business.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 08:08 PM | Permalink

One more story on Downtown Detroit revival - this time in NY Times. You can read it for free, requires registration but no fees.

Downtown Detroit Revival

Rents up to $2,000 per month for downtown condos! Folks, we are in a hot market which is just getting started. If you are in Michigan and not checking this city out - well let me give you a hint - I get lots of emails from folks from other States - California for instance - who want to do deals in Detroit.

This is hot - about to get hotter in the next 24 months. I just bought a three bedroom in a very nice area in Detroit for $40,000, reapirs less than $10,000 - after repair value is $88,000 - $95,000.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 05:38 PM | Permalink

I was in Cleveland back in November for 3 days for a seminar and I learned a lot - funny thing is that the seminar was NOT on real estate investing. But I dont discriminate - good information and especially information that you can take and apply to your business is hard to find.

Its takes a lots convincing for me to go to a seminar. Money is not an issue - leaving the girls for three days is! I do go to lots of seminars - in 2005 alone - I am going to 6 of them already scheduled. To me it is a shortcut to learn from people who have already done it before me.

But this was a rare seminar - the quality and quantiy of information was over the top! I did not spent way too much money - only $2000 on some materials from John Carleton. Apart from that I was just networking with other people - there were lots of real estate investors in the room and also paying close attention to the speakers and taking copious notes.

So even though you missed it - here are my notes and how i have taken some non-real estate ideas and applied them to my foreclosure business.

The BIG lessons learned from Cleveland Seminar and How to Apply Them in Your Real Estate Business!

1. Somebody will always object to what you are trying to do - anticipate and prepare your explanation. While raising private money, most private investors would usually bring up their concerns about the preservation of their capital - they want to make sure that their original investment is secure!

New homeowners buying your home will bring up their own set of objections about being able to afford the payment or ask you to drop your price - anticipate and be ready!

I learned this great mental exercise from Todd Duncan where I try to picture a potential meeting in my mind and think what they might bring up - positive or negative - and quickly jot down all their objections and answer them when I still have time.

How many times we have kicked ourselves after we walked out of the room with a perfect answer to a hostile question?

2. Testimonials - I am guilty and so are you - what other people say about you is 300% times more powerful than what you can say about yourself. If you have a private investor who is very happy with you, ask him to write his or her feelings down. If you have a homeowner who just bought a house from you and loves the way you treated her - ask her to write it down and take a picture with her - standing in front of her new home.

I can go on and on. But here is the big lesson - by leveraging these testimonials you can raise more money, deal more houses - faster than you ever thought possible. Take a cold hard look at every aspect of your real estate business and ask yourself where can I tack on testimonials to make my life easier?

3. Live and Die by Checklists - one of the best books ever written on starting and managing a business is Emyth Revisited by Michael Gerber. This is a book that I keep coming back, month after, year after year as my business as flourished, floundered and came back stronger than ever.

Understand this, you can take any part of real estate business - finding deals, getting money, fixing homes and selling these homes - and automate most part of it.

If you don’t have a written, bullet style, checklist for doing all the above, your real estate business will be acting more like a yo-yo. Pretend you are about to sell your very successful real estate business - and you are buying and selling 3-4 properties every month and somebody wants to buy it - for cash - but their is only ONE problem, your prospective buyer has no idea about real estate - pretend that is happening tomorrow and attempt to make checklists for each one of your real estate business activities. 586-493-0911

4. Where would you want to be money wise next year? Easy question - everybody wants more money next year. But this is a trickier question - I have very ambitious goals for 2005 but I still want to take weekends off to spend time with Hailey, Sage and Nora. So I cannot just write an insane goal about making money next year and work myself to death.

But you definitely need to know the number - by year, by months, by weeks, by days, by hours. It is very tough NOT to do something in your real estate business when you know that you could be making some serious dollars today and you didn’t do anything.

5. This is a biggie - I spent as much time inside the ballroom where the seminar was being held as I did in the lobby and hallways - walking up to people, introducing myself, asking everybody what kind of business they are in and how can we help each other?

I cannot give you an exact dollar figure because I can tell you that just the four ideas that I picked up while talking to different people plus three more numbers for my black book should had at least low six figures to our bottom line in 2005.

Sometime we get so preoccupied about what we should know that we forget the importance of who we know!

And this was a big seminar - and a chance of being faceless and nameless was huge. I have seen this in small workshop settings where people think that the value is in taking notes - and completely miss the point of masterminding with their peers.

6. Ask! It will never hurt to know more! Ask realtors, private money investors, potential bird doggers, first time homebuyers - what are they looking for, what are their biggest concerns and if you could solve ONE big problem in their life - what it could be?

Back in the days when Nora and I used to sit in open houses, we always asked the people walking in what it would take for us to convince them to buy this house. I will tell you it is not easy to take criticism on your hard work. every single piece of feedback we got has helped us in more than
one way.

7. The internet is changing the face of real estate investment. Say what you may and yes may be you really don’t have funds to invest in a website but dear members, you are probably insane in thinking that this is the same game that was being played 10 years ago. A website can create almost instant credibility in front of your prospective investors and home buyers.

You can direct traffic to your website so they can see pictures of your homes, virtual tours, financing details so they don’t bother you all weekend. You can raise private money (Man Oh Man! You should have been here yesterday when my Apprentice group meet

8. John Carleton blew my head away in one single moment. During an open question and answer session, he was asked how could he consistently produce such quality in his work and what was his big inspiration? Was it a trick to getting into the zone? How come he is so focused?

To which he applied to a hushed crowd, that he is not focused, he likes to sleep in every morning and he is no idea what being in the zone means but here is what he thinks we all need to think and answer for yourself,

“How long are you going to stand on the precipice of life, look at the pool of humanity swimming around and keep asking if the water is cold? Jump, swim, and see what happens?”

Look, if you are standing on the sidelines, and not playing, you are quite simply missing out one of the biggest wealth creation opportunity happening in Michigan. Lack of time, money, credit, experience is barriers to success that you have created. All of the above could be borrowed, leveraged and learned - sometime for free, sometime for a fraction of what they bring back in return!

Question is how bad do you want it?

And don’t put a dollar figure on it! Money is great, especially when it come in big chunks like it does in my real estate business. Believe me, I like seeing checks for $20,000, $40,000 coming in with my LLC name on it. But better still is what this allows me to do -

Which is whatever the heck I want to do!

Now that is priceless.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 04:20 PM | Permalink

This thanks is way over due! And I am scared that she will get upset with me and I will be lost in the wilderness of blogs without her wonderful guidance.

I always try to leverage my time. When I launched my blog and by the way if you are in any kind of business and you are not using a blog to communicate with your clients – past, present and future – you are crazy! Plain and simple! What better way to make sure that the people you serve can give you prompt feedback about your services and products.

If you don’t know about doing this, stay tuned; I will point you to my secret weapon. I found a service to save me God only knows how many hours and it is because of this service and the absolutely wonderful person who runs it that my blog gets more and more popular every day, more people visit every day and website traffic keep getting higher.

The service is called RSS Submission Service, and the owners name is Olga. She is based out of Israel and she is simply amazing. If you want to setup a blog for your business or if you have a website and you have no clue on how to get potential clients to find your website, you need to get a hold of her. Absolutely indispensable service with unbelievable customer care. I have learned lessons from her on how to take care of my clients.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:44 PM | Permalink

Foreclosure 101: How Can We Help People?

Coming back the issue of taking advantage of peoples misery. My position is pretty simple: the decision of not doing anything so far has already hurt their options as it is, not doing anything further will only further destroy their credit history and financial situation.

Look, if they could have saved the house, they would have done it already. Foreclosure is not an overnight process but rather a slow moving train that takes 3-4 months to come even close to you. If you are standing in the middle of the tracks, frozen in fear, it is not going benefit you in any way not to do anything at all.

What is the point of keeping a house that you cannot afford?
What is more important: putting food on the table in front of your kids or making a house payment?
What is more necessary? Keeping your car safe from the repot-man so you can go to work every day or making a house payment?

I have helped family upon family in dire distress and I have received countless hugs of gratitude and happiness on realizing that hey there are still some options left in the game for them. Yes I do profit from my foreclosure. transactions but so do the homeowners.

I help save them their credit ratings.
I help them to start a new life by putting some hard cash in their pockets.
I help them to get rid of a house they possibly cannot afford anymore

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:17 AM | Permalink

Foreclosure 101: Step By Step – The Process of Foreclosure:

Each state has its nuances on the process of foreclosure: but pretty much it boils down to two ways foreclosure can happen:

Judicial Foreclosure: (Time Period – 10 to 11 months)

1. Homeowner fails to make payments for three consecutive months.
2. Lender will transfer the matter to an attorney firm.
3. The legal firm will file a Notice of Default in the county court.
4. A notice of default will be published in the County Legal News for four consecutive weeks for public information.
5. At the end of four weeks, the house will be auctioned off to the highest bidder at the steps of county court house.
6. The homeowners is given six months to bring their account current and pay off the lender / investor.
7. If the homeowner succeeds in refinancing or selling the house or some how raises the enough cash to pay the mortgage off, they can still save the house in this six-month window of time.
8. After six months, the bailiff from the courthouse will come the homeowner house and evicts the residence and change the locks.
9. The house is now officially foreclosed and belongs to the bank or the investor who purchased the house during the courthouse auction.

Non-Judicial Foreclosure: (Time Period – 4 to 5 months)

1. Homeowner fails to make payments for three consecutive months.
2. Lender will transfer the matter to an attorney firm.
3. The legal firm will file a Notice of Default in the county clerk office.
4. A notice of default will be published in the County Legal News for four consecutive weeks for public information.
5. At the end of four weeks, the house will be auctioned off to the highest bidder at the steps of county court house.
6. The eviction process happens within 3-4 days after the auction and the property reverts back to the lender or the investor who bought the house at auction.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:04 PM | Permalink

Foreclosure 101: Why Foreclosures Happen?

The losing of ones home is a tragedy. When I started buying and selling foreclosures, I vividly remember one of my close family members scolding me from taking profit out of people’s misfortune.

The truth of the matter is that losing ones home is got to be one of the most traumatic events in ones life. I don’t know all the reasons why a foreclosure would happen but I can give you some of the common occurrences that I have encountered in my transactions:

1. Loss of job is a pretty common reason. Husband or Wife or in some instances both lose their job. And it is no longer possible or practical for them to keep paying the payment they cannot afford.

2. Drugs – either one of the spouse using drugs is usually a recipe for disaster or a single person owning the house and start using harmful substances and from there on it is just downhill.

3. Gambling – a more recent occurrence but one which is coming up more and more. Usually it is one spouse or partner doing it in secret. The other person is thinking that the mortgage is getting mailed out but in reality the money is being spent to feed the habit.

4. Divorce – couple bought the house together, now they are getting a divorce and now either one person cannot afford to make the payment or the hatred is so much between the two that they are unwilling to talk to each other to resolve who is suppose to make the house payment.

5. Vanishing Spouse – husband decided that the marriage life was way too boring and decided to leave town with his new girlfriend. The wife has bigger issues to deal with than making the house payment and the house goes into foreclosure.

6. Death in the family – Primary breadwinner death is a big reason. The remaining spouse is stricken with grief and falls behind.

7. Plain Stupidity – last year I got a phone call from a young woman whose house was in foreclosure. , I asked her what was the reason she has fallen behind on her payments and she replied that once she moved in to her house, she did not like the way the house felt, so she decided not to pay the mortgage. Go figure!

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was going through my hard drive and found this old article that I wrote a while ago. I get occassional emails about some really basic stuff about foreclosures. So I thought why not post this here although I think majority of this blog readers probably know this already. But just in case....

What is A Foreclosure

Simply defined, you bought a house for yourself, you financed the bulk of the price of the home, may be you put some money down. But still the money borrowed constitutes the bulk of what your house is worth.

Example: Mary and John just got married and decided to buy a house for themselves. They found a cute little house near their jobs and fell in love it. The asking price for the house was $100,000 and they decided to buy the house. They got a loan from their local credit union for $95,000 and they put down $5,000 from their own savings.

If Mary and John were to miss paying their mortgage payments, the credit union, under the law, has the right to take the house away from them, irrespective of what they put down on the house or how much they have paid the mortgage down to. The credit union will take the house away and sell it in the open market via a realtor to recoup their money invested in their mortgage.

The process of taking a home away from somebody who is failing to make payments on their mortgage is called a foreclosure.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Big Value In ARV

Most lenders are getting nervous doing “deal” transactions – meaning when you are buying a house low, fixing it and selling it much higher all within a 90 day window. Too much fraud is going on in the FHA market and all of us are suffering because of that.

But here are two solid, proven strategies that I have and I am using everyday in my foreclosure business:

Let the lender know that it is deal transaction even before the loan office starts submitting the file. Most lenders will say No if they cannot do it. The one that says yes will ask for 2 things – a review of your submitted appraisal, which is perfectly O.K. because typically I am leaving some equity in the house. Second they will ask for proof of rehab – meaning all the receipts that you have collected in the property folder, copy them and fax them over.

Know where to do deal transaction from day 1. Most loan officers have this habit of trying to perform miracles. Don’t get sidetracked into believing that a loan officer making $1500 on your loan cares more about your deal than you do who is making $20,000 on this deal.

One of the thing that I instituted in the Apprentice program was an understanding on the part of my coaching group is how important is to understand the mortgage game to retail deals. If you are wholesaling than you don’t have to worry about anything. That is the other guys’ headache.

They are several lenders – conforming and non-conforming – who have no problem doing deal transactions as long as the appraisal and renovation value makes sense. Know those in your area and you can do as many deals as you want.

I know I do!

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is how it works:

1. Go to http://www.appraisers.com/ , and click on the State map and county selection to find the list of appraisers in your target area.
2. Stay away from corporate looking names. These are mostly big companies with lots of employees.
3. Look for a company where the contact name is part of company’s name. For example Ijlal Appraisers Inc and the contact name is Mark Ijlal is a good start. Small one person operation and this the person you want to approach.
4. You get fax, phone number and email addresses.
5. Write a letter describing your business and how an appriaser benefit from doing business with you.
6. Depending upon the area, at least mail to 20 appraisers in your area. If you have more than 100 appraisers in your area, send it to 50 of them.
7. As the appraisers start calling you back, try not to just talk to them over the phone (the easy way!) but instead take them out of cup of coffee. Talk to them personally and explain to them what you are trying to do.
8. Watch the leads fly to you.

Now this is important and understand this before you start doing this – if you are not ready – mentally and financially – because all the future relationship hinges on the 1st deal. First impressions do count! So if you are not ready, don’t do this kind of relationship building just for the heck of it. It is harder to go and fix what is broke.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 09:28 AM | Permalink

One of the hardest things to most real estate investors, especially new to the dance is putting up a system that brings them deals. Most people get frustrated in their efforts – mailings, knocking on the doors, calling on FSBO’s, looking at Legal Newspapers, calling on busy realtors - and give up!

One of the things that I have done consciously in my real estate investment business is to try and find other individuals who can do the work for me – I have absolutely no problem in paying other people doing work for me that will bring consistent paydays for me.

I have talked about previously in my newsletter about a solid, time proven strategy of leveraging loan officers to generate pre-foreclosure leads. Gold Plus coaching member Nektaurius Lianokis and Nick Mackris do it every month.

You can leverage the repair expertise of other investors in finding good contractors and other wholesale resources. How would you like to have the phone number of a private landscaper who will do a pretty decent job of landscaping almost 75% of going rate? I have that phone number.

Or how about a title company smart enough to understand the concept of double closing? I have one that I have used in the past and they get it. Or how about the list of top dog REO realtors specializing in nothing but bank owned foreclosures?

Do you think somebody might have that list? Is it possible that somebody who is doing this real estate thing, day in, day out might have taken time and put together a “Black Book” of real estate resources.

Similarly, if you have issues with personal time where you simply cannot find time to go out and find deals – you need to build a network of people around you that will send you deal. Appraisers come to my mind as a group of highly motivated, commissioned based group of individuals that help you achieve that goal.

I have 4 such individuals on my team – people who take time out of their daily day to day grind to find me deals. They get varied degrees of compensation, payable only at closing of the deal – I am under no obligation to do any of them – I do my own evaluation but overnight I have quadrupled my potential deal pipeline.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:05 AM | Permalink

We had a MLS Seminar in November – went on for 12 hours. Sufficient to say that I am never repeating this workshop ever again, even when I have 9 more people on waiting list for this.

But this is the interesting thing that happened and I have to thank Gold Member Dave Hardoin for this, who as usual asked the most penetrating and insightful questions throughout the workshop. I truly enjoy talking to Dave simply because he forces everybody around him to really focus on what is needed to make this thing works.

One of the things that Dave Hardoin bought up was the dilemma that all of us have faced one shape or another in our real estate business – what to do when we know a whole lot and somehow nothing seems to work?

This was my answer, based on what happened in my own real estate business over the last four years – the biggest success came in my business when I realized that people like to do business with people that they know, like and trust. It is hard to make people fall in love with you with a postcard.

I spent enormous amounts of time building relationships with people who I know will benefit my real estate investment business – both in short and long terms. Jim Rohn said it that take a millionaire to lunch and pick his or her brains. Find out what the heck are they doing that you are not. But how many people would do that? Almost none!

Instead of complaining about how rude Realtors are, especially the top dogs REO kings of the world, why don’t you take one of them to lunch and ask him how did they become so successful?

Do you know what the most interest topic to all of us is? You guessed it correctly, it is “us”. We love to talk about ourselves but when was the last time anybody showed any interest in “us”. If you take an appraiser, realtor, loan officer, another successful investor for a cup of coffee or lunch and show genuine interest in learning what makes them tick – you will be surprised on the reciprocity of the response.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 07:22 AM | Permalink

How do you sell a house you just bought?

How do you use one ugly house to create several qualified leads?

Does every one calling your office trying to buy a house from will qualify?

How many good buyers you have to screen to get that ONE great buyer who will close one time?

Why bluntness is a great asset in selling homes to first time homebuyers!

These are questions rarely discussed in seminar or boot camp settings even where participants have paid thousands of dollars to attend. Reality is that most people will never ever think of doing real estate if they had to realize that making $20,000 in sixty days may require setting some good systems up.

But your market - the one area you choose to be in will determine everything for you. The strategy that works in Detroit will not work in West Bloomfield. Period!

So how fast do you want to sell a house you just bought?

How about right away? But Mark, the house is trashed out! So what?

The reality is that ONE out of 40 prospects will end up buying your house. But you need to put 40 people through the loop to get that one good apple that will just love the house and will get a mortgage to cash you out.

I don’t carry Seller Seconds, Owner Financing, Land Contracts, Private Notes etc. 100% Cash Out is what I am looking for.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:03 AM | Permalink

Detroit News story from 01/13/2005,
My comments in italics/bold.

Real estate investment is up

As home prices outpace stock market, more buyers hope to turn a profit by snapping up mortgages.

I hope they are buying these babies to keep and not resell. You can get killed by having 2 HUD-1 back to back.

Forrest Maltzman, a college professor, sold stock in July to buy the house next door in Bethesda, Md., for $740,000. He plans to rent it to cover the mortgage, then sell for a profit in a few years.

Three quarter of a million dollar rental, they must be making a whole lot more in Bethesda, MD. Gee, I wonder where do you advertise for a rental like that?

In the hottest U.S. real estate markets, including the Washington area, where average prices rose 22 percent in the year ended Sept. 30, investors such as Maltzman expect better returns from real estate than from equities.
"I've been nervous about the stock market," says Maltzman, 41, who teaches politics at George Washington University. "I have a lot of faith in real estate."

Amen to that brother! After throwing my Fidelity statements straight in the recycle bin for 12 months in a row in 2001, I can relate to that.

About 30 percent of condominium buyers in Washington and San Francisco and 40 percent in south Florida are obtaining mortgages for investment purposes, says Gregory Leisch, chief executive of Delta Associates, a real-estate research firm. In South Florida, average home prices are rising by as much as 29 percent annually; in southern California, 36 percent; and Las Vegas, 54 percent.

Hey! What about good old Michigan?

That's a sign the market may be overheating, says Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.
"The latest trends in house prices and savings are disturbing," Roach wrote in a Dec. 3 note to clients.

An October report by Fannie Mae Chief Economist David Berson said the proportion of people getting home mortgages for investment purposes nationwide rose to 9.2 percent in mid-2004 from 5.5 percent in mid-2003.

That is why it is so important to know exactly how to play the mortgage game which most investors tend to ignore. Knowing how the money can be obtained can help you buy rentals cheaply on one end and also help you deal your houses faster by qualifying buyers for your deals quicker instead of waiting on some loan officer to make up its royal mind if they are worthy of his attention or not!
In Las Vegas, Bill Guerra, 42, is taking advantage of the boom. A former registered nurse, he now locates properties whose sellers are short on cash, are close to foreclosure or need to move out quickly. He then shares the profit on the final sale with a builder who rehabilitates the home.

Been there and done that, just never shared the profits with anybody. But the darn thing works.
Guerra says competition has picked up in the last 20 months as more people look for investment properties.

No kidding! And what is wrong with that? I am often asked why teach other people what you know. My answer is always the same - there is no shortage of DEALS! Never was, never will be. So why worry - that is why you should know that February 18th, 19th - is a great place to be in Novi,Michigan. For 2 days - from 8am to 8pm - you will be see every single technique that is required to create, launch and run a 6 Figure real estate investment business from scratch. Make sure that you are on the notification list below.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 01:29 PM | Permalink

There are only 2 kind of real estate
investors in Michigan – one who do deals and the rest who want to talk about deals. It is very easy to spot both of them.

The first one will walk into a house knowing well ahead in advance what is the fair market value of the house, what is the After Repair Value of the house, what is the SEV of the property, how is the neighborhood, how long this house has been on the market and will never ask the dumbest question of all – why are you selling the house with equity and not keeping it?

I know for a fact at least four Gold Plus members who are doing it the right way and saving themselves lots of valuable time and frustration.

Then there are the other guys and gals – who walk in to a property without a notebook and a pen to take notes on the condition of the property, who are asking the seller what the property values in the area are? Who are have no idea about the SEV of the house or long it has been listed? And the punch line is delivered when they start worrying about why the seller is selling the house with equity?

I got an email last week for a property listed on Ebay and this is the exact text produced verbatim,

“Mark, why are you giving me the gift of equity? What is going on? I have asked several of my friends about this and everybody has told me that is not possible. I mean what is the catch?”

I just deleted the email, never ever bothered replying to him. But the answer to his moronic question is this – the reason I am selling it below market value is irrelevant. The more important question to ask is:

1. If I bought the property, can you refer me to some good contractors who can fix the house?
2. Have you sold any other property in this area and if so what was you experience like?
3. How long it took you to sell your property?
4. What would you fix in the house if you were selling it yourself?
5. Can you help me in financing this deal as a No Money Down deal?
6. Can I get Cash back at closing to fix this house so I don’t have to use any of my money?

It is very rare that I am the only one looking at a property – most of time it is 3-4 people looking at it or considering making a offer. But most of the time rookies just like to look at properties. It is kind of a hobby for them. “Hey nothing good on t.v. tonight – lets look at some properties instead!”.

I make offers – lots of offers every week – some of them get accepted – most of them don’t - truth be told majority of them don’t get accepted. And that is just fine..

And that is how I can buy a house for $13,000 with a ARV of $83,000. I sold a property yesterday - the investor who bought it took exactly 20 minutes in deciding his decision. He walked out with a No Money Down deal with a huge equity stake left in the property. No Closing Costs. I got what I was looking for my profit target! Win-Win for both of us.

I am always harping the importance of taking quick action when you come across good properties—they don’t last that long unless they are scary looking.

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

I love the money in real estate but…………

Let me tell you what is better:

Better than money is getting a big hug from a mother of two, 38 year old, renter for life, never thought possible that she would own a home of her own till she met us.

Better than money is meeting her family for the first time and her two boys, 8 and 14, meeting me like they have known me for years. They asked me if I was the guy who was about to get them a backyard?

Better than money is “knowing” to structure a No Money Down Deal (monthly meeting on September 16th, 2004 is dedicated entirely to this intensely important knowledge) so she can literally walk in her new home with Zero Cost! And NO! I did not got her a 100% mortgage!

Better than money is going to closing and your “buyer” is shaking with happiness as she signs the closing papers. She later told me that she had a dream last night that something bad happened and the she did not got the home.

Better than money is going there next day after closing and making sure that their move is going with everything o.k. and her telling me that she never expected to see me again after she closed on the house. She could not believe that I actually drove all the way to her house on a Saturday to make sure that everything was fine with her.

And that my Gold and Gold Plus friends, is an enormous amount of reward for
doing what we do every day –

Yeah! We made great money on the house – I am not saying that I did not but what other kind of business can you possibly be in where you get enormous amounts of heart felt gratitude, great money and lifetime of referrals?

She already sent me three prospective home buyers and one renter!

We are in a great industry and sometime when things are not going right – we tend to forget that.

I thought this would serve as a good reminder!

With that thought, lets go to work……..

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last month I played the devils advocate, much to the chagrin of some Inner Circle members who could not believe that I was defending realtors. But hey, I picked up a house, lake house actually with around $75,000 in equity, before anybody else saw it – all because of a relationship that was built in six months with a realtor.

You can argue with me, but by God, you cannot argue with the results.

If I was starting today, or lets say I move to Las Vegas next month and I have to uproot my real estate business and start all over again – what would I do to get bank owned properties from realtors at huge discounts in a strange town???

Well first, I will figure out who the top dog realtors are in the area I want to play – step by step system discussed during the pre-workshop tele-seminar. On that note, make sure that you are on the mailing list to receive notifications of free tele-seminars. Go to www.markijlal.com and register to get these notifications via email and voice.

Next is the 3-step system that has always worked for me:

Send a simple fax to the realtor office, introducing yourself, what kind of houses you are looking for – try to be very specific as possible. Ask for an appointment to come their office and meet them.

When I go to meet new realtors – I take AFTER pictures of my houses so they can how beautiful they look after I am done with them. Part of my credibility kit. Invariably they are going to ask me if I intend to list houses with them, I very honestly tell them only if the houses don’t sell for 60 days then I will give them a shot at it.

I have proof of financing in my file – private money, own funds, pre-approval from hard money lender or traditional mortgage company – something that shows them that I am a player and not a pretender.

A follow-up fax after one week, next week phone call. This system of pre-set, pre-determined follow-ups have never failed to get good solid listings with decent equity from realtors.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A June study by the U.S. Public Internet Research Group found that a shocking 79% of credit reports contains mistakes. What’s more, in 1 out of 4 reports, the mistakes are serious enough to result in a denial of credit.
Time Magazine, 12/6/2004

I have always preached the importance of understanding credit thoroughly for real estate investors. It is a 2 tier sword – you always to vigilantly maintain your own good credit ratings but you also wants to understand the intricate workings of how FICO works because when you are selling / selling your foreclosures – the quality of the home buyer will determine how long will it takes to close the deal and more importantly it will shadow something called Seasoning of Title that will also trash your chances of collecting the big fat check if you have not held the property for 12 months.

The Time’s article also goes on to explain how starting from December 1, 2004 consumers in the United States will be allowed to receive – for free – one credit report from each of the three major credit bureaus every 12 months, thanks to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act.

Once informed of a discrepancy, the bureaus have 45 days to fix the problem, but generally do so within 10-15 days.

Timetable to enroll this
Consumers in Western States December
Consumers in Midwest , March 1st 2005
Consumers in South, June 1st, 2005
Consumers in the East and U.S. Territories on September 1st, 2005.

Toll free number to call is 1-877-322-8228.

Another good resource is a new website www.annualcreditreport.com . Do print the report once it pops up, you cannot save it. Once you close the window its gone.

You can also spread the free report from three bureaus – Equifax, Experian, TransUnion – over the year so that will give them time to fix any errors you find.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:58 PM | Permalink

For those of you who are proud owners of rental properties, check out the Quicken Rental Property Manager, the first time I have seen a major software house release something to do real estate investment. Sign of the times I guess. At $99 it is not bad at all.

I showed this to Nora and he is getting copy for his Property Management operation. I will let him write a review of the software once he has started using it.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Five Highly Effective Lead Sources That Can Triple Your Deal Volume

Almost everybody with the exception of couple of savvy investors goes after the courthouse leads for pre-foreclosures. Strategy has its good and bad points. Almost everybody ignores the easy and always free lead sources available to anybody, living anywhere in United States wishing to be involved in buying pre-foreclosures.

Big Lead Source #1: Loan Officers
Big Lead Source #2: Title Companies
Big Lead Source #3: Appraisers
Big Lead Source #4: Divorce Attorneys
Big Lead Source #5: Bankruptcies Lawyers

Although I don’t have enough space here to explain the steps needed to create a powerful network of referrals flooding your fax machine every day, I will try to give you a basic framework of how this thing works. Almost half of my marketing system detailed in my Instant Foreclosure Profits System (available in September) is dedicated towards create a FREE Lead Sources almost instantly to get you pre-foreclosure leads.

This is how it works – no foreclosure happens in a vacuum. In any given house going into foreclosure there are several parties involved. Some of these parties involved are the people in the real estate industry like loan officers, title companies, and appraisers. Some of them are the reason the house is in foreclosure – divorce or impending bankruptcy.

But the point to understand is that the question that haunts you – where to find foreclosure leads – is pretty simple to answer.

I will touch on two lead sources that I have used very successfully – loan officers especially working for medium size mortgage companies are excellent sources of referrals. These companies rely on telemarketing to get them mortgage leads. When they get homeowners in foreclosure, they cannot do anything to help them – the leads go into garbage. Offer 10 loan officers a $500 bonus if the deal closes and your fax machine will be flooded with leads every week. Gold Plus Coaching Member Nick Mackris complains all the time about the flood of leads they get from just ONE mortgage company.

Personal bankruptcies are up 900% in the last 10 years. 247 people file for personal bankruptcy in Southeastern Michigan – every day!!! A simple fax sent out to 20 bankruptcy attorneys (information available for free in your local yellow pages) will get you leads – instantly.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And How You Can Make Sure Your Investment Properties Sell Faster Than Your Competition! Part I

My first deal sat like a lazy turtle on the market for four months before it sold – for a nice profit of $15,000. Let me tell you, back in the days, I needed that $15,000 like water. But the biggest problem that I faced was that I had no idea on what to do sell my house – faster, quicker and get my check.

The reality of real estate selling is pretty simple – you only get PAID when you SELL!

Over the years I have discovered 5 big reasons why houses don’t sell Fast! Now remember this is all about selling houses fast so you can get your check faster. So here we go:

1. Nobody has any idea besides you & your dog that you have a house on the market. Even your significant other has no idea that you have a house to sell! No Kidding!!

You put a little tiny advertisement in your metro newspaper with your cell phone number and maybe spent $300-$400 on a For Sale By Owner Kit that got your house listed on the color magazines that you can find outside supermarket doors.

2. You decided to go all out and splurge! So you put the smallest, usually a 4 feet by 2 feet sign outside your house that you bought from Home Depot. It says, House For Sale and you wrote a phone number with a black marker on it.

Problem is that in order to see that phone number, somebody has to see the house, discover the sign, get out the car, walk up to the sign and write the phone number down. All this work even before they call you!

3. It took you exactly 3 minutes to write that classified ad for the local newspaper. You are a brilliant copywriter and feel anything more than that might get way too many leads for you to handle. Problem is that your ad reads, “ 3 Bedroom/2 Bathrooms, Fully renovated, $145,000, Call 555-1212”.

I guarantee you that first nobody would call or even if they did an ad like this would pull non-serious buyers to call you all day.

4. You spent thousands of dollars turning this ugly duckling of a house into a graceful swan! Too bad you forgot the spend $400 on landscaping outside, especially when it is spring / summer time!

Do you know how cheap it is go to a farmers market and get some perennials by the cases and drop them in front of the house with some topsoil and mulch from Home Depot? Want to go fancy, buy some $1.35 bricks from there too and make a two brick retaining wall!

5. Walk in the house – O.K. it is empty – I mean really empty – it looks like an empty house and not like a home – the costs to turn a empty house into a cozy home is around $75.

The profit to you is usually a couple of thousands that you don’t have to knock off the price to sell. You have to turn your empty house in a “home” to sell it faster. I don’t mean you need to furnish it but you need to create an “illusion” of a cozy home.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I realize something today sitting in my library in my home. (ah, the joys of working 4 days a week! It is an unfair world but somebody gotta do it! :-)

I get to stop buying books.

Two book cases full of books three rows deep, on shelf full of videos on real estate investing and growing your business, God knows how many audio tapes and CD’s heaped on top of each other. Two Dells, sitting on top of each other, one iBook sitting on the floor, just bought this huge color Laserjet, on monochrome Laserjet from the old office, one fax machine and

Two boxes full of unopened videos, manuals and courses I bought from Cleveland and Ken Mccarthy.

Hello, My name is Mark Ijlal and I am a Information Junkie!

Top of it all Costco has almost as good as prices as Amazon. Every week as I trudge there with Nora I end up buying more books.

Least I forget, Earl got me into buying ebooks and I print them and put them into individual folders so that is another nightmare shaping.

Finished basement anybody with a wall to wall bookshelf?

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:42 PM | Permalink

Small steps every day translate into big momentum.

This has nothing to do with real estate but it has implications for people who are thinking about doing real estate.

This website www.MarkIjlal.com was launched on September 24, 2004. Initially i had somebody designed a site for me which was pretty much has the look and feel of a corporate website. At the last minute I just looked at it and chucked the idea. I am not corporate guy - never was and don't intend to be any day soon.

So this blog was born because I like to write and share what I know and in hope that somebody will take these systems and launched their foreclosure buying and selling business.

But I knew nothing about how to inform the world that hey this little site known as markijlal.com exists in the big bad world of the Internet. I checked up couple of computer people whom i know and they all said pretty much the same thing - we can design it for and after that it is all about praying.

So always up for a challenge, I started learning about how to get people to my site. Just as a hobby. I wrote a goal down - December 31, 2005 - double traffic from October and November.

Mind you I had no clue on what the heck was I doing.

I did lots of small things - most of the time I was frustrated because I have no idea on how websites work and actually still don't. But I started reading about it in my little spare time that I got when Saige allowed me to put her down. My bathroom floor was littered with all the printouts from internet sites much to Nora’s annoyance.

I wanted to do so many things but I could find the time to do them all. But I still did something - one thing here, one thing there - and slowly they came. It was a trickle, but slowly they came. The trickle has since became a little heavier - it is still not raining but it is slowly getting there.

And I am grateful when I get emails from visitors that talked about this blog giving them a good kick in their butts to move. It is worth the time spent here.

But here is the big lesson for me - and I hope you are getting the idea also here :

- I started something totally new - learned a little bit about it, was mostly frustrated on the slow progress but I kept on learning a little at a time.

- I implemented what I learned before I went to the next stage. So if I learned even something little about getting 10 people to know about my site, I implemented it before I went to the next strategy.

- I wrote a goal with a deadline and a very specific number.

- I checked my progress every day - I wanted to know if it was working or not and every little increased made it easier to do the next thing.

I think something we get too tangled about learning and not enough doing. Nora has this saying that he repeats endlessly in our offices, “do anything and you will get results”. I think he has on to something.

So here it is - January 2005 - website traffic has doubled, I am happy that I learned something new and now couple of my coaching group students are setting up their websites and I will be able to help them also.

Now go back and substitute the word traffic with foreclosure deals.

Small hinges swing big doors!

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:55 PM | Permalink

Where to find the perfect candidate for lease option?

One of the exercise that I make my real estate coaching group students is to sit with a blank piece of paper and come up with (gulp!) 10 ways to find somebody who will buy their house.

It is always entertaining to note that given sufficient time to think (30 minutes) and you usually have 20 ways if not more to find the prefect candidate.

The same thing pretty much applies in the case of lease options also. The ones I have done in the last 12 months came from both traditional and nontraditional sources.

I will dissect one each here since a detailed discussion on where and how to capture a fat fish is literally a good four to five hour discussion. So many ways to get that $10,000 option fee and so little time!

But enough with the teasing and lets go to work.

Traditional way Numero Uno is running a classified ad - check out your Sundays metro area newspaper. In metro Detroit that would be Detroit News / Detroit Free Press Sundays Edition. They actually have a whole Rent To Own section which is a less fancy way of describing lease option.

(any way did any body figured out yet if it lease option or lease-option?)

For some pennies a pretty decent ad could be ran for 2-3 weeks, directed to an automated voice mail system (www.gotvmail.com) and 20-30 leads collected. My ads typically list the option fee in a range and here is the reason for that - one people who are really interested would want to know why is there a range and what they have to do to get the low option instead of the high one? (hint: it has something to do with their monthly lease payment).

Second you can feel the suburb out very quickly this way - you never know what you can get till you ask! Alternative is to run a high option upfront and see what they will pay and or at least call and try to pay!
A good number is $3000 is what you think is a fair number.

Nontraditional way is sit down with a piece of paper or in front of your computer and make a quick list of everybody that you know and who is working in some sort of public setting. For example, in Michigan a good example is somebody who is working in automotive plant for the big three auto makers. There are literally thousands of people who work in either directly their manufacturing facilities or work for a supplier who is supplying parts for them.

Most of these places have a public area - notice board in the cafeteria etc. - where notices to all employees are posted by other employees - buy , sell, pets for adoption etc. - a perfect place to create a catchy flyer (it is important to make something that causes action! I must have tested 20 of them till I figured 3 of them out that get kick butt response).

Ask the person you know very nicely if they can just pin the flyer on the common area for you. I can tell you my own numbers - two years ago when I went on a duplex selling binge - this strategy was the most effective out of all.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:15 PM | Permalink

Second, why would any body in their right mind would want to put up hefty non-refundable option fee on a house that they may not buy 12-14 months into the lease?

Well, I can give you my non-scientific assumptions about this - one is people generally are not good or disciplined with money. If they have a large sum of money in their possession and they want to buy a house and simply cannot get qualified for a mortgage they dont think they would be able to keep the money in their possession and not spend it on some do-da.

Second, it gives a sense of ownership and a stake in the property for the person paying the option fee. Even though it is non-refundable to you and me but nobody goes into an option thinking that they would not convert the lease into the option to buy.

It is only becuase of something personal happening in their lives at the time of conversion that they might decide to walk away. Dissolution of a relationship, too much debt via credit cards, loss of one family member's job could be reasons or it may something less dramatic as they dont like the house anymore.

But lage option payments get paid all the time - all you have to do is to know how to ask! And I would not worry about the whole notion of what they are going to do after 12-14 months. Frankly speaking, who cares, if you play your cards right and structure the lease option the right way - it is a win-win situation in any situation.

Last year I collected a $10,000 non-refundable option fee. And that was just ONE deal! With a $400 / month positive cash flow every month.

Now that is the system to understand and apply and not the worries about why would anybody want to pay a non-refundable option fee.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 08:36 PM | Permalink

Mortgage rates are going up! Hurry! Refinance Now or Lose Out! If you are thinking about buying a new home - this is the time!

Really!!!!

Repercussions for the man or woman in the business of buying and selling foreclosures? Rates are up, nobody will be afford to buy a house anymore at an affordable rate and pretty soon we will become a nation of renters?

I think NOT!

The typical family today spends just 19 percent of household income on mortgage payments. That compares with 22 percent in 1990 and 31 percent in 1980 -- when mortgage rates averaged nearly 14 percent.

Then combine this with the fact that 10-15 years ago the options available to a regular family looking to buy their first home were a 30 year mortgage, 15 year mortgage and that is it. If there were some exotic mortgage solutions available, rest assured that majority of loan officers had no clue about them.

How times have changed in the last 3-4 years is simply amazing! The 30 year (FHA and conforming) is still around but there are a slew of attractive options to consider when you are selling a house to the first time home buyer market.

FHA has several Adjustable Rate Mortgages such as 2/1 Buydown program which is simply incredible toward creating a low low payment. So that pretty much takes care of everybody with the bruised credit. Then if your buyer has good credit then you have every single bank offering 1 year, 3 year, 5 year adjustables that help you make your house payment (the price you want to sell is irrelevant!) stands out from all the other houses for sale in the area.

The rates for the 30 year mortgage can go up but the rates for the adjustable rates mortgages are typically very stable and that is where real estate investors especially the ones who are in the business of buying and selling bank owned foreclosures should be looking into.

The other extension of this trend is that if you are holding into a property and thinking about executing a lease option on it - hey why give banks all your money , get a adjustable rate mortgage and maximize your monthly cash flow. Plus if your credit profile is strong enough to get a interest only adustable then 100% of all your payment is interest and by extension deductible . Exceptions may apply because of your unique income or other issues so make sure to check with your tax accountant on your own unique situation.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:36 PM | Permalink

New Year Resolution #1:
To post here more often - once a day!

New Year Resolution #7:
To work 4 days / week. Take one day off (Tuesday) and work on myself. Read a book, talk a walk, think about my goals, go to the library!

I will be here more often. I am writing my first book which is scheduled to come out in late February '05. But I changed an enormous amounts of things in my real estate business in the last 2 weeks, hence the absence from the blog. Nora put me on the spot and I am doing a presentation to my Apprentice group in January about "How To Become A Deal Maker?" about running and managing a real esate investment business on "your" terms. How to work 4 days a week and still make the train running on time is part of that presentation.

I am so looking forward to 2005! If this first day is any indication then we are off to the races!

Cheers!
Mark

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:40 PM | Permalink

First of all, why would anybody would want to do a lease option when they just go and get a mortgage?

Second, why would any body in their right mind would want to put up hefty non-refundable option fee on a house that they may not buy 12-14 months later?

Third, where do you find these people to fit the above two?

To me the first two are irrelevant to making money in real estate! The third ones needs to be the one that should interest anybody interested in making money in lease options.

People do lease options for a variety of reasons:

1. They may not be planning to live in the area for long. It is a possibility but not a sure thing. They might be going through a possible job transfer and may or may not live in the town.
2. The credit situation is bad. They might have gone through some recent financial disaster that they are over with – divorce, bankruptcy, job loss, death – but their credit has taken a through beating and they cannot fix it just right now. Question is why not just rent? Answer is that what if you have a big family? What if you have tons of stuff you don’t want to get rid of?
3. They are still not sure if they want to be homeowners or not. They want to test the waters and see if they like it.

The first two have nothing to do with their credit. The second one is a biggie. Take it to whatever degree of truth you may, but there are a huge number of people in our country with less than perfect credit. They are not going anywhere.

Without going on a rant, I can tell you that after having hundreds of conversations after workshops and teleseminar with regular people, it infuriates me that how good family folks have been screwed endlessly by our credit system.

Nobody taught us to manage our credit or what it would take to ruin it in school. Most of the parents don’t know anything about it so nothing gets by to the kids.

A large number of potential candidates for lease options come from category number two. People who make pretty decent amount of money but cannot get a mortgage because of their mismanagement of their credit.

Lease option is a win-win situation for them.

Next: The Lease Option Fee Paradox

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:39 PM | Permalink