The Real Deal Real Estate Show with Larry Harbolt

Some investors don’t want to talk directly with sellers because feel they would be very uncomfortable negotiating directly face-to-face.

Many feel if they offer any seller less than what they are asking for their property they would insulting them. What’s the worst any seller can say to any offer you make?

Investors make lowball cash offers everyday through a real estate agent without feeling any guilt. I guess they feel bad making a lowball cash offer when they are face-to-face with the sellers because of the fear of seeing the seller’s reaction, and what the seller might say in anger to what the investor is offering.

No matter what you offer a seller it is impossible for you to take advantage of any seller by the offer you make. Because no matter what you offer any seller, no matter how ridiculous your offer is, the seller has the right to say NO!

More and more people are getting into the market of real estate investing, but as the investing base grows, so does the number of “new” gurus. A lot of these gurus have a few deals under their belt and are pushing their students into getting started as a wholesaler. There’s nothing wrong with being a wholesaler, but the misleading part is the idea that wholesalers will make bank in this area of investing.

A wholesaler is someone who gets a property under contract, then turns around and sells that contract to another investor for a profit. They are being paid for putting the deal together, and once they get their profit, they’re out of the deal entirely. Sometimes a wholesaler will “pre-hab”, such as painting, landscaping, or putting on a new roof, to increase the value for the new investor who will take the contract over. I, personally, do not do “pre-habbing”; if I don’t want a property, I don’t want any more money than necessary tied up in it so I can assign the contract and move on to a deal I DO want.

If you’re buying, selling, and rehabbing a property, that is NOT wholesaling. Wholesaling is meant to be a way to get cash to pay your bills, build capital, or make a profit on a property you don’t want for yourself. There is ALWAYS a cost to using money, no matter how you use it. Guaranteed.

If you need help to get started in real estate, check out my online courses, the Cashflow Blueprint and the Cashflow Foundations. You can find them at my website, LarryHarbolt.com.

Good Luck and Happy Investing.

All too many people today are of the belief that they have instant access to any information they feel they need by simply talking into their cell phone. Most want to learn the real estate investing business as fast and easy as they can, but my friends learning the real estate investing business is neither fast, nor is it easy to do.

Stop being in a big hurry trying to find that magic technique, the secret sauce, the perfect formula that will quickly get you big piles of money in a hurry.

When you can find a truly successful and sophisticated investor you can learn from its time you take advantage of those opportunities. You can only learn so much out of a book, or by going to real estate meetings.

Why not learn from someone like me who has been successful and a sophisticated investor who has spent many years to master my craft.

It makes sense to learn from someone who has been through the minefield so you never have to make the same mistakes and suffer the untold misery inexperience can cause you.

Having lived through a market where houses in my area of Florida lost as much as 40% to 50% of their peak value after everyone had been enjoying huge price increases on a continual daily basis.

In 2007 and 2008 and early 2009 full price offers were being made and sellers were turning down those offers because they knew someone would come along soon and offer them more.

Then came the fateful day when the bottom of the real estate market dropped out and property values plummeted. Many investors who bought houses at the peak of the market when values were high experienced financial devastation.

So, what’s the answer to not getting caught up in a situation like we experienced in 2009? Listen to Todays podcast.

During my 40 plus year career as a real estate investor, I have often thought about writing a book about all of the dumb mistakes I have made. I thought I would go over some of what many struggling investors are facing today that is holding them back and preventing them from doing very many deals.

I have met many investors who are so set in their ways that they are not willing to listen to anything you are doing different from what they are currently doing. I think this is a giant mistake!

Because of my lack of real estate education in my early years is the reason I made the mistakes I did. I want to share ideas of what I have learned over the years that I continue to see many investors doing that is non-productive and how to overcome continuing to do those same things if you will listen to what I have to say.

We all make mistakes but there comes a time when we stop doing the same unproductive things over and over. It’s time that everybody stops making simple mistakes and start learning more about making intelligent decisions that generate money and success. It’s no wonder many real estate investors don’t have a clue how to structure deals creatively simply because no one has ever taught them. Yet, I find many of these same people unwilling to learn anything that is new and different from what everyone else in their area does on a daily basis.

You can’t learn enough about how to be a successful real estate investor from a book, or from a two-hour speech by a traveling guru. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It takes time and quality knowledge to master success. Stop thinking like the masses and start thinking like the successful investors who are doing many good deals and are making more money.

For many years I struggled to make a few dollars from the deals I did. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made I thought I could learn how to be a real estate investor by going to my local real estate club. I tried to get my real estate investing education on the cheap and not pay for any quality trainings and it didn’t take long for me to realize that I never got enough information from those meeting to be able to structure and close the deal with what I had learned.

Few investors really know how to determine the most they should pay for any property, most investors are just guessing. The problem I’m seeing is a total lack of education about how to determine how much to pay for any property. This is very disturbing to me as I know paying too much steals the investors profits.

Another reason I believe, is some investors lack the knowledge to accurately calculate the numbers because, number one, they don’t know what numbers to look for, and this is why they don’t know how much they should pay for any property.

Let me remind you to always examine every property before you ever make an offer to purchase it.

 

Do you have any idea where the most profit comes from every property you buy? Are you making the most profit possible for every property you buy?

Why are you in the real estate business is to make as much profit as possible with the least amount of effort.

Today, I don’t believe anyone ever thinks about the things buyers and renters are looking for. I believe most investors fail to stop to think about what it is about each property that will be the determining factor of what will give them the most profit if they buy the property.

Something that has made a huge difference in how I recognize the highest and best use of each property I’m interested in buying is to imagine myself as if I would be the one who would be buying or renting the property. As crazy as it sounds, when you do this little exercise, it will surely give you a different and more focused perspective of what any buyer or renter will be looking for.

When I see myself as if I would be the person who will be living in the house, I look at the house differently. I hope you will see that it will change your perspective and put you more in tune with your buyers and renters of today.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had several investors come to me and tell me that they can NEVER get sellers to give them seller financing terms. For me that makes no sense: I have plenty of success in getting seller financing terms on the properties I buy, over 30 years in fact. So today I’m going to help out those investors who are having little to no success in negotiating seller financing terms on their deals.

I’ve talked with some investors who are buying upwards of 35 houses A MONTH. They already have a network and a system of lenders that allows them to pay cash for each house. This podcast isn’t for them; it’s for those investors that don’t have the cash or the network to scale their business yet to such a high level.

Cash is never the only way to buy a house; I’m living proof. Even if you have money, eventually that money runs dry and your business shrivels up. So why not just save that money for other deals and negotiate seller financing terms whenever you can?

For all your real estate education needs, visit me online at LarryHarbolt.com.

Good Luck and Happy Investing!