Real Estate Investors Association of Greater Cincinnati

One of the critical questions that beginning  and intermediate-level real estate entrepreneurs struggle with is, “How do I know when it’s the right time to hire help?”

I’m not talking about VA-type help here; your lowest-level administrative work (sorting lists, looking up names in the public record, etc.) and your high-skill but non-real estate work (designing logos, creating websites) can be quickly, easily, and above all CHEAPLY farmed out to VAs practically as soon as you understand what that “work” is.

I’m talking about “inside team”—people who work with you on a day-to-day basis, who understand your business more deeply than an outside team member like a VA, who may, by necessity, be ACTUAL rather than VIRTUAL employees.

THIS decision—bringing actual “staff aboard” is always challenging. It seems as if the point at which your business grows to where it’s difficult (or impossible) for you to keep up with the day-to-day activities does NOT usually coincide with the availability of a ton of extra income to pay an employee.

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Do you realize that you can build your fortune by buying vacant land? 

You are saying: “No way!!” 

I am saying: “Yes…WAY!” 

There are many great ways to make a lot of money in real estate, not the least of which is buying and selling vacant land. This is an effective way to do real estate deals with no hassle, no rehab, no insurance, and no worries of vandalism and theft. 

Plus, there is virtually no competition for these properties since many investors are simply not going after this incredibly lucrative portion of the marketplace. I was actually in the real estate business for several years before I discovered this very profitable part of the market. In addition, buying and selling vacant land in this current market is another good strategy to continue making money in the real estate business. 

If you live in a particularly rural area, buying and selling vacant land is a more lucrative means of doing real estate deals. Since it can be more challenging to
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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 wo
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Terry Vaughn has been investing in real estate for over 30 years. Heed these words; they’re great advice in ANY market.

“You can either work hard, or you can work smart.” These words have guided my actions for many years. After confronting nearly every obstacle, impasse, and dead-end imaginable, they ring as true today as ever before.

Over the years, I’ve learned that, while valuable, sheer determination and sweat alone are not enough to overcome problems. Nor are they enough to increase the odds of profiting from an investment. Somewhere along the line, I decided to work smart. Once I made that decision, I dedicated myself to finding those solutions that required the least expenditure of energy and, at the same time, provided the greatest return. I set out to discover how to maximize the odds of success and have developed a set of rules.

RULE #1 – PLAY THE GAME WHEN THE ODDS ARE IN YOUR FAVOR TO WIN OR DON’T PLAY.

You must sharpen your skills and learn to be as selective as possible in all your real estate deals. Selectively participate only in those investmen
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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.

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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 w
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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 coaching programs like Express Success. Or, for that matter, for workshops, REIA groups, or any of the other support systems to which we are all so devoted.

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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
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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

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When I was 2 or 3 years old, my mother took me on trips to the library almost every week. While she checked out the latest mystery novels, I always went to the same shelf in the children’s section and pulled down the same worn, tea-colored book called “I Can’t, Said the Ant.” I must have made my mom check that book out 50 times. I had every word memorized, every illustration emblazoned on my brain, and every character befriended in my daydreams.

In case you missed out on this epic, the basic plot is that a teapot falls off the counter and breaks its spout, and if it isn’t put back up, it will die some horrible teapot death. All of the denizens of the kitchen—from the dinner bell to the pie to the pot—beg the (oddly, single) ant in the kitchen to get the teapot back to the counter and repair the broken spout.

Much rhyming ensues (“I can’t bear it, said the carrot” is one that still sticks with me), and ultimately, the ant, who in
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