What's Been Going On

Quick update.... Mr. Goins put out a new (updated) Ultimate Buying Machine system in October 2008. I bought mine in October 2007. However, for people who purchased the system from him, there is access to a website with all the updates. That's a refreshing change from say, Cris Chico's system, which costs about the same, but is internet based, does not offer as much... and is only accessible for a year. If you let Cris Chico's Virtual Wholesaling system expire, which I did, you get an email with the header "I must be crazy to take you back." Well, don't let me make you crazy, Mr. Chico, I ain't comin' back.

Anyway, back to Larry's system. The updates have all the newest bookmark links online. Now, you're supposed to be able to download them... but I wound up clicking each link and creating each bookmark in Firefox. It took me about 2 hours. The whole time, I kept thinking how much longer it would have taken if I actually had to go search out all of this information... and believe me, there is a lot of amazing info contained in the links alone.... Now to follow the Ultimate Buying Machine and figure out what I need to do with all this info.

Also, I just couldn't resist... had to do it. I bought Dwan Bent-Twyford's short sale teleseminar system that starts Monday. I got an electronic manual and forms and will have a pre-recorded teleseminar emailed each Monday that I can listen to at my leisure. It has homework for each week and promises that I will have a deal closed at the end of the 4 week training. It also comes with coaching access to Dwan. I'm pretty psyched about that.

Until next time.

Finally Getting Moving

I am in the midst of reading Josh Cantwell's book on Short Sales. It's more detailed, yet quite a bit drier than either Nathan Jurewicz's or Dwan Bent-Twyford's material. He is very current on exactly what percentage one can expect to get accepted on offers based on who owns the loan (as far as the big agencies, FNMA, FDMC, FHA, etc., are concerned) and he gives you specific scripts to use to talk to loss mitigators - yeah! that is very helpful information. Dwan's courses take a very different approach than Nathan's and Josh's (BTW Nathan and Josh have VERY similar information - their contracts are almost word-for-word). Dwan has no problem faxing a loss mitigator 200 times a day to get what she wants, while the boys take a much more conservative - don't make the bank mad - sort of approach.

Now, I just emailed a lead for a short sale in Mt. Pleasant to an investor there - he's also a guru type. We'll see if he responds with a "Thank you"...

And, I hate to say it, but I bought another course. This one is called Advanced Marketing and it's by Vena Jones. She has some absolutely brilliant instructions for marketing specifically directed at real estate investors, and she's been in the trenches for years, so her work is tried and tested. My only problem with the course is that she's charging more for the course than she charged for the boot camp/seminar that the course came from. She's also a Dan Kennedy student. I get his newsletter and devour it every month. If you're in marketing, you need to get his stuff.

So, here's what I'm doing right now - I have an appointment with a bus bench advertising saleslady. They provide graphics, upkeep and design services as well as rental of the ad space for what I think is a very reasonable cost. They quoted me $125 for setup and between $25 and $75 a month for the bench, depending on the location - mine was $50.

I also have applied for a place in Michael Jake's mentoring program. He swears that this is the last time he will be doing his platinum mentoring - I hope so, because I hate sales ploys like that. Mike is a local investor with experience and integrity, so I think he would be a good mentor.

Until next time...

Testing the Gurus

So, I've been buying creative real estate investing programs and reading books for about 4 years. I've listened to CDs, watched DVDs, read manuals and reviewed web sites. However, I've not done a darn thing beyond that. I've been the classic analysis paralysis person. All that is about to change.

Here is a list of the "gurus" and their programs that I have, split by type:

Tim Mai, Virtual Vesting 7-Day Instant Cash Secrets
Chris Chico, Virtual Wholesaling
Steve Cook, Wholesaling for Quick Cash
Mike Collins, Wholesaling Houses for a Living
Larry Goins, Ultimate Buying and Selling Machine
Ron Mead, Make a Flippin' Fortune

Toby Unwin, One Deal From Retirement
Dave Lindahl, Apartment House Riches

Alexis McGee, 6 Steps to Mastering Foreclosures
Dwan Bent-Twyford, Foreclosure Fortunes in Your Backyard
William Bronchick, Colorado Foreclosure Investing Strategies

Chris McLaughlin & Nathan Jurewicz, Short Sales Riches System
Dwan Bent-Twyford, Advanced Short Sales
Dwan Bent-Twyford, Short Sale Secrets

Chuck Smith, Powerful Profits with Probate
Jim Banks, Probate Profits
Ron Mead, 31 Days to Profits in Probate Real Estate

Bill Twyford, Shut Up and Stick to the Script
Bill Twyford, The Secrets of Closing the Deal
William Bronchick, Real Estate Negotiating

Dolf De Roos, Real Estate Investors College
William Bronchick, Real Estate Success Library

And these are the books that I've read that pertain directly to real estate:

The Weekend Millionaire's Secrets to Investing in Real Estate, Mike Summey and Roger Dawson
Push Button Investing in Real Estate, Ron Draluck
Making Hard Cash in a Soft Real Estate Market, Wendy Patton and Justin Ryan
Buying and Managing Residential Real Estate, Andrew J. McLean
Investing in Real Estate, Andrew McLean and Gary Eldred, PhD
Making Big Money Investing in Real Estate, Peter Conti and David Finkel

Emerging Real Estate Markets, Dave Lindahl
Multi-Family Millions, Dave Lindahl (I'm reading this one right now)
How to Make Money in Commercial Real Estate for the Small Investor, Nicholas Masters
Make Millions by Buying Small Apartment Properties in Your Spare Time, Brian K. Friedman
The Best Damn Commercial Real Estate Investing Book Ever Written, Monica Villasenor
The Complete Guide to Buying and Selling Apartment Buildings, Steve Berges
Flipping Properties, William Bronchick
The ForeclosureS.com Guide to Making Huge Profits Investing in Pre-foreclosures without Selling your Soul, Alexis McGee
Preston Ely, Probates ebook
Preston Ely, Flip Your Way to Financial Freedom ebook

How to Get All the Money You Need to Buy Property, Alan Cowgill
Financing Secrets of a Millionaire Real Estate Investor, William Bronchick

The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, Gary Keller
The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, Gary Keller
Nothing Down for the 2000s, Robert G. Allen
Real Estate Riches, Dolf de Roos
How to Build a Real Estate Empire, Arsenault, Hamilton, Leeds & Marcil
Wealth Protection Secrets of a Millionaire Real Estate Investor, William Bronchick
Trump Strategies for Real Estate, Donald Ross
The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump

And, believe it or not, I have a pile of books waiting to be read about real estate investing.

The fact is that having all that in my head is very nice, but it ain't where the rubber hits the road. Right now, they are all theory to me. While I think that some sound more doable than others, it's just a guess and frankly, I'm a little nervous about getting out there and talking to someone about something that's so important to their life. What if I screw it up? Then again, what if I don't?

Is it possible to juggle several balls and have some of these systems running concurrently by setting up different businesses? Maybe I should just see if they work first.

Right now, short sale programs are coming out of the woodwork - seems to be the flavor of the month with the vast financial crisis we're facing in America today. Would that be the best place to start? Or maybe Tim Mai's program that promises cash in 7 days... all the possibilities make my head spin.

Anyway, my youngest is almost old enough to go to preschool so I thought I would try out these programs, step-by-step, one at a time. There are so many that I'm having a hard time deciding which to pick. Do I do wholesaling, foreclosures, short sales, probates? Some of these could be chunked together, but I want to test each system to see if it really does work like the author says it does. So, next post, the decision...