INVESTOR TRENDS

I recently listened to a webinar given by Jeff Adams where he spoke of his system to getting properties at a discount and the strategies he has been using for the past little while. Through the many hours that I've spent in trainings, webinars, seminars, etc. I've seen a trend in fixing and flipping properties right now. My friend David Darling calls them "flixers" and people are making a good amount of money on this in the current market. It's funny to hear the people in these trainings talk about the ease of how it works, almost as if they forgot how hard it was to get their first deal done and the times they spent just barely scraping by to make ends meet. Don't get discouraged if things don't pan out right away. The gurus still have a low conversion rate based on the amount of people that call them saying they've got the deal of a lifetime for them.

The trend that I am seeing in the market is flipping, I would assume there is still a good 6-8 months of flipping that we are going to see. The recent suspension of FHAs 90 day flip rule is a big deal and it has opened up this flipping pattern to those that were on the fence about getting into this strategy to begin with. I'm just a little worried that it will turn into what I call the "punk pattern" where once something gets mainstream and everybody's doing it, the savvy investors will pull out and find the next new way to make money (my prediction... bulk REOs make a comback after this phase of investing has lost its sexiness).

So for the time being we'll see an increase in hard money loans and private investors looking to capitalize on this new phase of making money.

STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW

For the past couple of months I have been taking Steven K Scott's challenge to read the Book of Proverbs every day and today being the 27th of January I read Proverbs 27. While reading I came across Proverbs 27:8 "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, so is a man that wandereth from his place." There are many ways to interpret this scripture and I think that is what King Solomon had in mind when he writes, but it really resonated with me because of recent events in my life.

I am an entrepreneur at heart and I've started a dozen or so businesses and the only one that I've seen a tremendous amount of success in is Real Estate. Though I've loved every business that I've started, I understand this one the most. Everything about this business just feel natural and it seems like every time I venture away from real estate I start to lose money. It was a painful lesson to learn (financially) but I think that my lot in life will always be in real estate. Now there are so many different facets of this industry that I don't think I will ever get bored but it's taught me a great lesson. Wandering from what you know and are good at puts you in a vulnerable position.

Taking risks are a part of life. I understand that, but be smart about it. You can do more being an expert in a particular field than you can by just knowing a little bit about a lot of things, Ken Jennings being the exception to that last statement. Figure out what you're good at and what comes naturally to you and embrace it. Make a living out of it. It may take you a while and you may have to go through some less than desirable experiences to get there but just do it.

2 REASONS THE MARKET HASN'T HIT BOTTOM YET

I live in the Inland Empire in Southern California. The Real Estate market in which I live is so diverse that it changes from neighborhood to neighborhood. I read so many articles and studies of different areas of our country and am baffled at how different our Real Estate is compared to everywhere else. It answers to no one and follows it's own star. There are pockets of the IE that follow national trends but within a months time they can completely disregard that trend and do the exact opposite. There are many areas that I cover that are appreciating and with the FHA changing the 90 day flip rule, my guess would be that it would continue to appreciate if it weren't for 2 major factors.

Factor #1 The Foreclosure Moratorium: I'm not a big fan of it. It was almost comical to see how quickly the banks started to pay back their TARP funds when the current administration said "Alright now that we've given you $700 Billion, we want you guys to hold off on foreclosing and we'll tell you when you can start taking back your assets." It is my opinion, that if the government would have just stayed out of it we would have had a year of serious depression (June '07-June '08) and would already be on our way to a recovery. Instead of a quick depression period we are experiencing a lengthy recession. Realistically we're not even half way done with this recession, which pains me to say.

Factor #2 The Dreaded "Short" Sale: I could dedicate a whole week to writing about this factor but I wouldn't want to take my frustrations out on my keyboard (it would just end up adding to the already giant pile of eWaste). With 75% of the current properties for sale being distressed there is no wonder why banks aren't capable of handling the demand. I am negotiating several short sales and my longest one has been going on for 8 months (thank you Wells Fargo), though I've heard of some horror stories taking as long as 18 months to close. Like I stated earlier there are areas where I service that are appreciating, assuming it were a normal real estate market. How is a market suppose to get better with transactions closing based on offers written 6+ months ago?

Flipping is huge right now and the smart investors are doing that now because the majority of bulk REO deals have dried up. But do not fear, the days of bulk REO deals are headed to make a strong push towards the end of this year and well into 2011.

FIND OUT WHAT'S IMPORTANT TO YOU

If you had all the money you ever needed, what would you do with your time? Seriously.... answer the question, what would you do with your time? If you would travel and tour every castle in England great! If going to the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame is your thing then so be it (I know, I couldn't believe it either but it's real). Just think about what you would do if you could do whatever you wanted. It's real telling when we look deep within ourselves and figure out who we really are.

What I would recommend is that we all find what's really important to us and work on making that a bigger part of our lives. If your family is the most important thing to you, figure out how you can spend more time with them. Don't let your life pass you by without letting what's truly important to you influence you for the better. I'll leave you with a quote from John Greenleaf Whittier (turns out there's a museum for this guy too) "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these 'It might have been'.

THE TRUE DEFINITION OF DILIGENCE

"Diligence is a learnable skill that combines: creative persistence, a smart-working effort rightly planned and rightly performed in a timely, efficient, and effective manner to attain a result that is pure and of the highest quality of excellence."
-Steven K Scott

I read Steven Scott's book "The Richest Man Who Ever Lived" a couple of years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It reminded me of... well the Book of Proverbs; a bunch of little nuggets of wisdom. I decided to pick the book off the shelf and start reading it again and the very first chapter speaks of diligence, but not as it's known today. Our American slang tends to change definitions over time, I blame Dr. Seuss, but what do I know. True diligence is much more than hard work. Scott gives a lengthy definition which I've provided above, but he also boils it down to two words in his book, "smart-working".

I've seen so many people in this generation, which has welcomed the "Generation Me" label with open arms, *lower head in shame here* think that they are above hard work because of the technology they were raised with. "How quickly the world owes (them) something." -Louis CK. The original definition of diligence is a combination of working smarter AND working harder.

I've started several businesses and worked just as hard in each one. The part that I was missing in the beginning was the "smart" part of working. I have learned the hard way that most of the time it's not enough to just work hard. You really have to be smart about the time and effort you're putting into something. If a transaction is going to take months to complete and consume hours of my time, I need to weigh my compensation verses the labor I put into it. I read a study recently that said the average executive makes $75/hr. When you get into business look at the end goal first, usually the compensation. Figure out how many hours it will take you to reach that goal and calculate how much you will make per hour. Then it's up to you to decide if it is worth the time and effort. The goal is to have you determine how much you make and not someone else.

JUST BE YOURSELF

I couldn't go too long with a picture of the team that bounced my Dodgers out of the Playoffs the past couple of years. So why not put one up of the man responsible for beating my Lakers in the '93 playoffs (yes I did have to look that one up, but I only looked up the year if that counts for anything). When Charles Barkley signed on with TNT I thought to myself 'well this ought to be good.' But the more I listened to him and the more I heard from Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson, I realized that Barkley is the only one that brings any valuable insight into what's going on in a game. So I've grown to love what he says and his candid ability to say what's on his mind.

There is a quote from Charles Barkley that goes like this, "Half the people in this world are going to hate you and half are going to like you, so you might as well be yourself." I've heard him use this quote several times over the past couple of years in different radio interviews, Jim Rome, Dan Patrick, etc. and it has come to grow on me. There's no sense in letting other people control who you are and how you react to a situation so do yourself and everyone else a favor and just be yourself.

If I lose a business deal because someone doesn't like how I interact with them or what I say, no big deal. There will be plenty of other deals to get done and it's not going to be the end of the world. I try my best to be professional and respectful in a transaction because that's who I am and that's the type of clients that I target and want in return. Don't be afraid to walk away from a deal if you can't be yourself in it.

DON'T GET NERVOUS

"It’s been a long time since I’ve been nervous playing this game. It’s what I’ve been doing my whole life. I put all the work in. You do everything you need to do to prepare, and I try not to leave anything to chance. So what’s the point in being nervous? I’ve already done the work. It’s game time. Time to go out there and have fun and execute and let your skills take over." -Cliff Lee on if he was nervous during his first World Series appearance.


I recognize that I'm a couple of months away from when this quote actually took place, but it's had such a profound impact on my life that I just had to write about it. Let me be the first so say that as a Dodger fan *sigh* I wasn't happy that they didn't pull the trigger to get Cliff Lee. The Indians sold him at a discount and the guy is a stud. I'll stop myself before I stray too far from the topic... the point I wanted to make is that there is some very valuable content here in this little nugget of wisdom Cliff provides. In essence if you put in the work and do everything that you can do you are leaving very little to chance. You are controlling your own destiny.

I am in Real Estate and though it's a hard market right now, I've been preparing for this job for the past 5-10 years. Not necessarily this particular job, but my job as a provider. I know what it takes to make sure that I have deals in place to pay for our food, shelter, clothing, etc. so even though the it may be hard to do, I've prepared, I've done all the necessary work before hand and I'm taking very little to chance. I'm not nervous about the future because I know that I've done all that I can do to put myself in a position to be successful.

The part that is left out in the quote is what happens if you haven't prepared. He touches on it, but if you don't prepare you leave much of what happens in your life to chance and there's a reason casinos are as successful as they are, every game they have is left to chance and the house always wins. My suggestion to you would be to prepare as much as possible to succeed in whatever it is you want to do so nothing in your life is left to chance.