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Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. - Robert Collier
Vol 7, No.6 - June 2011 The Monthly Newsletter for Inner Circle Members
just closed on my first multi-family property and I was scared and relieved! It had taken me nine months to pull the trigger on that first deal. A lot of fear and trepidation was involved. The economy wasnt great, real estate prices were at an all time low in the New England states, crime rates were up, foreclosures were everywhere, there was an ad in the Boston Herald newspaper that said Buy a multi-family property, get one free! Boarded up properties littered the streets of most of the cities.
Manufacturing jobs had moved oversees, the three and four family properties that housed the workers were left standing idle, ghosts of days gone by. Nobody in their right mind was investing in real estate back then. People had lost their shirts in the last downturn. The headlines in the media still talked about the struggle the real estate market was going through. I was introduced to real estate by a friend who had some money. He said, Dave we can buy properties in Brockton for less than they can build them. Ill put the money up, you do the work.
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Since I had no money at the time and was looking to create a better life for myself, I thought this was a great idea. My job was to find them and he would finance them. I went to the bookstore, Amazon wasnt around back then.neither was the internet, and bought all the real estate books I could find. My friend wanted to focus on multi-family properties because they cash flowed and the tenants would pay off the buildings for us. That sounded good to me! The bookstores had nothing on multifamily properties but had a couple of good books on single family investing. So I learned what I could in hopes that I could use those skills for multi-family investing. I learned about real estate investment groups. People with the same interest, getting together to learn how to invest in real estate. I started attending the monthly meetings. I was happy to see people in those meetings who looked just like me and some were just as broke as me, who were going out there and buying and selling real estate. This gave me a lot of confidence. I figured if they could do it, then I could do it too. There were a few people in the group who seemed to be admired by all. They had been in the business a while, they had been buying and selling a lot of properties and the rumors were. they were rich! I decided I would befriend these people
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and see if I could get some good information, some shortcuts to success. To my surprise, they were very open and giving. They took time to have lunch with me, talk with me after the meetings and analyze deals for me. I didnt realize it at the time but I was getting a stable of mentors in my life. Through out this process, the one thing they couldnt help me with was my fear of doing my first deal. It took me a full nine months to pull the trigger on that first deal. First of all, I wanted to make sure I had the right deal for my friend to put his money into...analysis paralysis. Secondly, I was bird dogging deals for other investors and making two to four thousand dollars each time I found a good one. That was a lot of money back then! My first deal came to me when I was asked to give a bank an estimate for repairs for this three family property that had four bedrooms on each floor. The property was in pretty good shape and I knew the more bedrooms you have, the more cash flow you are going to get. I told one of my key investors about it, he was interested and told me he would put in an offer.three weeks later, he still hadnt put an offer in and the property was still on the market. So, I told another investor about the deal. He really liked it but he got too busy to put an offer in too.
781.878.7114
Daniel Carter
Recent IRS Change May Put Thousands Back into Your Pockets! By Amanda Han
you may already know, real estate is one of the few investment vehicles which allow a taxpayer to receive monthly cash flow and appreciation while claiming a tax loss on that same investment. As real estate investors, most of you may already be familiar with the various tax benefits you may be able to take advantage of under the depreciation rules allowable by the IRS. Although the tax benefits of real estate investing are great, there are some limitations to taking real estate losses on your tax returns. Generally, an individual can deduct up to $25,000 of rental real estate losses per year on their tax return to offset against all their other income. However, if their overall rental real estate losses exceed the $25,000 limitation, additional losses may be limited and can only be carried forward to be used in future years. In addition to that rule, once a taxpayers adjusted gross income for the year is above $100,000, then that $25,000 real estate tax deduction starts to get limited. For taxpayers whose income is above $150,000, they are generally not able to take a tax deduction for rental real estate losses at all. Before you get too discouraged, there is a loophole: If an individual qualifies as a real estate professional under the eyes of the IRS, the limitation of an investors ability to utilize real estate losses to offset other taxable income is eliminated. As such, if you or your spouse qualifies as a real estate professional, then you would be able to take an unlimited amount of tax losses on your real estate
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investment regardless of your income level. To give you an idea of how powerful this concept is, let me give you an example of a common scenario. John Doe is an attorney who makes around $180k per year. He and his wife own a couple of apartment buildings that generated cash flow of $50k per year. For tax purposes, the depreciation benefits of the apartment result in a tax loss of $50k per year for John and his wife. Without qualifying as a real estate professional, John is unable to benefit from the real estate tax loss of $50k this year. As such, he pays taxes at 25% resulting in a $45k tax payment to the IRS. However, if John or his wife were able to qualify as a real estate professional, then he would have been able to offset the $180k of income he earned with the $50k of real estate losses from his apartment investment and save ~$12,500 in taxes for the year. Now that you see the powerful tax benefit of being designated as a real estate professional, the next question naturally is: what is a real estate professional? Real estate professional, as defined by the IRS, actually has nothing to do with whether you are a licensed real estate agent or broker in your state. It has nothing to do with your education, professional licenses that you hold, or what type of business you are in. Rather, the IRS determines real estate professional status based on a set of different criteria, which involves the type of activity that the taxpayer does during the year for the properties, as well as the amount of time spent on such activities during the year. Simply put, the taxpayer (or spouse) must meet the two following criteria in order to qualify for the tax benefits of being a real estate professional: 1) Spend more time in real estate activities than other non-real estate business activities combined, and
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is the co-author of RE Mentors newest home study course titled Self Storage Riches. Jeff owns over 1,600 units in 4 different emerging markets around the US.
Jeff Lindahl
boot camp last month. It took me a year to create the agenda. I wanted to teach the course so that first time investors and experienced self storage investors would all leave with a solid investing platform, new methods to generate more income from their existing facilities (or as value plays for deals that they are currently evaluating)and new cost effective management technologies that they can implement right away. Technology that the typical Mom and Pop storage owner have never heard about. Remember from a recent newsletter article, 87% of all storage facilities are owned by the Mom & Pops. I was nervous at first, because of one of the attendees, who many of you have met. I will not mention their name, but are often referred to as know it all and with good reason. He/ She is a complete real estate transaction engineer. I have seen the deals that they have done and they are incredible. I was nervous when the complete real estate transaction engineer approached moments after the boot camp had ended. Here we go, my first complaint, but to my surprise, they extended their hand and firmly shook my hand, congratulating me on the great content that I delivered. Whew, I passed the test! The theme of the boot camp was Why Self Storage, Why Now & Why in this Market. The same approach you would take if you had found a great property to buy and you wanted to convince an investor to participate in your deal. There are many reasons for Why Self Storage. Starting with the huge demand of the 73 million plus Baby Boomers to the 71 million
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vision (Air Assault), and is located approximately 10 miles (16 km) from downtown Clarksville, straddling the Tennessee-Kentucky state line. It is officially Fort Campbell, Kentucky due to the fact the base U.S. Post Office is on the Kentucky side of the base; the majority of Fort Campbell is within the state of Tennessee. Its because of this base that made Clarksville is an up and down market. First there were a lot of military shipped off to Iraq and Afghanistan a few years ago. At the time, the city was in the top performing spot. When the soldiers left, the families moved out and left a lot of empty units. This will always be a risk in this city though it doesnt look like any major national crisises are on the horizon. The 101st Airborne is the best of the best an are usually amongst the first into battle. There was concern the city would lose military personal or even have the base closed during the last BRAC realignment but the base was spared and I question if there was even a discussion of closing it.again, since it houses the 101st Airborne Division. Clarksville has plenty of interstate roads going through it. We like this to facilitate the flow of goods and services. The following roadways run through Clarksville:
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- U.S. Highway 41 Alternate (Madison Street and Fort Campbell Boulevard) - U.S. Highway 79 (Wilma Rudolph Boulevard) - Interstate 24 (designated a control city along route) - State Route 12 (Ashland City Highway) - State Route 13 - State Route 48 - State Route 76 (Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway) - State Route 374 (Warfield Blvd., 101st Airborne Division Parkway, Purple Heart Parkway) The following are the demographics for Clarksville: As of the census of 2000, there were 103,455 people, 36,969 households, and 26,950 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,090.6 people per square mile (421.1/km). There were 40,041 housing units at an average density of 422.1 per square mile (163.0/km). The racial makeup of the city was 67.91% White, 23.23% African American, 0.54% Native American, 2.16% Asian, 0.25% Pacific Islander, 2.61% from other races, and 3.30% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.03% of the population. The census recorded 5,187 foreign-born residents in Clarksville. There were 36,969 households out of which 41.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.4% were married couples living together, 13.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.1% were non-families. 21.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 5.3% had someone living alone who was 65
years of age or older. The average household size was 2.69 and the average family size was 3.12. In the city the population was spread out with 28.8% under the age of 18, 13.6% from 18 to 24, 34.7% from 25 to 44, 15.6% from 45 to 64, and 7.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 29 years. For every 100 females there were 100.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 98.5 males. The median income for a household in the city was $37,548, and the median income for a family was $41,421. Males had a median income of $29,480 versus $22,549 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,686. About 8.4% of families and 10.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.8% of those under age 18 and 10.4% of those age 65 or over. Clarksville is just northwest of Nashville, another good market. Use Nashville brokers to get you deals in both markets!
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By Jackie White
nity painted green?!? Of course I mean are you or your management company implementing energy performance procedures for your community? We all have heard over the last couple of years that green is the way to go. In addition, there are several websites that can assist you with a plan to improve your propertys performance, such as www.epa.gov. Also, you can implement your policy by giving green move-in gifts for the new residents of your community. A good resource for these types of items is www.gogreen-bags.com. There are also many retail stores in some areas that may also have a recycling program where you can drop off items such as computers, printers, laptops etc. Below are a few ideas that may assist you in gradually getting your property to a green status: Begin using low VOC paints (low odor and less impact on air quality) Recycle inkjet and laser printer cartridges along with wireless phones For recycling electronics, you may direct your residents and staff to www. mygreenelectronics.org Change light bulbs to CFLs (compact fluorescent bulbs) Use water saving showerheads, toilets, kitchen and bath faucets Replace old water heaters with tankless models where possible Of course recycle, plastic, paper and glass products
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Install programmable thermostats in apartments Put models on minders light controls Replace light switches with occupancy sensors in infrequently used common areas Start composting if your landscapers can set up an area that wont attract animals If possible ask your landscapers to use fewer chemical pesticides/fertilizers and use more organic solutions. These are just a few ideas that will assist you and your management company in regards to creating and implementing a We are going Green program. And remember, once this plan is created and implemented, not only will you be helping the environment and conserving energy, you will be able to put more of the real green stuff (cash) in your pocket!!
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6. Foreclosure RichesThis is the most up-to-date Foreclosure Home Study System on the Market. With the help of two of my most successful coaches, Don Goff and Craig Picard, we created this course so that my students could prosper in this current market.
7. Self Storage RichesThis newest addition to my Wealth Library was created by myself and my brother Jeff Lindahl. This course takes you through the step-by-step How-To invest in Self Storage units. With all of the need for space out there and with the advantage of No Tenants, No Maintenance, and No Employees, this system will show you how to explode your wealth by investing in Storage Units!
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Question A Coach
By Don Goff Q: I have a property that I am still in negotiaDon Goff is co-author of RE Mentors Foreclosure Riches Home Study Course. He has been a real estate investor for 6 years and has quickly turned over 170 properties. He also is an Apartment House Riches graduate, owns 471 units in 3 emerging markets and is one of the coaches for RE Mentor, coaching students on Apartments and Chunkers.
in the newspaper and I see that the property we wholesaled was in Foreclosure. At first we were confused, saying how could this be? Finally it dawned on us that the cash buyer wasnt making the payments as promised. Luckily we were able to clear it up quick before the auction date but its was a big scare and could have got ugly. Moral of the story, dont assign subject to contracts.
tions with the seller and Im trying to take over the property subject to the 1st mortgage. My question is can I wholesale properties that I get under contract Subject to?
know, subject to is when you take ownership of a property but you leave the existing mortgage in place. Just to be clear, you now have the deed in your name and you are paying the sellers mortgage.) The answer to your question depends on what your definition of wholesaling is. If you plan on taking over the property subject to and closing on the property and then selling the property to a cash buyer shortly after you close then I would say, yes you can do this. However, there is no need to do it this way. Just get the property under contract with the contract stating that it will be a cash sale and assign the contract. If you mean, can you assign a subject to deal, I would say no. Now, you can assign the contract but I wouldnt and heres why. Once you assign the contract to your cash buyer and he/she closes on the property, he/she now owns the property subject to the sellers mortgage. This means he/she is responsible for making the mortgage payments. What if your cash buyer doesnt make the mortgage payments and the person you were trying to help out ends up in foreclosure. Now you could potentially be liable since you originally signed the purchase and sales agreement with the seller. How do I know this? Because it happened to me on my first wholesale deal. We got the property under contract buying it cash and my cash buyer asked if the seller would consider leaving the mortgage in place. We went back to the seller (had a motivate seller) and asked and he said ok. My cash buyer closed on the property, we made our money, solved the sellers problems and everyone was happy. A month or two later I was looking through the foreclosures
Im buying a 42 unit property and the tax rate has not changed in the last 3 years. Its 66.5 cents per $100 of assessed value for the county tax, and 52 cents per $100 for the city tax. No other tax except a $71 landfill fee (annual) per unit. That all adds up to $14,674.45 for all the buildings. The last assessment was 1-1-08, for $986,705 total all buildings. Were buying for $975,000 with $25,000 back for repair credit. Its due to be reassessed 1-1-12. I suppose if they increased the assessment, we could appeal it based on the sale price, agree?
Q: Hi Don,
A:
You could try to appeal it but there is no guarantee so I wouldnt make my buying decision based on being able to win the appeal. Lets talk a little bit about taxes in general. In many markets values have dropped 30+%
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over the last few years. However, in most cases the taxes didnt go down. What happened is an assessment was done to bring down the assessments so that they made sense but the city just raised the tax rate so they could collect the same amount of taxes. You might think, well thats not fair. Well, the reality is that just because property values have come down doesnt mean the cities budget has gone down in some cases it might have gone up. Also, some cities are already in a deficit so there is no way they can reduce taxes. Im not saying you cant get a tax reduction because I know some people have done it but I wanted you to understand why it doesnt happen automatically and that there is no guarantee.
Don, Im looking at buying 4 plexes in my back yard. Im looking at deals from sellers that are not on the MLS and trying to figure out how to structure the deals but I am confused on something. What exactly is 100% seller financing, why would the seller do this? Isnt it the same as a master lease? and What does the paperwork look like?
Q:
A:
100% financing is when you buy a property from a seller and they finance the sale meaning they give you a 1st mortgage for 100% of the purchase prices. There are a few reasons why a seller would do this. First of all they are motivated (the only type of seller we can do business with), second maybe they are retiring and would like to get passive income without having to deal with the tenant headaches. The seller could just cash out but where is he or she going to put their money where they can keep it safe and get a decent interest rate on it. If they put it in a CD they might get 1% a year interest. If you could offer them 5%+ isnt that much better? In order to do a transaction like this you would need a promissory note and a mortgage securing the note to the property. The note would define the terms of the financing such as the amount of the mortgage, interest rate, amortization, term, right to prepay etc.. The mortgage would secure the note to the property. Dont get caught up with all the paperwork. You should use your attorney to create the documentation. Call your attorney tell him/her what you are looking to do and they will be able to help you. A Master lease is different because you are not actually buying the property. You are leasing it with the option to buy it. For this strategy, you would use a Lease Agreement and an Option Agreement.
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2) Spend at least 750 hours per year in real estate activities. As a tax strategist, however, I rarely see this loophole used correctly. In fact, about half of the tax returns that we review from prospective clients show that they are not correctly claiming this huge tax benefit. Annie has been working with a CPA for many many years and was always told she has been benefiting from the tax deductions as a real estate professional. When I reviewed her tax return for the first time, I had to be the bearer of bad news and let her know that her CPA prepared her taxes wrong and she lost out on $22,000 of a tax refund. The worst part of this was at the time, there was nothing I could do to get that money back for her. The IRS rule was that if this tax loophole was not claimed when you first file your tax return, then there is no turning back and nothing can be done about that. Your losspure and simple. If you are a real estate investor, you MUST read and understand this. The reason is because this is by far the biggest tax loophole that we see time and time again missed by real estate investors. Up until just a few months ago, there was no way to fix this mistake. However, the IRS has just come out with a new change that may allow certain taxpayers to take advantage of this loophole even if it was done incorrectly on their already filed tax return. There are a multitude of activities that an investor does which count towards the real estate professional status. The main thing to keep in mind in trying to qualify for the real estate professional status is planning ahead and documentation. If you will be using real estate as one of your wealth vehicles, get together with your CPA and identify a plan of action that can help you to qualify for the real estate professional status and maximize the tax benefits from your investment properties. We are working on putting together a webinar soon to tell you more details regarding this brand new tax benefit so keep your eyes open for Daves emails!
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I was frustrated; I knew it was a good deal, I wanted my four thousand for bird dogging it. After thinking about it, it struck me.this is the one. It was a good deal, it would be a cash cow, it only needed minor repairs and it was going for a very low price. I decided this deal was good enough to bring to my friend. I called him and proudly told him I had our first deal, he was exited. I told him all about it, why it was good, how much cash flow we would get..we walked the property together two days later, he told me he would be ready to put in an offer the next day. The next day came and no offer, then the next and the next. When I finally got a hold of him he told me he decided that he didnt want to buy properties in Brockton anymore...or anywhere else. He had gotten cold feet. All the reasons that he had sold me on buying these properties were still valid but when the rubber was suppose to meet the road, he backed off. I, in turn, tried to get many other people to partner with me on that property. I was still too afraid to do it alone and I had no money! No one would. I finally talked to my best friend about it and he was all for it. Problem was, he was broke, too. We came up with the down payment with credit card money and the rest is history. We went on to buy many, many of those multi-family properties and my other friend always tells me how much he regrets not buying that first property with me. Moral of the story, the market is the same today as it was in 1995, properties are cheap and in abundance. You have an opportunity right now to change your life for ever. Are you going to make the most of it, or are you going to have regrets three years from now.when the rest of the people are working for themselves, driving new Mercedes, taking great vacations, giving back to their communities and taking great vacations? The Choice is yours see you at the top!
started in the real estate business is wholesaling real estate. I say that because that is how I got started. Many experienced investors dont ever know of the concepts that I will share in this article. My definition of wholesale is to sell at a discounted price less than the going rate or retail rate leaving enough equity in the transaction Craig Picard has been for the next person. When wholea real estate investor saling you can either buy the propfor 6 years and has erty and then sell it at a discount or quickly turned many properties. He also is just get a property under contract an Apartment House and sell the contract for a profit. Riches graduate and The reason wholesaling is owns 471 units in 3 the easiest way to get stared is you emerging markets. need less than $100 to get started, Craig is an instructhere is no risk involved and you tor for a monthly real dont need any credit. There are estate education class not many businesses that I am at his local REIA and aware of that you can start with no is one of the coaches for RE Mentor, Coachcredit no risk and no money. You ing students on Apartwont need credit because you will ments and Chunkers. not be applying for a loan since you are going to sell the contract before you have to close on it. The element of risk is removed because you will use a contract that allows you to cancel the contract at anytime during the first 14 days. Finally, no cash is needed. When I say no cash, I really mean very little cash. Do you have $100 that you could use for an earnest money deposit that is not at risk? The following are 7 steps to wholesaling a property: 1. Marketing- Any successful business begins with marketing. Depending upon your budget you can start with 1 or 5 campaigns. Some marketing campaign examples are bandit signs, direct mail, and newspaper advertising. When you first begin marketing start by implementing one campaign at a time.
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Dont make the mistake of starting too many campaigns at once. Once you have a system around each campaign so that it becomes automatic, then you can implement the next one. For example if you use signs as a marketing campaign, you will need to consider the following to develop your system: type of signs, where to buy them, how many to buy and when, when will they be put out and how often, and who will be putting them out. Once you get a system around this you can move on to your next marketing campaign. Your marketing will produce leads on properties to buy. 2. Build a buyers list- In order to build a successful wholesale business you must develop a list of cash buyers. A cash buyer is someone who can close quickly, usually within 7 days. They will be either using their own cash, hard money, or private money. You can find cash buyers by calling the numbers on the signs or the newspaper ads that say we buy houses. In order to qualify these buyers you will need
to ask them how quickly they can close. If they say a couple weeks or a month they are not a cash buyer. The response that you are looking for is days or a week at the most. Some of my buyers tell me the day after the title search is complete. Build a database of these buyers and find out what types of properties they buy, what neighborhoods they prefer and the minimum profit they will accept. The next time your phone rings you will be able to match up the Cash Buyers with the Motivated Sellers and collect a nice wholesale fee. 3. Analyze the deal- In order to perform a basic analysis of an opportunity, you will need to gather some information such as: Basic property info (ex. beds, baths, sqft, style), repairs needed, holding costs, carrying costs, closing costs, and after repair value (ARV). To determine ARV you will want to gather information on recently sold comparables that your Realtor can provide you. You then take the ARV and subtract all the costs as well as your wholesale fee and the minimum profit you will leave in the deal for the cash buyer and that will equal your Maximum Allowable Offer (MAO). The amount of your wholesale fee will depend on how motivated the seller is but the typical wholesale fee when you first start out is 5K to 10K. When you make your offer dont start at the MAO. Start at a point less then MAO so you leave yourself some negotiating room. To Be Continued...
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Raising Capital Private Money and More Training November 4-6, 2011 ............................................................ Orlando, FL Self Storage Investing Training August 19-21, 2011 ....................................................... Philadelphia, PA Commercial Training Academy July 15-17, 2011 ................................................................. Boston, MA October 14-16, 2011 .............................................................. Dallas, TX Apartment House Riches Training September 13-16, 2011 ........................................................ Boston, MA Chunkers- Foreclosures, Wholesaling and Lease Option Training September 30-October 2, 2011 ............................................... Boston, MA Rehabbing Riches/Repositioning Training November 18-20, 2011 ...................................................... Huntsville, AL Information Marketing Training December 2-4, 2011 ............................................................ Boston, MA
Real Estate Insights, proven real estate techniques and strategies by David Lindahl is produced exclusively for Inner Circle Members. Direct your questions & comments to: RE Mentor, Inc. 100 Weymouth St., Bldg D, Rockland MA 02370 Phone: 781.878.7114 / Fax: 781.878.7115 / Web: www.rementor.com
Copyright RE Mentor Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission of the copyright owner
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