January 2007 Archives

This is Kelly Thompson and me, at our January 2007 Ijlal Inner Circle mastermind where Kelly is telling my members about her first deal that closed on the same day – NET PROFIT to her after paying her lender, repair and costs – a very fat $27,239.91.

Plus she did an extremely awesome deed for the renter who bought her first home from her. I dont think too many Michigan real estate investors would have done what she did. But what can I say? I do have super cool members. :-)

By the way the next Quick Start Bootcamp is now scheduled for March 30, 31 and April 1 in Troy, Michigan - I will teach you everything that I taught Kelly. Talk is cheap; checks are for real. If you would like to learn where to go in Michigan in 2007 and get real checks - there is no better place than Quick Start 2007 Bootcamp.

If you live in Downriver, Michigan - Taylor, Wyandotte, Trenton, Browntown, Southgate, Lincoln Park- and wonder if what is going on in Downriver foreclosures world - well listen to Brian Teets, Ijlal Inner Circle Member from Wyandotte, Michigan as he told my members his first 18 days of January 2008 during our January Mastermind last night.

Bill Stickley emailed me to run, run and run and watch it and I happy I did.

The Pursuit of Happyness, true story of Chris Gardner played in the movie by Will Smith with perfection, is simply one of the best movies I have seen and I think that everybody who aspires to become a Michigan real estate investor or own their own business in Michigan should go and see it.

Things go wrong sometimes – you make on an offer on a foreclosure that you love; somebody else ends up buying it. You sit down with a private investor – she says no to you. You are flipping a house – turns out the buyers are getting divorced and they don’t want to buy the house anymore.

But it is all how you and I do once things go wrong decides what kind of success we are going to have in our business.

The first time I ran an ad in Detroit News for an investor to partner up and buy foreclosures with me – the first person who called me up hang up on my face after 1 minute because I was nervous and talking way too fast. “ I don’t understand a word you are saying” was the curt goodbye that I got before she slammed the phone down.

I was pretty depressed – for about 20 minutes – then I made a cup of fresh coffee; ate a fattening donut; and said to myself, “speak slowly next time – better still make a outline so I know what to say instead of winging it.”

30 Minutes later the phone rang again and it was yet another investor who was reading my ad in Detroit News. By the end of the day I had more people lined up to do business with me then I could handle.

First apartment complex flip – deal was done and the buyer backs out for no apparent reason- depressing? Yup! Took Nora out to a good steak dinner that night. Which by the way is an Ijlal household tradition – having a bad day in business; go to a nice dinner that night; don’t bring misery home.

It is just hard to be miserable after eating a great steak (Morton’s, Capital Grille, Sposittas, Lilies, Andiyamos, Ruth’s Chris and even 2 cuts at Outback if you life far away from the first 4) and drinking an awesome Cabernet Sauvignon (Alpha Mondes, Chateau St. Jean) or a 32oz. of Fosters. :-)

Next day ran another ad in Ebay. Ended up selling the building without any discounts (the first buyer needed almost $30,000 in discounts / seller concessions etc) to buyer #2. Side benefit was to discover Ebay for selling Michigan real estate.

The list goes on and on.

Disappointments are a fact of life. But success is abundant also. People just give up way too easily on their dreams and settle for “good enough is good enough for me”. I hope that you are not one of them.

Chris Gardner saw lot of disappointments in his life early one. So do lots of other people. I did too and I am sure you did too. It was what we did afterwards that makes us who we are today and where we are going to end up eventually.

Jim Rohn once said, “The greatest reward in becoming a millionaire is not the amount of money that you earn. It is the kind of person that you have to become to become a millionaire in the first place.” The story of Chris Gardner’s life and this movie reminded me very strongly of that.

See the movie. You will love it. It is a perfect movie to start up the year.

True! Is it not?

Who cares if 2006 worked out or not? It is done. There is a reason when we drive a car the front windshield is a whole lotta bigger than rear view mirror. 2007 is ahead and big. Lets do something.

Here are seven smart things to do to launch and grow your real estate investing business in Michigan in 2007:

1. Pick a target city in Michigan which the city in Michigan where you want to buy and sell houses. Preferably it is close to where you live or work so you don’t killed by driving back and forth to the foreclosure while it is being renovated. Also you want to do this somewhere you know a little about the city.

If you live in Macomb Township and your knowledge of city of Detroit is limited to going to Cobo once every year for the Auto Show then you should not buy foreclosures in Detroit unless you have a partner who as a genuine interest in helping you to pick the right deal. And no, real estate agents are not the one to ask if that REO is a good deal or not. They are not investors. They dont know what we need in a deal to make it work.

2. Make a list of contractors in your target city who are going to help you get the house fixed. Angie's List is a very good place to start. You can see what other Michigan residents had to say about these contractors. Also ask friends, co-workers if they have used anybody recently with whom they were happy.

3. Learn the business. Come and join me in Quick Start Bootcamp in Troy, Michigan on February 23,24,25. You want to know where to go and find foreclosures; how to pick good deals from average ones; where to go and get the money; how to ask and get big discounts from banks on REO’s and Short Sales and how to sell these houses once they are spiffy up; Details about the bootcamp here – Watch the videos of what my previous grads have said about the training. It is 100% Risk Free Enrollment plus some really cool new bonuses (DVDs and CD's) that you will get.

4. Incorporate your business. Any business done without this essential protection is just nuts. Real Estate Investing is no exception. If you are hands on type of a person and are not afraid of filling out legal forms then you can try your hands at State of Michigan website yourself. Or you can ask a CPA to it for you. Make sure that you don’t over pay - $300 is the going rate for which you should get Articles of Incorporation and an Employee Identification Number from them at minimum.

5. Throw out old ideas and notes that have been cluttering your home and your head for months. The same way you would give out old clothes and books.

6. Focus on One Thing. More on this one tomorrow.

7. Dan Kennedy, author and buisiness / marketing guru, has this great line which I think every person who wants to start a business or wants to grow their business in Michigan should memorize. It will make them lots of money, save them lots of greif. Dan says, that if you spend all your time trying to fix your weaknesses, at the end of your life all you are going to have is really strong weaknesses.

Figure out what your strengths are – outsource or hire or partner out everything else in your Michigan real estate investing business. Don’t have money to pay? Barter something else. I will write more on that particular strategy later this week.

Dont forget to check out the Quick Start Bootcamp happening on February 23,24,25 - I like to teach small groups - so everybody would have sufficient time to get all their questions answered. Everytime I do a seminar we are Sold Out! So dont wait and lose out on your seat.

If you want to start 2007 on a great note – I suggest watching a movie called The Secret. I belive that it will literally change the way you think about everything in business and life. I have seen it several times – I asked my Inner Circle members to do the same in 2007.

In a nutshell – this movie presents in a very entertaining way – the most important success principles that have been gathered for centuries by wise man all around the world.

The best 90 minutes you will spend in 2007. Brian Kurtz wrote me about this guy who actually went out and bought a flat panel television, installed it on top of his bed on the ceiling so he can watch this movie every night.

I intent to watch this movie at least once a month in 2007.

Very very good stuff – highly recommended. You can buy it from The Secret Website.

Email last night from Brian Kurtz, Kick Butt REO Realtor out of Downriver area:
“Check out the attached picture. I agree with you about this “Money Loves Speed” thing.”

New Year – 2007 – is here and I think we are supposed to write goals (Yawn!) at this time of the year.

The three biggest goals written every year are:

1. Quit smoking.
2. Lose Weight
3. Make more money.

As we all know that by the end of the second week of January, I am not smoking anymore, I am actually chain smoking as I reach to make sure that my TiVo is tuned to record every single episode of “America Got Talent” and grab the phone to call in pizza – The Meat Lover’s Special, extra cheese. :-)

As far as making more money is concerned – the job that I have right now is good enough. Right! I mean I should be happy I even have a job.

I only have one suggestion- grab that big piece of paper and the fat blue marker and, write or print this sentence and tape it somewhere on your home office / library / den wall where you can see it every day as I do in my home office.

“Money Loves Speed”

For some reason the faster I move, the more money move toward me. I don’t know the reasons but it is what it is.

I am stunned when somebody tells me that they have been thinking about buying and selling bank foreclosures in Michigan for years.

Years???

This is not exactly rocket science – but rather 4 steps:

1. You find a foreclosure with equity. (Michigan is #1 in foreclosures right now in USA – you just have to walk around in the five sub-divisions that surround your own home and you can find a dozen. I live in a subdivision of 45 homes – we have 3 so far in the last 12 months.)

2. You find money to buy it and spiffy it up without using your own money. (Dozens of places in Michigan you can go and get a check to buy the house; fix the house)

3. You need to have the skill to stay away from dogs and pick up a deal that has the equity and potential to sell quickly. Meaning that you probably don’t want to buy a one bedroom condo in the middle of nowhere.

4. You need to know how to setup a system to sell it. Yeah! You would need to learn how to do this part correctly. But once done, a good system will not only sell your first house but lots of houses after that. After all top real estate agents dominate their local markets for a reason – they all have good systems in place to sell their listings. Real Estate Investment in Michigan is no exception. Setup a system; Let it run on autopilot.

But all this is nothing unless you truly believe and practice what I just told you:

Money Loves Speed.

Move fast, get everything done fast and more deals and money will flow to you. There are lots of places in life where calm analytical thoughts should be in place – for example Nora took two weeks to decide what colors she wanted to paint our home with.

Buying a foreclosure – I would say 45 minutes is pretty good to evaluate a deal and make an offer. :-)

Michelle Abraham, one of my Inner Circle members, was telling my members about her first flip. And yes she did as great job of fixing the house etc but the BIG thing that stayed with me throughout her 30 minute talk was the SPEED with which she moved once she found the foreclosure she liked.

Walked into the house – liked the house – go back the real estate agent office – make the offer – make the counter offer – get a $34,900 discount – done within 2 hours.

Whoa!

House gets fixed in 4 weeks – she was complaining about that too. House gets sold. Bought, fixed and sold – first deal all within 89 deal – end result $16,910 check NET PROFIT to her.

And no I am not implying that you should buy the first foreclosure you should walk into without having the skills and the knowledge to evaluate a good deal out of dozens that are available. That is just ignorance and that is bad in all businesses and not just in real estate investment.

My members are like me – pretty conservative in matters of money. We like our money in our bank accounts. Just fine, thank you very much. But that does not means when we find an opportunity we would wait for another 79 hours before making an offer on the property. That is not good business sense but rather laziness.

You get to move fast in your Michigan business – meaning not driving fast to a deal and getting in an accident and getting killed but rather – moving fast mentally.

Here are 7 things we need to do before we buy the house – lets not allocate the next month of January for them – lets try to get it done in the next four hours.

The faster you move, the faster money and opportunity move toward you. We are in January right now – I hope that you are not still thinking about doing a deal in August of 2007!

The time is now. To get big discounts; To find easy money to buy them. Lots of builders are not building big mansions in Michigan any more – good for investors like us who can find great contractors in a hurry (Angies List is a great place to start).

If you are serious about doing this then get moving. Nothing is going to change in February or March or August of this year. Your bank account might be fatter or thinner – depends on what you do now in this month.

I have two members in my Inner Circle coaching group – Marcus Thompson and Dwayne Toler – they are both 19 years old, high school grads. Building a wholesaling business in Wayne County. Tell them they should wait for another 10 or 11 years before they should do something in Michigan real estate. They are going to look at you like you have lost your mind.

See they got it within the first 15 minutes of talking to me that the time to do anything in your life that would change it forever is always now.

Not six months from today. Not 12 months from today. Not two weeks from today. The time is always now.

“Money Loves Speed”

Also if you are serious about starting 2007 on a fast note - I am teaching a 3 day Quick Start Bootcamp on February 23,24,25. You can find the videos / pics and enrollment details right here.)

It is 3 days; no outside speakers - just me teaching one on one;; 100% No Risk Enrollment plus some new bonuses that I just got made for 2007. If you are serious about building a business that you got to come and spend 3 days with me. This is Michigan Real Estate Investing 2.0 and I do put my money where my mouth is - check out the 100% Risk Free Enrollment Guarantee that I have.