We often hear people say, “I want to make more money investing so I can quit my job”. That’s a great starting point, but let’s dig a little deeper.

What does it mean to ‘make more money’? If that person makes an extra 10 dollars in the coming year, does that qualify as making more money? Sort of, but did it help that person achieve their true goal? That’s doubtful.

Try making a SMART goal, and then you’ll know specifically what you need to do to achieve it. Here’s how it works:

Specific: Be very specific in what your goal is
Measureable: Create an exact metric or target. This can be a dollar amount, a specific action, etc. Put something concrete here so you’ll know what you are working toward and also so you can look back on it and know whether or not you achieved it.
Attainable: What actions are you going to take that will get you to your goal? Put your project plan here, and include the steps you’ll need to take to achieve your goal.
Realistic: Is it reasonable for you to take all of the actions you have outlined in the time you have allotted? If you take the actions in the timeframe you have set, will you achieve your goal?
Timely: Set a precise deadline to achieve the goal. It also helps to set deadlines for milestones along the way so you’ll know if you are on track or if you have fallen behind.

Here’s an example:
Specific: Earn $200,000 investing in wholesale real estate transactions in 2012
Measureable: $200,000 is the target for the year, so if I average $16,700 per month I will achieve my goal. If I average $8500 per transaction, doing two transactions per month will get me to $200,000 in 2012.
Attainable: Create a leads pipeline that consistently generates 100 phone calls from motivated sellers each month. I need to convert just 10% of these calls to my pipeline, and close 20% of the transactions that enter my pipeline
Realistic: Yes, if I make it a priority. I need to follow through on consistently filling my pipeline and also achieve my monthly goal every month. If I do those things I should hit my annual target of $200,000.
Timely: Goal of $16,700 every month and annual goal of $200,000 by 12/31/12

Making a good living in the real estate industry can happen for you. The first step is figuring out what is important to you, and then setting specific goals so you can achieve those things. Try this approach to set yourself up for success!

It’s that time of year again, the holidays, baking cookies, time with family… and also time for reflection on what you achieved over the last year.

This is when people who are serious about improvement take a few minutes to analyze what they did well, what they did that did not go as well, and what actions they need to take to make sure they are more effective next year.

Look back on the goals you created last January and see how well you did on each of them. Did you hit each one out of the park, or did you do well on a few and need to refocus your efforts on others?

Maybe one of your goals was a new approach for talking with sellers, maybe one was delegating more to your virtual assistant, or maybe one was just trying to do more transactions. Whatever your goals were, if you created strong, specific goals for yourself and were diligent about checking your status, you know if you were successful in achieving them.

If you did not to create goals for yourself, think about what you accomplished over the past year. Did everything work out perfectly? If you’re like most of us, probably not. Now that you have the benefit of hindsight, what can you do differently next year to be more successful?

Want to send a thank you card to someone, but don’t have time to go to the store and get the card, then go to the post office to get a stamp?

We have you covered! Now you can send one thank you card whenever you want, with any message you want!

Here’s how it works: simply tell us what you want your card to say and the return address for your envelope, and we’ll have one of our writers hand write your entire card, including handwriting the envelope with both the address and return address. Then we’ll put a commemorative first class stamp on the envelope and put it in the mail for you, all for just $2.99!!!

It’s a lot cheaper to keep an existing customer than to find a new one. In fact, it is nearly 10 times as costly to find a new customer as it is to keep a current one. So, what can you do to keep an existing customer?

Follow-up – do you check in with your customers to see how things are going?
Do you ask them what they thought of your service, did it meet their expectations?
Do you send them a thank you card, thanking them for their business?

A simple follow-up to thank the customer for their business can go a long way in reminding them of the experience they had with your business as well as keeping your name in front of them. You can also use the thank you follow-up as a way of reminding your customer to schedule their next visit or inform them about upcoming promotions.

We know you’re busy, that’s why we can now help you with handwritten thank you cards so you can stay in touch with your customers. You’ll have more of your customers returning, helping you grow your business!

Lots of us have been following the Mortgage Assistance Relief Services (MARS) rule and we’ve had lots of questions over the past several months from our readers about what it is, when it applies and how to comply with it.

The FTC has announced that it will not enforce MARS for real estate brokers and agents, here is a link to the complete article – http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2011/07/mars.shtm

We’re halfway through the year… are you halfway towards meeting the goals you set for yourself back in January?

The halfway point of any project timeline is a great opportunity to reflect on your accomplishments, including what has gone well, what hasn’t, and what needs to happen for you to achieve your goals. Are you allocating the time and resources you know it will take to achieve your goals?

Take control and rededicate yourself to doing what’s necessary to make yourself successful!

So you’ve found someone who wants to get away from their house payments, you’ve walked them through their options, and they’ve decided a lease option is the approach they want to pursue. You get the property under contract and now it’s time to find a tenant buyer. Getting the right person in the property will set you up for success. Here are a couple things to consider:

Stability is huge. A good way to check this is to make sure the people have steady employment. Many of these folks have been through a life-changing event recently. Maybe they lost their job a few years ago or went through a divorce, but no matter what it was, their credit took a hit. You’re looking for people who have rebounded and now have found steady income again.

A large portion of the tenant’s commitment to the property comes from their down payment. They need to have set aside some funds to get into a property. Make sure the down payment is enough that they will be unlikely to walk away from the property. If they only put down 1% of the property value they probably won’t look at the property much differently than a typical rental. You want someone who will view the property as theirs, so they’ll take care of it like they own it.

A Lease Option is a great type of deal whether you’re new to investing or a seasoned veteran. It’s basically a lease to own option while the buyer fixes his credit. Here’s how it works –

Find a motivated seller – you want a seller who is okay having a buyer making payments to them for awhile before they buy it. This is why it’s called a “Lease Option”, the buyer will be leasing the property for a period until they can qualify for a loan to purchase the property. Normally this takes two or three years, enough time for the buyer to clean up his credit. Since the property seller will be leasing the property, ask them about the minimum down payment they want from buyer. They’ll usually be happy with first and last month’s rent. In our experience the best leads for finding sellers willing to do a lease option are usually a Pre-nod leads list or an Absentee Owned property leads list.

Find a qualified buyer – this will typically be someone who needs to clean up their credit score but who has a steady job and money for a down payment. Be sure to do your due diligence with your buyer on the front end to save yourself a hassle on the back end. We’ll get into how to do this more in a later post. We typically find our buyers by sending yellow letters to a list of Renter leads.

Here’s how you make this deal work – if the seller has a mortgage payment of $800 per month they’ll want the monthly rent to be at least that. Let’s say the buyer agrees to a lease of $900 per month, and with the seller wanting down payment of first and last month’s rent, you’ll need to give the seller $1800 to close the deal. If the seller is behind on their mortgage, you’ll also need to use part of the down payment to bring the mortgage current. If they are two months behind that’s $1600 plus any bank fees. So taking the $1800 for the first and last month’s rent to the seller and $1,600 to the bank to bring the property current means your major expenses to close the deal are about $3,400. Any down payment you receive from the buyer in excess of this is your margin (minus your marketing and other costs). This can be anywhere from a few thousand dollars on up, depending on the value of the property, how much the buyer can afford, what you feel your time is worth, etc.

Yep, during the holidays. Think about it this way – the envelope is written by hand, there’s a commemorative stamp on it, and it looks just like the Christmas cards everyone is receiving right now, so you know it will get opened. Also add the fact that this is a slow time of year for people selling a house, so they’ll be happy to get any type of lead from a prospective buyer. Then think about all the other investors who are “taking a break” at this time of year, and WHAMO, no competition!

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