Boomer’s Blog

If you’re looking for a real estate investment strategy that’s rock-solid and steadier than a world-class surgeon’s hand, you should take a look at investing in probate properties. And especially if you’re sticking to a tight budget (and who isn’t these days?) legendary straight-shooting probate investing legend Ron Mead has all the training you need to get started, for the price of a tank of gas for your car.

Simply put, probate is the legal process of liquidating an estate’s assets after debts and creditors have been satisfied. With probate property investing, Ron says, you’re easily getting properties for $.50 - $.60 on the dollar. And there are many viable options for maximizing your profits in the flip transactions that follow.

Ron’s book on probate property investing, “31 Days to Profits in Probate Real Estate,” conveys his wealth of experience and knowledge in concise, plain English. Ron will be the first to tell you that he’s no professional author, but his experience with the U.S. military, where “there is a manual for everything,” Ron says, prompted him to write some manuals of his own.

Ron is no stranger to the world of real estate investing. He has been an active real estate investor and entrepreneur for 29 years, and has specialized in probate for more than a decade. Ron got his real estate license in 1979, and became a licensed real estate broker in 1993.

Building on his degree in Business Finance and his reputation as a no-nonsense, wealth-building real estate investor and teacher, Ron has written books on personal finance, probate property investing and creative real estate financing. He’s also gotten considerable buzz in the industry through the real estate investing seminars he’s been conducting for the past decade. He’s accomplished all this, in addition to actively running his own probate property investment business.

Implementing Ron’s techniques may require a bit of up-front time to ramp-up, but when the deals start to hit, your momentum and lack of competition likely will leave you wondering why you didn’t try it sooner. As Ron says, ”There’s just enough work involved here to weed out the tire kickers.” By putting in the effort, Ron assures that you’ll be “handsomely rewarded.” And isn’t that what this business is all about?

Folks, I’ve spent more than $100,000 on real estate training, and I’ve got to tell you that Ron’s entrepreneurial epic “31 Days to Profits in Probate Real Estate,” is better than many of the systems I’ve paid for, and available at a fraction of the price. Read my review of Ron’s book in the Resources section of GaryBoomershine.com.

Sign up my “What’s Working & What’s New” monthly and special reports and you’ll be among the first to learn about a Webinar I’m planning to hold with Ron in the near future for members of the GaryBoomershine.com community.

NBA star Shaquille O’Neal is shopping a reality TV show based on his plans to invest in Orlando’s burgeoning foreclosure market and “make small profits” by selling the homes back to distressed homeowners with more affordable terms. In some state however, “foreclosure rescue” operations have been scrutinized by lawmakers or banned outright.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that the NBA legend cum real estate investor wants to build his legacy by televising his efforts to help homeowners facing foreclosure in Orlando’s troubled real estate markets in a show to be called “Shaq’s Big Save.” O’Neal’s Attorney, Mark NeJame and Realtor Curtis Cooper arranged for the star center to meet with members of Orlando City Hall this week to float the plans, which may also include an affordable-housing project.

Lawmakers Tackle Foreclosure Rescue Regulation
Florida is not yet among the ranks of states seeking to regulate the activity of real estate investors who profit as foreclosure consultants to distressed homeowners. Last year, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reported that a dozen states had taken steps to actively regulate foreclosure transactions. These states include California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island.

This year, lawmakers in Oregon and Washington have expanded their regulatory scopes by passing comprehensive laws that regulate lending practices and place restrictions on property transactions as well as contracts between real estate investors and the distressed sellers. Analysts have predicted that regulation trend is likely to accelerate as foreclosure rates continue to rise. This week, the Associated Press reports that foreclosures were up 23 percent in Q1, over Q4 2007.

Shaq Points, Shoots at REI Basket
O’Neal has been dabbling in real estate investment with the fortune he’s amassed through his NBA contracts and product endorsements for some time. In 2006, he created the O’Neal Group, which specializes in commercial and residential development, and housing the $50 million real estate portfolio the athlete has been building throughout his lucrative professional basketball career.

The majority of his development interests to-date have been in Atlanta and New Jersey. In Florida, O’Neal’s holdings include car washes, strip malls, a slice of metro Miami, and a luxury high rise residential tower currently under construction in downtown Miami.

Although O’Neil started his NBA career with the Orlando Magic, he currently plays for the Phoenix Suns. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the star NBA center with a penchant for investing in real estate plans to someday retire to his Florida estate and possibly run for Sheriff of Orange County.

Amid more gory details emerging about California Congresswoman Laura Richardson’s habitual failure to pay her debts, Washington Mutual (WaMu) filed a notice of rescission on her Sacramento home that was sold to real estate investor James York at a foreclosure auction.

Broker Takes a Bath
York, who owns Calif.-based Red Rock Mortgage,recently acquired Richardson’s Sacramento home at a foreclosure auction for $388,000. At that time, the lawmaker had failed to make payments on that property for almost a year and owed $9,000 in unpaid property taxes. She paid $535,000 for the home, which she bought in Jan. 2007, shortly after being elected to the California General Assembly. Soon after, she sank into default on her other homes in Long Beach and San Pedro, Calif.

While Richardson has been filing statements denying the foreclosure and a lengthy history of default and unpaid debts, York, also a broker, has been busy cleaning and repairing her house for sale. He told the Daily Breeze that he plans to file a lawsuit against Richardson and WaMu this week, because he believes that the lawmaker has received preferential treatment from her lender, and that he is the rightful owner of the home.

Richardson, a Long Beach Democrat, has said throughout her foreclosure scandal that her Sacramento home should never have gone to foreclosure auction and claims that she had worked out a loan modification agreement and had begun making payments to WaMu. The Daily Breeze also reports that the lender has declined to comment on the details surrounding Richardson’s case because she has not waived her rights to privacy.

In Richardson’s case, it appears that WaMu already has lost nearly $200,000 on the Sacramento home deal. If the foreclosure were overturned, the lender may have an opportunity to recoup some of that loss - but only if Richardson can manage paying for her three homes and an apartment rental in Washington, D.C., on her $169,300 annual congressional wages. This week, the Sacramento Bee revealed more details surrounding Richardson’s eight-year history of failing to pay her debts.

Richardson Defaults on Mother’s Home
Since 2000, the homes Richardson still owns in San Pedro (where her mother lives) and Long Beach have gone into default six times. The amounts she’s owed on these properties has ranged from $5,742 to almost $20,000, according to documents on file with Los Angeles County.

Lawmaker Racks Up Defaults, Votes
In the past few months however, the defaults have hit the lawmaker with rapid fire: Five defaults in that time period have racked up nearly $71,000 in debt, the LA Times reports. During the same period, Richardson lent nearly $200,000 to her political campaigns, which propelled her meteoric rise from Long Beach City Councilwoman, to California Legislator, and finally to the U.S. Congress.

More Unpaid Debts, Abuses Reported
Richardson also has been under scrutiny for failing to pay her utility bills, for car repairs, and for abusing her vehicle privileges beyond her reign as a city councilwoman. The Press-Telegram reports that the lawmaker promised to pay a mechanic $735 in 2005 for repairing her BMW and never followed through. Later that year she wrecked that car and abandoned it with another mechanic.

Rather than paying for the repairs, the Press-Telegram reports that Richardson checked out a Toyota Prius from the city for official “City Council business.” Thirty thousand miles later — and after she left the City Council, Richardson returned the Prius.

In the year that Richardson used the city’s Prius, she drove it 30,920 miles, city officials report. That amounts to an average greater than 80 miles daily, or about 2,400 miles per month, for Richardson’s part-time council job in a 50-square-mile city, the Sacramento Bee reports. City policy prohibits the personal use of vehicles from its fleet. City records also show that only other two council members who used city vehicles during the same period averaged 900 miles per month and less than 400 miles per month, respectively.

In 2001 and 2002, Richardson reportedly had the highest vehicle expenses of any council member, in part by putting nearly 7,000 personal miles on her car in 2002. At the time, Richardson told reporters that she was unaware of rule prohibiting personal use of a city vehicle.

While Richardson failed to returned the Press-Telegram’s calls for comment on these issues, she did manage to finally pay her debts with the auto shops and sweep the electorate. Last week, Richardson won her Democratic primary for reelection by a whopping 75 percent of the vote.

Doess anyone else out there find this story to be totally outrageous?

HomeVestors of America, the real estate investment (REI) firm with the ad campaign featuring cave man investor Ug, who carries a club and “Buys Ugly Houses,” has announced that Franchise Brands has bought a majority interest in the company.

Almost 20 years ago, the Dallas-based HomeVestors entered the real estate investment (REI) fray with the mission to buy and sell rehab-ready homes for fast profits. It and sold its first franchise in 1996, and has bought about 35,000 homes since its launch. Last year, HomeVestors bought 6,400 homes and sold 5,000, and in 2006, the company reports that it bought about 7,100 properties.

Since its inception, the company has flourished into a national franchise that specializes in buying — and selling — “Ugly Houses.” Currently, HomeVestors boasts about 230 offices in 35 states franchises sell most of their houses to other investors and first-time home buyers.

HomeVestors’ majority interest buyer, Connecticut-based Franchise Brands, formed three years ago with strong support from the founders of Subway restaurants. who also own Utah-based Bajio Mexican Grill, and Indiana-based Mama DeLuca’s Pizza. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, the Dallas Business Journal reports, but executives say that Franchise Brands is committed to using its resources to advance HomeVestors‘ franchise expansion goals and further develop its business model.

Real estate entrepreneur and $100,000,000 deal maker Ken Wade has ridden in the front car of the real estate roller coaster through all three market cycles in the past 30 years, and he’ll tell you that today’s housing market is perfectly normal. There’s no nationwide housing crash, he says. But a media obsession with a few markets is driving negative market psychology — and prices — into the ground.

Just the Facts
In reality, Ken says, what we’re seeing isn’t an economic catastrophe, but the natural cycle that moves the market. He recently crunched some intriguing numbers about the U.S. housing market. Between Q1 2002 and Q1 2006, widely considered to be the peak years of the housing boom, Ken reports the following data:

• Only 25 markets, or 7 percent of the United States, experienced a true housing boom, defined by a four-year total home appreciation greater than 80 percent.
• Only 75 markets, or 20 percent of the United States realized total appreciation between 38 percent and 78 percent.
• Half of all local U.S. housing markets realized cumulative home price appreciation lower than 9 percent for that entire four-year period.
• Approximately 25 percent of U.S. local markets never realized even 6 percent total appreciation during those four so-called “boom” years.

The Nature of the Beast
Ken’s data show that a relative few free-falling markets have garnered a great deal of media attention. The ensuing media circus has helped to redefine public perception of the entire U.S. housing market market with trigger words words like: “housing crisis” and “mortgage meltdown.”

Ken is the Harvard-educated architect of the Housing Alerts’ Total Market Master program for research-based real estate investing. He has spent much of his career tracking local real estate trends and profiting from widespread price fluctuations. With his system, Ken translates the “buy low, sell high” adage into hard science and cold cash. We’ll talk about how he does it next week.

Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Workweek: How to Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich (4HWW), majored in East Asian studies at Princeton University. Soon after graduation, he found his self-imposed cubicle lifestyle wasn’t giving him room enough to breathe, much less twirl. In 2004, Ferriss was working 80 hours a week to build his company and found himself burning out. So he put three days of clothing into a backpack and bought a one-way ticket to London … and wound up in Argentina as a world-class Tango dance champion.

Ferriss’ manifesto, the 4HWW, captures the wisdom and quixotic joy the author found when he traded his cubicle for the excitement-packed lifestyle of his dreams. Published last year, the book quickly became an international best seller.

Escape Inhibitions and Discover your Life
Ferriss urges people to shed the traditional expectations that wedge them into cubicles and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the new rich: time and mobility. This process is an art and a science that Ferriss refers to as lifestyle design (LD), and in 4HWW, he provides a deceptively simple strategy for achieving it.

Design your Lifestyle
For real estate entrepreneurs, 4HWW nails the formula for maximizing effectiveness in your endeavors. Your business may be surviving, but is it thriving? Many of us escape the regular grind only to become totally submerged in busywork that keeps us from accomplishing the more important tasks that fuel our business growth.

To really excel in this business, no true innovation is needed. When you automate and outsource your grunt work and use systems that have been proven effective, you’re well into the metamorphosis from which you will emerge a true real estate entrepreneur.

Automate and Recreate
For most of us in the real estate game, marketing easily can become a central vacuum system that swallows time and energy and rarely pays off. How can you effectively run your business when you’re struggling with lists, copy writing, mailings and postage?

If this is not your strong point, it may be time to follow Ferriss’ advice: Emphasize your strengths by delegating your weaknesses. When you’re using your strengths to build your business rather than being forced to focus on your weaknesses in mindless tasks such as marketing, your business, your income and your self esteem can reach new heights.

Give your Strengths a Workout
When you’re using an effective marketing system, such as SalesTeamLive, you know it’s working because you’re receiving a steady flow of calls from motivated and qualified sellers and buyers every day. And you’ve actually got the time to make the deals you know will take your business to the next level.

In 4HWW, Ferris successfully reminds us that time is short and we only have one chance to live the lifestyle each of us desires. His lifestyle design provides us with the necessary framework to transform our businesses and to embrace opportunity without fear or regret. Bravo, Mr. Ferris.

Look for my full review of 4HWW, coming soon.

This time next week, I’ll be in Atlanta, meeting up with my friend Lou Brown for “Millionaire Deal Maker,” another one of his awesome seminars. You may know Lou as an expert in the structure of the deal, but I’ve known him as a friend  for years. Actually, we met at one of his events, where he confided in me his impressive story about how he achieved success in this business.

Lou started buying property in 1977, when he was a teenager! Since then, he’s invested in single-family homes, apartments, hotels, developed subdivisions and built and renovated homes and apartments. He’s bought and sold in many ways, including auctions. The wealth of knowledge he’s shared with me over the years has really broadened my horizons about how a truly creative entrepreneur can secure financing and structure dream deals.

I’m not the only one who is impressed with Lou. He’s been quoted by “The Wall Street Journal” and “Smart Money” Magazine, among others, as an expert in real estate investing, managing and financing. He also has taught me a lot about how to give back to my community. Lou is past-president and a lifetime member of the Georgia Real Estate Investor Association (GREIA). He also is the founding president of the National Real Estate Investors Association (NREIA), which works with local investor groups nationwide.

I’ll soon be sharing what I learn in Atlanta, and keep you posted on all the best events as we head into a busy season of buying, selling and training to make the most out of the next great deal. Although I’ll attend his events anywhere he holds him, I had an especially good time on one of his famous cruises … that some may consider infamous.

If any of you have attended any trainings that stick out in your mind, please share your stories.