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Hello, You're about to learn the "Nitty Gritty" Truth about building a Real Estate Empire, buying and selling houses. This is a real story ...the true story of how I've made a small fortune buying and selling single-family houses and How I Literally Got Started Doing Real Estate Deals With No Money Out of My Pocket. Truth Is... I Was A Dead Broke Waiter and Bartender (and would-be entrepreneur) And I Needed To Buy A Clue. I Gotta Warn Ya.. This is story gets ugly and if you're easily scared, you're looking for a "get rich quick" solution or you think everything in business should be a piece of cake then there isn't a single reason I can think of for you to continue reading. 11 Deals and Over $170,000 In Profit It's really alot more than that.... That's about how much I made in the first seven months of my first year in the real estate business, almost 11 years ago... For the year it actually ended up being a little over $230,000 when you counted the cashflow with it and not just the down payments and backend profit. But Hang On, I still need to tell you the whole story that gets us to where we are today. I haven't even started telling you the story and I know you have to be wondering, questioning, how someone with no money to get started went from zero... to that kind of income in "Less Than A Year." I Know You've Got Questions You
Should!! I'll
be honestm if it wasn't me that lived it, I wouldn't believe it either,
after all, I'd seen every "late night get rich" show on tv and I
never believed that what they were touting could be true. I
remember having those same feelings. Here's The "Real Story" - I'm Going To Tell You How I Got Here Today, Even If It's NOT As Glamorous As I'd Like It To Be. Ok, so where do I start... I need to give you a little background, so you understand.. First, I'd been a waiter and bartender most of my life.. and then decided to fan my entrepreneurial flame and got into the custom t-shirt printing business... I had been on my own in that business for about 4 years or so, when I completely turned it upside down, mismanaged it and had to close the doors. The truth is "I didn't own the business, it owned me." I Had Been Working 18 Hours per Day on Average, Through the Entirety of the Business' Complete Existence. (I was a slave) After all, I was in pursuit of the American Dream, Financial Independence and I thought the secret was working hard, and I thought for sure it would be worth it in the end. (I know now... that the only end I was working toward was my own).When I finally closed the doors on that business, something changed in me, and I made a rather weird financial decision, I decided that I wasn't going to go get a job, and I wasn't going to start another business. At least till I could build one that I thought would have a chance of surviving and that I didn't have to work long hours in again. For Me, That Was My New Challenge, to Somehow Survive, With No Job (And No Steady Income), Until I Knew I Could Learn to Work Smart, to Build a Business or Investment that Gave Me "More Life," So I Didn't Have to Work the Rest of My Life Away, Hour by Stinkin' Hour. So, I told my girlfriend, that I wasn't going to go get a job, that I had to figure this thing out, crazy thing is I didn't know where to start. (She was waiting tables and we eked out an existence, and got by). So, I started reading everything I could about business, investing... I wanted to know what I was doing wrong, and how to correct it. I Started Realizing "I Wasn't as Smart as I Thought I Was, I Didn't Know Everything" I figured out that wealthy people, self-made millionaires, seldom know everything about everything of what they do. They have to rely on others to help, to round out their knowledge, and that one of the keys to wealth for sure wasn't to know everything, and more importantly, wasn't for you to do everything yourself, you had to gain knowledge from others who had been there before you, from others that had made mistakes, so you didn't have to. And Then It Happened, I Found What I Was Looking For!! Nevermind That I Had Been Jobless, and Living on the Edge for Almost 6 Months Now We were barely scraping by, my girlfriend was making about $20 -$30 per lunch shift, waiting tables, and not happy with me and my apparent decision to remain jobless (truth was, I felt unemployable). And then "Lightning Struck." I finally discovered what I thought was... at the time... something that no one else knew and I was sure it would set me "100% Completely Financially Free." It was a simple idea, and a concept I had never heard before, in fact, some of you will probably laugh as I tell you, but don't judge me yet, until I'm finished, remember I was a complete newbie at anything regarding making money. I Learned That One of the Best Kept Secrets of the Wealthy Was Buying and Owning Notes, Being the Bank to Collect the Monthly Payments that Would Come in, Whether You Worked or Not... In Short, Owning Notes Produced a Source of Hassle-Free Residual Income. A way to get a residual income was what I had been searching for, day and night for my entire life, not just the last 6 months... the last 6 months were just when I had dug my feet in the ground and decided it was time to find some "Real Answers" to how I could become Financially Free and not become that hamster on the wheel, working for the rest of my life in hopes that I could eke out a small retirement, that wasn't my style, and knew I wanted more out of life, to be able to live and enjoy life instead of waiting for the next 30 years to get to some mundane retirement. I Wanted to Beat the System... The System That Most People Were In, Even the People That I Knew That Had Their Own Companies, Worked Tremendously Hard. These business owners couldn't even take
off time to enjoy a vacation, it was a just a distraction, a fantasy for
later, and heck most of the time the business owners I knew barely had
time to take off long enough to just sit down and enjoy lunch, most of the
time just wolfing it down on the run, they had to work long hours and stay
focused on their business. I WANTED TO EXIT THAT LIFE!! There were
some simple things I wanted in the beginning, you'll probably
laugh... ( I had written these things on a yellow piece of paper and
kept it in my pocket, some things I wanted when I started another
business). The Sudden Shock of My Life !! In the midst of my sudden realization and trying to figure out what and how I was going to succeed in life.. a curveball was thrown my way... We found out Laura was pregnant... (Yes, Laura is my girlfriend). Here I am jobless and trying to figure it all out and now I find out I'm gonna be a dad. What kind of dad doesn't have a job? Do I now have to stop all plans and go get a job? Is this sudden discovery about this note thing something I'll have to put on the back burner? I guess that maybe I could have, but I didn't. Laura changed jobs and started working a full-time, 9 to 5 gig at a local health spa as a receptionist, which held off the bears a little better, and kept us in food and diapers, I did broker a t-shirt order or two here and there for extra cash. Her new friends where she worked thought I was a complete deadbeat and thought she should do better. Me, can't say that I blame them... but, at the time I was just focused on the bigger picture and I wasn't about to quit now. I Learn More About the Note Business First off, a note is a promise to pay, an IOU... every time you write a check you are creating a short term note. Notes can be short term, long term and anything in between, the type of note I'm talking about, that I was learning about, were Real Estate Lien Notes. Every time someone buys a house and a bank loans money on that house, then someone has to sign an agreement or promise to pay the loan back, so they sign a promissory note in exchange for the money that the banks lends, except that when real estate is involved the note is generally secured by the real estate. So, if the bank loans you a $100,000 to buy a house, the bank then has you sign a note secured by that real estate, and you agree to make payments on that loan to the bank until it's paid back in full or they will foreclose on your house. That Note Then Becomes an Asset on the Bank's Books. What I didn't know is that it turns out there is a whole sorta underground business about buying and selling notes. The truth is I didn't care about buying and selling notes, I just wanted to own some, so that I could get the residual income. Real estate notes were typically structured to be paid back over 30 years. In my mind I wouldn't need to own but several of these and I would have my basic needs met and be financially free, with checks coming in every month because someone was working to pay off their note they were obligated to pay back. So, I started studying the whole note business and even brokered a few notes here and there, to make a few thousand dollars, but, very quickly realized that was just a job, and not part of my goals. Fact Is... I Wanted to Own Notes, I Wanted to Have People that Were Obligated to Me Money Each and Every Month, But I Still Had "ONE GIANT PROBLEM" I didn't have any money, I was still pretty much broke, and still completely jobless. In fact actually, I didn't have any credit or access to borrowing money of any kind. At the time, Laura and I were sharing one car, living in a small, one bedroom apartment. I did however do one smart thing, and that was to get an internet connection.. it was dial-up and and it was really slow.. but, it allowed me to do more and more research. And Then Another Stroke of Luck, I Learned a Way That I Could Buy Houses with No Cash, No Credit - In Fact, No Bank Involvement and No One to Tell Me "No, You're Not Qualified" - and then Turn Around and Sell Them with Owner Financing, to Create Notes Where People Would Pay Me Forever. (I'm Sure a Bunch of You Out There Already Know How to Do This, But, Stick with Me, I Promise What I'm Going to Tell You is Much Bigger Than This) So, what I started doing was buying houses "subject to the existing lien".. most people nowadays call it buying subject to or sub to, because back in those days on the internet me and a couple other guys coined that term... stupidly so, because we thought it was complete technique all by itself. What it simply means is to take over the existing debt of a property. For instance, if you find someone that is selling a house that they need to sell pretty badly you can offer to just take over the payments, so again not having any money or the ability to qualify for loans, I was able to go out and buy houses by taking over their payments and then reselling the houses with owner financing and creating what is called a wraparound loan. Before I
Explain This Any Further... You Gotta Know... Know This... I Was Extremely
Excited At What I Had Discovered... And At the Same Time.. This discovery was,
after all, in my mind the keys to the kingdom, a way to buy houses without
worrying about bank loans, credit approvals, or even down payments... and
heck... Without ever having owned a house before... Absolutely No
Experience... This was what I had been looking for. I Had Just Made $12,000 Dollars on My First Real Estate Deal and I Still Had Another House to Sell. To be honest I was happy with the $2,700 in cash.... the $80 bucks monthly plus $8,500 equity was a complete bonus. I mean I wanted to be a note holder and make residual income.. but, I had never made $2,700 dollars so easily. It Happened So Easily I Had to Wonder If I Could Really Do it Again, I Mean... Was it Really This Easy to Make Money, or Was I Just Lucky? Deal
#2. At the same time I bought the first house, I had
also agreed to take over payments on another one. This one
wasn't in the best area of town, but after looking at it I was pretty
sure I could sell it for a profit, I thought I might be able to get as
much as $47,000 for it. It took me about two weeks to find a buyer
for it, and the buyer agreed to buy it for $42,000 with $3,000 down, they
were going to use it as rental property. On this particular deal the
loan I was taking over was $33,000, and I didn't want to keep this
property and make payments on it while I was waiting to find a buyer. I was
happy to sell it for what I sold it for, even if I might have sold it
undermarket. So, when the smoke cleared I picked up another $3,000
cash and then was owed $39,000 on my wrap and still had to pay my
underlying financing of $33,000. I was making about $48 month on
this house.. and again I had started creating a residual income. I Finished that Year Making a Little Over $230,000... I had to pinch
myself, as I had never made more than about $35,000 in a single year in my
life. I Had Created a Little Over $1.1 Million in Notes Owed to Me in That First Year and a Positive Cashflow of Over $2,200 At this point life had admittedly taken a turn for the much better. I was making money faster and easier than I had in my entire life. Laura and I eventually moved back in together and my daughter was growing up faster than ever, and I was a Dad... That's still weird even today... I love being a Dad... It was just weird that I actually could have ever filled those shoes... That All Happened
about 11 Years ago. |