Real Estate Investors Association of Greater Cincinnati

What would happen if you were to step away from your business thoroughly?  

If that question just gave you the chills, then I have a few more for you:  

• Do you feel your business owns you instead of you owning the business?  
• Do you see poor communication in your team?  
• Do you feel compelled to be involved in every business-related decision?  
• Do you have a problem getting the results you desire from your staff? 
• Are you an entrepreneur looking to scale your business but don’t know how you’ll manage any more than you’re already doing?  

I was once told (while struggling with some of these questions myself) that your business is not measured by its success when you are there but by its success when you’re not there.  

It’s true. However, many real estate investors run businesses that cannot operate without them or, more likely, that they cannot release to run without them.   

Every business needs structure and organization, which grows as the company grows. 

For your company to grow, you must add more people to your structure. These people depend on your business for their livelihood, as will you. Think about it:   

When you first started, the entire burden was on you. You were the system. That is not a reali ... Read More…

Just this morning, I was having yet another conversation with a fellow educator about the frustration we have with students who have the brains, education, and resources to make deals—but who, month after month, do everything BUT make deals. 

We discussed people who spend big bucks on courses, set up their LLCs, draft land trusts, buy marketing/accounting/management software, attend REIA meetings religiously, have a color-coded filing system, get their real estate license, start a buyer’s list, concoct every conceivable question about every conceivable scenario in a deal… 

…in fact, do everything that it takes to be a successful real estate entrepreneur except make offers. 

Many of these people are successful in their other endeavors; many have good jobs, nice houses, great kids, you name it. But they can never seem to get to the point of actually buying a property, no matter what we tell them or how much time passes. 

What many of you seem to be waiting for is that NEXT bootcamp or the NEXT investor meeting or the NEXT meeting with their coach. 

And what you’re hoping for is that you’ll read something, hear something, or learn something that makes all the fear go away, makes you completely sure of yourself, and makes you 100% confident that the next step you take is the right one. 

I’m here to tell you, from the perspective of almost 2 decades’ experience, that the day you’re waitin ... Read More…

There’s a dark secret that many investors know but that no one seems to talk about much. It’s a secret that every full-time investor eventually discovers for himself or pays the consequences.  

To illustrate, let’s take 2 imaginary real estate entrepreneurs, Investor A and Investor B. For the sake of simplicity, let’s imagine that both investors start from the same place. Same income, same credit, same skill level. Then, both attend a real estate conference one weekend in hopes of finding a way to quit their jobs in short order and become full-time real estate entrepreneurs. 

The story of Investor A 

Investor A latches on to a landlording course. He’s attracted to the idea of building wealth and loves the tax-advantaged nature of rental properties. On Monday, he sets out to build a rental empire that will allow him to become financially independent in short order.  

“A” is very successful in finding under-priced rentals in his hometown. His typical deal looks like this:  

ARV:                     $150,000 

Repairs:                $20,000 

Purchase Price:    $85,000 

Rent/mo                $1,200   ... Read More…

Ya'll do realize the irony of asking the question, “I know you’re in a hurry, but is there any quick advice you can give me about how to get started?”, right?

Because I get asked some version of that question at least 100 times a year, always by a newer investor hoping that there's some wisdom I can drop on them in the time it takes to get from the elevator to my car when I'm running from one event to another. Wisdom, preferably, that will make their entry into the business rapid, painless, and above all profitable.

The irony is that there IS no single answer to the question, "How do I get started?".

In order to properly get into that topic, I'd need to know about you: your goals, resources, preferences, exit strategies, needs, wants, and and and...and in no circumstance would that be "quick" advice.

If there were such a thing as "quick" advice, there would be no need for mentoring programs like Fasttrack to Financial Independence. Or, for that matter, for 4-day bootcamps, or REIA groups, or any of the other support systems to which we are all so devoted.

Without knowing anything else about you other than that you don't seem like a crazy stalker who's following me out to my car to kill me, I can only tell you, GENERALLY, some of the things successful people when they get started. I can't tell you what deal to look for (until I know what you plan to do with it) or how to get money (until I know your credit score) or what to pay (until you give me the A ... Read More…

Lease Options and Subject Tos, aka “Getting the Deed” are two very popular ways to purchase real estate with little or no money down. Acquiring investment real estate can be handled with many different approaches, but these two techniques can be implemented with little or no money down in most incidences.

A lease option is a technique which involves gaining ‘control’ of a property, but not owning it. It is the right to possess a property now and purchase that property at some future date with terms you define when you buy it.

A “Subject To” is getting the deed to a property without getting a mortgage for the home. Instead, the seller signs over the deed to his home ‘subject to’ the existing mortgage. The buyer in this case makes the mortgage payments on the old loan, but does not need to get a mortgage themselves to acquire this home.

Both of these techniques usually require little or no money down.  In both of these techniques it is possible for the buyer to get money from the seller or the purchaser (or both!) in the beginning of the transaction. These techniques, when used properly, will provide for huge profits. They are both awesome, and when used hand-in-hand by investors are almost an unbeatable pair!

This short article is not meant to give details of each technique, but rather to show when you could consider either of them.  If you don’t understand how to document and protect yourself in each kind o ... Read More…

Does this sound like you? 

• You love going to association meetings and webinars, and hanging out in online fora reading about, asking questions about, and discussing real estate.
• You own several home study courses.
• You’ve been to multiple long-form workshops, seminars, and boot camps.
• You haven’t done a deal. 

If it does, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. 

The good news is, you’re not alone: 80% of all real estate newbies are in exactly this position. The bad news is, 80% of real estate newbies will never get out of this position. 

Now, I’ve never seen an actual study that says that only 20% of people who learn about real estate will ever do anything with that knowledge, but I CAN tell you that it’s a number that’s agreed upon by people who are in a position to observe (and fret about) the phenomenon. 

Group leaders and gurus who’ve been around for a while will tell you the same thing—about 1 out of 5 people who start their real estate education will never take it out into the real world and use it to make money. 

So what do we do with this sobering statistic? 

The first thing we should do is ask, “Why”? What is it that the 20% has or is or does that the other 80% doesn’t? 

Again, there aren’t studies that I know of that explain this, but I have a theory, and it goes like this: 

There are several psychological stages that a new i ... Read More…

Building wealth is all about the ROI (Return on Investment). Making your money work for you instead of just stock-piling it and hoping it will be enough to retire you.  As with any type of investing there is risk involved in being a real estate guru. But it has been my experience that the benefits far outweigh the risks. 

One of the most advantageous things about real estate investing is the ability to use leverage instead of cash to do your deals.  

Let’s say you have $50,000.00 that you would like to invest. You find a rental property selling for $60,000.00. The fair market value of the house is $70,000.  Banks will generally loan 70% of the fair market value. Therefore, you could get a loan for around $52,000. You use $10,000 of your “investment” money and purchase the rental property.  

If it’s a 3-bedroom house in a fair neighborhood.  The house would easily bring $750 per month or more in rental income. Yes, there are expenses—taxes, insurance, the payment on that mortgage, vacancy, maintenance. But even after all that, in effect the $10,000 you invested in purchasing this property is giving you a return of 15%.  How many other investments in your portfolio are showing you that kind of return? Don’t forget, you’ve only spent $10,000 of the $50,000 that you are planning to invest, so you can do it 4 more times. 

Another super quality of buying real estate is you earn that ROI tax deferred. ... Read More…

An interesting thing happens when people become successful real estate investors:  like any true convert, they start to want to proselytize. And one of the primary characteristics of any good missionary is the desire to emphasize the good and de-emphasize the downsides of one’s religion.

Have you ever noticed that most successful investors remember their early years in real estate as “not that hard”, or “scary, but doable”? Yet if you ask a new investor who’s in the midst of trying to find his first few deals, he’ll more than likely describe this time as “terrifying”, “overwhelming” or “nearly impossible”. 

Remember, dear readers, that your mentors and colleagues are (for the most part) not deceiving you intentionally, unless they’re trying to sell you something. It’s just that they want you to succeed as they’ve succeeded, and that, now that doing deals is second nature, they’ve honestly forgotten a lot of what it was like to struggle in the early years. You may have been guilty of this yourself: I know I’ve been. But unlike most of you, I have a forum from which to atone for my sins of omission. 

So, this one’s for every newbie who thought that he must be stupid for not being able to find a great deal his first week out, and for every old-timer who’s ever forgotten to mention to said newbie that, though a millionaire on paper, he’ ... Read More…

Sometimes I would love to go back in time, just to get a chance to do a few things differently than what I actually did…or didn’t do - of course, hindsight is 20/20 right? 

That hindsight, and all the things I did BEFORE I discovered lease/options that I wish I'd just skipped, is why I now stress to everyone who wants to start making money in real estate to consider lease/options FIRST. Please understand that this is not a suggestion based on selfish motives, it is based purely on experience. 

And the reason why I believe, and am convinced of the fact, that lease option strategies are the absolute best strategies in all of real estate investing for every beginning and seasoned investor to get involved with, is because it takes no capital, very little time, and minimal training, to start getting paid quickly in real estate investing.  

If you were to purchase an average rental property, in a typical neighborhood (let’s say for example a 3 bed, 1.5 bath home rents for $1,200, with a cost of $80,000), and assuming you did not use a private lender (most beginning real estate students do not have those) the monthly payment with a bank using your own credit on a typical commercial loan will cost you about $575/month, plus, let's say, $200/month for taxes and insurance is a total payout of $775/month.   

Now, that payment has to begin whether you have a tenant lined up or not! But for sake of our example, let’s just s ... Read More…

A short sale in real estate happens when a homeowner sells their property for less than the amount owed on the mortgage. The lender, or mortgage holder, agrees to accept a reduced payoff amount instead of foreclosing on the property. Short sales often occur when homeowners are struggling financially and can no longer afford their mortgage payments, but they want to avoid the more damaging impact of foreclosure.

Understanding a Short Sale

To fully grasp the concept of a short sale, it’s important to understand the dynamics between the homeowner, the lender, and the property’s market value. In a short sale, the property is usually considered “underwater,” which means that its market value is lower than the outstanding mortgage balance. This situation often arises due to a downturn in the housing market or an economic recession. Homeowners may opt for a short sale as a way to mitigate their losses and minimize the financial impact on their credit score compared to a foreclosure.

Special Considerations

A short sale, although a potential solution for homeowners facing financial difficulties, presents a unique array of challenges and considerations that need to be carefully evaluated.

1. Lender Approval: Approval from the lender is necessary for the short sale, as it involves receiving an amount that is less than the total owed. This process can be lengthy and complex, as lenders thorough ... Read More…