Shopping for great real estate deals requires that you be curious. Often the things you’re curious about can lead to interesting pieces of information that had nothing to do with what you were asking … take this little story for example.
We were told that this particular property was for sale because the owner wanted to move away. That was pretty much all our agent knew. We didn’t know what kind of seller we were dealing with, but thankfully the tenant was home when we were visiting and we learned a few more details…
Quick Tip: Finding Motivated Sellers
Real Estate Investing Newsletter and Starter Tips Guide
I don’t want you to take this the wrong way because I really think that you two are providing a really refreshing view point for your readers. And, I do think that you are genuine in your message. But, I think that you should spend more time telling people about the risks. Too many people lose their shirt buying houses and I fear that you don’t tell that side enough.
William
Julie’s Response:
Thank you for your email! And I appreciate your feedback.
We never want to make real estate sound like a guaranteed path to wealth because not every property will make you money. In fact, I believe we’ve told plenty of stories about what CAN go wrong. Take this article for example:
But, I hesitate to put too much focus on the risks involved. That doesn’t mean I ignore the risks, but instead I will write about what you can do to prevent something from ever happening (like 5 ways to protect yourself from a bad property manager). The focus is then shifted AWAY from the risk and onto the prevention or the action you can take towards success.
You have to be aware of the risks (and that is where a good mentor, a good real estate investing program, or even a well written book can be crucial for a new real estate investor). You have to know what obstacles you could encounter on the road ahead so that you can take steps to avoid them.
The bottom line is that you’re right – there are risks in real estate investing. AND – we try not to make big lists of them because it can be scary. But, to put this in perspective, if we all sat there and focused on the risks we take EVERY DAY just going to the office or the store, none of us would ever go. You could stub your toe getting out of bed, you could get hit by a cyclist crossing the street, you could have a car accident, you could be mugged at the subway … I am not trying to trivialize the risks in real estate, but I am trying to say that things WILL go wrong. That is just life. But, there are a lot of ways to drain the risk from your deals and become a successful real estate investor. And – that is what we focus our readers, students and our own minds on.
Best regards,
Julie
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“I do not believe that success is an accident. What I do believe is that successful people apply themselves in a way that maximizes the probability of positive outcomes.“
- Jim Randel, Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur.
Do you ever read a book and think: “MAN! I would like to meet this author!”?
Reading Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur gave me that feeling!! It was one of those rare books that explained complicated concepts like Cap Rate, NOI, Triple Net Leases and more in a very easy to understand way AND had fantastic inspirational and motivational stories to go along with it.
This book made me look at our deals in a totally different way and I can guarantee you that we’re going to make A LOT more money on our next few deals all thanks to this author.
To him, real estate is about adding value. You either add value through the process by which you buy the property or you add value by what you do to the property itself. It’s not a new concept but the way he presents it is realistic and practical – yet exciting!
So, when I reached out to him and asked him to be on our next teleseminar, you can imagine how excited I was when he said YES!
So, Monday night, we all get a chance to chat with Mr. Randel about commercial real estate investing, adding value to deals, and being in the game! I can’t wait!!
With 30 years of experience in commercial real estate acting as a lawyer, broker and an investor, he is a true expert on all things related to commercial real estate investing. And – do you know how he began in real estate? He started by buying beat up houses, rehabbing them and selling them!
If you ever wanted to have the chance to learn from someone who knows what it’s like to pocket a few million dollars on one single deal (and lose $1.5 million on another!) then this is your chance. He will also be taking a few minutes to answer YOUR QUESTIONS. So if you want to get your question answered you will have to be on the call!
To register for the call (or order the call replay & transcript to listen and read later):
Bram never catches his dream bunny because he doesn't focus on just one ... is the same thing holding YOU back from your dream?
During the rental property renovations we went through a few weeks ago, we stayed with Dave’s parents who live in Nanaimo. They also live right across from a large school yard and just steps from a big park. These two places happen to be massive breeding grounds for GIGANTIC black bunnies and the odd brown and white bunny.
Bram, our wonderful pet and best friend, is completely obsessed with the bunny rabbits. He wakes up at the crack of dawn anxious to get out there and chase them. Our normally laid back and easy going dog turns into a crazed hound on a mission. But, happily for me and sadly for him, he has never even come close to catching one.
You see … when he races into the school yard the bunnies scatter. They are EVERYWHERE and he can’t choose which one to chase so he tries unsuccessfully to chase them all. If he would select one little bunny victim and focus he just might have a shot, but he doesn’t. Instead he runs after different ones, changing direction rapidly thinking the next bunny HAS to be easier to catch. The only thing he does successfully is exhaust himself. It makes my job of walking and exercising him early in the morning easy, but he is never satisfied because he never even gets close to any one bunny.
Does this sound like your attempts at real estate investing? Or just wealth creation in general? You’re not alone. I recently wrote about this lack of focus (I called it Shiny Penny Syndrome) for Early to Rise … and about how this syndrome just could be holding you back from your dreams.
“Have you ever heard anyone talk about the joys of landlording? Probably not, since most of the buzz surrounding the concept of owning properties that others live in revolves around collecting rents, evicting tenants, repairing things broken by residents, and then filling the space when they roll out. What you don’t always hear about are the postiive aspects of landlording, including the financial rewards, the positive rates of return on real estate, and the good feeling that comes from providing housing for others. These positive attributes go a long way in helping property owners overcome the basic challenges of renting out their homes.” -
William A. Lederer, The CompleteLandlord.com Ultimate Landlord Handbook
We’ve never been shy about telling you about our terrible tenants, our nightmares with property managers or our bad choices in properties. We always try to find balance though – sharing those stories equally as often with the fact that we built a net worth of over $1 Million dollars in 7 years, and that some of our properties put as much as $1000 of positive cash flow in our pockets each month. While we focus our blog more on random stories and more personal real estate related events in our lives, we spend most of our time on our website and our newsletter with the intention of helping our readers overcome the challenges that many new real estate investors face.
To that end, we’re really excited to have William Lederer joining us tomorrow evening for a teleseminar. His three books are full of sound and balanced advice, and we know he’s going to be an excellent guest to help you decide if real estate is right for you. And if you’re already sure it is, he is going to help you know how to find and buy the right properties for you AND he’s going to teach you how to add value!
In other words, he’s going to share how to put more money in your pocket EVERY month!
To get all the details for this call and sign up, please click here:
Well – yesterday actually marks the official completion of our rental property renovation project. We had to hire a professional to come in a finish the bathroom floors because we ran out of time … as with every remodeling project we’ve ever done it seemed that unexpected surprises lurked around every little corner in the house! Thankfully every challenge was resolved fairly easily with a bit of money and a bit more time.
So here’s the wrap up videos…
Day 5 and 6 of the Rental Property Renovation Project
Day 7 and 8 of the Rental Property Renovation Project
Have you done a renovation project on a rental property? How did you decide what parts to upgrade? Did it come in on time and on budget? If so, how’d you do it? What size was your project? Tell us about it!!
We’re going to add up the final receipts and do a summary of the costs and the lessons learned in an upcoming post … we know a lot of people are curious what we did this for. I can tell you that we’d budgeted about $5500 and I KNOW we are over that budget by at least $1000 … so stay tuned!
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My brothers working on the new stairs - all part of the big rental property renovation!
Sometimes you have to just bite the bullet and put some money and sweat equity into a property … and that’s what we’ve found with one of our units we own in Nanaimo. As it began to look like we’d have a vacant unit on our hands for a third month in a row, we decided to tackle a bit of a fix up. As we got into it, we realized that a little bit of yard work and paint probably wasn’t enough … so we’re putting in new floors, counter tops, a couple of new sinks and a few other little finishing pieces here and there. As we added things like cleaning the siding on the house and buying a new fridge the budget started to grow to the point of a mid sized renovation project. To cut our costs significantly we decided to dedicate a bunch of time to doing the work ourselves and we called in the family helpers! We’re lucky that most of both of our families live within a few hours of this property!
For fun, I thought I would do a little video diary of our progress so you can see what we’re doing and what it looks like at the start and finish.
Day One of the Rental Property Renovation:
My Mom and I arrive at the property to get things set up and start tackling some of the outside work and painting prep work before Dave and my two brothers arrive on Saturday to really get some big work done.
Day Two of the Rental Property Renovation – let the big work begin:
Reinforcements in the form of my two brothers and my husband arrive on the scene. As they begin to tackle the front steps, my Mom and I carry on with painting doors, walls and getting the windows cleaned. Oh – and we had a prospective tenant come by and look at the place. All the activity out front was getting a lot of attention!
Day Three of the Rental Property Renovations – we’ll call this one the STANDOFF
The outside of the property is slowly coming along … it took Dave nearly 3 hours to tackle the jungle of grass, weeds and twigs that had accumulated all around the property, but we’re making great progress. With one brother gone from the scene until Friday, my other brother moved inside to take on the kitchen! It’s the first time I have seen his work in person (I’ve just seen pictures in the past), and I am so impressed! We’re very fortunate that he’s had the time to dedicate to our project right now. If you are in the Victoria, BC area and need an experienced and hard working carpenter just let me know and I will get you in touch with Wes, my brother.
Day Four of the Rental Property Renovations – we’ll call this video MISSING!
Exhausted from all of the work, and rushing to wrap up the work until Friday, I forgot to film our progress. When we get there Friday morning I will film first thing because it’s really starting to look incredible! And – my brother Wes has been there working away for most of this week.
Oh, by the way, we’ve secured new tenants for our unit! Mission accomplished – but we’re going to keep going to finish things up!
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Austin is the capital city of Texas so not surprisingly, the government is a major employer in Austin. It’s also the home of Dell, the flagship Whole Foods store and a host of other good sized companies. The University also hosts 40,000 students which creates an additional boost to the population and to the services required to service these students!
This economic diversity makes it an appealing place for a real estate investor to buy a property. It’s also weathered the economic storm gracefully. Texas as a whole has not been hit as hard as many states, but Austin has felt the crunch even less. House prices have come down, rental rates have come down, but overall it’s really holding pretty steady. Yet another good indicator for an investor.
Before heading to Austin, I did quite a bit of online research on the City. I basically followed our Location Research Checklist and looked at the trends … and tried to understand the driving forces behind them. When we arrived in Austin, we hit the ground running … looking at areas and talking to experts. Two of the people we sat down with are Steve & Sylvia Crossland of the Crossland Team at Keller Williams.
Steve runs the property management side of their business and Sylvia is the realtor. They are a great team and full of great information for investors! We had the pleasure of learning from them for about 90 minutes … then we set out and saw the sites around Austin … the real estate sites that is.
First, we spoke to them generally about their experience. Steve has a couple of great tips for real estate investors in general in this video:
Then we got into the juicy numbers of the Austin real estate market … what’s happening with the sales, the price per square foot, rent rates and more:
So, why Austin, and why now? And what specifically should you know about real estate investing in the Austin market right now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q89O5gBq224
We then set out doing a walking tour of several of the areas around Austin which is something we always recommend an investor do. If you’re thinking of buying in an area, go out there and walk it. Imagine you were your tenant … where would you work? Where would your kids go to school? How would you travel to and from work? Where will you shop? How easy is it to live there and do all of these things? Drive around and get a sense of which streets seem better … it really doesn’t take much time to get a feeling for an area and identify potential opportunities. Of course, finding good resources for your team like Steve and Sylvia would be helpful as well!
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I’ve been super frustrated with the never ending problems we’ve been having with a property we have in Toronto. We spent nearly $10,000 doing the roof, repairing a ceiling, and then painting. It felt good to get the roof fixed and do the repairs to the ceiling but the company I hired has been a nightmare to work with. While doing the work, the roofers threw a shingle off the roof so hard it actually busted my neighbour’s window (the houses are only a few feet a part). The roofers never bothered to help our neighbour with the repair, so he did it himself and we just paid him for it. Then, once everything was done, we got a call from our tenants and the ceiling in the one room is leaking again!!It took weeks to get in touch with the company to get them out there. And, even then, they never actually went in the property. They just showed up, jumped on the roof, scared the heck out of our tenant who wasn’t expecting a man on her roof, and left without telling me.
Long story short – the roofer is now telling us it’s the eaves troughs that need replacing. If that is, in fact, true then we have a $3500 bill coming our way plus we have to fix the ceiling AGAIN. This is all happening while my main floor tenant of five years, and long time friend and property manager, is moving out. I am in the middle of finding a new tenant for the main floor and hiring a professional property management company.
I have been so wrapped up swearing about it all that I haven’t even been enjoying the fact that we’re paying 1.45% on our mortgage … and our payments are actually $1000/month less than they were 18 months ago. We have more cashflow on this property each month than ever before – so after a few months I will have all these problems paid for!I started to see the bright side and focus on the good things after doing the exercises in Michael J. Losier’s book called Law of Attraction.
I even found myself smiling as I went through the worksheets. I started to see solutions and figure out how exactly I can turn the situation around. I felt more in control of the situation. That is what a few exercises from his book did – so I really am excited that Tuesday night I’m going to sit down with Michael J. Losier and learn from him directly.
We don’t usually publicly post our Rev N You reader events – but we are so excited about this one that we wanted to invite anyone interested in real estate to sit in. We’re only charging a nominal fee to cover our costs … and there’s still about a dozen spots left on the live call (or you can just order the replay and transcripts) … so please join us!!
I don’t want to give away Michael Losier’s secrets because you will learn them on the call (or from his great book) – but I can tell you that I won’t be wallowing in my problems anymore. Next time I find myself swearing over a property I will use one of the simple tools Michael teaches to turn my thinking and my situation around.
Julie's first Single Track Mountain Bike Ride Ever on Seymour Mountain
Ok – I know that rock doesn’t look very scary in this picture, but I can assure you it is a big rock! This picture was taken on my very FIRST single track mountain bike ride in the north shore mountains in Vancouver. I’d probably only been mountain biking two or three other times in my entire life, and there I was heading face first down a rock face.
I made it safely over this rock face. My friends wouldn’t let me focus on my fear and lack of skill. Instead they talked me through what I had to do, and put my focus on the path ahead of the rock.
I quickly signed up for a mountain biking clinic and bought a better bike after this ride, but that’s because I knew I needed better skills and tools to make future rides successful. Overall, this ride on Seymour Mountain was a great experience – I had a blast and was ready to become a better single track rider. I also began to learn an important lesson that applies in real estate and in mountain biking … you will get what you focus on.
If you are focused on the challenges you face in real estate investing – that is what you’ll face. If you focus on the root ahead on the trail – that is what you’ll hit.
I wrote about this in more detail and told another mountain biking story over at Must Know Investing. To learn the trick to overcoming real estate investing obstacles, head on over to the post I wrote for Patrick Riddle’s blog. (Thanks Patrick for sharing my article with your readers!! As always I am proud to be a part of your great blog).
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Once in awhile we like to share some of our 
With 30 years of experience in commercial real estate acting as a lawyer, broker and an investor, he is a true expert on all things related to commercial real estate investing. And – do you know how he began in real estate? He started by buying beat up houses, rehabbing them and selling them!
