Detroit News reporting this morning:

Michigan ranked third in the nation for foreclosure filings in 2007, with nearly 2 percent of all households in the state at risk for foreclosure due to defaulted mortgages, according to data released today.

Throughout last year, 136,205 foreclosure notices were filed in the state, according to the report from RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif.-based company that tracks such statistics. Those filings affected 87,210 homes, or 1.95 percent of all households. Nevada had the most, with 3.4 percent of houses in a foreclosure activity, followed by Florida, at 2 percent.

The number of Michigan filings was 68.3 percent more than in 2006, and a whopping 282.2 percent higher than 2005. Nationally, foreclosures in 2007 were up 75 percent over 2006.

• Macomb County: 8,361 foreclosure filings in 2007, up from 4,867 in 2006, a 41.8 percent increase.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 11:38 AM | Permalink

You do your first deal. You get a check. You immediately start believing that:

1. You know everything and donot need to learn anything new.

2. You are smart and dont need any checklists or rules for buying property #2.

3. You can buy 1 and 2 bedroom houses becuase well it is YOU who is buying them and rules dont apply to you in Michigan.

4. Stop building relationships with people who matter most in Michigan real estate investing.

Watch the video and see what Donald Trump says about "focus"

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 03:56 PM | Permalink

I like Craig’s List found at http://www.craigslist.org - the biggest, baddest online classified website found on planet earth. Here are 7 Strategies to make Craig’s List your hard working employee for buying and selling Michigan foreclosures:

1. Do not run a real estate ad without adding some pictures. When you add a picture, Craig’s List adds a little word “img” next to the listings. People prefer to see more than read. Those ads get clicked more than the ones without pictures. Don’t have a picture – add your own smiling mug shot.

If you are going to use pictures of a house – more is better. Don’t be cheap and put a picture size 2 inches by 2 inch. Use inside / outside / front / back / street pictures. Take these pictures during daylight so your house does not look like a house from a horror movie.

2. Use websites like www.vflyer.com or www.postlets.com to create incredibly beautiful flyers that could be cut and pasted on Craig’s List immediately. No computer knowledge needed.

Listen if you are thinking about flipping this house to another investor – that does not means that you have to put up crappy stuff up. A check is a check, right? So the same way you would pay attention to any flyer that you put out for a homebuyer – show same love to a fellow Michigan real estate investor too.

3. PLEASE don’t spam Craig’s List by putting up 50 variations of the same ad, over and over again. Not only your ads will get deleted but also you just clutter up the whole space and your legitimate ads get lost in the mess that you created also.

For some reason everybody thinks that if their ad is not on the top 5, nobody will click on it. WRONG. People either search by keyword (your ad position does not matter) or they will scroll down, down and more down to find what is out there. Majority of people who do this do not use Craig’s List except for spamming it. Because if you did use the site, observe how your self search and you would stop spamming Craig’s List.

4. If you are selling a house – don’t be shady and don’t put your information in the ad. I have seen private money / deal partnership ads in Detroit Craig’s List that do not have their name in the ad. That is just crazy. Use the anonymous email function that Craig’s List lets you use to avoid spammers. That is fine. But put your name, phone number, even a P.O. Box address is better than white blank space.

5. Post your ads in the right section. I have seen “I will save your home foreclosure” ads being run in Help Wanted, Casual Encounters, Cars for Sale – why would you want to waste your time putting your ad in front of people who are not looking for your help?

Its own users police Craig’s List. When they see ads in wrong places – they tag it as spam and eventually it gets deleted. Why bother doing this? It is beyond me.

I have done stupid things like these too when I first started Michigan Foreclosure Report – trying to “trick” Internet users to come to my website. It was a complete waste of time and money and I stopped immediately. People, who were not looking for me, stopped by, took one look and left immediately. You on the other hand were looking so you stayed. See the difference?

6. Know what Craig’s List is … it is a classified ad site, designed to put your company, your house, and your wholesaling business, even properties you want to rent out in front of a large audience in Michigan. That is all. You are not going to convince anybody to do business with you in any form by a Craig’s List ad.

All it is a glowing neon sign that says “Come On Inside – Open For Business” and people are going to come in, read you ad, call you or email you, develop a liking / trust with you and do business with you. If that sounds “work” to you than well don’t advertise there.

7. Before you run an ad – spend 10 minutes reading the other ads in that Real Estate Section. What catches your eyes? That ad or this ad? Why is that? Let me tell you why it is – it is the “headline” or the title of the classified ad that caught your eye.

May be it was the name of the city in the ad (very important to do it every time without fail – its bumps up responses) or may be the way it was said. There are good ads that get clicked and than there are ads that nobody clicks on. You decide by paying attention to other good ads which category your ad will end up. So spend 10 minutes before typing away and study the other ads in your target section.

Final tip – I hire almost everybody to do everything for me from Craig’s List / Gigs section. That is the most powerful section to get extremely cool and qualified people from all over Michigan to help you out to get your stuff done faster. Use it.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 03:31 PM | Permalink

I love Ebay.

It is the fastest, cheapest, easiest way to attract hundreds of people toward you in Michigan – people who are already looking for you to business with. Unfortunately, like every thing simple to use, most investors muck it up. I am talking about the “Classified Ads” type of auctions that Ebay let you run to get your Michigan business in front of thousands and thousands of investors / home buyers / private investors INSTANTLY.

Here are my 7 tips to make Ebay really work for you:

1. Don’t forget what Ebay is REALLY for – generating leads. Think of your Ebay ad as a giant, glittery OPEN sign for your real estate investing business in Michigan. Nothing more. Nothing less. You are not going to convince anybody to do business with you – buy a house; do a wholesale flip; call you interested in deal partnership.

Ebay is about LEAD GENERATION. Remember this core thing in your head all the time and your Ebay ads, cheap as they are, will make you happy.

2. Ebay users are used to clicking not writing – when you ask them to email you stuff like a email letting you know what they want from you – you are asking too much from them.

3. You must have a website setup with a form to collect information from the people coming from Ebay. For example if you are using to build a Wholesale Investor list – you should have a form page setup (Godaddy.com is a great / cheap place to do this - $10 domain names, $4 per month websites which come with drag and drop features) to collect name, address, phone number, email, what kind of house they want to buy etc.

4. Use the counter that comes free with your Ebay ad as a great tool for seeing which Ebay ads work better than other.

I have tested lots of ads over the years and it is amazing to see how much a little tweak can literally double the response and a wrong word in the title of the ad (the most important part of the Ebay ad because that is how people find you) will destroy a perfect good ad.

5. Use pictures – big, glorious, day light bright, beautiful pictures. Digital pictures don’t cost anything, yet most investors use wallet size, cell phone camera quality horrible looking pictures. I love using color pictures in everything I do – everybody likes looking at pictures, me and you included.

If you don’t have a digital camera (?) buy a cheap one from Amazon for under $100. Never take pictures of houses near dusk OR on a gloomy cloudy day. Daylight has magic in it. Use it.

6. Don’t put your phone number on your Ebay ads. People are on Ebay all times of the day, 24/7, so when they see your ad in the middle of the night, they will make a note to self about calling you next morning and 9 out of 10 times they will forget. Life will get in your and theirs way. Much better to ask them to join your list first.

7. This a BIGGIE – what I have found bumps make a Ebay ad truly fly is to cut and paste the AD again on your webpage where you are dropping your Ebay leads at. Why? Don’t worry about it. Just do it and you will see a bump in your response in your Ebay ads immediately.

Go today and spend some time on Ebay and see there is a very healthy real estate “market” that exists on Ebay, a true nationwide market that you dip your toes in very cheaply, tonight.

Amazingly every time when I teach Quick Start Bootcamp, only 1 out of 10 people have ever seen real estate section on Ebay. It is a good place to go and spend some time. You will like it.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:25 PM | Permalink

I have been getting phone calls all day today from my private investors. It is a blood bath out there. These guys, well at least the smart ones, were all up 20%, 27% for 2007.

Just say their entire upside was destroyed in the last 5 days. There are not too happy about it. Liquidating positions, talking about muni bonds and of course the question they all called today for:

"What the &#@!* is going in real estate? Any foreclosures that I can put my money in right now..."

If you have private investors in your life - whether real or potential - tonight is a very good night to make a phone call to them and just ask them "So how are things? How is your new year going so far?"

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 06:27 PM | Permalink

Countrywide, the biggest lender in USA is in trouble. Read CNBC story here and their "ethical work ethic" in recreating fake letters is described here.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 06:23 PM | Permalink

Reading an interview with the Sloan Brothers, the two guys from Birmingham who run a nifty website about starting your business, becoming an entrepreneur. They said that every January, their website traffic spikes up, come March, it is back to normal.

People become ambitious about a fresh start, starting their own business in January, make a New Year resolution to do so and then typically do nothing but just sniff around the idea. Come March, the same people are back to their 9-5 routine, waiting for December to show up so they do this routine all over again.

Here is a remedy to March blues: plunge yourself heads first into starting a business, starting in real estate investing NOW in this week. Immerse yourself in the world of entrepreneurs and real estate investing and you will have no choice pretty soon to start looking at the world with different set of eyes.

Here are 7 Tips for building momentum In Michigan Real Estate Investing:

1. What books are you reading right now? If you are reading books about starting a business, real estate investing, biographies of successful entrepreneurs - you are on the right track.

2. What magazines do you read? If you are reading Inc., Entrepreneur, Millionaire Blueprints Magazine - you are on the right track.

3. What kind of videos do you watch on the Internet every day at work? Dancing dogs, exploding teenagers? How about doing a search on Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki, Tony Robbins, Seth Godin and yours truly Mark Ijlal?

4. What kind of forums do you go and read / participate? If you go to the dozens of real estate investing forums and read what other people are doing - you are on the right track.

5. What kind of blogs do you read? Michigan Foreclosure Report is a good place to bookmark and visit on a regular basis. What else are you reading?

6. Who do you hang out with? Do you have any friends who are interested in real estate investing or starting a business? If NOT - hey 11,000,000 people live in Michigan - find some new people to befriend.

7. Go and meet the whales that swim in the world of Michigan foreclosures - your local REO broker, a local loan officer, a local hard money guy in your Michigan city, a local property inspector, a local appraiser - take them out to a cup of coffee and ask them "so how are things in the world of foreclosures - what are you seeing?" Write notes.

Money loves speed. I say it all the time. Money also loves momentum. When you start doing all the above you are going to attract the right kind of people toward you. Sitting with your head down, in your own little universe rarely makes anybody rich.

If you are not doing any of the above and you don't really need any money to do the above, do you? Just a commitment to put away some time every day and DO IT, then don't kid your self.

You are not serious about this and probably never will be.

Back in the day, I used to work 12 hard hours, standing on my feet every day, come home, have dinner, watch T.V. for an hour and then spend at least 2 hours on the Internet researching different ways of making money, starting a business, investing in real estate.

My actions matched what I said I wanted out of my life.

I am excited about 2008. It is a new year. Everything and anything is possible.

Get excited. Get moving.

You will be chirpy come February, March, April, May...

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 02:22 PM | Permalink

Becoming a real estate investor in Michigan because you want to make more money is a good reason.

Becoming a real estate investor in Michigan because you want to quit your job and be your own boss is even a better reason.

Becoming a real estate investor in Michigan because you want to make more money and really enjoy “the business” of finding, fixing and flipping foreclosures is the best reason of it all.

If you don’t enjoy what you do in your business – whether real estate investing in Michigan or something else – I just can’t see you getting what you want out of it.

People talk a lot about being afraid of losing money, yet very few ever buy a countdown clock and look at the clock ticking away, with seconds and minute gone that will never come back. Life is long but not long enough to do things that you really don’t like doing for half of the day, every day, five days a week for 30 years.

How would you know that you have found something that you love doing?

You will be so excited about looking at houses, buying houses, getting them spiffy up, selling them in your local Michigan city that you will have a hard time sleeping at nights or you are going to go to sleep at 12:37 in the morning and wake up at 5:30am, thinking about sneaking to your home office downstairs – which is what happened to me this morning.

“ I cant sleep at nights because I am so excited about doing this” is a sentence that comes often from QuickStart grads – “Cashflow” Dennis and Rodney “Red Bull” Townsend both reported very successful 30 days with no desire to go to sleep. I am happy for them. That is a good sign!

I have noticed it in my own business too. When I am not excited about doing something and the ONLY reason I am doing it to make money – I can sleep at nights and wake up late. No hurry. Almost 100% of the time – I end up giving up on the idea. It is NOT a bad idea, just not for me.

When I am excited about something, truly, in the guts, cant sleep at night excited, I will stay up late at nights reading about it, minor frustrations don’t bother me, and I will do everything that I can do to make that dream become a reality because I am so energetic about the deal. Just doing anything for money could be done but it is much easier to actually “like” doing the deals, have fun doing the business.

It is a new year. We should all try very hard to find something that we would love to do every day.

Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Right?

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 12:31 PM | Permalink

Put that pen down. Don’t even write a word about losing weight, stop smoking or making more money. Forget the thing about being a better person in 2008 also. Become a better person in 2009.

Here is New Year Resolutions, The Michigan Real Estate Investor Version:

1. Launch a business. How could you possibly know about yourself anyway unless you have owned a business? I say not much. Owning a business where you are 100% responsible for all decisions teaches you enormous things about responsibility, money, how to treat people and relationships.

I would prefer that you do something in real estate investing but heck even operating a lemonade stand is better than doing nothing. Watch Donald Apprentice Season 1 on DVD / Episode 1.

You will know exactly what I mean. That is how Michigan is going to rebound better and greater than ever – entrepreneurs banding together from Detroit to UP, starting businesses.

2. Stop looking for faults in everybody and everything. Election year is upon us and I just cannot understand why everybody is so worried about whether a candidate smoked a joint 20 years or not? I like human beings, with their faults, screwups and everything in the middle.

Angels are not interesting to me. They are boring one dimensional creatures. That is why you don’t see them on planet earth.

There is enough good out there to outweigh the bad any given day. There are lot of really good people involved in real estate investing in Michigan – seek them out and do business with them. Don’t let the few idiots stop you.

3. Incorporate a business. Go to a local bank that offers free online banking with its free business checking accounts. Open a checking account. Setup online banking. Make the login page of your new business checking account your default home page on your browser and look at it 50 times the day.

Don’t like what you don’t see there? As in money you would like to have? Well that is a good reality check… is it not? Do something about it.

4. Make ONE local REO broker fall in love with you. You would know you have succeeded when he or she is calling on Friday and telling you what they intend to do over the weekend. Just don’t it too literally. I don’t want to be responsible for you getting divorced.

5. Talk to 5 homeowners in foreclosure in Michigan in ONE day. Before January 7 hits. Have no ideas what to say? Never been to QuickStart Bootcamp? Amazing! But that is fine, some people like pain with their learning. May be you are one of them.

Do it anyway. I mean don’t you ever wonder what would it be like to lose your short sale virginity? Run an ad on Craig’s List (its free and highly effective) and put your phone number there. Pick up the phone when they call and chat away. One you have done that – rinse and repeat 2 more times before January is over.

6. Don’t have a foreclosure to fix yet? So what… run an ad on Craig’s List for contractors – painters, heating / cooling, electricians, plumbers, drawlers, roofers – when they email you, call them up and ask for 3 references, then call the references. Just in case if you ever thought that good contractors are hard to find.

7. Here is the best New Year Resolution – no matter when you are reading these lines… try to do all of this in the next 7 days.

Here is a bonus resolution - write down something to do where the mere thought of putting that on paper makes you nervous. That is THE ONE which is going to make you the most money in 2008. Figure out how to pull that off before this month is over.

It is a brand New Year.

Anything is possible.

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 09:46 PM | Permalink

My 11 predictions for Michigan real estate investors in 2008 are:

1. Goggle will launch a real estate site. Something radically different than Yahoo real estate, complete with support from YouTube videos (type an address and see a video / type a city and see the videos of all houses available for sale) and Goggle Maps (hey check out the neighborhood with closeup satellite pictures). It is going to be a blast.

2. Zillow.com will become better and bigger and continue to become a BIG threat to MLS in 2008. I am thinking video, better comps, and sales history from Michigan public records.

3. Prosper.com will launch a bigger lending program, probably in the $100,000 range.

4. More and more real estate investors from West Coast will show up and buy Michigan foreclosures especially in the City of Detroit and surrounding suburbs - Hamtramck, Eastpointe, Oak Park, Harper Woods, Dearborn etc.

Their plan is to buy cheap, fixed up and rented out for positive cash flow, something that they cannot do in West Coast without paying $250,000 to $450,000 for a single family home.

Good opportunity for you in 2008 to flip wholesale houses to them, charging a premium deal finder fee because it is not just the foreclosure they are buying form you but also your "eyes & ears on the ground", your local Michigan expertise (like not flipping them houses in war zones OR really depressed cities).

5. Loss Mitigation Officers will become even more short tempered with rookie real estate investors in Michigan who will hope to get their short sale packages across their desks and a quick approval in 2008 as more and more foreclosure come through the pipeline from East / West coast and they get even more busy with files.

Well known fact in Loss Mitigation industry is that the easiest way of getting your short sale package rejected is to package it wrong before faxing it in.

Michigan was and never will be on Loss Mitigation Officers Love List at national banks.

Doubt me? You can come with me in summer to a nationwide Asset Managers / Loss Mitigation Conference being held in Dallas that I am going to with couple of my Inner Circle members.

You can personally ask them what they "really" feel about Michigan and its 6 months redemption period.

If you want to lowest possible price on your short sale offers - half off is a good place to start - you must know and put your package together correctly to raise your chances of getting the lowest possible price possible.

6. More first time homebuyer loan programs are coming in 2008 in Michigan with all kind of promotions. LaSalle is already running a promotion for $2500 gift to the first time homebuyers toward their closing costs.

Another lender that I use is say YAY to 560 FICO, no seasoning of tile required, high LTV BUT only for first time homebuyers.

As banks adjust and try to figure out how to substitute their lost sub prime business - they will look at a traditionally strong and mature market that has never gone away will never go away.

New Years Eve, you would think people are washing their shot glasses and chilling vodka in the freezer right?

Wrong! Three phone calls so far on the HOTLINE set up for first time homebuyers today, people looking for their first home.

Snow on the ground or green leaves on the trees - first time home buyer market never goes away in Michigan.

7. More people than ever will discover real estate investing in Michigan - good for you and me as we can wholesale them properties.

Leverage is NOT only about borrowing money. Leverage is also about using your knowledge and contacts to make money in this real estate game.

8. More REO's in the suburbs coming your way. Hey this is a good week to pick up the phone and call your local top dog REO broker and take them out to lunch as a good way of starting 2008 for them and you.

Coming week I am booked solid, hanging out with old friends in the business, catching up and making sure that everybody has my number on their cell phone speed dial in 2008.

9. More hard money lenders in Michigan especially tri-county area will become very strict on lending on junkers in Detroit, Dearborn, Flint, Saginaw and Pontiac.

The "city thing" that I talk about like a broken record is becoming more and more important every day. The "where" you do this is as important as "what are the numbers" in 2008, 'nuff said.

10. More private money coming your way in the light of a ridiculously volatile stock market.

Bunch of my buddies are active traders for their own retirement accounts - they are the ones who never drink wine, they go straight for the hard stuff when we go out.

There are lot and lot of private investors looking for a decent terms, to work with real estate investors.

Fortunately for us on the other side of the fence, the majority of real estate investors lack the knowledge, a plan and the marketing system to get and keep them.

One of my Inner Circle members planted a seed 12 months ago. It came back with nine plus six zeros.

12 months are going to go by anyway, might as well plant seeds that will bring you these kind of phone calls and partners.

11. More whining, more waving of hands, more talk of "Michigan is going down, more cries of "USA is going down" by idiots who have no clue how easy we all have here to launch a business, do deals, build something fun and wonderful.

I mean, do you genuinely believe that life is hard in Michigan? That there is a "shortage" of money or opportunity here?

Let me tell you a little update about the "rest of the world" - my parents were locked in their home last week for four days as riots went all around their house, cars being burned, banks looted, gun fire echoes late into the night, as the city of my birth burned down all around them.

Believe me, on your worse day, you don't want to be where they are. Your tough self wont survive half a day. On my worse day, I am still happy to be here in Metro Detroit Michigan.

We had my Inner Circle Christmas party last weekend. I will post some videos and pictures next week. Frankly speaking the conversation at most tables would have been incredible even unbelievable to most new and seasoned real estate investors in Michigan.

I am not talking about the rightful "bragging" about the deals closed, the checks gotten that went on.

Fuggadabbout it....

Who cares what they did in 2007. It is done and over with.

No, what would burn most people earlobes would be what they are planning to "DO NEXT" in 2008.

Final prediction is - my Inner circle members will make more money in 2008 than they did in 2007, and that is ONE prediction that I know that I cannot miss.

On a side note, have your enrolled for January 2008 QuickStart Bootcamp Version 2.0 yet?

Why not?

What better way to start a new year than to lock yourself for three long days with me, and get a MRI brain scan of a totally updated Version 2.0 of my QuickStart Bootcamp for Michigan real estate investors?

One good deal will bring you $30,000. Not knowing where to go and get five of them in 2008 is going to cost you even more. QuickStart Version 2.0 is the place where people from all over Michigan come to make sure that there are checks like these in their future.

My shortcuts, strategies, black book contacts, tools and a totally different way of doing real estate investing in Michigan.

Man, I am excited about 2008. Excited all the good things happening in Downtown Detroit. Excited about GM finally doing the right things. Excited about Goggle coming to Ann Arbor and continuously hiring. Excited about banks still acting stupid. Excited about the easy pickings in the suburbs all over Michigan to pick up houses that require nothing but paint and cleanup with fifty K in equity.

My plan for 2008 is : Make lots of money. Have lots of fun doing it.

I hope when you write your New Year's resolutions... you have a similar plan for 2008.

Cheers and a Happy New Year,

Posted by Mark Ijlal at 05:51 PM | Permalink