All Forum Posts by: Paul Strauss

OK, you have to take this with a grain of salt and understand that what I'm saying here is in the interest of time and it is to communicate the idea. The execution is definitely more elegant:

Here it is: I don't carry a business card. I control who I contact, when I contact them, or IF I contact them. They do not need my business card or contact info before *** I *** determine whether or not we even need to make further contact.

I have found that having business cards, contrary to "looking professional" and being good marketing practice amounts to handing someone a permission slip to market to ME. No thanks.

I have found that 99.9% of people who hand me their card are people I don't want to contact anyway.

In the rare event I meet someone I'd like to stay in contact with, I don't make excuses, I simply tell people I don't carry business cards, but if you provide me with yours, I'd be happy to contact you concerning "specific thing we talked about that requires further contact".

Otherwise, if it's a networking meeting, etc.-- see you next meeting.

In general, I don't spend a lot of time on the phone, or checking email. I check email twice a week,.and voice mail once daily. (See Tim Ferriss' "The Four Hour Work Week" for details).

Don't get me wrong, I do want to grow my network, and hopefully do some deals based on contacts made here and other social networking sites, however...

I almost never check "Facebook" or social networking in boxes because frankly I don't rely on this kind of networking.

The kind of networking I do, is very unique- I run a networking club that meets in small groups to "mastermind", share information, and this is important: we meet in a format where we can ENJOY THE EXPERIENCE.

Once I can determine through a process of making a personal colleague selection, I will invite a person to meet with me at one of our networking events-- in person. It's really the only way for someone I don't know very well, and I don't have any business dealings with to carry on a conversation with me.

If they don't want to, or cannot meet for any reason- great. Saves us both time.

I spend very little time listening to "gurus" giving presentations, or standing around hotel meeting rooms in a big crowd of mostly "tire kickers" collecting and passing out business cards.

And as far as social networking goes- I do realize the irony here, btw- take this for what it's worth: it does a person absolutely NO GOOD to be pseudo famous.

If there's any BUSINESS benefit at all to sitting behind a computer screen racking up "ratings" or "points" and numbers of semi-anonymous "friends", giving away useless ebooks, blogging, "internet marketing", posting every random thought you've ever had, and alerting people to the fact you just took a dump and now you're going to walk the dog-- I sure haven't found what it is other than ego, and it really shouldn't even stroke a sensible person's ego.

Again, I hope to make great contacts here and do business-- but I'm not counting any social networking chickens just yet...

Professor Himonya may just be the Japanese Jack Benny. :)

@Tim- LOL! "Epic Card Crushing"- I love it! I will be using that technique at the next networking meeting.

1. Last two month's bank statements
2. Last two pay stubs.
3. Most recent W-2.

A # 1 Landlord mistake bar none: inadequate cash reserves.

Why do landlords fail to screen tenants? In a hurry to get that first month's rent due to inadequate cash reserves.

Why do landlords defer maintenance? inadequate cash reserves.

Why do landlords do, or have done shoddy repairs? Inadequate cash reserves.

Why are landlords afraid to raise rents- they fear losing tenants because their financial position is precarious- inadequate cash reserves.

Why don't landlords have adequate cash reserves? The number one reason is that they themselves are not financially stable, and in close second- the property itself was a bad deal.

Basically, it comes down to good financial management, discipline, and organization.

There's no such thing as a late-night infomercial lifestyle. There's no "secret", no "chicken soup" recipe to fix bad habits, and straighten out a complete mess.

At the same time, no amount of skill, knowledge, discipline, organization, or management ability can fix a bad deal. If the math doesn't work, you have some hard decisions to make- most of which involve bringing your own cash into the situation. And of course there are the few that involve crash and burn scenarios like bankruptcy, foreclosure (or both).

So, in other words we'll be selling crack houses for $1,000,000 dollars US (or about $5 Canadian) pretty soon. And we'll be able to use the proceeds to buy a week's groceries. Fantastic!

My first three deals looked a lot like this- and that was in a "hot" market.

I lost money on all of them- actually by my third deal, two years after my first, I broke even. I consider that a huge loss. I lost my time, I lost to inflation, and I took tremendous risk to do it.

What I would do with this (all the numbers are the sellers, btw) is try my best to ascertain what the seller paid for it and/or what they've got financed (what they really NEED) in order to make my best guess of what break-even looks like for them. I would also try my best to figure out their motivation? Are they stuck with a dog, up to their eyeballs, financially or otherwise distressed?

I would find out market rents, find out TRUE ARV - the real market value of the property.

You've got to have the market knowledge- the information- to make this deal really work.

I don't like "rule of thumb" formulas. There's a way to make just about any deal work. That being said, I get nervous when I don't start a deal out at a minimum of 30% profit, and I really like 40% to 60%. If there's a major rehab involved-- anything over a couple thousand dollars, I like to try to get at LEAST twice my rehab costs out of the deal.

In other words, if there's $10K worth of rehab by the seller's estimate, I want $20K back out. That means the seller's own (very likely optimistic) estimates don't work for this deal.

Could not agree more. I think social networking has its place, but good old fashioned face to face and people skills will never be replaced by a facebook page or a Twitter account.

In fact, of my company's team of five people- I'm the only one online in really any capacity at all. Most of what we do is not generally known (and that is by design), and most of my online activity is personal enjoyment vs. business.

By the time most of what I'm working on now is public knowledge, I think many people I know will be stunned, and surprised I didn't post it all on facebook. Not everything belongs in the public domain...

To me, networking is about making friends for fun and profit- in that order. I have accomplished far more just making friends than I ever did with a business card.

I prefer to meet people in person, and once met- I prefer to communicate via email until we can meet again. I like to stay OFF the phone for chit chat.

The phone is reserved for my VIP list, and live deals.

I live in the real world, so I'm flexible / reasonable, and the phone has its place in every stage of a relationship, but for the most part unless you're one of my shortlist of people I speak to regularly, or we're working a live deal- I prefer to email, and/or see each other at the next live event someplace, or schedule a meeting.