Buying Pre-Foreclosure Homes Can Be Your Very Lucrative Real Estate Investing Niche

Buying real estate at a discount to the fair market value is one of the important ingredients to making the most money in today?s housing market. One of the best investing niches to buy at a discount is buying a pre-foreclosure home.

Why is buying a pre foreclosure such a good deal?

First of all, pre-foreclosure is the period of time between when the lender files a foreclosure lawsuit or notice of default against the property owner and the date the property is sold at a public auction or trustee?s sale.

During this period of time the home owner still controls his property. He can bring his mortgage current and stop the foreclosure process or he can sell the property to save his credit profile from having a foreclosure notice attached to it. He can pay off the loan he can no longer afford to make payments on and perhaps have some equity left over in the property to put some cash in his pocket.

The pre-foreclosure period is the first and best stage in the foreclosure process to buy a property at a discount because you, the investor, can do three important tasks to maximize your profits:

You can evaluate the profitability of buying the pre-foreclosure.

You can inspect the property to determine what repairs need to be made and discount your offer price accordingly.

You can negotiate the price and terms with the home owner directly and perhaps get a discount as much as 50% off the current market value.

This is ideal compared to the following stages in the foreclosure process, namely, the public auction and post-foreclosure stage.

The public auction stage can carry more risk to the investor as well as disappointment. There is more competition at the public auction and so the price may be bid up beyond your top bid price for the property. You also need to come with cash in hand in the form of cashier?s checks to buy the property. Then there is the disappointment of being told the sale has been cancelled. This is typically due to some legal maneuvering by the home owner such as filing for bankruptcy protection to stall the sale.

The last stage of post-foreclosure occurs when there are no successful bids at the auction. The lender takes the property back and it becomes what is commonly known as ?real estate owned? or an REO. At this point many lenders will list the property with a local real estate broker at fair market value depending on the condition of the property. The lender may even choose to rehab the property to obtain a higher sales price. The likely type of buyer at this point is someone wanting a personal residence or an investor that will buy and hold.

What skills do you need to buy a pre-foreclosure property for the most profit?

With so much opportunity in pre-foreclosures you should be highly motivated to learn all you can about the skills needed to be successful in this real estate investing niche. There are a number of skills you need to develop to be successful.

One very important skill or method you must develop is the ability to locate the pre-foreclosure listings before the rest of the eager investor competition does.

Now you can find these properties for free if you go down to the county courthouse yourself and research the public records. This is time-consuming, however, and the information you?ll gather is very basic. Highly successful investors use other methods and strategies they have developed to locate distressed home owners and pre-foreclosure lists. These include:

Foreclosure Subscription Services:

Foreclosure subscription services provide pre-foreclosure property listings. However, not all listing services are the same. There can be a vast range in two critical areas:

[1] How fast they notify you of new listings. The best services should have listing information to you in a matter of days, not weeks. [2] How comprehensive the information is that they gather. You need more than an address, the loan the default has been recorded on and basic property information, to make informed investment decisions. The best services will also provide you with such information as any other loans against the property and local comparable sales.

Strategies of getting the distressed home owner to call YOU for help and ready to make a deal

There are successful methods of contacting the home owner of a pre-foreclosure that involve mailing them or calling them or leaving something on their doorstep. You need to develop the skill to write and deliver a message to the home owner that will get their attention and get them to call you instead of a competing investor.

Better yet, if you can get a home owner to call you before the notice of default is even filed, you?ll be way ahead of the pack of competing investors. This is really a very special skill that the most successful investors have developed.

This is just one of the skills you need to develop. Others include property evaluation skills such as crunching the numbers to calculate potential profits and knowing how to inspect the property to determine the condition and what repairs need to be made and how much they will cost. You need good communication skills when talking to the home owner to build trust and make a connection so you can negotiate successfully with them. You also need skills in drafting the purchase contract with the proper clauses to protect your interest to avoid getting stuck with a property that turns out not to be a good deal upon further investigation.

How to learn the skills to be a successful investor

If you haven?t developed these skills and don?t know where to start, I recommend you find a real estate investor mentor. Find someone in your local area who is already successful in pre-foreclosure investing and ask if they will coach you. They will need an incentive, of course. Maybe they need someone to do some grunt work because of time constraints. Then be their grunt and keep your eyes and ears open at all times and be a sponge. In time you will develop the skills and strategies needed to be highly successful in the lucrative niche of buying pre-foreclosure homes.

What to do if you don?t have a local real estate mentor to help you

If you don?t have a local real estate mentor, the next best thing is working with a ?virtual? mentor. Many of the best and most successful investors in pre-foreclosures have written step-by-step guides to help someone just getting started or someone who wants to improve their skills to make even more money. So find yourself a mentor, either in your area or a ?virtual? mentor and start learning how to make money in pre-foreclosure homes.

Definition of Security: Small Business Ownership

What your key target audiences think about you can take you down in a New York minute!
Yes, that IS security when nobody can downsize you because you OWN that small business of yours! But preserving that special advantage is a never-ending job. In fact, do you know what needs to be preserved more than anything else?

Well, since they hold the future of your business in their hands, I believe that an outside group of people whose behaviors can effect your business survival more than any other, deserves your rapt attention.

What Id like you to conclude from that is, what your key target audiences think about you can take you down in a New York minute!

0 customers displeased with your product or service dont come back 0 prospects who dont know about you dont buy 0 employees who believe you dont care about them lean on their oars 0 when minority folks believe you discrimminate, you have new problems 0 and if community residents believe your business is a lousy place to work, you have hiring and retention problems.

Even though help is on the way, you cant work on everything at once, so prioritize those key audiences. That is, which external audience is of immediate concern?

The good news is that problems like those above just dont happen when you closely and regularly monitor what those key publics think about you. First, you find ways to interact with them.

Then probe what they think about you and the business. In what behaviors are they engaging? What about misunderstandings? Do you see any problems brewing?

When you take the trouble to stay in touch with those folks whose behaviors affect your business the most, youve taken an important first step towards preserving your business.

Theres a real sequence here. Once you gather those facts from monitoring your key, target audience, it becomes obvious what your problem is and, thus, the public relations goal. For example, correct that misconception about your product; or reinforce a budding perception that you deliver superior service; or correct a suspicion that you dont put women in positions of responsibility.

With your goal in-hand, how are you going to achieve it? You need a strategy which, in public relations, only comes in three flavors: create opinion (perception) where none may exist; change existing opinion, or reinforce it.

So, youve set your public relations goal AND a very doable strategy. Now, what must your message have to say to implement that strategy? It must address the fix you decided upon when you set the goal. It must be clear, specific, persuasive and, above all, believable. As you write it, remain sensitive to what you are trying to do: change somebodys perception which almost always leads to the change in behavior you really want. Does your message meet this challenge?

Many would now find themselves with a great goal, a super strategy and a first class message, and nowhere to go.

But not you. Here, you select the beasts of burden you need to carry that message to the eyes and ears of those members of your key, target audience whom you need to reach and move to action.

And that means communications tactics. There are more available to you than we have time or space to list. Among them: community briefings, seminars, special events, news releases, speeches, brochures and personal contacts.

Is your work completed? Nope, because how will you track your progress? The answer is, Round 2 of the monitoring job. Interact with members of your prime outside audience all over again, carefully evaluating what you hear. If the goal was correct a misconception, are you beginning to notice signs of that correction? Do those you talk to show, however little, a better understanding of the facts of the matter as represented in your message?

Whats the bottom line? Behaviors, of course.

When your messages and communications tactics combine to alter a questionable perception held by members of your key, target audience, certain behaviors will soon follow. Among them, favorable mentions in the media and in individual speeches and lectures; increased patronage for your business; corrected perceptions by influential members of that important group of people, and many other similar signs that your message and your communications tactics have, indeed, drawn blood.

Happily, what that adds up to is a successful public relations effort.

end

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks about the fundamental premise of public relations. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communications, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net Visit: http://www.prcommentary.com

About the Author

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks about the fundamental premise of public relations. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communications, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net Visit: http://www.prcommentary.com

Real Life Real Estate Investing

I bought my first apartment 10 years ago, on my 20th birthday. I had spent the previous 5 years working and saving for college; but when I finally entered college at 19 on a full academic scholarship, I decided that instead of spending my accumulated savings, I would try my hand at investment.

Here I am 10 years later. What you’ll probably notice by looking at my site is that this is not a story of extreme or fast wealth building.

But it is a story of effective “forced savings” that has provided me significant insight into financial planning, real estate investing, and balancing the books. While it hasn’t always been a barrel of laughs, overall, I’m reasonably satisfied with the outcome so far.

I thought I would share some real world real estate investment thought. Let’s start at the end, where I am today: I currently own 7 condo apartments in my general geographic area. All of these condos are revenue neutral or revenue positive. I don’t have significant savings to fall back on, and I am just now in the process of “cashing in”, by selling my first apartment. My approach is best described as “slow and steady”; my outlook is 20 - 25 years.

Here the top points I like to share about investing in real estate:

1) Path to (instant) riches

I will never argue that real estate investing is an instant, or even particularly easy, path to significant wealth.My bank statement demonstrates that. I am willing to grant that many people are able to turn real estate in wealth quickly; I’m afraid that hasn’t my approach. Instead, I’ve taken the long view, as you can see at my site, with the hope that my real estate portfolio will provide a steady cash flow in 10-15 years time. For me, slow and steady really does win the race.

Just think about it: if you can manage to buy and hold 5 properties, within 15 years all five will turn in heavy revenue and heavy profit. For example, my two oldest properties now generate $3500 in revenue each month, with monthly expenses of just $1400. Imagine what that will look like once I’ve paid off all the mortages!

2) For a cautious investor, take the long view

This a vast generalization, but I hold to it pretty firmly: if your outlook is long enough, you will not lose money. At the worst, investing in real estate is a forced savings.

That’s not to say that you’ll never lose money; circumstances such emergency repairs, a destructive tenant, or rapidly inflating interest rates certainly increase the risk. But, if you can hold on through any such upheavals, you’ll find that within two or three years things will settle and you’ll start to benefit from increased appreciate in property value, increased rental income, or both.

And, while property values might dip for periods, keep in mind that over 5 years it’s virtually impossible that your overall property won’t appreciate. At the very worst, you’ll have paid down some of your mortgage.

Plus, you have a tangible, physical asset. There’s a lot to be said about that kind of peace of mind.

3) Operating costs - if they balance, you’re in the good!

You’re probably not going to earn back your down payment quickly - that’s ok! Keep in mind that the portion of your down payment that goes toward principle (ie: the part not eaten up by lawyer and realtor fees) is still in your hands. It just happens to now be in your property. You will see this money again when you sell.

So, the real goal is to be at least neutral on an operating basis. Ideally, that means that your rents will cover mortgages, strata fees, taxes and maintenance. This might not be possible for the first year or three, but even if you’re paying out a few dollars each month, you are still gaining more than if you were not investing.

4) Tenants - do your research,

I learned this lesson the hard way, when I had a tenant cause about $5000 in damage to one of my apartments. What I learned is that tenants have histories; if they are unwilling to share, or if you don’t receive sufficient references to make you comfortable, it’s probably better to just wait. Personally, I now ask for 3 references, and I require proof that the people I’m talking to are actually who they say they are (requiring a work phone number, for example). It might seem extreme, but this type of due diligence at the beginning increase comfort throughout a tenancy and reduce the chances of serious damage.

5) Tenants, Part Two - Late rent is forgivable - Once and don’t be afraid of the eviction notice

Real estate investing is a business. And, like many small businesses, it is sometimes operated on small margins. That means, if a tenant doesn’t pay their rent, it comes out of my pocket. I know that nothing works perfectly, so I will always forgive the first missed rent if there is a reasonable explanation. However, a second missed rent, and I will immediately begin eviction proceedings.

The laws of our state are very strict when it comes to evictions; there must be good and reasonable cause; here, at least, missed rent is just cause for eviction. Don’t misunderstand; I always keep an open mind. But many individuals will take advantage of a situation if they believe there is no consequence.

All in all, I’d say real estate investing has been a very positive experience and I would recommend it to anyone who has patience and fortitude. Do your research, though, because real estate investing has highs and lows, just like any other type of investment vehicle.

About the Author

Michael Lee-Smith is a real estate investor with over 10 years of experience in buying and holding residential real estate.

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