Joe McCall - Admin

The Real Estate Investor Creed

This just came in my inbox from a great real estate teacher and investor I admire, Brian Gibbons (see his website here). I am not sure if he wrote it, but I wanted to share it with you all. It is now my Creed and I hope you can make it your own someday soon too!

Our Credo as Real Estate Investors:

I am a Real Estate Investor.

Of all of the occupations I have tried, researched, pondered, and read about over the years, there is none which compares to mine. My work is fun. I take ugly houses and make them beautiful. I help people out of difficult situations.

I am a Real Estate Investor. I am my own boss. I often work in my pajamas from the comfort of my home. I have no employees to baby sit, no perishable inventory to move, no franchise fees to pay, and no store to maintain. Still, I am in the top 5% of all income earners.

I am a Real Estate Investor. I now enjoy freedoms I’ve never had before. I am the master of my day. I choose who to work with. I choose my hours, and I decide if I will work 20 hours or 40 hours this week. I can also choose to take the day off, without obtaining anyone’s permission. I can take a month-long vacation. I can sleep in, or take a power nap after lunch if I want. I can review my notes and return my calls while lounging in my jacuzzi. I no longer have to commute during rush hour.

I have the freedom to spend lots of time with my wife and children. I do not have the stress and pressure of needing to close my next deal by the end of the week, by the end of this month, or even by the end of this year.

I live in one of the nicest neighborhoods, in one of the most beautiful states, in the best country that has ever existed on this Earth.

I am a Real Estate Investor. There are many who ‘want’ to be like me; many who are ‘studying’ to be like me; and many more who would be like me, but are just waiting for ‘this opportunity to appear’ or ‘that circumstance to change’… At the end of the day, very few actually are like me.

I have been very fortunate and blessed. I am finally living my dream. I love doing what I do, and I would not trade places with anyone, nor trade my life experiences for anyone else’s.

I am driven by the belief that life is short, and we need to ‘make a difference’ in the short time that we’re here, because after all is said and done, it’s really not about ‘us.’

I am a Real Estate Investor.

By Joe McCall - Admin

Free Marketing Tips!!

Someone emailed me and was somewhat discouraged about the lack of response they were getting from their marketing. I thought I would include my response here…

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I know it’s easy to get discouraged. All I can say is don’t give up! I am doing 3-5 deals a month, on average. I am doing approximately 80% cooperative assignments, 20% other types of wholesaling. Things were really slow for me in November and December, as far as finding buyers goes. I only sold 2 homes!

I did add a bunch of inventory. I have 22 homes on my website now, so I am expecting to start selling them soon at a pretty good clip. I also am still picking up deals from sellers. Just picked up 1 yesterday after only talking to the seller for 10 minutes. I haven’t even seen the house yet or met the seller.

The most important key I think is marketing, marketing, marketing. You can’t stop or lighten up on your marketing. What are the best forms of marketing for me right now?

1) Cold calls For Rent ads (craigslist, newspaper, etc)
2) Emails to Craigslist For Rent ads
3) Text messaging For Rent ads
4) Voice blast For Rent ads
5) Referrals – (I get probably 25% of my deals from referrals)

Just yesterday, I emailed 8 houses and sent text messages to 12 others. I picked up 1, maybe 2, deals. Not bad for 1 hour of work?

When you are talking to sellers, you have to be confident and know what you’re talking about. You almost have to play hard to get. I tell sellers that I can only help a limited number of sellers every month, and they need to get me their information as soon as possible to see if I can fit them in.

Also, my agreements are non-exclusive – so they can sell the house on their own if they want. I know there has been a lot of discussion about this lately, but I think it’s very important. I win a lot of deals because of this. Sellers often ask me “What’s the catch? It doesn’t cost me anything? I can cancel anytime?” I make it extremely difficult for them to say no. I probably only lose 10%-20% of my deals because the seller sold it first. It’s no fun, but it’s part of the business. You really need to focus on what’s in the best interest of the seller. When your sellers realize this, you will win more of their business.

So don’t give up. Ramp up your marketing! It’s all a numbers game. If you want more deals, do more marketing. If you don’t like making cold calls, hire someone to do it for you. Pay them $250 -$500 for every deal you buy. Practice your sales and negotiating skills.

If you want to do 3-5 deals a month, you should probably be talking to 5-10 sellers a day. And you will probably need 10-30 homes on your website. See how important marketing is?

Keep it up. Don’t be discouraged. I hope that helps…

By Joe McCall - Admin

Best Marketing Practices for Selling Your Lease Option Home

There are some simple, basic principles for marketing a lease option home that if you consistently apply, will work wonders and help you find a well qualified tenant-buyer faster than all your competition.

But…. you have to keep this incredibly simple, and often overlooked, principle in mind: You can only sell homes that people want to buy! That is the most important, fundamental part of the business. No matter how well you market a house, if it’s a 2 bedroom dump in a war zone and there are no toilets in the house, you are not going to find a good tenant-buyer for that house!

So make sure you start off on the right foot. If you are selling houses on lease options, only buy nice homes in nice neighborhoods! Otherwise, nothing here will matter to you. Nothing.

So let’s assume you are a smart investor and you have listened to everything they taught you in that last seminar you went to, and you already have a nice house in a nice neighborhood – you done good! You probably have a nice looking, 3-4 bedroom house in a good school district. RIGHT?!?!?!? Now how do you effectively market it? Ready? Here we go…

1)   Offer generous rent credits! If you are a tenant-buyer looking at two similar homes, would you want the one that is offering $100/mo rent credits, or the one who is offering 50% rent credits of $500/mo?! I mean come on… $100/mo rent credits? What’s that? Stop being so stingy! Bump up the option price a little bit if you have to. Generous rent credits sell homes.
2)   Do some light staging to the home – simple stuff like towels in the bathroom, a welcome mat at the door, a few decorations on the walls, plants in the living room, fruit bowls in the kitchen, scented plug-ins, etc. This doesn’t have to be expensive and you don’t have to hire a professional staging company to make your house look nice. Make sure the house is clean and presents itself well.
3)   Have lots of pictures of the property. When you take your pictures, make sure the lighting is good and the house is bright. Then upload your pictures to an on-line website like Flikr or Google’s Picasa. That way you can send people to an on-line slide show of the property.
4)   Have a video of the property in your ads. You don’t need a professional video done. Just something simple. You can walk through the property and talk about what you are looking at. Again, make sure you have lots of light. Put the video on YouTube so you can provide a link to the it in your ads and on your website. Keep the video under 3-4 minutes.
5)   Have a BIG FAT UGLY SIGN in the yard. Get the biggest sign you’re allowed to have by city ordinace. It should say something like “Rent To Own, No Bank Qualifying, Your Credit is Approved, Voice Mail Phone Number, Website”. You should also have fliers next to your sign that give information on the property. I like simple, non-professional looking, average joe blow signs. They will grab someone’s attention much faster than a professional, stodgy looking sign. I promise.
6)   Put 10-20 smaller “bandit signs” in the neighborhood every weekend. This is very important! The two best sources of leads will be Craigslist and neighborhood “bandit signs”. You will get tons of calls from your bandit signs. All they need to say is something like, “Rent To Own, Beautiful House, Voice Mail Phone Number”. You can leave some room if you want to write in the number of bedrooms and the address. Don’t put your website on these signs. You don’t have enough room for that. You just want people to call.
7)   Advertise on Craigslist EVERYDAY! Yes, everyday. There are ways to do it if you are smart, creative, and sneaky. Try creating multiple Postlets & vFlyers for your houses. Create “For Rent” and “For Sale” ads. Do regular ads with no HTML. Change your ads around. Adjust the content. Post from different email accounts and from different computers.
8)   Advertise on all the other websites regularly – REIBlackBook, backpage, kijiji, oodle, google base, owners.com, zillow, trulia, rentdigs, hotpads, etc…
9)   Send the house out to your Tenant-Buyer’s List. What? You don’t have one? Well that’s okay if you are just getting started in the business. But you better start building one ASAP! This is super duper important. Start collecting the emails and phone numbers of everyone who contacts you looking for a property. Have an opt-in form on your website. I use Constant Contact all the time.
10)   Finally, hire a Virtual Assistant to do all this for you! This part of the business could possibly be the easiest part to outsource. It is very to systematize and create a checklist for. You don’t have to do it all yourself. You should find someone else to do it for you so you can chase more deals and start making more money!

If you would like more information on how to buy & sell lease options quickly and profitably, visit our website at www.WholesalingLeaseOptions.com.

Joe McCall
St Louis, MO

By Joe McCall - Admin

Just Get Out There and Do It!

I get A LOT of calls and emails from beginning investors asking me for the exact scripts I use for my emails, postcards, voice mails, website, etc… I used to be exactly like that, so I understand where they are coming from. I used to ask every investor I knew in my area to give me all their “secrets”, hoping that I would FINALLY figure out how to be successful like them. But I eventually became so frustrated with myself because I was learning all these great concepts, but they weren’t making me any money. I finally got so fed up that I decided that if I didn’t start taking action NOW, I just had to quit the REI biz and hang it all up. I finally made a decision that I was going to start making money in real estate instead of spending it.

Guess what happened when I stopped worrying about my website content, my LLC name, my business cards, my voicemail script, what was in my postcards, and I started actually marketing and talking to sellers? Holy cow, it was working! The stuff in all those courses that I bought was actually working! I couldn’t believe how surprised I was. Just like “magic”, I started doing deals and I started making money! Simply amazing.

(This sounds like a sales pitch, but it isn’t – I swear!)

A lot of investors are doing this – “ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, ready, ready, ready, aim, aim, aim, aim…..” The successful investors are doing this – “ready, fire, aim, fire, aim, fire, aim, fire…”. They just get out there and try everything. They fail. They succeed. Then they re-evaluate, adjust, make changes, and do it all over again. The content of your postcard and your scripts is not as important as you might think. What is important is getting out there and talking to sellers! Start calling them!

Don’t get hung up on the exact words that someone else uses. Sometimes, you just need to come up with something yourself that is “you”. Try different things. See what works, see what doesn’t.

This is all I say when I am talking to sellers, “Hi, my name is Joe. I am investor. I see you have a house listed on ABC street. Have you ever considered selling your house on a lease option / rent-to-own?” And start a dialog from there. EASY.

I am not saying this to come down hard on new investors. I AM TRYING TO ENCOURAGE YOU!!!! This business is not hard. Don’t buy another course! (Except MichaelC’s course, of course!) Just do what you have already learned. Just get out there and do it! YOU WILL BE SURPRISED THAT WHAT WE DO ACTUALLY WORKS!!! This biz is so much fun.

YOU CAN BE SUCCESSFUL!!!

By Joe McCall - Admin

5 Common Lease Purchase Mistakes & How to Avoid Them

If you think you can be successful in real estate investing without making mistakes, you have a lot of surprises in store! And in fact, if you are afraid to make mistakes, you will probably never be successful in this business. It’s a crazy world out there, and you are going to make mistakes. It’s time to face up to it and get used to it. It’s a crazy reality, but you will probably learn more from your mistakes than anything else.

Along with all the success I have had, I have made a lot of mistakes in my business. I list only a few of them here in hopes that I can help you avoid the same ones. But if you are hard-headed like me, you will read this list and think, “OK – yeah, that’s great. That’s really good stuff. But I wouldn’t do anything like that. I already know that. I’m cool. Whatever…”

The most successful people in this business learn from their mistakes, and they are wise enough to learn from the mistakes of others. When they fail, they fail falling forward. So here are some mistakes I have made. I hope you will learn from them so you can avoid them yourselves!!!

Mistake #1 – Slowing Down Your Marketing

It’s tempting. You have been doing some marketing and you are getting some success. Now you are starting to get sellers to call you. Congratulations – your marketing is working! You might be getting real excited. All of the sudden, you are busy. You’re starting to wheel and deal. You’re a “deal-maker” now! You find a motivated seller and you get a house under contact. You start seeing dollar signs. You start advertising and marketing the house all over the internet. You take a ton of calls from tenant-buyers. You drive around all over town, meeting the tenant-buyers at the house. You stick signs and flyers all over the neighborhood. Then finally, you sell the house! You breathe a big sigh of relief. The tenant-buyer is happy. The seller is happy. You are happy. You just made $5,000! Congratulations! And then you look around you and say to yourself, “Awesome! Let’s do another one!”

But what just happened? You just wasted 3 weeks spending all your time & effort selling a home while your marketing for sellers has completely ground to a halt. Now what are you going to do for new leads? Well, okay, you start marketing again for sellers. But now it takes another 2 weeks to find another seller. And then it takes another 4 weeks to sell that property. All of the sudden, it’s been 6 weeks since your last paycheck and you’re starting to freak out!

This mistake is real easy to avoid, and it should be obvious how to avoid it… Don’t stop your marketing! Keep doing it consistently, systematically, religiously, etc!

Mistake #2 – Trying To Sell Houses People Don’t Want to Buy.

I get a lot of investors that call me and ask me to help them sell their investment property on a lease option. They are usually extremely frustrated by a lack of results. I ask them what they have been doing to sell it and usually, they are doing all the right things. Then I find out where the house is located and discover immediately what their problem is. They bought a good house in the wrong neighborhood. The numbers work, but no one wants to live in the home – at least no one who wants to eventually buy it. And don’t you think that might be a problem? There is usually nothing I can do to help investors sell these types of homes.

Here’s one of the most important keys you can ever learn in this biz – whether you learn it from me or you learn it after you buy the wrong property… You can only sell homes people want to buy! Stay away from ugly houses in bad neighborhoods! Only lease purchase nice homes in nice neighborhoods.

What are buyers looking for in your area? I run most of my lease purchase business in St Louis, Missouri. Obviously, each market is different. But here is a list of what buyer’s are looking for in my area:

1.   3+ bedrooms & more than one bathroom
2.   Homes in good school districts
3.   Homes in the median price range ($120,000 – $175,000)
4.   Homes that have a basement and a garage

So it’s logical to see which homes I stay away from like the plague:
1.   Anything less than 2 bedrooms & only 1 bathroom
2.   Houses with no garage and/or no basement
3.   Houses in bad school districts
4.   Houses in rental neighborhoods

If you follow these simple rules when marketing for Lease Purchase homes, you will save yourself a ton of headaches… aand you will make more money!

Mistake #3 – Not Treating Your Investing Business Like a BUSINESS

Real estate investing should not be a hobby to you. You need to treat it and run it like a business. Do you have a business plan? What are your business goals? If you don’t have something in writing, create a business plan today! It doesn’t have to be an epic tome. What type of real estate investing business do you want to have? How many homes do you need to sell a month? How much marketing do you need to do every week to meet your goals? What cash flow do you need every month to break even? What type of sellers and tenant-buyers are you looking for?

There is so much that could be said about this topic, that I don’t have the time to write it all our here. The main point is that you need to have a plan. You need to have something in writing that guides everything you do. What’s the saying – “If you don’t know where you’re going, I can guarantee you will get there.” Get a plan and work the plan!

Also, one final important tid-bit – learn to manage your cash flow. Cash flow will make you or break you. You have to know what’s coming in and out every month.

Mistake #4 – Being Too Hard For Your Sellers and Buyers to Reach.

Does it really need to be said? Would you ever do business with someone who is impossible to reach? If you look at any successful investor in your area, I can almost promise you they do not use all those expensive & elaborate voice mail systems and websites that all the guru’s try to sell you on. Why? Those systems pre-screen everyone out. If you want to be successful in this business, you must be easy to talk to. When a seller calls, don’t make them jump through 100 hoops and answer 1,000 questions before you call them back. When a tenant-buyer calls, don’t make them listen to a 10 minute message that tries to answer every question they have about Lease Purchasing. Be accessible!

On all my marketing and in all my voice mails, I have a way for people to reach me at my office. They can leave a message if they want, but they also all know that they can be re-directed to my office if they want to talk to a live person.

Now I am not talking about answering the phone at all hours of the day and night. I am just talking about basic, simple customer service. You wouldn’t believe how much business I used to throw away before I changed this part of my business and became easier to get a hold of.

If you’re worried about spending too much time on the phone with “tire kickers”, your focusing on the wrong thing! You’re focusing on yourself and not your customers. Here’s the key – you’re going to waste more time playing phone tag than you would if you just answered the stupid phone and answer their 3 questions! Usually, I am not on the phone more than 2 minutes with a tenant-buyer, and not more than 5-10 minutes with a seller. But before they ask me all their questions, I ask them my questions first. I stay in control of the conversation. I only talk to motivated sellers and tenant-buyers. If they are not motivated, I thank them for their time, and I get off the phone as quickly as possible.

Mistake #5 – Not Outsourcing Your Marketing.

I have a virtual assistant that does ALL my marketing for sellers and tenant-buyers. Yes, you heard that right. Actually, I have 3 virtual assistants – but that’s a different story. I have already talked about how important marketing is. But this is one of the easiest parts to outsource – yet I don’t understand why so few investors are actually doing it!

You think it’s too expensive to hire a virtual assistant? Guess how much I pay my VA? $2.78 / hour. She lives in the Philippines, has excellent English, and is very happy with $2.78/hour.

What do I have her do? Well, you need to subscribe to my course to find out! In my course, I will give you the exact instructions, checklists, and videos I give to all my virtual assistants. It’s not rocket science. All you need to do is write down everything you do for marketing, and have your VA do it. Here are two tools that I use all the time in my outsourcing:

• www.oDesk.com – I like the VA’s from the Philippines
• www.JingProject.com – a free tool where you can record videos and instructions for your VA’s

Listen, you have more important things to do than researching the internet, stamping envelopes and addressing postcards. Hire someone else to do all your marketing. It will be some of the best money you ever spend on your business.

Summary

This list of mistakes could easily be 2-3 times longer. These are just A FEW of the lessons I have learned along the way. You can learn more about the mistakes I made and how to avoid them by subscribing to our membership site and gaining access to all our great content.

Happy investing!