Today I’ve got something that I’m very excited to share with you and any other real estate investor out there. These are the seven tools that I use in my real estate business that I’ve seen great success with over the years:

0:30- What a CRM like Follow Up Boss does for you and your business.

1:35- How Twilio helps us track our leads consistently and accurately.

2:50- How a three-line dialer like Mojo will help you reach many more leads each day than hand-dialing would and turns old leads into gold.

4:30- Why any successful real estate investor should use a website provider like Investor Carrot instead of developing their own site.

6:15- Google sheets serves the same purpose as Microsoft Excel, but you can access your files from anywhere for free and easily share them with other people.

7:30- Cole Realty Resource can help you find the properties that are most likely to sell to an investor and pull cell phone numbers of those homeowners. Pulling these cell phone numbers will allow you to double your output compared to calling home phones.

9:00- An awesome tool like Find Motivated Sellers Now will help you create a dynamic database and filter properties in your target market based on the homeowner's equity, how long they have owned the home, and where the home is. 

I want to offer you an opportunity. An opportunity to take your real estate investing business to the next level.

I’ve used every single one of these tools in my business and I’ve seen great success with them. So much success, in fact, that I’m looking to expand into other markets outside of Boston this year.

What I’m offering isn’t a coaching program, it’s an opportunity. I want to help you dominate your local market by joining with me into a true partnership agreement where we only make money if you do. 

To learn more, head on over to my site, www.realestateinvestingiseasy.com. Once you enter your email address, I’ll immediately send you a video with the exact steps necessary to have success in this partnership and what I’m looking for in a partner. 

Even if you aren’t interested in partnering with me, entering your email address on my site will give you free, lifetime access to all of my in-person fix and flip training events. You’ll also get free access to my private Facebook group, “Questions for Tom”, where I’ll answer any question you may have within 24 hours.

These benefits are only available to you if you take action now. Head on over to www.realestateinvestingiseasy.com and if you have any questions for me in the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Today, I want to let you in on the things you shouldn’t be doing when it comes to marketing in real estate, as well as explain what you should do instead. These tips have been compiled over countless hours and millions of dollars spent on motivated seller marketing.

1. Don’t market only when you need a deal.  This is the biggest mistake I see newer real estate investors make. I call it the “real estate investing hangover.” New investors run around, market, find a great deal, then stop marketing. These investors spend all of their time on the fix and flip or on trying to wholesale the property. Then, all of a sudden, they wake up one day with no deals.

This is the real estate hangover I’m talking about. You get paid for the deal you just closed only to realize you don’t have any other deals in the works. In order to get face to face with motivated sellers, you must be constantly marketing. Don’t just market when you need a deal; you need to market all the time.

2. Don’t market to the same list as everyone else. Lists of absentee owners, notices of default, and people behind on their mortgage are the same lists that everyone else will be pursuing. In fact, so many people market to these lists that your odds of getting a deal from them are very low. The name of the game in real estate investing is to have as little competition as possible on a home sale.

Instead of buying a motivated seller list, you should build a database of the homes in your market that you want to buy. To do this, you’ll first need to create a property avatar—a list of all characteristics of a home. In other words, make a list of the property characteristics that you like.

Then, add the avatar of the particular seller. Ask yourself, what kind of sellers tend to sell to you? For me, the people who sell to me generally have equity and have lived in their home a long time. When you make a list of the kinds of properties you like and a list of the kinds of sellers who are likely to make a deal with you, and then combine those lists, you are setting yourself up for success.

Don’t just market when you need a deal; you need to market all the time.

3. Don’t buy a super expensive website. This is one thing I see newer investors doing all the time. As someone who has made this mistake myself, I can tell you that the thousands you’re spending aren’t worth it. You may end up with a gorgeous website, but this shouldn’t be the goal of your online presence. Your website needs to convert leads. Of course there’s nothing wrong with having a website that looks nice, but it isn’t entirely necessary. The main focus should be capturing contact information from people who visit it.

Personally, I use Investor Carrot. Investor Carrot is a website company that creates sites specifically for real estate investors. Investor Carrot sites are designed to convert. Also, using Investor Carrot is actually less expensive than hiring a website developer.

4.  Don’t spend your marketing dollars on mass media campaigns. When you advertise on television, radio, and billboards, you’re paying to reach people who have homes you don’t even want to buy. Instead of mass media advertising, focus your money and energy on targeted advertising. Utilize mailers, cold calling, and internet ads to generate leads.

5. Don’t drive for dollars. If you aren’t familiar with the concept, driving for dollars is when you drive through neighborhoods you'd like to buy in to find beat-up properties. Doing this is a huge waste of time. There is no correlation between a beat-up property and a seller who wants to sell at a discount. When you target beat-up homes, you’re cutting out your very best deals. In this market, your best deals are actually sellers who are willing to sell at a discount and whose properties are actually in decent shape.

Motivated sellers sell based on a specific life situation, not because their home isn’t in good shape. So, don’t drive for dollars. Instead, spend hours actually prospecting to the people in your database.

All of the mistakes I’ve shared today are things that have cost me money in the past. Aside from simply sharing this list, there is another way I’d like to help you make better investment choices. My team and I are partnering with investors in markets across the United States. We only make money when you make money. With that being said, if you would like to learn more about my marketing systems, visit www.realestateinvestingiseasy.com and enter your email. After you’ve provided your email, you will be prompted to watch a webinar that will go over key marketing strategies.

Even if you aren’t interested in working with me, I still highly recommend visiting this website. Doing so will give you access to two major benefits. First, you’ll gain access to my private Facebook group called “Questions for Tom.” There, you can ask me questions anytime, and I will personally answer them within 24 hours.

The second benefit you gain from entering your email to this website is that you will get free tickets to all of my in-person training events.

If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Today we’re going to talk about how you can and should use a website in your real estate investing business. The reality is that getting a website on day one doesn’t make sense for a lot of people. I’m here to talk about what a website should be doing for you in your business when you’re ready for it.
 

Here’s an outline of what I discussed, so you can skip ahead to the part in the video that interests you most:
 

:50- The only reason you need a website in the real estate business.
 

1:45- How to drive traffic to your website once you’re ready to have it.
 

3:00- What not to do when building your website.
 

5:35- An example of a website that successfully converts leads.
 

6:45- What you should absolutely do when building your website.
 

7:35- How I doubled my leads from my website by using Investor Carrot.
 

8:30- How you can learn from my mistakes in developing your real estate investor business 

by becoming a true partner.
 

9:30- How to find out that working with us in your market will look like.
 

If you’re interested in becoming a partner, or you just have any questions about your website, lead conversion, or anything else, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at www.realestateinvestingiseasy.com. I’ll make sure you get free access to all of my in-person training events that are held each month. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Are you worried about losing money through real estate investing? If you’re using it the wrong way, then you should be. And the worst way to invest in real estate is by taking market exposure.
 

Taking market exposure means whether or not you make money on the deal depends on what happens with the real estate market. Even though nobody can tell you exactly where the market is going, as of now, there is a lot more possibility for the market to go down than for it to continue to go up. If you’re fixing and flipping and investing in real estate, make sure you’re taking as little of that market exposure as possible.
 

How do you avoid this mistake?
 

First, if you’re doing a fix and flip, make sure you’re doing a project with a very quick turn. You don’t want to take on really long projects that could last a year or more. You want to take on projects that allow you to buy and sell in the exact same market. The great thing about the real estate market, as opposed to the stock market or the bond market, is that when it’s going down, it can’t happen all at once by the function of how real estate is sold. 

The stock market can go down 20% or 30% over the course of a few months—sometimes even faster than that. When the real estate market goes down, it goes down slowly, and the real estate market goes down once inventory starts to accumulate.
 

By “quick-turn” projects, I mean projects you can buy, renovate, or sell within a 90-day period in the same market. That eliminates the risk of market exposure instead of buying a property, renovating it, and selling it a year later. Even though the real estate market goes down slowly, a lot can change in one year. One year is a long enough period of time to lose 10% to 15% value on a project, which is why you want to fix and flip in 90 days or less. If the market falls 12% over the course of a year and you were able to fix and flip in 90 days, you’d only be taking on 3% of that 12% exposure.
 

Another thing you can do to eliminate market exposure is to wholesale. In our current market, there’s no better opportunity than wholesaling. Not only are homeowners overpaying for deals, but investors are overpaying for deals too. In some markets, people doing wholesale deals are making the same, and in some cases more, than the people they’re wholesaling the contracts to.
 

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of wholesaling, all it means is that when you get a property under contract, you give that contract to another investor for a fee. When you wholesale a deal, there’s no defined amount you can make, but typically speaking, people in this market are making anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000. What you make on a wholesale deal is dependent on what kind of deal you get. The better deal you get, the more you’ll make.
 

The third thing you can to do avoid market exposure is if you’re buying a multi-family property, make sure the cash flows on day one. Never buy a rental property based on appreciation—it should be cash-flow positive from day one. There are some markets across the country where this is almost an impossibility. Even in our market here in Boston, it’s tough to buy properties where the cash flows from day one, but you can’t let that rule stop you. Make sure you’re getting great deals and properties below market value so they produce cash flow from day one.
 

To summarize, doing lengthy projects in our market is very dangerous. If you’re going to close on a property, make sure it’s a quick-turn project. If you don’t want any market exposure whatsoever, wholesale the property. If you’re buying a property to buy and hold, make sure it’s cash-flow positive from day one.
 

Never buy a rental property based on appreciation.

Another thing you can do to make sure you don’t repeat mistakes others have made is by working with me directly in your market. I’m looking to expand into other geographic markets across the US to implement my systems and tools. This can benefit you because it will prevent you from making the same rookie mistakes that I made.
 

If you’re interested in what a true partnership looks like, visit www.realestateinvestingiseasy.com and enter your email address. Once you do that, you’ll get a copy of the video I’ve created that will go into further detail of what working with me in your market will look like in a true partnership fashion.
 

Even if you don’t want to work with me, you can still benefit from entering your email address on my website. It will grant you lifetime free access to any of my fix-and-flip events I host every other month. You’ll also get free access to my private Facebook group “Questions for Tom” where you can ask me any real estate question you want and I will answer it within 24 hours.
 

If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be happy to help you.

Welcome to one of our latest fix-and-flip properties at 21 Center Avenue in Reading, Massachusetts!

This property was purchased three months ago for $305,000. We put in $60,000 worth of repairs, and we just recently got the project under contract for $500,000. All told, we’re probably looking at a $50,000 to $70,000 net profit.

Follow along in the video above to get a full tour of this property and hear me explain some of the fix-and-flip processes we used to turn this house into a profit. For your convenience, I’ve included timestamps below so you can skip ahead to certain sections that might interest you:

(1:17) - A split-level entry that allows you to walk upstairs to the first floor or downstairs to the second floor.

(2:08) - Our fully staged living room, dining room, and kitchen layout on the first floor.

(5:04) - The upper-level bathroom.

(5:55) - Upper-level bedroom No. 1.

(6:21) - Upper-level bedroom No. 2, featuring new windows.

(6:52) - Upper-level bedroom No. 3.

(7:17) - Lower-level bedroom No. 1

(9:52) - The lower-level den, featuring a fireplace.

(10:15) - The lower-level bathroom, which we made into a full bathroom.

(10:45) - Key points to remember about fixing and flipping.

If you want to learn more tips and tricks to flipping properties or you’d like to work with me directly on fix-and-flip properties, visit www.realestateinvestingiseasy.com. By entering your email address on that website, you’ll get free access to any of my fix-and-flip training events and free access to my private Facebook group “Questions for Tom,” where I’ll answer any of your real estate investment questions.

Thanks so much for walking through this property with me. If you have any other questions, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I’ look forward to hearing from you.

On this call we cover:

 

Jump to 6:25 for the beginning of our conversation.

On this call, we cover:

In today’s video, we’ll tour our office space so you can get an idea of how we use our office to make Ocean City Development a successful operation. Below, we’ve provided timestamps so that you can jump around to various points in the video that peak your interest. We encourage you to give it a look!

(0:30)—Hangout space for partners, kids, and assistants.

(1:49)—Tom’s office: a center for efficiency.

(2:59)—Bill’s office: operations and rehab.

(3:40)—The mail center: We send out over 100,000 letters per month.

(5:00)—The call center: training in progress!

(9:45)—Ocean City Development: My original office space is where it all began.

(13:40)—The Cameron office: for training, recruiting, storage, and more.

Thank you for checking out our space—it’s my pleasure to give you a look at the inner workings of Ocean City Development. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’d be glad to answer them.

I’m excited to share something today that I’ve never shared before. It’s the “secret” to my success: A three-funnel process that has allowed me to generate and raise over $10 million in private capital over the last five years.

As a real estate investor, you need to be doing these three things each day:

1. Look for capital.
2. Look for great deals.
3. Look for great labor to help you finish your products.

If you'd like to talk about this topic in further detail or if you have any other questions, give me a call or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.

Watch the full webinar here!

About 10 years ago, I had my first day as a real estate investor. Even after all that time, though, I still vividly remember day one.

So if today is your day one as a real estate investor, or that day is coming soon, and you’re feeling totally confused—I’ve been there.

The feeling of being lost is totally normal. There are so many things you may feel that you should or could be doing—like getting a new phone number for your business, launching your website, and starting your LLC.

It can be difficult to know where to begin. But the good news is real estate investing is very, very simple. Real estate investing is a sales and marketing business so the one thing you must become good at from day one is being able to market to get motivated seller leads and to get good at sales.

This way, when you get face-to-face with sellers you can buy their property at a discounted price.

In real estate investing, the key thing to focus on is getting great deals; and a great deal means that you are getting a property for much less than fair market value.

In real estate investing, the key thing to focus on is getting great deals.

If you visit a house that is $200,000, for example, you are making a great deal if you are putting it under contract in the ballpark of $130,000, $140,000, or $150,000.

This skill is something you’ll want to learn before anything else. Getting out there in front of motivated sellers and getting good at sales in order to get great deals are the main steps that will jumpstart your success from day one.

On the marketing side there are three things that work: Internet marketing, cold calling, and mailing. You can’t buy deals that everyone else knows about. If the property is on the MLS, you’re brought a deal by your real estate agent, or the property is on Zillow or Craigslist, forget about that deal.

On day one, you can forget about everything except getting good at sales and marketing. But what are some things you shouldn’t be doing on day one?

First of all, while you do at some point need a website, it’s something that can wait. Day one simply isn’t the time for things like that, getting business cards, finding cash buyers, or raising capital.

All of those things should be placed on the back burner until the priorities we’ve discussed have been taken care of. Don’t waste your time on any of these things until after you’ve booked your first one-on-one seller appointment.
 

That being said you should be prepared to build a business. Real estate investing isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It will take time like any other business.

If you’d like more details you can visit www.GetFreeSlides.com and email us to send you a Powerpoint over everything we’ve covered here. If you have any other questions feel free to get in touch by giving me a call or sending me an email. I look forward to hearing from you.