Tip: Form or Join Support Groups

A good idea for anyone but especially beginning real estate investors, join a support group of people who want to invest in real estate. While usually any support group is better than not having one at all, there are some guidelines I would like to suggest:

1. Attitude: Try to bring a good attitude yourself. This is most important, as it will rub onto others. Also, it's the one thing that you can always control. Control it. Additionally, try to surround yourself with people who feel energized. You often become like the people in your crowd. Surround yourself with people that make you want to keep going. Plus, be patient when things don't go quite the way you planned.

2. Aptitude: It helps to have someone in the group that knows a lot. Sometimes, you are fortunate enough to get two (2) or three (3) people who can guide the rest. It is nice to bring someone else who is not as far as you, too. You learn a lot by teaching (see previous post), but it also is a checkpoint. If the person behind you starts to catch you, you know that you need to pick up your pace. Learn how easily each person learns, as this will affect some planning. Not everyone learns at the same pace.

3. Ambition: First of all, you NEED to feel this. Without this, you will be scared. Real estate is somewhat complicated (so I'm told), and you will hit some rough patches. If you have a burning desire, you will see this as progress and one step closer to success. It helps if, at least, one other person in the group has a similar ambition level. When blended correctly, you will lift each other and maybe other people as well.

4. Availability: Who cares whether you have a great group if you can never get together? Try to establish this quickly. If it's too hard to please everyone, maybe split into smaller groups. The smaller groups can always exchange notes.

5. Skill Set: Understand YOUR skill set. Even if you're a beginner, you know something that someone else does not. Plus, try to learn what other people bring to the table. Remember that every person can bring something. I won't guarantee that everyone will be willing to share it, but many are. You might find a partner, a teacher, or just simply an idea of something you want to improve.

6. Peer Pressure: It's a good idea to include or find some members within the group who make you want to do better--people around whom you feel too foolish to let down for not doing your share of what you promised.

Most of the time, support groups are great, but if you take these things into consideration, you will be well-positioned to get the most you can from the group.

Offer to Teach Something

Teaching does a lot of things for you.

• Force Learning: When you are obligated to teach people something, you MAKE yourself learn it. If you didn't know it, you're less likely to put off teaching yourself if you know other people are depending upon you to teach it to them. If you know it already, you will further cement your understanding about your topic.
• Gain Perspective: Often, people will ask you questions that you never considered. This will make you understand your topic even better. Plus, it prepares you for objections that you need to overcome when you are trying to sell something later. You will better understand people's insecurities tied to a topic, and teaching will give you that exposure to them, and you will be better prepared to handle those.
• Build Contacts: Everyone in that classroom will get to know YOU better than any of their classmates, at least during the class session. Each person gets a glimpse of your ability to communicate and display your professionalism. Most of all, you don't have to "trick" them into giving you their information. They are coming to you willingly providing their info.
• Increase Status: As a teacher, you become a momentary "expert." This will be many people's first impression of you, and you look the part of a knowledgable leader. Many people will refer other people to you.

The first two (2) reasons improve my marketability. The last two (2) reasons increase my marketing and advertising efforts: free contacts and referrals.

What can I teach? I'm new. Anything I know, you know, already.

Okay. So you might appreciate the benefits of teaching, but what can I possibly teach?

You'd be surprised, but even if it is true that people know it already, many people know something but feel validated when they hear another "expert" telling this to them. It amazes me to see how many people do not have confidence to recognize that they "know" something, even when they really do.

Plus, it's important to realize that we all have different experience and knowledge bases. Someone reading my posts, for instance, might have 25 years of real estate investing experience to my NONE, but chances are pretty good that somewhere in here, I'm presenting an idea he or she has not previously considered. Don't take your knowledge for granted; appreciate and embrace it. Let other people decide that they don't have a use for it.

What do you teach? Consider the following approaches:

• Recent Lessons: Simplest way to put it...Ask yourself, "Do I know more today than I did a year ago?" Most likely, the answer is a resounding, "YES!" What did you learn? At the very least, you can teach THAT to whoever has not had the benefit of your past year.
• Prior Experience: Another angle for potential topics is to consider your experience prior to you becomming an investor. What did you do in your life beforehand? What made you think that you might be able to do this? I bet you did something before you studied real estate that has helped you. Other people might not have that benefit. You can share THAT with them.
• Hot Topics: The beauty of the Internet is that you can research nearly anything. After attending a few meeting sessions or listening to a few conversations, you start hearing a pattern of what interests peoples: concerns, opportunities, and frustrations. Research one of these, and give a talk about it. If enough people mention the topic, enough people will be interested in what you have to say.

I can't get a teaching job anywhere. I don't have a degree, a teaching certificate, or whatever.

While I have taught in four different colleges (doesn't that make ME special), this is only a neat fact to deliver. I have taught in

• Libraries
• Panera or McDonald's
• People's Homes

You can teach anywhere you can meet with someone who wants to learn.

Have too many people to teach at Panera? Most libraries have special study or conference rooms. If you're big-time enough, you can rent space at a hotel, but for us beginners, I suggest that you use the free resources.

I haven't tried these, but while I was writing this post, I realized that I've never (but should have)

• gone to the city government to ask if there is any space I can use to teach people for free.
• approached local charities or Rotary-like clubs
• asked colleges if they have space available (outside of the standard classroom)

If anyone decides to use any of these ideas or likes them, let me know. I'm pretty passionate about sharing knowledge, as you might be able to tell. In fact, you don't have to be a real estate investor to apply these.

Renting or Selling? Know how you want them to get there.

Whether you're trying to sell your property or find a tenant to rent it from you, it's really important to know more than one way (if possible) to get there.

Why?

You want a person to see your "good side" when you first meet them. It's no different for a property. Let them see the good, picturesque side of town. You know. The one with the nicer looking homes and better kept lawns. You don't want to route them through all sorts of boarded up homes. You really don't want to take them through rough neighborhoods. Remember, you are trying to make a good first impression.

So when someone asks you for directions, don't tell them to use Mapquest or some other similar direction-giving website. Know which way will let them see the best your property's neighborhood has to offer.

Investors Need a Buyer? Consider Reverse Mortgages: A Solution for Seniors

Many real estate investors already know about Reverse Mortgages.

However, I bet many newer ones do not. Truthfully, I am still trying to wrap my hands around this concept.

Many investors are having a hard time finding buyers, because many buyers have no cash or credit to buy. A possible solution to help is Reverse Mortgages.

Oversimplifying this, Reverse Mortgages allow (some) seniors to get a monthly payment from the bank or some other lending institution as long as they live in the house.

There are some rules. The senior MUST

• Be, at least, 62-years-old
• Have no remaining balance (or nearly no balance) on his or her home
• Live in this PRIMARY residence

A Reverse Mortgage is a loan against the equity in your home that you do NOT need to repay as long as you live in the home. The monthly amount the senior receives will depend upon the person's age and home value.

Let's be fair. There are downsides.

• When the senior passes, the monthly payment he or she was receiving turned into a loan that needs to be repayed. There is interest on top of this, too.
• Also, if the person living in this home dies, the home is sold to repay this debt, and the home cannot be passed onto his or her heirs.
• If the person living in the home decides to move, the loan--plus interest--will need to be repaid.

How can this help an investor?

• Seniors can use the money they get from the reverse mortgages to buy an investment property from you. You now have a buyer with some money, which is a premium quality in this credit-starved market. Don't you think?
• If you have a senior family member who qualifies and wants to live in his or her home until death, this can be a potential income source for your investments, provided he or she trusts you (and you are trustworthy).

If someone reads this and realizes that I explained something poorly or incorrectly, let me know, and I will fix it.

Drive by Houses, Learn Neighborhoods

Hi, everyone!

It's been a while since I've posted on here. Truth is that I was getting stumped. I was getting stumped about what to write. More importantly, I was getting stumped about what to DO.

I don't know the truly right answer, but I did something that I should have done a LONG time ago as a beginning investor. I looked up some houses on Yahoo Real Estate (you can use other sources, too), and I drove by the houses.

This forced me to take action. I needed something to get "my ball" moving again.

This forced me to look at neighborhoods.

Hopefully, I can look at some of these houses with a realtor sometime soon. However, even if that doesn't materialize, I started thinking of real estate not only as an isolated property but as being part of a neighborhood--part of the whole package.

This takes some time. Well, the research takes very little time, but driving to find the places does. I bet it will take less time as I get to know my surrounding neighborhoods better.

So you beginning investors...if you aren't already, go check the web for places to visit.

Play The Cashflow Game

This piece of advice is coming from a beginning investor, but it seems like it makes sense, regardless of your investment experience level.

Play the Cashflow game. I'm serious!

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad (RDPD) is an extremely polarizing figure. People seem to love this guy (almost in a cult-like fashion) or absolutely hate him. Personally, I think he has some excellent ideas, particularly the Cashflow Quadrant concept, an awesome brander, and he gives a lot of people hope. However, I acknowledge that his RDPD group seems to carry itself similarly to the way you would expect a snake oil salesman to behave, inviting a lot of resentment toward ALL of his products, services, and ideas.

The Cashflow game is very expensive, about $200.

One good thing about paying that much...I make sure I play it. To contrast, I bought Scrabble a few months ago for about $15. I've played it TWICE. At $7.50/game, did I really enjoy it as much as I would a movie?

I've played Cashflow, at least, twenty (20) times, and I will be playing it many more.

Why?

1. It's fun! It really is.

2. If you get together with Cashflow groups, you meet other people. From both the game and them, you will get ideas, not to mention contacts.

3. You can experiment with different investing styles and make mistakes--WITHOUT losing your REAL MONEY.

I've learned a lot by playing it.

I suggest that you play Cashflow with a group of people, before spending your own money on it. $200 is very expensive for a game, and if you aren't sure whether you will like it, this will allow you to "try before you buy."

Even if you do not like Robert Kiyosaki or get sick of hearing the mindless drones of people who try to quote RDPD (and they are really annoying), the game is really a good one. I've played with different people, and I've learned some things, often as a teacher of the game.

So, again, play the Cashflow game. You'll really like it. More importantly, you will learn something new each time.

Let me know if you would like any examples of things I've learned by playing.

Don't Understand Everything? Don't Worry!

I am writing this post from a beginner's perspective.

Have you ever gone to a talk, especially about real estate, and it seemed like you didn't understand everything?

I can't speak for anyone else, but this happens to me a lot.

Last Thursday evening, I went to the Oakland REIA. It covered real estate-releated legal updates and advice. A lot of people were saying how great this talk was, and it probably was. However, I could not take advantage of everything she was saying.

So did I waste my time? Other people may disagree, but I say, "NO!"

Why?

Because I understood about 30% of it, I was discouraged, at first. Then I realized that most of what little I understood on Thursday, I would not have understood AT ALL a year ago. Even if you don't know everything, you can learn things an managable increments, little by little. It accumulates quickly.

Plus, it gives me an opportunity to write down a couple of things to look up later. I may not understand during the talk, but I know something that I have to learn. I can learn it at my pace. Even if I don't understand it today, the next time I hear something about it, I will be in a better position to receive that same or similar info.

Lastly, I love meeting people at these events. You get a chance to learn their insights and experiences. Plus, the better people are there to encourage you. One person, in particular, just told me, "Just start." Obviously, you should do your due dilligence before making ANY investment, but it gives me hope that real estate is less complicated than my beginner's mindset might be making it.

So go to as many talks and talk to as many people in the field as you can. You might not understand everything, but you still can get something from it. More importantly, it will accelerate your learning--meaning that it puts you closer to your goal more quickly.

Getting Started: Motivation: Ask Questions

I'm new in the real estate game. While there are some investors who seem very elitist, the good news is that MOST people seem to be really helpful.

What does this have to do with motivation?

When you're beginning something new, especially something as big as real estate, it can be overwhelming. I have a lot of suggestions for motivating yourself. What is one of easiest ways to do this? Simply find other experts and ask for advice.

Most people LOVE to be experts. Plus, you get some ideas at a pace that is MUCH quicker than you can learn by reading a book. They can talk to you about their personal experiences. If they're really good, they can adjust their explanation to your understanding level.

So, feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to start? Just ask!