All Forum Posts by: Shariyf Grevious

@Sandra Edmond What kind of direct mail piece did you send them? Yellow Letter? Post Card?

And if possible what kind of "content" did you put on your direct mail? Was it the normal, I would like to buy your house? Or was it specific to the Tax Liens?

I know NOTHING about Commercial Real Estate but I can tell you that if you are incorporating PROACTIVE marketing (cold calling and door knocking) with PASSIVE marketing (direct mail, emails etc) that is the recipe for success in ANY business.

Good luck and keep up the good work

@Dylan Grieve

1.) Can you cut down on your living expenses by living with someone (maybe your parents?)

2.) Can you scrape together 1k - 2k per month living bare bones for 6+ months?

3.) If you can do the two above get with a marketing expert like Jerry Puckett or Michael Q. I'm pretty sure if you spent bare minimum 6k over a 6 month period with the help of one of those gentlemen that you should be able to find a deal. And more importantly set up a system to continually find deals

@Bill Mitchell I apologize I tried to delete my post, but could not.

@David Krulac Im sorry I was assuming that it goes through a structure such as an LLC taxed as a C or C corp.

Because I thought PART of whole point of starting a business was to lessen your tax liability on a majority of your income. That you pay yourself a "fair wage" and that can be taxed at the highest level of income tax. But all the other income if through the company can be taxed at a lower corporate tax rate.

Here is an example of what I was talking about:

LegalZoom

Income Shifting

Although C corporations are subject to double taxation, they also offer greater tax flexibility. In a C corporation, you can use income shifting to take advantage of lower income tax brackets.

To illustrate, let's use an example of a company that earns $100,000. With a sole proprietorship, a business owner who is married and filing jointly would be in the 25% income tax bracket. With a corporation, assume the business owner takes $50,000 in salary and leaves $50,000 in the corporation as corporate profit. The federal corporate tax rate is 15% on the first $50,000. Furthermore, the business owner is now in the 15% tax bracket for his or her personal income tax. This can reduce your overall tax liability by over $8,000.

Here is a rant by something Matt said, that I see gurus say often. This is not towards you Matt but just the concept

@Matt B. You mentioned that you paid 10k/year at college to get a starting job to only make 30k/year.

Did you pay 40k CASH for your College education? If you did, Wow thats amazing!

(Side note: most Colleges are 20k/yr = 100k degree, so paying 100k in cash is even more amazing.)

Because most people I know GET A LOAN for college....but Guru's always want to use this intellectually dishonest comparison of FINANCING education versus giving someone CASH.

We're not talking about the VALUE...of course we see VALUE in REI education...we're talking about the FINANCING OF IT.

Most people have less than 3k in their bank account and basically are one blown-transmission, medical emergency, or roof leak from being broke yet some damn guru want to you to trust them and spend YOUR VERY last on their program. "Oh you heard about people getting burned in these type programs, thats those OTHER guys, not me....you can trust me (gold tooth smile)"

Thats my problem with gurus...is that they go after people already destitute and desperate and they use their HOPE of a better life to sell them their system. Then use intellectually dishonest analogies like the FINANCING of College compared with maxing out your credit cards, borrowing the money from trusted friends/family, or taking your vey last out of your bank account. To invest in a system that has no accountability check system like federal accreditation and no ability to really gauge is this person different from the other person who is a definite scam artist. The reason why your degree is not just a piece of paper Matt is because you went to a federally accredited college. But if you give a so called mentor/guru 5 - 10K and don't get what you expect out of it....guess what you're S.O.L.

Gurus aren't chasing people with 100K in the bank account by putting ads in Barrons, Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily or Financial Times. No they're putting ads on local radio and late night slots that between weight loss and Shamwow infomercials. Why is that...because they are targeting people who are making LESS than 80k per year. That is the target time for that demographic. I would venture to think that most of the people are making less than 50K and probably have less than 2K in the bank to their name

I love BiggerPockets, and I love the people on here but you can find certain gurus who are now charging 97/mo and/or 3-10k for coaching that have ASKED the same questions on here less than 2 years ago. And just the idea that somebody has figured out this ENTIRE magical system in less than 2 years makes me believe, its probably not that hard anyway.

Iv'e actually seen a known guru/mentor COMPLAINING about gurus and their fees when seeking information on BiggerPockets to turn around and become one themselves.

On top of all of that, all of them have the SAME exact key wording, webinars, price model, single splash page, email style etc etc....If you are trying to seperate yourself as a unique and different business than someone else in your industry i

@David Krulac @Bryan David and @Jon Klaus

I have a question about the 43% income tax rates. From what I understand this is the way business works

Consumer gives money to business.
Business pays employee to work.
Employee pays taxes on "income" or wages given to them from Business. Business also pays some taxes on wages given to employee.

Business ALSO pays taxes on NET income. Net Income being defined as income after all the expenses are deducted.

Now here is what I get confused. If that NET income is distributed to its shareholders/owners is that money taxed once it gets to shareholder or is it taxed as NET income first from the business and taxed AGAIN when the shareholder/owners receive it.

Example ACME Solutions makes 100K, they pay 30K to their employee to run the business, they pay 3k in wage/payroll taxes, they spend 27k on marketing and other expenses. Acme Solutions would now be responsible to pay Net income taxes on 40K BEFORE its distributed to its members, and if its only one member he/she would be responsible to pay tax on the distribution. And whatever that combination is will be A LOT less than 43%.

Am I off about that?

@Joaquin Caballero Is the list of 64 all of the administrators to the probate? From what I understand Probate happens when a beneficiary(ies) has been identified to take over the property and they should have up to date information on them.

@David Beard That's my sentiment exactly. Our business is such that anybody operating the meat and potatoes of our business can just start their own. And REI has such a low entry level cost (Marketing) that it wouldn't make sense for them to stay and get a wage when they can do what they are already doing and get a profit.

I wonder if anybody here would put up how much they are paying an "acquistions manager"

@Thomas Fortune

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/100531-yellow-letter-issues?page=1

Here is something from: @Derek W

"Hi, this is Derek"

"Uh, yea, I just got this post card in the mail..."

(Interrupting I say...)

"Oh, you're the one! Haha. Thank you for calling. Let me explain really quick why I sent you a post card. I am a local land lord and I am looking to buy another house. I drove around to my favorite areas and wrote down addresses of two types of houses; ones that I wish I could own, and ones that need me. So you either have a pretty house that I would be proud to be the owner of, or a house that's needs lots of work that I feel may need me. I then searched the public records at the tax assesses office to see who owns the house. Then I sent you a post card. Let me ask you, is your house one of the pretty ones I wrote down, or one that needs my love?"

Then I shut up and listen.

You can basically use the parts applicable to get the address out of them