Selecting an Answering Service for Your Real Estate Investing Business

Here’s how I have my real estate investing business call system set up and what I look for in an answering service.

First, I have all different types of my marketing out to find motivated sellers. I use things like classified ads that have my toll free 24 hour recorded information line telephone number on it. I use different extensions for each type of marketing. So, my classified ad in the weekly free newspaper has a different extension than my post it notes that I have delivered door to door in my farm neighborhoods.

When a motivated seller sees my advertisement and wants additional information they can NOT call me directly. They must go through my 24 hour recorded information line to listen to a pre-recorded message that is about 5 minutes long and explains to them in my best presentation voice, the benefits of them working with me and having me buy their house.

Once they have listened to the message, I give usually give them two options: go to my website and submit a form or call me directly.

If they decide to go to my website, they fill out a web based property information form which is directly loaded into my Real Estate Investor Database contact and business management account for me to deal with when I am ready to talk to motivated sellers.

If they decide to call my office directly, they actually do not call me. They call my 24 hour answering service. Here are some things I look for in an answering service.

First, I must be able to forward my phone number to them. I have my system set up so that the 24 hour recorded information line actually forwards the call to the answering service instead of having the seller hang up and call into a separate number. I prefer this and it requires that the answering service give you a local number (not a toll free number) because, as I understand it, you can not forward one toll free number to another toll free number.

Second, they must be willing to input the leads into my Real Estate Investor Database for me directly. Imagine getting over 100 leads in a few days and having to manually add each one to your contact management system. It is a real pain, so the service must be willing to add the new leads directly into my contact management system (which is web based).

Third, they must be reasonably priced. What is reasonably priced? I think less than 50 cents per call is reasonable. If they are going to charge a monthly fee it should be a monthly minimum against calls and not a monthly fee in addition to a per call fee.

Fourth, they must have reasonably good response time. You do not want your motivated sellers on hold for 10 minutes waiting to get through. You want them to wait no more than 2 minutes and most times they should be able to get through immediately.

Those are the qualifications I look for in a live answering service for my buying system.

The Key to the Real Estate Investing Vault

Why do so many people struggle to get going in real estate investing? Many creative real estate investors get burned out because investing just eats up their time and energy. It drains them to be constantly making cold calls, driving neighborhoods and knocking doors. They cling to every little lead that comes along, whether it is a motivated seller or not.

I imagine you are attracted to real estate investing to enjoy success. You want to be in control of your time and your income. So what is the secret?

***A Continuous Stream of Motivated Sellers Who Contact You***

To make money in real estate investing you have to close deals. To close deals you need to find deals. Creative real estate investing deals come from finding motivated sellers with a problem that you can solve.

There are two ways to find motivated sellers, you can chase after them or you can get them to come to you. Which do you prefer?

If you fill the pipeline with a stream of motivated sellers who CALL YOU, then you will not have a problem closing real estate investing deals on a regular basis. Let me outline the benefits to having the motivated sellers contact you.

1. The Motivated Seller Will Have an Open Mind Making Your Job Easier

When you go to the store and a salesperson approaches you, what is your response? Usually you put up a wall and try to get rid of them, right? No one likes a sales pitch. (Well, except for me because I am looking to learn from it, but I am a geek like that.) But when you go looking for something your mind is open. The motivated sellers you work with are the same. If they come to you, they will be predisposed to do business.

2. Negotiations on Your Real Estate Investing Deals Will be Easier

When a motivated seller comes to you first, you are in a stronger negotiating position.

Also, if you are producing a regular stream of leads you can pick and choose your real estate investing deals. You wont desperately cling to each lead. When you are in a position to say no and walk away with confidence, you will have the upper hand in negotiations.

3. You Will Save Loads of Time and Energy

Talking to a seller who is not really motivated is draining! You have probably experienced this a time or two or even a hundred. It is like pulling teeth to get the information you need and it usually leads nowhere but to discouragement.

When the sellers come to you, they already have a certain degree of motivation. You automatically weed out the time-wasters in your marketing.

To ultimately succeed in creative real estate investing without burning out, you need to get the motivated sellers to come to you on a consistent basis. This is done using marketing campaigns that are response-driven.

When I realized this, creative real estate investing became more enjoyable. My job got tons easier. It was exciting to try different marketing campaigns and to watch the motivated seller leads come in. This one little change in your real estate investing mindset can make all the difference in your success.

About the author:
Jason Van Orden has published many articles and courses on finding motivated sellers and succeeding in creative real estate investing. For more tips and a free course, visit http://www.Find-Real-Estate-Investing-Deals.com

Selecting an Answering Service for Your Real Estate Investing Business

Here’s how I have my real estate investing business call system set up and what I look for in an answering service.

First, I have all different types of my marketing out to find motivated sellers. I use things like classified ads that have my toll free 24 hour recorded information line telephone number on it. I use different extensions for each type of marketing. So, my classified ad in the weekly free newspaper has a different extension than my post it notes that I have delivered door to door in my farm neighborhoods.

When a motivated seller sees my advertisement and wants additional information they can NOT call me directly. They must go through my 24 hour recorded information line to listen to a pre-recorded message that is about 5 minutes long and explains to them in my best presentation voice, the benefits of them working with me and having me buy their house.

Once they have listened to the message, I give usually give them two options: go to my website and submit a form or call me directly.

If they decide to go to my website, they fill out a web based property information form which is directly loaded into my Real Estate Investor Database contact and business management account for me to deal with when I am ready to talk to motivated sellers.

If they decide to call my office directly, they actually do not call me. They call my 24 hour answering service. Here are some things I look for in an answering service.

First, I must be able to forward my phone number to them. I have my system set up so that the 24 hour recorded information line actually forwards the call to the answering service instead of having the seller hang up and call into a separate number. I prefer this and it requires that the answering service give you a local number (not a toll free number) because, as I understand it, you can not forward one toll free number to another toll free number.

Second, they must be willing to input the leads into my Real Estate Investor Database for me directly. Imagine getting over 100 leads in a few days and having to manually add each one to your contact management system. It is a real pain, so the service must be willing to add the new leads directly into my contact management system (which is web based).

Third, they must be reasonably priced. What is reasonably priced? I think less than 50 cents per call is reasonable. If they are going to charge a monthly fee it should be a monthly minimum against calls and not a monthly fee in addition to a per call fee.

Fourth, they must have reasonably good response time. You do not want your motivated sellers on hold for 10 minutes waiting to get through. You want them to wait no more than 2 minutes and most times they should be able to get through immediately.

Those are the qualifications I look for in a live answering service for my buying system.

Selecting an Answering Service for Your Real Estate Investing Business

Here’s how I have my real estate investing business call system set up and what I look for in an answering service.

First, I have all different types of my marketing out to find motivated sellers. I use things like classified ads that have my toll free 24 hour recorded information line telephone number on it. I use different extensions for each type of marketing. So, my classified ad in the weekly free newspaper has a different extension than my post it notes that I have delivered door to door in my farm neighborhoods.

When a motivated seller sees my advertisement and wants additional information they can NOT call me directly. They must go through my 24 hour recorded information line to listen to a pre-recorded message that is about 5 minutes long and explains to them in my best presentation voice, the benefits of them working with me and having me buy their house.

Once they have listened to the message, I give usually give them two options: go to my website and submit a form or call me directly.

If they decide to go to my website, they fill out a web based property information form which is directly loaded into my Real Estate Investor Database contact and business management account for me to deal with when I am ready to talk to motivated sellers.

If they decide to call my office directly, they actually do not call me. They call my 24 hour answering service. Here are some things I look for in an answering service.

First, I must be able to forward my phone number to them. I have my system set up so that the 24 hour recorded information line actually forwards the call to the answering service instead of having the seller hang up and call into a separate number. I prefer this and it requires that the answering service give you a local number (not a toll free number) because, as I understand it, you can not forward one toll free number to another toll free number.

Second, they must be willing to input the leads into my Real Estate Investor Database for me directly. Imagine getting over 100 leads in a few days and having to manually add each one to your contact management system. It is a real pain, so the service must be willing to add the new leads directly into my contact management system (which is web based).

Third, they must be reasonably priced. What is reasonably priced? I think less than 50 cents per call is reasonable. If they are going to charge a monthly fee it should be a monthly minimum against calls and not a monthly fee in addition to a per call fee.

Fourth, they must have reasonably good response time. You do not want your motivated sellers on hold for 10 minutes waiting to get through. You want them to wait no more than 2 minutes and most times they should be able to get through immediately.

Those are the qualifications I look for in a live answering service for my buying system.

Is there Greener Grass to Real Estate Investing?

This may come as a surprise to you but trust me when I tell you the grass is not always greener on the other side.

What kind of oddball do you think I am here making this type of statement as a real estate investing lesson?

Well, for me this lesson was one of those rather costly, hard learned lessons that I’m sharing with you. This is one of the most basic fundamentals when it comes to investing in real estate that far too many people overlook when on the lookout for their first property or gaining more properties. They believe they’d be better off investing in an area other than their own backyard.

They see all the stories of where someone picked up a property cheap and they think, “I wish I could, I would have if I were in an area like that, blah, blah, blah.” Or they think of the area that has seen double-digit appreciation rates and think “if I was only in an area like that.” The fact is whether you’re in a red-hot market or a slowing market, there’s a way for you to make money investing in real estate. It starts by just realizing that you’ve got opportunity in your own backyard to make this a successful business.

Here’s why:

When you’re thinking of investing in real estate, you’re looking for sellers that have some underlying situation that’s causing them to want to sell. Usually, these sellers have a problem of some sort that’s causing some undue pressure. We call these ‘Motivated Sellers’ and if you’re not attracting motivated seller then you’re wasting your time.

And there’s not an area in the country without motivated sellers!

The problem with thinking the grass is greener in another market keeps you from looking in your own backyard for the next profitable deal.

Even though, this sounds basic, it’s easy to fall into this line of thinking. At one point, I was convinced that I could work another market that was nearly 4 hours from where I lived. I’ve got to confess that this was a costly lesson.

While you can make money in another market, I was stepping over dollars in my own backyard to pick up dimes in a completely different market. See I tried building my business wide instead of building it deep in my own market. Lesson Learned.

See, I want you to focus on your own market, instead of making the mistake of spreading yourself too thin. Once I realized this lesson, I refocused my business and started building it like a business instead of a mom and pop shop. See, so many people are opportunist and just look for wherever they could make a potential buck. Just realize you know more about what’s going on in your own backyard than anywhere else. Also, it’s imperative that you work to build key relationships with people in your business. This was a major problem when attempting to do deals in too many markets - you’ve got to find new contractors, new realtors, new closing agents, and new investors to flip to. It’s like basically starting from scratch in every aspect.

So, the key lesson is to stick to your own backyard and master the system before you even think of looking outside your area.

About the Author

Derek Pierce is a full time real estate investor and business owner, who, now reveals how he went from corporate slave to Real Estate Success in with his Free E- Coaching Program. To sign up for the Free Program, go to http://www.thereisecrets.com

How you can use Rehab, Refinance and Cash Out as a long term wealth building Real Estate Investing strategy.

Today we are discussing a somewhat advanced strategy for you to use after you have been in the creative real estate investing business for a while. I call this “Rehab, Refinance, and Cash Out”. This strategy can lead to true long term wealth and financial independence. This works very well in a buyers market like Memphis where prices have been quite flat for some time. You need to use this to augment your wholesaling for immediate income and retailing for bigger short term profits. Rehab, Refinance and Cash Out is a long term wealth building strategy and will be something you will be glad you did as it is a long term buy and hold strategy, and those are the strategies that lead to true wealth accumulation and financial independence. Let me explain how this works. You find a good middle to low end 3 bedroom home that you are able to buy from an out of state owner or other motivated seller that needs a little work and you buy at 60% of after repaired value. You buy the house using a hard money lender like http://www.pleaseclose.com/memphistrading and do your fix up and have a property management firm manage the property and put a renter in the house. The hard money lender will typically loan you up to 65% of the after repaired value to purchase the house which you use to buy the house and then repair it. Now that the home is repaired you obtain an investor friendly mortgage and cash out by refinancing at 80-90% of after repaired retail value and you should be doing this with properties where this strategy gives you back at least $10,000 at the refinance that you can use in your business any way you need. Do not use this money to live on, use it solely to grow your real estate business. Once you have done this strategy on 10 homes you should be able to keep finding better and better deals because you can close quickly as you have cash in hand to make things happen. More cash equals better deals and more opportunities.

By the time you repeat this strategy 20 times you should have at least $200,000 cash plus about $200,000 equity and 20 homes giving you at least $2000 per month positive cash flow whether you decide to work this month or not since you have a property management company handling things for you. With average annual rent increases, within five years that $2,000 a month should grow to $4,000 a month. In 30 years you should have $2 to 3 million plus in paid off real estate. It’s a good solid long term strategy to add to your immediate selling from wholesaling, retailing and lease options that the extra $200,000 in cash will help grow tremendously.

The rent minus the management fees and all loan and other costs must leave you with positive cash flow or this strategy should be avoided. If you cannot cash out on the property I don’t recommend holding it long term as you want to be able to use your best mortgages to cash out.

You can purchase using http://www.pleaseclose.com/memphistrading if your Equifax credit score is above 550(which is bad credit) or you have a co-borrower who has an Equifax score over 550. A good investor friendly mortgage company will give you good rates if you are at 660 middle score or above and the very best rates if your middle score is 720 or above. Your first 10 investor mortgages in your name and 10 in your spouses name are the easiest to qualify and get the best deals. After those you really need a good investor mortgage company to work with. Take the time to find the real investor friendly mortgage companies that can help you get loans for 100 properties and not just the first ten and let them have the easy ones and the tougher ones. I do recommend having more than one good lender available though, but stick to the ones that specialize in investor loans. Find out from other investors who the most investor friendly mortgage companies are to use to refinance the repaired home.

I do not advocate becoming a landlord as I do not believe this is a valuable usage of your time and energy. I highly recommend asking around and finding a good property management company that will charge you 10% or less to start out with and gradually lower that % as you add more and more properties.

I feel this is an advanced strategy as you won’t see any cash in your pocket from this strategy for 4-6 months after you find the deal which is a long time to work and not see any pay. If you are wholesaling and making consistent money each month then it shouldn’t matter. This strategy will magnify the profits you make in your investing business in ways you might not have imagined. This strategy is a natural progression from wholesaling as you are already helping others find these kinds of deals, now you will be able to get the cash out typical of probably 2 wholesale deals, just paid slower, and at the same time building a nice future nest egg.

About the Author

David Neese is a real estate investing author who offers a free course for real estate investors delivered by email, audio and teleseminar which you can get for free at: http://www.FreeRealEstateInvestingCourses.com You can find more information about David at http://www.DigitalSuccessCoach.com

Beginning Real Estate Investing - “Subject To…” Investing

This is another in a continuing series of articles on beginning real estate investing. Today, we?ll tackle the basics of ?subject to?? investing. There are a lot of questions those who are just beginning real estate investing often have about ?subject to?? investing, and this article should answer many of your fundamental questions.

First of all, it?s important for those who are beginning real estate investing to know what ?Subject To?? investing is. ?Subject to?? means that you buy a property ?subject to?? the existing financing staying in place in the seller?s name.

Say that you get a call from a motivated seller. He tells you he must sell his house immediately. He also says he owes around $100,000 on his mortgage, his payments are around $900 per month, including principal, interest, and taxes. Even though you are only just beginning real estate investing, you know the estimated market value of his home is about $130,000.

You head on over to his home. It doesn?t matter in the least that you are just beginning real estate investing. After all, he needs to sell now. You tell him that you will take over his mortgage payments, and keep on making them until you get the house sold. You don?t know how long it will take, but the mortgage will stay in his name until you get it sold.

He asks if you can give him some cash to help him move. Even someone who is beginning real estate investing can negotiate an item like this. After going back and forth a couple of times, the two of you agree on $3,000, which you will pay to him the day he moves out.

Now, what have you got? A house with an estimated value of $130,000 that you will wind up paying about $103,000 for, and a payment of $900 per month. Since you are just beginning real estate investing, there is something you must do right away? market for a tenant buyer.

So, you place an ad in your local paper, and put up a few signs in Mr. Seller?s neighborhood: ?Lease to Own ? Bruised Credit OK.? Your phone starts ringing and you find a young couple with good jobs and good income who went through a brief period of financial trouble a year or two ago. You explain to them that even though you are just beginning real estate investing, you think you can help them.

You offer to lease them the home with a 12 month option to buy it. Their monthly lease payment to you will be $1,200, and their purchase price will be $135,000. They will also give you a non-refundable option fee of $5,000. It doesn?t matter that you are only beginning real estate investing- you can certainly see what you have just accomplished.

You?ve got monthly positive cash flow of $300 - the difference between the $900 you are paying and the $1,200 the young couple is paying you. You have also put $2,000 cash into your pocket right now ? the difference between the $3,000 cash you gave the seller and the $5,000 cash the young couple gave you. When the young couple exercises their option to buy, you will also pocket $32,000 - the difference between your purchase price of $103,000 and the price they pay you, $135,000. Not too bad for someone beginning real estate investing!

We?ve barely scratched the surface of ?subject to?? investing, but I think you?ve got the idea. I?ve got more great ideas for you at Beginning Real Estate Investing.

Now, go make more offers!

Starting in Real Estate investing? Six Things to Remember

There is so much written about the huge benefits of real estate investing. If you are considering it for the first time, you may well ask if it is as profitable as it is made out to be. You may also ask if it is as easy as is often claimed, especially for the first-timer.

Well, the answer to the first question is yes ? potentially, at least. The answer to the second is probably no, in the sense that first-timers don?t generally walk straight in and make a killing. But you CAN make it easier for yourself if you remember these pieces of advice.

1. Don?t be scared of making offers to sellers. It is easy when you are just starting out to be so afraid of rejection that it stops you making the offer at all. Especially if it is a ?no money down? offer. If you ask and get a ?no?, you can move on to the next project - it hasn?t cost you anything. You can be pleasantly surprised at how often you DON?T get a ?no?. But if you DON?T ask, you certainly can?t get a ?yes?!

2. Recognize the importance of seller motivation. This can be your prime factor in getting a good deal. So it could be worth making it your number one factor in searching for properties, with the condition of the property being secondary. But beware of seller ads that state ?motivated seller? up front ? this could be just a means of attracting interest. You need to do your own research in finding out the seller?s situation ? for instance if they have already bought a property and urgently need a quick sale.

3. Be careful of ?rehab?. Apparent rehab opportunities can be extremely tempting. Some people in fact find rehab deals an excellent method of cash generation. But these projects do tie up your capital for several months and take a huge amount of your time and energy before the profit comes. So some people feel rehab is not for them. But if you want to try it, do make sure (a) that you don?t over-pay for the property in the first place, and (b) that you factor in ALL the costs. That means, not just the money cost of the physical rehab but the costs in time, energy etc.

4. Never feel trapped into finalizing a deal. If you find a transaction has hidden pitfalls you didn?t know about, don?t feel you ?have to? complete the deal to avoid losing money you have already put in. Always retain control and decision power.

5. Don?t feel uncomfortable about making money from other people. This is not ?ill-gotten gains? or dirty money, it is money you have earned honestly and legally. If you have problems with this, it will prevent you from really profiting from real estate investment.

6. Don?t feel held back from real estate investment because you don?t know it all. You never will ?know it all?, but you must get started and recognize that there are many things you can only learn as you go.

There is nothing magic about successful real estate investing. There is no reason why YOU shouldn?t succeed, any more or less than anyone else. If you remember these bits of advice, it will make it just that much easier.

Real Estate Investing is a Sorting Business

I am about to tell you a partial truth about real estate investing; I will tell you something about investing in real estate to give you specific way of looking at your real estate business, but its actually not 100% true. Afterwords, I will tell why it is not really the truth. So, without further dealy, here it is…

Finding deals as a real estate investor is sorting process, not a sales or convincing process.

Why would I say such a thing? It is to help you understand how to think about the part of your business where you are trying to find deals.

Finding deals is all about sorting prospects… having people contact you, or you contacting them and, through a series of questions, finding out if there is a situation you can solve and get paid for.

It is NOT about selling every homeowner on accepting your offer or otherwise doing business with you.

The first time, you talk to a truly motivated seller (and not just someone with a house for sale), you will understand what I mean by it being a sorting process.

Your are just sorting through all the sellers and houses for sale for the ones that have a unique situation that you can solve.

Now, I will share with you what the untruthful part of what I said earlier is… buying houses is a sales process.

It is about selling yourself and your business to the home owner. Why should they do business with you? What solution and value can you bring to their unique sitation or problem?

The difference I am trying to point out is that you are not trying to convince EVERY seller to sell to you. You are merely trying to find motivated sellers by sorting them out from all other sellers and then selling them on you and your solution.

I hope that helps those getting started in real estate investing with a good big picture concept of what you are really doing when you are out there finding deals.

How you can use Rehab, Refinance and Cash Out as a long term wealth building Real Estate Investing strategy.

Today we are discussing a somewhat advanced strategy for you to use after you have been in the creative real estate investing business for a while. I call this “Rehab, Refinance, and Cash Out”. This strategy can lead to true long term wealth and financial independence. This works very well in a buyers market like Memphis where prices have been quite flat for some time. You need to use this to augment your wholesaling for immediate income and retailing for bigger short term profits. Rehab, Refinance and Cash Out is a long term wealth building strategy and will be something you will be glad you did as it is a long term buy and hold strategy, and those are the strategies that lead to true wealth accumulation and financial independence. Let me explain how this works. You find a good middle to low end 3 bedroom home that you are able to buy from an out of state owner or other motivated seller that needs a little work and you buy at 60% of after repaired value. You buy the house using a hard money lender like http://www.pleaseclose.com/memphistrading and do your fix up and have a property management firm manage the property and put a renter in the house. The hard money lender will typically loan you up to 65% of the after repaired value to purchase the house which you use to buy the house and then repair it. Now that the home is repaired you obtain an investor friendly mortgage and cash out by refinancing at 80-90% of after repaired retail value and you should be doing this with properties where this strategy gives you back at least $10,000 at the refinance that you can use in your business any way you need. Do not use this money to live on, use it solely to grow your real estate business. Once you have done this strategy on 10 homes you should be able to keep finding better and better deals because you can close quickly as you have cash in hand to make things happen. More cash equals better deals and more opportunities.

By the time you repeat this strategy 20 times you should have at least $200,000 cash plus about $200,000 equity and 20 homes giving you at least $2000 per month positive cash flow whether you decide to work this month or not since you have a property management company handling things for you. With average annual rent increases, within five years that $2,000 a month should grow to $4,000 a month. In 30 years you should have $2 to 3 million plus in paid off real estate. It’s a good solid long term strategy to add to your immediate selling from wholesaling, retailing and lease options that the extra $200,000 in cash will help grow tremendously.

The rent minus the management fees and all loan and other costs must leave you with positive cash flow or this strategy should be avoided. If you cannot cash out on the property I don’t recommend holding it long term as you want to be able to use your best mortgages to cash out.

You can purchase using http://www.pleaseclose.com/memphistrading if your Equifax credit score is above 550(which is bad credit) or you have a co-borrower who has an Equifax score over 550. A good investor friendly mortgage company will give you good rates if you are at 660 middle score or above and the very best rates if your middle score is 720 or above. Your first 10 investor mortgages in your name and 10 in your spouses name are the easiest to qualify and get the best deals. After those you really need a good investor mortgage company to work with. Take the time to find the real investor friendly mortgage companies that can help you get loans for 100 properties and not just the first ten and let them have the easy ones and the tougher ones. I do recommend having more than one good lender available though, but stick to the ones that specialize in investor loans. Find out from other investors who the most investor friendly mortgage companies are to use to refinance the repaired home.

I do not advocate becoming a landlord as I do not believe this is a valuable usage of your time and energy. I highly recommend asking around and finding a good property management company that will charge you 10% or less to start out with and gradually lower that % as you add more and more properties.

I feel this is an advanced strategy as you won’t see any cash in your pocket from this strategy for 4-6 months after you find the deal which is a long time to work and not see any pay. If you are wholesaling and making consistent money each month then it shouldn’t matter. This strategy will magnify the profits you make in your investing business in ways you might not have imagined. This strategy is a natural progression from wholesaling as you are already helping others find these kinds of deals, now you will be able to get the cash out typical of probably 2 wholesale deals, just paid slower, and at the same time building a nice future nest egg.

About the Author

David Neese is a real estate investing author who offers a free course for real estate investors delivered by email, audio and teleseminar which you can get for free at: http://www.FreeRealEstateInvestingCourses.com You can find more information about David at http://www.DigitalSuccessCoach.com

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