A Business Tool To Take Your Investing To The Next Level

A few months ago I wrote an article about the hyped up need for software to be successful at this business of real estate investing.

You may recall I made the point that most real estate software products I had encountered at trade shows and multi-day events were mostly fluff. I still feel that way, they look good, but are useless.

Now, to the contrary! I bumped into a really smart guy who has a software system which completely grabbed and KEPT my attention. This system will do the work of 5, maybe even 10 employees.

That is worth gold to me, since I lack patience for managing employees.

This software truly fills a gap in the real estate investment world. That gap is management and control of your marketing and deals.

*How may times have you written down an address of a vacant house only to loose track of it?

*How many times have you lost the notes on the conversation you had with a seller, only to scramble when that seller called you back to follow up?

*How many times have you lost track of your best cash paying buyer when you needed them most?

*How many times have you wasted time on a Short Sale? This software will even rank which loans to short and which to avoid.

*How many times have you lost track of your expenses on a rehab job?

Yeah, I have done all of the above at some point in time. That is why I am so excited about this new software system.

In keeping with my military background I call it my command and control system.

What you may not know about me is Ken Williams is like a duck on water. I am smooooooth on the surface but underneath my feet are kicking and flailing.

I am so unorganized when it comes to paperwork and I refuse to manage employees, I have been affectionately referred to in the past by an employee as the Absent Minded Professor, she meant well.

What that employee did not understand was that I like to focus my attention and thoughts on driving in revenue. There' is little room in my brain for keeping track of paperwork and employee tasks.

If you are like me, or even if you are not, this software management system is AWESOME!

Do not take my word for it; you will have a chance to see for yourself. Join me Thursday, May 31st at 8pm, edt on a webinar which will display this system right before your very eyes.

Take action now and click this link or copy to your browser:

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
gotomeeting.com

Take Action!

Ken Williams
http://www.thewholesalewizard.com/

PS. Do not forget to join me this Thursday @ 8PM EDT for a
FREE webinar on a software system that will change
your business completely

The Beginner's Plea! Where Do I Start?

I have been to all the seminars and read all the books. I have even listened to the CDs but I just do not know where to start my investing career!

Ah...the all too common beginners plea for help!

Knowing how and where to begin investing is a valid concern. Though, I am more than 12 years into my own investing career, I remember as though it were yesterday my feelings of uncertainty about how to take the first steps in what would become my livelihood.

Anyone around this business 12 years ago can tell you about the information scarcity about real estate investing compared to today.

Investor clubs? I could not even find one in my area in those days. Also, unlike today, where major book stores dedicate entire business sections to real estate investing, I had to scrounge the shelves of local libraries for out of print, dusty, moldy smelling, real estate reading materials.

What a difference time makes. The person starting out as a real estate investor today is faced with the opposite as a challenge.

There is an overload of information about real estate investor strategies. This overwhelming information is the main reason so many become confused.

Believe me, I have discussed this dilemma with enough people in search of their first steps as an investor. I feel your pain!

The goal of any investor is to make money. And making lots of money fast is perhaps the biggest focus of most of those.

It is no secret real estate investing is full of fortune hunters clamoring to get into the gold rush, tripping over their own two feet, they stumble and bumble in perpetual darkness.

Many unfortunately give up and go back to their cubicles of life, off comes the cape. The super hero retreats, slinking back to the land of dreams deferred.

To choose a clear path, you must first know why it is you want to take the trip in the first place. Sounds simple does it not?

Well it is not! It has been said a good salesman can sell to most anyone because 90% of the people wondering around aimlessly do not know what they want. Same thing with investors, their only goal is to be rich! A millionaire!

Never taking a moments notice, that to make money in this business means solving problems for others. Oh yes, and to work at it!

That is right, the person who solves the most problems in life is rewarded the greatest.

Still sounds simple does it not? Your mission is to go out and solve problems for as many property owners as you can find. Do that and the money will follow.

That is where the missing link can be discovered. Come home from real estate seminar, all fired up to be a rehabber. Fix it and flip it! ( you know I hate the word flipping) Only problem is, your area has a soft market of resells.

Who you gonna sell it to?

That was my first amateur challenge. I found the properties. Fixed them nicely enough, but no one was buying in those days. I was stuck, or so I thought. It did not take me long to figure out instead of selling my rehabs,

I could rent them out easier. With that, beginners luck, I accumulated many rental properties, which quickly surpassed my salary at my day job.

Here in the Washington DC area gurus come to town teaching strategies which are a waste of time for our market.

An example of this is just a few months ago our market was on fire. Prices were climbing 2% per month, banks were handing out money to any buyer who could fog a mirror, yet some gurus sucked in the naive to their ineffective strategies like Short Sales and Lease Options.

That was crazy! No demand existed for the two. It was pitiful watching the bamboozled newbie spin his wheels.

Your mission, find the demand in the market where you plan to invest. You would be wise to know what is going on before you too spin your wheels.

Figure out what is going on in your market. Far too many newbies attempt to bring a supply of goods(strategies) where there is no demand.

What is going on? Are rehabs selling like pancakes? Or are the rehabs being kept as rentals? Are home owners suffering huge numbers of foreclosures?

If so get in, set up the plan to rescue these people with a quick purchase.

Do you live in an area where the home owners are aging and moving to retirement communities?

If so, the opportunities are many to buy these properties with huge equity margins, keep them as rentals, rehab or whatever.

If you live in a declining market where sales are slow, short sales and lease options are awesome strategies.

Keep your ear to the ground. Find out what the needs are. Find the demand, and then fill it!

Those most successful in life are the men and women who have found a way to make life easier, more bearable for the rest of us.

Gotta go now, it is time for me to order my groceries online. And you know what? I am eager to pay the company who created the online grocery ordering service.

They save me from having to jump in my car and trudge up and down the food isles in misery.

They sure solved my problem and made my life easier, And I am willing to pay a premium for that convenience!

Take Action!

Ken Williams
http://www.thewholesalewizard.com/

Location! Location! Location!

How many times have you heard that location is the key to real estate? Yeah, sure you have.

Ever thought about its validity? I mean, by far its perhaps the most used marketing cliche in real estate.

Well just how potent is such a statement? It certainly rings of logic on the surface.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about beware of the so-called "up and coming" areas some sellers try to use to justify their outrageous prices.

In that piece I also detailed what I call the BIG Dog factor. Which is when the big name developer in town show's an interest in a particular area, that area can have mass appeal seemingly overnight, thus kicking up values as well.

When people use location as the most prominent marketing and advertising benefit they're usually talking about emotional selling points. Such as good schools, close to shopping, prestige zip code, water front etc.

Now, those things WILL impact the value of a property, usually for the better. However, let's have a look at an opposite scenario. Just as is the case of a Big Dog bringing value to a depressed area, so can a knuckle-head killed value in an already established area.

In my hometown of San Diego California, my family was one of the first to move into what was then a far out place called Mira Mesa.

It was a quiet, newly developed desert town which housed many navy and marine families like mine. The place was solid as far as living standards and a utopia for an energetic kid like me.

I was able to be a free spirit roaming the canyons with my buddies in search of animals or playing baseball and football all year round in the beautiful warm weather.

What comes to mind as I write this is that I remember vividly when the first retail shopping strip was developed. Mira Mesa Mall is what its was called. It was our first entertainment/real retail space.

Therefore this small mall was a big deal then and for years to come. I mean we finally had our own movie theater.

This place was the center point of attraction for years after. Development spread from this retail center as the bull's eye, until the place lost its footing as the main spot to be.

During the mid to late 90's the place changed! The whole look and feel seemingly changed overnight.

Someone came in with a lame brain idea to change the movie theater into a fish market. Supposedly (I haven't seen it) each movie room was converted into separate fish store of some kind.

Needless to say, that idea really changed the pace of things in that area. As a matter of fact a new entertainment and retail center was developed over the last four or five years way across town.

That fish market idea was one that put out the flames of entertainment in what was once the location we kids watched Bruce Lee movies.

This is not the only factor which affects location, the closing of a school, a poorly constructed, and poorly managed building can do damage to an area's values as well.

So when you're out looking at location be sure you understand what really is going on there. Transition can be a tricky thing. One bad decision can turn things around quickly.

Take Action!

Ken Williams
http://www.thewholesalewizard.com/

Why People Should Rent/Invest Savings In Stocks

I had another tip planned for you today until I read an article on my MSN page which totally refocused my thoughts.

It was entitled Why People Should Rent Put your Savings in Stocks Not In a House

In all fairness to the author he provided many thought provoking points of view regarding his claim that renting was a better financial plan for both home owners and investors.

Hey, I am a fair guy, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, however, I see things totally differently than the author of that article.

Let me preface my response with an acknowledgement of the obvious. I do not have before me a stack of mind boggling statistics going back to 1870 to support my point of view as the pro-stock writer evidently did.

What I do have is real world common sense knowledge and experience in the trenches of real estate investing. I have witnessed first hand how owning houses to be parallel, has improved a family's entire financial future in less than 45 days.

Funny how the author only picked on houses to compare to stocks as investments, no mention of other types of real estate. Hmmmmm?!

So, I will stick with houses. I think I am smart because I know what I do not know. Stocks have never been my thing. Never had the patience to figure out the details enough to bet my money.

My mutual funds and IRA investments are the closest I have come to dipping a toe into the tricky waters of the stock market.

Now houses I know! So does the typical adult in this country. We all have a good idea how renting a house for more than your monthly expenses is supposed to work. It is called cash flow.

I believe you could stop the average Joe on the street and ask which he understood more, the stock market or rental houses.

I would bet my money that rental houses would be far better understood by most than the stock market-all day long.

The premise of the article was that you would be much better off renting an apartment and investing your difference saved in the stock market. The stock market would realize you a better overall gain with no expenses to maintain. I have simplified the point but that is what states.

Well, that sounds a little like the idea behind whole life insurance. Pay a bare bones premium and invest the difference.

Sounds logical, however, how many of us has that discipline required to keep our paws off the difference and NOT run out to buy a new car or other toys?

Not only that, but the research involved with choosing a winning stock is not something most people will find enjoyable. In comparison, choosing a winning neighborhood to buy a cash producing rental property would be far more appealing.

Owning vs renting. I believe most families will be better off owning their home. Renting would leave you vulnerable to the whims of far more arbitrary forces. Owning your home gives you more control over your residential destiny.

Now when I turn my thoughts to comparing stocks and houses as investments, there's no comparison. NONE!

With stocks you are at the mercy of the invisible others who are calling the shots. One bad CEO or management team and there goes your money in his/their severance package. With houses YOU call the shots.

Also, you as my savvy subscriber know you will never purchase a house at retail price as a rental. Your strategy is not as was implied by the article, you are not buying rentals to sit back and wait on appreciation or a good economy.

As real estate investors we create our own appreciation. We buy low, sell high. We do not wait on market conditions to make money. We seek out situations where we can solve someone's real estate problems to be rewarded with a BIG check.

Our approach is totally hands on.

This suits us fine. We do not conform to conventional wisdom. Rather we seek it out to know what to do to the contrary. Call us what you will, Renegades, Mavericks, Wildcatters, or whatever, just do not call us late to settlement. We want our money, NOW!

Nothing makes me cringe more than when I bump into a person who refers to themselves as a real estate investor who buys everything retail and waits for appreciation and/or tax write offs to take care of them.

In my world given the choice between stocks and real estate, there is no competition. Some day I may look into stocks as another passive stream of income. Maybe.

For now I prefer real estate investing as an active and passive investment. I even prefer the two MLMs I am involved in for passive monthly income. At least I can have a hand in what happens day to day. No offense stock investors.

I just had to vent today!

To YOU, my action oriented subscriber, I say remember to always.....

Take Action!

Ken Williams
www.thewholesalewizard.com

PS. Real estate investing offers more hands on opportunities than any stock.