Real Estate Investors Association of Greater Cincinnati

Presented as the most restrictive in the country and as being written 100% by KC Tenants, 231019 was initially a few lines in the Tenant’s Bill of Rights several years ago. Back then, the concept of forcing a US Citizen to take part in a Voluntary Government Subsidy Program like Section 8 was objectionable to the several 100 housing providers in the room, and Mayor Lucas lined it out. Based on his statements in the video above from the 25th, it seems that he has been working since that time with KC Tenants to bring this ordinance to the table.

Since the introduction in December, housing providers have been working hard to defeat the ordinance but learned that we were not going to have much luck defeating it completely. But with all the emails, phone calls, and meetings held, we were able to get a lot of the more objectionable items removed or changed, and now we have a repair fund that they are working on.

There is a lot in this ordinance, and many of the original aspects of the ordinance have changed in almost two months of intense negotiations since it passed the committee in early December. Those changes are reflected in the ordinance that passed today. Councilmembers representing both sides worked very hard to coalesce around common goals shared, with many of us offering support, assistance, and guidance along the way. 

• Created a $1 million Landlord Risk Mitigation Program to provide landlords money offsetting costs associated with accepting voucher tena ... Read More…

Do you ever get confused by how one self-proclaimed expert can swear up and down that the best, or even ONLY, way to do a certain strategy is to [fill in opinion here], while another guru, who seems just as successful and passionate, says that the truth is just the opposite?

I did, too, back when I was just getting started and thought that there must be an exact right way to do any given thing in real estate.

But as it turns out, with wisdom and experience comes the realization that they’re all right and all wrong.

Because the TRUTH is, we often become convinced that certain things work and don’t work because we already believed that it would or wouldn’t work, and that becomes a limiting thought that actually predicts the outcome.

In other words, the guy who swears up and down that his experience is that you MUST tell sellers that you can do ‘X,’ or they won’t accept your offer, is telling the absolute truth. HIS EXPERIENCE is that sellers won’t accept an offer without ‘X’ because he believes that they won’t, and thus they never do.

Now I’m about as far from woo-woo as anyone you’re ever going to meet. I don’t believe that I manifest deals, or partners, or success into my life by vibrating in time with the universe. But I can prove this particular phenomenon with example after example after example.

For instance, back in the days when I was first learning about wholesaling, I was taught some ... Read More…

Hey, folks, data expert Rick Sharga will be live with Vena Jones-Cox on Tuesday on Real Life Real Estate Investing. It’s at 5:00 PM Eastern. Send questions before the show to AskVena@gmail.com now and listen HERE for the answers at 5 pm Eastern.

• Delinquencies on consumer loans show signs of distress even as mortgage delinquency rates decline slightly.
• Early-stage mortgage delinquencies (30 and 60 days) ticked up slightly, as did other consumer loans; student loan repayments are set to resume now.
• As forbearance program nears its end, more exiting loans are delinquent and more need loan mods; fewer are paid off or current.
• Many of these loans were delinquent prior to the pandemic and may be candidates for foreclosures when the forbearance program is over.
• Economic factors could lead to more defaults. The combination of soaring insurance rates, higher property taxes & inflation could be toxic.
• Foreclosure starts now running at about 80% of pre-pandemic levels.
• ATTOM’s Q3 data is the first indication that numbers may be beginning to head back to more normal levels in the months ahead.

... Read More…

A law taking effect January 1, 2024, has killed any hope of anonymity by using a Wyoming LLC, or an LLC in any state for that matter.  Even if you are not worried about anonymity, you are going to be profoundly affected by this law.

In 2021, Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act. This law creates a new beneficial ownership information reporting requirement as part of the U.S. government’s efforts to make it harder for bad actors to hide or benefit from their ill-gotten gains through shell companies or other opaque ownership structures.

The new program is called the Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting system, and it will be implemented by the FinCEN (Federal Financial Crimes Enforcement Network), a department within the Treasury Department – the same folks who brought you the IRS.

Never heard of FinCEN?  If you have any type of a business (corporation or LLC), it will become as common in your language as the term “IRS.” 

Under the new laws, “beneficial ownership information refers to identifying information about the individuals who directly or indirectly own or control a company.”

Reporting

As of January 1, 2024, you will have to register the “beneficial ownership” of each LLC, corporation, limited partnership, or any other type of business entity.  These are called “reporting companies.”  There are exceptions for the companies with many owners, banks, insurance compan ... Read More…

You and I both know that you aren’t gonna be reading and digesting a long business article at this time of year, so we’ll keep it light this week.

Don’t ask me why, but I have, over the years, accumulated an enormous amount of real estate poetry. The muse usually strikes me around Christmas time, which explains the “Night Before Christmas Meets Dr. Seuss” nature of a lot of this. Anyway, it amuses me—hopefully, it will give you a little smile, too.

Ode to Holyoke Lane by Vena Jones-Cox

‘Tis the night before Christmas

And I bring a tale

Of five hard-learned lessons

From one little sale.

 

It’s a story of heartache,

Of trouble, of loss,

Of hassle and torment

And headache and cost

 

But before you can hear

How my cash and I parted,

You must first hear the story

Of how it all started.

 

An estate sale it was,

And in Forest Park, yet,

And the price was so low

That I went into debt

$60K, and the comps said

That price was just fine,

‘cause the value was closer

To 79.

 

And the “subject to” loan

Was especially sweet—

Just two thousand up front!

It was too good to beat

With a stick! And the home

Was in lovely condition:

4 bedrooms, 2 baths,

And a cute little kitchen,

 

With a little paint here

And a touch-up or two,

It was gonna be perfect!

So I said to Drew

That I knew it would rent

For a zillion or more!

Or at least seven hundred

And seventy f ... Read More…

 

There’s an old piece of advice generally given to husbands regarding arguing with their wives that goes, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?”.

And the longer I’m in the wholesaling business, the more I realize that nearly the same advice applies to negotiating with sellers—only it’s, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to get the deal?”

Don’t get me wrong: I have more than my fair share of gotta-be-right-ness. In my younger days, I often found myself debating with sellers about the “facts”—how much their house would sell for fixed up, how much their neighbor’s house sold for last week, what it would really cost to re-do the roof and gutters, and on and on.

Back in those days, I think I had some of the same psychology I see in you folks when you say to me, “I’m afraid to talk to sellers because I’m afraid they’ll be able to tell that I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’ll lose all credibility.”

This assumption that sellers sell to you because you’re intelligent, experienced, or a bigger expert than they are about houses in their neighborhood is just dead wrong.

Sellers sell to you (at the crazy prices and terms that you offer) because

1. Your offer solves whatever problem they think they have, and
2. They like you enough to be able to listen to you about how and why your offer solves their problem

The latter is ... Read More…

          The thing is, there’s a major question that most people never deal with because it’s not as fun or inspiring as thinking about goals. Yet, unless it’s resolved, it will continue to be nearly impossible for you to reach any of those great goals you’ve set for yourself. And the question is:

          Are there any “messes” that need to be cleaned up before you can really be effective in your real estate endeavors?

          Most of us have one or more of these: they’re like walls that we have to scale every time we try to do anything else. Often, they’re so overwhelming that we have a hard time even looking closely at them, but they’re always at the edges of our consciousness, distracting us, making us feel hopeless and helpless, and making it very difficult to move forward. Examples might include:

• Bad books that keep us from understanding what we’re really making on deals, from balancing our accounts, from filing taxes on time, and so on
• Loans that are about to balloon or have already ballooned, and we have no exit strategy from that loan
• Defaulted debts like credit card bills we can’t pay, mortgages that are in default, etc
• Staffing issues that we don’t want to deal with, like employees or VAs who can’t seem to be made to do the job they were hired to do adequately, no ... Read More…

        …is in the 5” or so between your ears.

        For real, people, if you want to know the difference between the people around you who are “killing it” in wholesaling or retailing or notes or income properties or, heck, pig farming or app development or whatever and those who have the same access to the same education and the same resources but never make any money, it all lies there.

        After 30 years of hanging around real estate associations as a newbie, board member, experienced investor, and coach and educator, I’ve watched thousands of people come and go. Some meet every goal they set out to complete.

        Most don’t.

        And they don’t because they believe that if they learn what to do, then all they have to do is do those things, and riches/security/freedom will follow.

        That would be 100% correct if not for, you know…LIFE. Life has a way of getting in your way. Whether your goal is building wealth, losing 40 pounds, or learning to quilt, things will rise up that slow you, discourage you, distract you, or stop you. Some of those things will be people. Some of those things will be habits. Some will be a lack of skills or resources that have to be overcome.

        ... Read More…

As you probably know, one of the big benefits of membership in REIAGC is your ability to post deals—wholesale, rental, or properties you don’t want anymore—on CincinnatiREIA.com, where they’re then sent to our nationwide list of over 4,700 potential buyers. 

Lots of members are taking advantage of this and selling deals (and filling rentals) using it, as you can see in your weekly inbox. 

But we’re also seeing lots of members who haven’t used it or who are using it in ways that aren’t as effective as they could be. So here are a few tips for increasing the effectiveness of your ads and staying within the law as we understand it so that this powerful tool works for you. 

• First, in order to post ads on our site, you MUST have your own “Pros” website, which comes free with your membership, already set up. 

If you log in to CincinnatiREIA.com with your password, you’ll see a tab at the top called “my account” and a dropdown that says “my website.” If you haven’t set up your site yet, you’ll be prompted through a series of easy steps to get it set up. If you already have your own website, we CAN NOT connect that one to ours; it MUST be the site that’s set up through CincinnatiREIA.com in order to push your deals out to our list. 

• Second, some legal issues: 
  
  
• Understand that your ads also go to a national site called REIPro and are publicly ... Read More…

Many folks believe they procrastinate because they are “lazy”. As a result, they beat themselves over the head and feel bad about it.

(Maybe you do too.)

It’s not true though.

Procrastination has nothing to do with laziness.

This is just a cop out. It’s a story you tell yourself so that you get to feel bad for a little while “punishing yourself” for not taking action and following through on the commitments you made. Trouble is, it only makes your procrastination worse and reinforces the negative cycle.

You need to break the cycle.

How?

By understanding what really causes procrastination. It’s not what most folks think. There’s something deeper at play, something unconscious, and it’s stopping you from getting into action, staying in action, and following through on the commitments you made to others and yourself.

Ultimately, it’s stopping you from building your dream.

When you don’t follow through on the promises you made, you’ll often have a story that you tell — to yourself and others around you. 

This story then becomes the “reason”.

However, you need to see this story for what it really is:

It’s an excuse.

The real reason why you’re not taking action remains hidden from you, repressed under layers of stories just like this one where it can’t come to the surface and force you to face up to it.

Unless you know what to look for. 

Here are the ... Read More…