Boomer’s Blog

A lot of real estate investors with  short sales and pre-foreclosure backgrounds are used to dealing with incredibly motivated sellers, but today’s best deals are those with equity. Do you have the “right stuff” to angle these deals like a real estate professional?

Five High-Equity Markets Show You the Money
There are five major real estate market segments that offer investors the greatest opportunities to access equity. Homeowners in each of these segments have mindsets that real estate investors must understand  in order to successfully negotiate a deal.

Additional information about how to tap these markets is covered in greater detail in my article: “Pounce on High-equity Real Estate Markets for Maximum ROI.”  (Follow this link to ArticleBase for instant access to this story.)

1. Equity: Bigger is Better: Find homeowners with 40 percent to 100 percent equity. U.S. Census Bureau data reveal that property owners in this arena currently control one-third of all single-family homes. Often, they’re near or at retirement age, are empty nesters and are looking to downsize.
2. Adjustable Rate Mortgages with Equity: Homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) and equity  usually had an ARM for three years or more before they opt to sell. If they owe less than 70 percent on the loan relative to the house’s value, these homeowners may be looking to execute their own exit strategies while they still have equity - - and before their ARMs re-set.
3. Wholesale Real Estate: Properties in this segment are typically old enough to drink legally and tend to have cosmetic and deferred maintenance challenges. In this category, homes with loans at approximately  70 of a property’s value are great targets for real estate investors seeming to max their real estate ROI
4. Multiple Family Units with Equity: Here, concentrate  on sellers with at least two rental units and a maximum loan-to-value of 70 percent or less to buy, hold or flip income properties. These sellers likely are motivated to sell by ongoing tenant and maintenance hassles. They also may be amenable to financing your purchase if they can defer capital gains taxes and rake in some cash flow through you instead of dealing with rent collection.
5. Out-of-Towners: Absentee homeowners are easily identifiable because their mailing address on public record is different from their property address. Property owners in this segment often are disgruntled landlords with single-family homes or multi-unit properties.

Negotiating with High-Equity Sellers

Making deals happen with these property owners often requires more enhanced real estate marketing. Keep in mind that since they have equity, they’re not as likely to have the motivation of a distressed property owner. Though you may have to mail multiple real estate postcards to property owners in this group, you should be aware of local market changes in their areas.

Many of my clients at SalesTeamLive are reporting an across-the-board boost in high-equity homeowner willingness to deal. We can attribute this shift to the ailing economy, stock market and retirement fund losses, and cost-of-living and healthcare price hikes. Many are deciding that downsizing now is the safest way to preserve their standards of living — and their real estate nest eggs.

Someone who says no in June may have a totally different attitude come March,  when their homes still haven’t sold and they see comp prices dropping around them. This is especially true in a post-hot market where owners are facing the grim realities the market just won’t support the price they had set in their heads six months ago.

The trick is to be persistent and keep in touch. And however you communicate with high-equity homeowners, be sure to make a good impression. These days more than ever, your real estate investment business depends on it!

One Best Practice Your Mother Probably Told You About
Sending out personalized thank you cards to folks after your presentation isn’t just the polite thing to do. It’s a best practice to reinforce your professionalism, presence and status as a problem solver for your prospects.

Be resilient and implement best practices to be successful in tapping these real estate markets. Suddenly, you may find your focus shifting from what the best color is for a real estate marketing postcard to how to handle the incredibly high volume of calls you’re receiving.

It takes only a few seconds to change the way that you view your real estate business — and the world. For more best practices and strategies that rock your real estate world, sign into GaryBoomershine.com using the yellow fields on the right side of this page or on the GaryBoomershine.com main page.

Since government-sponsored financial services giants Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac announced a foreclosure moratorium through the holidays in November, government efforts to stem the foreclosure tide have heated up in hard-hit states such as California, Connecticut and Florida.

It is likely that state and federal lawmakers — and other officials convening in the New Year also are gearing up to take action to slow the foreclosure process. New and emerging policies in this trend are likely to give beleaguered homeowners some space to breathe — and RE investors a vast open field of profit opportunity.

Join the Revolution: Short Sale Manifesto 2.0
Ohio-based Strategic Real Estate Coaches Josh Cantwell and Greg Clement see green pastures ahead for pre-foreclosure and short sale investors who are keen on building stronger real estate businesses and cashing  in on recent market changes. Moving into the holiday season, they’re offering investors a steady stream of absolutely free, timely information, tools and resources you need to adapt to changing market conditions in this motivated seller market.

Timing Isn’t Everything
More than 10 million homes currently are over-leveraged with mortgage debt and have no equity, Josh says: If we can take advantage of these opportunities as real estate agents or investors, we can capitalize on these market conditions — big time.

Update Your Strategies, Tap Warming Markets
There are some common-sense tactics you can use which are incredibly cost-effective to deploy in your business, such as ramping up your personal and real estate marketing efforts that can have a dramatic impact on your bottom line. Some require more effort than others, but the focus should stay fixed on preparing your business to thrive in pre-foreclosure or whatever markets you choose.

It’s clearly no secret that property values have dropped significantly in the past two years. Today’s market conditions for short sale and pre-foreclosures are evolving, Josh says. And changing times call for different strategies.

Refine and Define your Strategies
Earlier this year, Josh updated several elements of his original “Short Sale Manifesto” to reflect what real estate investors need to succeed in today’s challenging and increasingly more competitive pre-foreclosure and short sale markets.

Josh updated this book because he is serious about helping his students to deploy only the most cutting-edge strategies and techniques in tapping these markets and the “Short Sale Manifesto 2.0” leaves no stone unturned in its  pages,

Josh breaks all the mission critical aspects of short saling down into small, manageable tasks that emphasizs networking and skill-building.  Central to his Manifesto are key techniques that, when implemented properly, will strengthen your professional support system and build your business.

Like Candy for Short Sale Investors
While Josh gives great guidance on the steps you need to take to make the short sale deals happen — and keep a constant flow of new deals in your pipeline, he also tells you all about the pitfalls you need to avoid.

If you only have 10 minutes to spend reading this ebook, check out the details Josh provides regarding the Top 9 Mistakes even the best real estate investors make and how you can avoid them. These investment blunders include:

1. Paying too much for a property,
2. Underestimating the cost of repairs,
3. Neglecting to stage property,
4. Failure to build a workable buyers list,
5. Failure to secure private money,
6. Failure to plan multiple exit strategies,
7. Failure to focus on revenue producing activities,
8. Lack of a coherent system to organize your business, and my favorite,
9. Failure to implement an effective and consistent marketing strategy.

Some of these errors may be all too familiar, while some may be new to you, but in all cases, Josh offers clear strategies to protect your business and build wealth by keeping your wits — and your money — about you while you’re investing in short sale real estate.

Free Videos and Info Clarify your Short Sale Mission
Visit Josh at his Strategic Real Estate Coach Web site and prepare yourself to be amazed by the high-quality information he is willing to show you this month absolutely free of charge, all in celebration of the season. While you’re there, be sure to catch the free videos. They make great companion pieces to the “Short Sale Manifesto 2.0.”

Stay tuned to this blog for the latest on SREC’s Special Giveaway Bonanza slated to kick off Tuesday, Dec. 9.