Tommy and the Christmas Train House

Cool story.

I got a call just before Thanksgiving from a seller who's father in law's (88yrs) (Mr 88) health was to the point that he couldn't live alone in the house and the family was looking for options and responded to my mailer. The son in law actually said that it was uncanny that the mailer came when it did as they had just talked about selling the house the day before.

My son Tommy and I went to the appointment together and after a side-trip to McDonalds for a happy meal and toy, we showed up right on time.

The nurse/caretaker took to Tommy right away and asked if she could play with him with the toy train around the tree while I toured the house. So after shaking hands with the owner, I headed off on the tour with the son in law.

About half way through the tour, the caretaker called out for the son in law to come quickly and he hustled off to help her. I was just behind him and saw that Mr 88 had slumped back into the couch and was extremely pale. She was dialing 911 when I grabbed Tommy and turned off the train controller. The son in law escorted me to the door and said that Mr 88 didn't have much time left. We chatted for a bit on the porch and I took Tommy to the car.

We could hear the siren of the ambulance as we got into the car and passed them as they came up the hill as we drove away.

As I drove away, I realized that I was the last person to shake hands with Mr 88 in this life. Kind of weird. It still seems a little surreal for me. I was a little shaken up by it. And, since I was out of the room, I hoped that Tommy hadn't gotten in the way or made any troubles.

I have been watching the paper for the last couple of days and the Obituary came out in the paper today so I called the son in law to offer condolences.

He told me the rest of the story.

Mr 88 was a bit senile and it turned out to be a bit of a Godsend that I had Tommy with me when we came to the house. See, his son had died in Viet Nam and Mr 88 was prone to having visions of his son and deceased wife.

It turned out that while I was touring the house, Mr 88 was watching Tommy and the nurse play with the Christmas train. Mr 88 was clapping and hollering for him to make it go faster! faster! and having a great time. His vision was of his son and wife playing with the train around the Christmas tree (Tommy and the nurse). He was laughing and having a good time. The nurse was watching him closely and said that he was smiling as he sat back into the couch. He sat back, sighed, got a tear in his eye and then was gone. Just like that. Total heart failure.

I got teary as the son in law told me the story. It's uncanny how things work out sometimes. I felt that it was the right thing to do, bringing Tommy to work with me that Friday. It just seemed correct. I am glad I listened to that little voice inside because it is good that my little guy could make an old man's last few minutes on the planet a little better, a little happier and a little less lonely, and I feel great about that.

Happy holidays everybody.

This life is short & we only go around once, so let's enjoy each other while we're all here.

-Taylor

Back in the Saddle

You'll remember that a year ago I put on my first CA open bid sale.

And, while it didn't go as planned (plan being that i make another sweet 5 figure paycheck,) we were able to secure a buyer for the property and I eventually got some $$ (4 figure paycheck) for my efforts.

Still a big fan of the open bid sale concept.

Another year gone and as it turns out, exactly 1 year to the weekend from my last open bid sale...

http://www.postlets.com/res/2989512

It's a nice little condo/townhome in Grover Beach with views of the Pismo Beach hills and some nice amenities.

As another little reminder of how much things can change in a year, I'm licensed and running this open bid sale as an agent! No chance of 5 fig paycheck this time, however... I am hoping to make up in volume for what each potential sale lacks in potential profit compared to an investor deal.

Lots and lots and lots going on in my little real estate world right now.

• I've started a consulting project for a company that works with real estate investors as a success advisor, which allows me to spend more time at home and less weekend nights working at the restaurant (which is nice.)

• Plus, I have two buyers in escrow and the condo listing. Not bad.

• I just finished a submission for a free quarterly newspaper that will be mailed out to every household in town in about 3 weeks. Should be a nice little promo piece.

• I partnered with one of my investment property buyers in Virginia Beach (she bought Jeanne St in VB. Remember that one from May 08?), and we are going to update and re-vamp 11daysale.com and 11daysale.net. She'll help build the site and we'll both submit 'free special reports' and videos. And, if leads come in from different areas in the country, I'll be able to use my connections from my RE consulting gig to get them taken care of and hopefully make a little referral $$.

California fall weather is just spectacular and we are LOVING it here. Thanks to my wife's family for support on that one. I will say that it is truly refreshing to have your in-laws be your biggest fan/support. Not everybody can say that.

I hope to post more often, but as you can imagine, my days are full and I love being busy.

Pray for a quick sale and 2 quick escrows!

More next week.

All the best,
Taylor

Buying REO's - Market for the Insane

First off, thanks to TampaSteph and also Shae for the following video.

Are you thinking about getting into the REO market? Maybe you don't like dealing directly with homeowners and think that it would be much easier to buy directly from banks?

It isn't my favorite method of doing real estate, and the following video has a familiar ring to it if you've ever dealt with a bank 0wned or short-sale property.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM7oWKgCVo4&feature=player_embedded

Enjoy & good luck with your own REO adventures...

Blog Post #100! Hawaii in 2009

I've got a lot of things going in real estate land, but first,

Thanks to everyone that made my most recent trip to Hawaii possible!
My brother got married Saturday and his bride is from Japan, so the most convenient place for everyone to meet was... Hawaii!! So we took the kids out of school for 4 days and flew to Oahu.







4 Days in Oahu/Waikiki for sun, sand, surf and crowds.














I took my oldest son (13) surfing at Canoes/Waikiki (which, incidentally was the same place I learned how to surf @ age 14.) It was a very rewarding experience

North Shore on Friday and the quality of surfing literally blew my mind. In fact, the sheer number of great surf spots and corresponding high quality surfing re-adjusted my surf quality meter. Here's my surf confession: I'm a chump and my spots here in CA are crap. I admit it. Hawaii kicks serious surf booty.
Beautiful sunsets,













Awesome views,













And Delicious Food. (We ate the whole thing already?!)

Sales Mastery Resource: Option ARM Reset Schedule Update

I subscribe to Clusterstock.com and their 'chart of the day. I've been sharing a similar chart with sellers from Deutsch Bank that shows a wave of resets hitting in 09-11. Looks like banks have updated their plans and extended the pain out for a few more years...

Here's what Clusterstock says of their chart:

CHART OF THE DAY: The Option ARM Armageddon

John Carney and Kamelia Angelova|Sep. 21, 2009, 6:04 PM |

Tags: Chart Of The Day, Mortgages

"The Option Arm Armageddon was supposed to strike in the spring of 2009. Across the country, option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) were set to detonate and start a new wave of foreclosures.

But it never happened. We made it well past when this chart from Credit Suisse showed the option ARMs were supposed to begin to hit. And the crisis didn't come.

Why not? Well, when interest rates dropped to historically low levels as the Fed fought the financial crisis, the wave of resets was held off. Unfortunately, low interest rates won't last forever -- they'll now likely strike next year and continue well into 2011. Many borrowers who now have the option of making payments so low that they don't even cover the interest are seeing their original loan balance grow, even as their home values continue to fall or remain flat.

The chart below shows that the option ARM reset problem is comparable to the subprime problem, and will likely last for quite some time. Armageddon may have been forestalled but it hasn't been overcome."

So what does this have to do with Sales Mastery? Well, one of our main tenets is: Foreclosures up=Inventory up=Prices DOWN.

Sellers need to know this info so they can plan what the best move is for them. Sitting tight? Better have a comfy seat... This looks like the best time to sell for the next few years...

Subscribe to the Chart of the Day.

Cheers,

Taylor

Resiliance

Funny story.

You know I work as a waiter at a local italian restaurant a few nights a week to keep cash coming in (and also pick up a few real estate leads...)

Last night was excruciatingly slow so I was excited when a table of 9 got sat in my section. I was out on the patio so any night mid-week is a total crap shoot when it comes to getting tables.

I got a drink order and loaded up the largest cocktail tray we had with 3 cokes, 2 iced teas, 2 pints and a lemonade. I didn't have room for the raspberry martini so i decided to hand-carry it with my right hand and deliver that drink first when I got to the table.

I approached the table and went to set down his raspberry-tini, saying, "here's your raspberry-tini sir..."

He says to me, "no, I ordered raspberry tea."

Whoops. No big deal. In fact, I had an extra tea on my tray so that would work out fine. (Internal dialogue: now what to do with this drink in my hand so I can unload this heavy tray of drinks?)

So I stopped setting down his drink and stood back up, moving my right hand slowly so as to not spill the fruity martini. All my focus was on the martini. I was rolling through the possible temporary resting sites for the drink so I could unload the tray in my left hand.

At this point, my left arm (unbeknown to me) was reaching its limit with the super-loaded tray and made just a slight twitch. First drink to go was one of the 3 cokes. It rolled off the tray and I laser-tracked it with my eyes and caught it between my knees as it fell. Amazingly... Whew!

Martini? check
Glass between the knees? check
Tray on left? . . .

It was all super-slow-motion from here on, but as I stood next to my table of 9, in the doorway by the bar, I and the rest of the people on the patio and those within sight-line from the bar, watched as one by one, the drinks toppled off my tray and into my lap. (remember, i'm squatting, ever-so-slightly due to the drink between my knees...)

Seriously, I'm standing with a cocktail in my right hand and a soda glass between my knees. What the heck could I do at this point? NADA...

As I watched the beers begin to topple, I reflexively made a "cover the ball" motion to keep my patrons from getting soaked and collapsed the entire tray into my body.

Only 2 glasses broke! And, I still had a full martini in my right hand as everything came to a stop.

Soaked to the bone, and embarrassed as I could be, I smiled and curtsey'd to the clapping guys in the bar, and started cleaning up broken glass.

My shoes were squishing with beer and soda all night.

And to top it all off, the table shorted the payment on their bill and I had to use the gratuity to pay the remaining bill! I made $6.37 on the table.

Smile and move on... Prove how resiliant you can be.

:)
Taylor

Seller Motivation Theory 1.0

The real challenge these days is seller motivation. I'm developing a theory and watching the market and am getting more firm on my idea, but here's what I have so far...

Seller Motivation Theory ver 1.0
In every market you have a range of motivation. Try to draw a mental picture with it as a pendulum where the far left represents very low motivation to sell and the far right represents virtual desperation to sell. The left half of the pendulum are those with internal motivation to sell. As the pendulum swings up to the right, external motivators come into play (foreclosure, job change/transfer etc...) and add to the motivation level.

As investors, especially in the recent past, merely talking to motivated sellers was the key to success.

The Success Equation went like this:

• Get your mailer/postcard/letter/advertising/yard sign in front of enough motivated people and you were bound to buy/wholesale/flip some houses.
  
• And assuming you could estimate repairs with moderate accuracy and perform basic math in the MAO* (*MAO= Maximum Allowable Offer. MAO=(After Repaired Value x 65%)-repairs-profit) calculation, you would make money.

Late night infomercials and internet real estate gurus sold (and continue to sell) the idea of making money this way.

But... remember that as investors, we need EQUITY to be able to get involved and make money. So, with the relatively quick run-up of home prices from 2001-2006, the moderate-strongly motivated real estate owners had equity to spare and due to their motivating circumstances, were willing to part with a portion of that equity for a quick sale and all the other benefits that we, as investors, could provide.

The true challenge in a declining market is to take those folks on the left half of the motivation pendulum, those with less urgency/motivation, but who have equity and get past the financial motivation to the real reason for selling. It takes time and some real finesse to pull off these types of deals (I've learned this the hard way...)

Downward moving markets strip equity out of many motivated seller deals and traditional investor strategies quickly become out-dated (since most investor pricing models require at least 35% equity to even get started...). Leaving Short-sales, REO's and high equity deals as the remaining ways to make any money as an investor.

But that's another post all together.

Nice to have you stop by. I've missed posting my happenings. Lots of things going on, I'll have to post again this week and we'll get caught up then...

Cheers,
Taylor

A Birthday Gift for My Bride

My lovely bride's birthday is this week. (Happy birthday honey!) The top thing on her birthday list is for yours truly to get his Real Estate License so we can get on with making some money already!

I log on to the DRE website every day to check my license status...

Nothing.

So, with a little coaxing via phone this morning, I was able to get someone to pull my file and see that everything they needed was in the file, fingerprints done, fees paid, test passed, proof of citizenship, yadda, yadda, yadda... and that in fact they were ready to issue the license. Her words were "it should post today prior to 5pm mr Taylor."

As of 2pm... no license.
As of 3pm... no license.
As of 4:09pm... bing!












Happy birthday baby, we're back in business.

More tomorrow!
-Taylor

Hey Bro, Where You Been?

Workin' man, workin'...

Holy Crap it takes the state of CA a long time to process paperwork! I finished my pre-licensing classes in record time (2 weeks ahead of schedule) and submitted my paperwork the week of May 16th and didn't hear from the Dept of Real Estate for over 5 weeks! I got the go-ahead (login/password) to schedule my agent exam a few days ago and I am all set to take the exam this Thursday (July 1) in LA. Wish me luck!

In addition to studying real estate and waiting tables, I have spent time organizing my leads and sending out follow up notes to everyone. The phone is ringing and I should have some seller appointments next week. Nice...

Once I get this exam out of the way I am set up to work as an agent for a local RE broker and will be calling my seller leads to test for motivation to sell either to me as an investor or with me as a realtor. I am getting tired of not making $$ and need to get my life moving forward again. We've learned a lot in the last year, but that's a topic for another post.

Keep me in mind on Thursday!
Cheers!
-Taylor

100M here... 100M there... Soon You're Talking Real Money

Unreal.

I thought $100M was a lot of money. Watch this and learn...





Oh, and just for good measure, check this out. (big shout out to my family in Richmond VA!)


174mph, but what's the MPG of the vehicle? Environmentalists want to know...

On the real estate front, I've been doing lots of substitute teaching and waiting tables and studying like a maniac for the CA real estate exam. Just waiting for the state to approve my application and give me a test date.

More follow up calls this week.

Enjoy Memorial Day! Thanks to all the soldiers out there! I am enjoying my freedom thanks to you!

-Taylor

I'm not this crazy, but it's still amazing stuff.

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

More real estate to come.

-Taylor

Strategy Adjustments

Well, I just rolled past the one year point as a corporation. Which is good. What a crazy year it has been too. Things really seemed to be trucking along there in June/July last year, then slowed down as 08 came to a close.

With the changes in the market, I have been forced to take a hard look at what is working and what is not working.

Based on the last deals I have done, PROBATE is working... There is equity AND motivation (which are the key elements in this investing game.)

While Free and Clear/High equity mailers get lots of calls, the appointments haven't been as frequent and the resulting deals have been non-existant in the last 6 months.


Absentee owners/landlord mailers also generate lots of calls, but in this crazy market, there is just too big of a gap from where I need to be and the lowest they will take. I can't justify the expense when I'm not sure I'll be able to convert the calls to cash $$$...

So...

1. I'm putting the mass mailers on hold. Going back to the old-school. Probate mail and knocking doors...

2. Continuing my Probate method of gathering info at the courthouse each month, mailing a nice letter and now, (2b.) adding a follow up component by designing an executor follow up post card.

3. Door knocking motivated lists. I have a researcher knocking expired listings for me right now and am going to have him add probates to the list. We knocked 7 doors the other night (expired listings) and bumped into a probate executor and I was able to schedule an appointment for the following week. Quick results and little cash outlay. (gas money.)

4. Get licensed. I have heard/read many conflicting opinions about whether or not to get my RE license, but I was successful finding buyers for that property that went into short-sale and have so many potential listings and short sale leads, I can no longer keep giving the business away as referrals to my agent. I need the income and love the thought of keeping myself in the RE game during this market downturn.

We're making the same changes in Virginia as well, with emphasis on follow up with current leads and continuing to mail probates.

It's baby steps at this point, returning to the things that originally brought in dollars for the dollars spent and on making money through the market change so that when the shift comes I can be ready to jump and make cash again.

Keep watching.

-Taylor

Buy at the Peak, Sell on the Way Down...

I'm making follow up calls (18 so far) this evening and just had a nutty call that I had to get online.

Here's the stats:
She bought for $397,500 in 12/05. Which was about 4 months prior to the peak of the biggest peak in american housing. Full retail at the peak of all peaks.

She has rec'd my mailer once every 3 months and called to see if she could get out of her house with a little profit.
Wouldn't tell me what she thought it was worth. (I had 3 websites open looking at current value...)
Wouldn't tell me what she owed.(can pull all that from county records in about 5 mins.)
Didn't want to meet. (I can't help those that don't want help.)

So, in the end I told her that Zillow.com and Realquest.com both showed a value for her place at $297 in today's market, would that number be in the ballpark?

Heavens no. I wouldn't sell for a penny less than $450k.

Hope you have a couple decades to wait my dear.

It's gonna be a while.

Here's the foreclosures around her house.


Ok, thanks. I feel much better now.

Back to the phone...
-Taylor

More Core Identity Thoughts

I've had 2 meetings with sellers this week that have been frustrating to me.

• Both were single women with houses they needed to sell.
  
• They needed to sell for as much as possible, as fast as possible.
• In the end they individually gave me the same 'i want to think about it because you're numbers are too low' as a reason to leave the meeting without a contract or a return appointment.

• One has listed with a realtor and I expect the one from today to list with a realtor

It is super frustrating for me (ergo another 1am blog post) because I know that what I have represents the best possible chance for these sellers to get what they want/need, which is a. quick sale, b. Cash c. Cash that meets or exceeds what they would likely net from a retail sale.

But something must be missing. I may be too logical in my presentation/meeting with them. Maybe I don't build enough rapport, find out what their hot buttons are, paint them in to their pleasurable future...

I have mentioned Frank Kern before, but I don't think I've linked any of his video to my blog. Check it out. It is an interesting premise to approach business/sales from such a 'touchy-feely' kind of place, but it resonates with me and my best meetings have followed a similar path.

Enjoy and tell me what you think...
-Taylor


this guy was cool too. Absolute Congruence.

Oh NO! The Obamanator attacks!

By RICHARD ROHL, Published: March 31, 2009

"WASHINGTON -- At the protest of "vulture" investors,

President Obama will sign legislation tomorrow reversing all

private transfers of property by homeowners in default.

This provision of the "Community Risk Abatement Plan," a

recent addition to the stimulus package in consideration. It

will require the owners of all property acquired in the last

two years from sellers where were behind on mortgage or

tax payments to be returned to the previous owners within

121 days."

Good thing for me that I don't deal in foreclosures.

-Taylor

I love surfing.

I really love it. Once this little business gets going I'm going to surf more. And stand-up-paddle surfing? I'm sooo going to get one of these boards. It can be completely flat and you're having a good time. Plus, my 12 year old (who has never wanted to surf) wants to get out there with me on one, so it's got to be cool right?

Enjoy-
Taylor


Find more videos like this on Stand Up Paddle Surfing

More Good Stuff for all the Sales Mastery Folks

Ok, enough politics and education. How about something you can use with sellers?

Here you go.

In my Virginia Beach office and here in CA, we have a number of people trying to sell their vacation/get-away homes. The most common response to my offers is 'I'll wait it out' or the oh-so-common 'I don't really need to sell...' which are both lies, but we won't get into that today...

What you need to bring them back to planet earth, USA is some proof.

Supply is up. Funding is down. Competition from Banks, Foreclosures and Builders are all up. What does that lead to? Price Drop! (cue the disco ball and police lights/siren) That's right kids, a price drop. And when you start lower, you can end lower. Buying low is what we like. Starting lower makes it easy.

So here's the bullet points from today's article:

• The vacation home market was driven by the availability of debt (money.)
• With the absence of mortgages for primary homes, secondary home loans are even less likely.
  
• Vacation home sales dropped 31% over all and the median dropped 23%

I can make it all go away, right here, right now. All I need is your OK right here and I'll get to work putting the financing together.

Go team!
-Tayor

Farewell to File Front... :(

I'm sad today. My favorite free online storage site is shutting down. Wot, wah...

Since I have contacts all over the country, I used filefront to share large documents and training videos (hi Shay!). It worked awesome and I'm looking for another site to replace it.

So... If you know of a good/great, free, non-Microsoft website out there that would be good for me to post files and have them retrieved by my 'people'... PLEASE let me know.

by the way, thanks for stopping by. I got a report the other day that my blog has 10% of all the blog traffic in San Luis Obispo County. 10%? wow.

Now leave a comment!

-Taylor

It All Makes Sense Now

Sit the Family down and have them watch this one...



The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Here's a print version of the same...











And Another...












-Taylor

Where should I mail your check?

I just got 'the call' from my title company that my check for the Larkfield Place deal will be ready at noon. Whew!

Just for reference, here's the time line...

• Feb 18th - Seller calls my info-line at 8:56am and listens for 10mins, 55 sec and hangs up.

• Feb 18th - 2pm I call to follow up on the call. He states that he's interested in what I've got going and would like to sell quickly and discretely. He liked my postcard and likes that he wouldn't need to do any of the fix up on his place. Set appointment for the following Tuesday 2/24. (I should have gotten up there sooner, but had sub teaching jobs to do and Tues was the soonest I could get there.)

• Feb 24 11:30 - Met with seller. 3 hour appointment went great and I ended up with my lowest, all cash offer being acceptable to him. Planned to close within 30 days.
• Feb 24 - Listed house on Craigslist, 11daysale.com, 11dayproperties.com. Cautious optimism...
• Feb 25 - Called previous interested buyers' list from Stoney Creek auction back in November. Had 2 cash buyers interested. One of them told a friend about he place and he drove by. Also started escrow on the 25th.
  
• Mar 4th - Signed assignment contract for $12,000 with investor who plans on flipping the property in 90 days so we can sell to an FHA buyer (seasoning of 90 days required.)
• Mar 13th - Funding in and ready to close. Seller asked to postpone signing so he didn't have to sign on Friday the 13th. Signing set for Monday.
• Mar 16th - Seller, buyer signed docs. Check from bank cashed. Closed and done.
• Mar 18th - Check ready!

Let's see, how many days was that? 22 days right? Now, it's not like I haven't worked my butt off for that money, but it sure is sweet to get 5 figure paychecks... I love every one of them.

Best of all, I proved that
THIS CAN BE DONE IN CALIFORNIA!

• IN THIS MARKET!
  
• IN A COASTAL COUNTY!
• IN LESS THAN A MONTH!

It's all about motivation and persistance. Seller motivation and investor persistance.

I'm hoping to surf this afternoon to celebrate. Ahhh...

Now on to the next one!
-Taylor

The Competition...

In any market, it is important (vital) to understand who your competition is; nothing new, right?

There are 4 key groups in competition to sell homes in any market.

1. Builders - generally the first to respond to upswings or downturns in the market. If a builder pays close attention to the traffic through model homes and the number of new contracts, they will undoubtably have a jump on the competition. Builders are generally very motivated sellers because they have to make huge payments on their construction loans everymonth and unsold inventory is lost $$ every month. They can get crazy with promotions (cars, TV's, free upgrades, interior design consultations, free pool, etc...)
2. Foreclosures- In this market, FC's make up a smaller part of the pool of actual sales. With so many homes under water, a head's up seller headed to FC will most likely sell via Short-Sale which is technically a Bank-Owned property since it is the bank that negotiates with the new buyer. In past markets, FC's with equity were motivated to sell quickly so they could get cash, save their credit and get on with life. Now, a FC is just a Bank Owned property(REO) waiting to happen.
3. REO's - King Krusher of the real estate market right now. In CA, 48% of all real estate sales are REO's. Depending on where in CA we're talking about, banks are taking up to 90% discounts on houses right now. !90%! (check this blog out.) Banks tend to play hardball initially, but it is well known that when push comes to shove, meaning when regulators show up and tell them to sell underperforming assets, the bank will cave and take big discounts to get the inventory off the books.
   
4. Owners- Owner to owner sales are at an all-time low in CA right now. Less than 30% of all sales are owner to owner. Homeowners are looking back 2-3 years and calculating the current price as a loss, and anyone making offers is likely to be looking 2-3 years into the future when prices have a chance to level off. This creates a big gap in the List/asking price to Offer price that most homeowners won't/can't accept. "I'll just wait it out." is one of the most common phrases I hear right now.
5. Investors -Technically there is a 5th category of seller, the investor. Many investors look like homeowners when it comes to selling a property. Buy low and try like hell to sell high. A perfect example of the 'Greater Fool Theory.' Find a fool greater than yourself to buy it from you and you're all set. I've had much better success at buying low and selling medium. Leaving a little meat on the bone for the next guy is the best way for me to make money over the long haul.
   

Use this in your discussion with sellers. Competition is critical to any transaction and I don't think sellers are getting any of the 'straight dope' anywhere in the media.

Here's an article for you to use to illustrate the competition between FC's and Builders. Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2009.

Go get em!
-Taylor

Another Business Venture?

When 11 Day Sale gets going strong I may start a business like this with one of my out of work contractor friends. It would be a good way to connect with REO agents and banks. Buy them, clean them out and re-sell. Or, just get paid to clean them out. Make money on both ends right?

Cheers,
Taylor

SOLD!

SOLD!
Just got a call from my investor buyer a few minutes ago and he's ready to move on Larkfield Pl! It took a week to get a buyer. Not bad considering that I only had a buyers' list of about 10 people last week. (I'm up to 20+ now) And, this buyer wants to do one deal a month once we get this one sold for retail.

Do we Love it? Yes we do!

I have a nice 5 figure paycheck coming when we close next week (gotta love a quick cash sale...)

But that's not all!

He wants to use my 11 Day Sale to sell the property to a retail buyer once we get the property cleaned up a little! I'm going to do it for a flat fee of $8500 so that puts me near 20k on this one wholesale deal! Woo hoo!

Gotta run! I've got a free and clear seller that wants to meet with me to-day. He has called twice to make sure I'm coming. Motivated? I think so.

We're off & running!

Cheers,
Taylor

I love this baby.

What do I think of the economy in 2008? blech...

Funny stuff. I hope you chuckle at this one.



Cheers,
Taylor

California Contract A First For 2009

FINALLY!

Picked up my first contract in what seems like years! Whew! It's a great house in a great neighborhood in Paso Robles.
Here's the stats:
4BR,
3Bth,
1900 sq ft,
Built 1995.
It's a single story classic CA home... stucco with a tile roof.
Estimated retail is $420k and I picked it up below $300k. Not a bad deal right? We'll see how fast it gets snapped up in this market. The better the deal, the quicker it'll go... I should be able to pay a couple bills with this one.

It is in immaculate condition and I was able to pick it up at a pretty good price. Now it comes down to finding my buyer.

It's going up on my website tonight! www.11daysale.com. I've also started a blog at www.11dayproperties.com. Be sure to get on my mailing list to be notified of upcoming deals as the blog is updated.

Go team!-
Taylor

Check it out!
=Taylor

Back in the Wholesaling Game - CA

I got a call last night from the only other real estate wholesaler I know in this area. He has stumbled upon a nice strategy for picking up REO(bank owned) properties. He has gotten in with the code enforcement office in one of the cities we work in and got leads for 4 bank-owned properties last week. Apparently, when there are code violations on a house, the banks will take even greater discounts because of the limited pool of buyers and the added expense of continual fines from the city.

He called me to see how I was coming along building my buyers' list and to see if I was interested in finding a buyers for these properties. Yep, I'm interested.

This guy has access to millions of hard-money through some he's part of. He is also a licensed contractor. So he makes offers to the bank with his lic'd contractor estimate of repairs and copies of the city ordinance violations and estimated compliance costs and plans on having his agent friend make repeated offers to the banks and over time wear them down to the price-range where they will cash flow. Cash flow properties in California... Who would have thought we'd ever see that!?

Our plan is for him to get these under contract and put together an estimate of repairs (he is a licensed contractor.) I will have a chance to wholesale them on my websites and send out to my buyers list.

It could be a great thing for me to get back on the wholesaling train again. One thing that wholesale deals do is keep you motivated and moving forward quickly every day. It's like the slot machine approach to real estate investing. Lots of wins, lots of clanging and flashing lights (in a manner of speaking,) but smaller payoffs, and not much wealth building.

At this point though, it's all about the cash flow. I need to keep the machine going if we hope to do any of that wealth-building stuff.

Keep your fingers crossed!
-Taylor

Fine Tuning Your Conversations- Intro to Core Influence

It is interesting how information comes to you when you are ready for it.

Earlier this week I registered for a free call with Gary Boomershine over at Sales Team Live. He puts on a free monthly call and Feb's call was on talking with sellers. (Link to call here.) I wasn't expecting anything groundbreaking and actually just logged into the call intending to listen for a few minutes before breaking for dinner with the family.

It was some pretty philosophical stuff and I'm sure some of the call-in attendees missed the potential in the content, but it hit me right between the eyes. I tracked down more of the info from one of the authors he mentioned on the call (Frank Kern, internet marketing genius) about the core influence methods.

In sales, we all operate at two levels of influence.

1. Our Shell Influence: scripting, sales/work procerdure.
   
2. And our Core Influence: Frank’s explanation for how to truly connect with your constituents - your customers and potential customers. It’s about understanding their needs and wants and the emotions driving their decision making process. You must be congruent with your motivation for doing something - for selling something to your customers - in order to truly connect with them. Once you get congruency of purpose and you know what you want, then you can find the type of customer and determine the type of relationship you want to have with them.

I spent a lot of time at the Roop Doran bootcamp tracking down successful real estate investors and getting them to open up about how they talk with sellers, how they get past some of the hurdles I have been dealing with in my business. There was a consistent pattern that each would go through.

• Struggle on their own for a while, then create a basic script for talking to sellers.
• Most found their way to a sales mastery type of script that they memorized.
• Next was a stage where they got comfortable enough with the script where it actually became part of them and their personality was able to come through in client meetings. This is the level where your core influence can come through. It is here where your ability to create transactions can meet up with sellers' needs.
• The next step is getting better and better at helping sellers determine what their true needs are and creating solutions that get them away from their pain/problem and into the pleasure of what they want to go to next.
  

It caught me by surprise since I wasn't expecting much more than a few scripts or ideas I could use to improve my phone and in person discussions with sellers. What I got was a conceptual shift in how I need to approach client meetings.

More on Frank's info in the next post.

Lots of good stuff coming up this week.

-Taylor

Heaven Help Our Future...

Transparency? What?

Let the people decide? Who?

You're all fired.

What a waste of current and future dollars. Trillions taken from our future economy to bail out our bloated auto industry, banks and any other industry or tycoon with their hand out. Makes me SICK.

Screw you guys, I'm going home.

Cal Poly Student Housing - SLO Hood?

San Luis Obispo and Hood don't normally go together. Actually, the closest thing you'll see in SLO to a 'hood' is college housing.

I got a call from an Asian gentleman this morning in the SF Bay Area about the house he bought when his son started college 8 years ago. Now that he has graduated, dad wants the kid to cut the freeloading and move out already... Dad says to "drive by the house and send me what your offer would be. I'll think about it."

Check out the house.

Here's the numbers.
Zillow says $553-590k
Cyberhomes: $495k
Realquest: $584k

The house needs:
Exterior paint
Roof update
Upstairs balcony repaired (hammered. dry rot, leaning to the ground.)
New windows throughout
Interior paint (guessing here, but with college students in there for 8 years?... plan on it.)
Interior flooring - carpet likely to need replacing.
Ceiling scraped (likely cottage cheese ceiling.)
Bathrooms redone (again, with the college students & 8 yrs...)

My likely offer is going to be in the $408 range for an 11 Day Sale auction and would be even lower for a wholesale deal. Since he owes $400k, I'm not likely to get my wholesale offer accepted, but I'll throw it out there just in case he wants to bring $$ to closing.

Walking distance to Cal Poly and a retail value just a hair under $600k. Unreal.

Some Interesting Opinions

A California Deal? The Columbia Lady

I've been mailing to probates, out of town owners (mostly landlords,) and free and clear property owners here in California since Oct 2008. I've had hundreds calls to my info line, had hundreds of conversations on the phone and had 30 meetings with sellers over the last 4 months.

Columbia Lady
One of these is a nice little lady who is 79, living in Orcutt, CA. She has her heart set on a specific price that is actually a little above market value right now.
When I met with her in November, we worked out a plan for me to buy her house on terms, that is, make payments to her over time, that would allow me to pay her the price she wanted for the house. I didn't get her to sign that day because she had to wait and talk to her brother in Columbia. She is moving to Columbia to be with her brother and his daughters so they can take care of her as she gets older. She also wants to die in her home-land. Our initial meeting was on a Wednesday & we agreed to meet up on Monday at her house to sign the papers and get started.

The Friend.
Over the weekend she was able to talk to her brother, but also a couple of friends, people from church and a realtor who told her that she couldn't sell her house like that and they were sure it was a rip-off. When I showed up Monday she had a friend come to the door to basically run interference for her. The deal was on hold.

International Politics.
I called mid December and she still wanted to sell me the house, but the political situation in Columbia was not good and her brother said to wait. She also mentioned that since deciding to sell her house and move away, people from church and the neighborhood were coming around all the time. She never knew she had so many friends!

I called mid January and she was planning on waiting until later in the year...

Houston, We are Go...
Then, out of the blue she called last Wednesday when I was in Orlando at the RoopDoran high equity training seminar and said that she was ready to sell me the house! Great!
The price was good, terms were good and she was ready to move to Columbia. We set a meeting for Tuesday (yesterday,) to meet. Another weekend in between...

Return of The Friend.
She talked to the 'friend' again and when I called yesterday she wanted to wait and meet on Thursday and maybe this 'friend' could come to the meeting too... Sure, I thought, anything to get this deal moving forward again...

So, tomorrow is the day for the next follow up. I doubt the friend will sit down and talk with us anyway. I'm just going to remind her that the plan we put together fixes her problem and let her decide when she wants to move forward. I've already burned up a lot of time on this deal anyway.

What have I learned, you ask? Good question.

• Get them to sign. Even getting an option at full retail would be better than getting nothing signed at all. Get it signed and amend it later.
  
• Tap into the emotions, the non-financial reason for wanting to sell. The only reason I am still talking to her is that she knows I understand her problem and she knows I can fix it. Otherwise, she wouldn't be calling.
  
• Be active enough that each single deal isn't the make-or-break deal. I did this in VA too. I'd get a deal in the hopper and burn it up with laser focus. All my energy and attention was on that deal. Anything to move it forward. Like a kid with a magnifying glass, burning ants on the sidewalk. Ease up a little there Tiger... Remember the 40 other deals on your desk? Work them all and see which one bubbles to the top tomorrow...
  

More deals this week, but pray for this one anyway. Columbia Lady needs me to fix this problem for her. And I could use the money.

Cheers!
Taylor

Looking Back a Little

The Dec 08 CA notice of default report was just released and it made me really mad about the banks that got us into this spot to begin with. If you listen to the media a lot, you might notice that the banks are trying to push the responsibility of this downturn on Fannie/Freddie/congress etc...

As I sat fuming I thought of a youtube video that I saw last year from Mr Mortgage. You might want to check this out. 100%LTV loans, stated income, stated employment with a 680 credit score. Lehman deserved to fold. Rediculously irresponsible programs that got worse/more aggressive each year. Watch the video. It's just rediculous. The Video was recorded in April 08. We're up to 320 lenders that have imploded at this point. Chase Prime being number 315 (I used to have a mortgage with Chase...) check out www.ml-implode.com to see the list of imploded lenders.

Good n Bad

Good news! After a year of reminding people about my website being www.11daysale.net (I'd say .net twice), my dream of commandeering the 11daysale.com domain came to fruition!

Yay! www.11daysale.com is now mine! It was previously occupied by a realtor in Texas who abandoned the domain on 1/1/09. A friend of mine emailed me today and I was able to get my web providor to lock it up and it links to my existing website. YAY!

Bad news? We're still, no, STILL waiting for financing and seller sign-off on the offer we rec'd on 500 B St in Chesapeake, VA. Holy crap! This is taking For-Ev-er... We picked up this option back in October, got an offer for 140k and it fell out of contract when the buyer started making demands for seller concessions... (what part of As-Is sale is hard to understand?) So, after two weeks of breathing easy, thinking it was going to close, we were back into heavy marketing mode.

The entire banking industry collapsed.

We held an open house. Nada.

Dec 13th we held an impromptu 11 Day Sale and got 3 bids. 100k, 98k and 90k. Holy Schmoly. What a difference 6 weeks makes!

Turns out the buyer should have considered those concessions a little harder.

So, we're waiting for the 100,000 dollar man to come up with financing and trying to re-negotiate our option with the seller to create enough room to get paid so we can move on to the next deal.

There will be a next deal. Soon.

Bank execs need your help...

Thanks Kirk! Hilarious clip.

What I've been up to for the last week.

http://www.youtube.com/user/11daysale



I don't sleep much these days, so I have lots of time on my hands. I decided to make a couple of videos to help my staff & future staff do the work that I am now doing.

Use the web- It's easy & free.

Let me know what you think.

-Taylor

New year, new month, etc...

It's goal season. End of a year, all that stuff. I'm pretty well on a track with my goal review from October so I haven't done much in the way of resolutions.

I do need to eat better and continue with my exercise plan this year.

I did make a review of my results from December. I am a big fan of charts and graphs so in Oct, when I realized that I had no idea how many calls were coming in, # of calls out, # of appointments etc, I decided to build myself a real sweet chart to collect all my data.


So...
DECEMBER 2008 DATA

• I sent out 2800 mailers in Dec,
• got 185 inbound calls to my real estate info line.
• I made 107 outbound follow up calls
• and was able to contact 67 sellers.
• Scheduled 17 appointments
• and went on 10.
• Made 11 offers.
• Ended up with 0 contracts
• and made $0 for the month.

I do have a short-sale in the works and 2 offers on a property in VA that we have on option contract, so Jan could be a money month if all goes well.

I had LOTS of people push everything off until after the holidays, so my stack of follow up files is huge. I probably have 60 follow up calls to make this week. Busy, busy...

It was a year ago that I got laid off for hunting for another job and started this whole real estate venture in a real way. It was a heck of a year and I honestly hoped for better, but things being what they are, I feel fortunate to have the 2 part time jobs I've got and this little business to keep me going every day.

Here's to a more lucrative & less hair-raising 2009!

Cheers,
Taylor