All Forum Posts by: Shaun Steckler

I purchased Larry's course in 2005 and found it to be very informative. Larry infused a lot of his experience into the product and used some great examples to get his point across.

I'm not sure what kind of updates you're after. The fundamentals of real estate investing don't change - no matter what happens in the market.

IMHO I believe that if you could afford to invest the money and found the right person to help you that a mentor could provide some great insight and direction into your business efforts.

If you go into the relationship thinking that a mentor will solve all of your problems, you'll walk away disappointed.

But if you want to learn from someone who has a proven track record of success (over the long run), a mentorship has the potential to be great.

Just understand that there will always be a gap between your experience level and skill set and the actual guidance that's provided by the mentor.

I had a great experience with a mentor about four years ago and it changed my life.

I may be the exception to this but if you find the right guy and have the right chemistry, it could be worth taking the risk.

Obviously economic conditions affect our real estate businesses. Our industry is closely tied to the job market.

But savvy property investors are great at adapting their business models to take advantage of current market conditions.

When the money dried up for retail buyers, the investment risk that goes along with flipping houses increased substantially.

This still doesn't mean you can't make good money in this business. It just means you have to become more adaptable.

You need to focus your acquisition efforts on pre-foreclosures.

In many cases you're too late when the property gets to the courthouse steps.

When you're buying something like real estate, you want to be the only person in line.

Interest from other people always drives up the price.

Good article.

I believe that REO's are here to stay and continue to offer property investors some great opportunity.

Charles,
You make some really good points.

Well thought out.

I might throw in that these are talking points that an investor would want to discuss with the seller during the pre-foreclosure stage of the process.

In most cases, these sellers are not aware of their options and certainly don't know how each of these adverse events will affect their credit.

Good information.

Depending on your local market, you may be able to access the foreclosure files online.

Contact your local courthouse or municipality and find out if you can do this.

If not, you may have to travel down to the courthouse and review the files yourself.

Within the file you can find out the seller's name, property address and loan information.

Just about everything you need to know can be found there.

Look at the situation this way.

Someone's going to buy the house.

It might as well be you.

I went through something similar when I first started investing.

But over time, I came to realize that I offered more help to these sellers than the banks did.

Do your best to be of service in these situations and everything will turn out OK - for the seller and for you.

Banks can be irrational.

There's no real rhyme or reason for what they do sometimes.

This situation is not different.

Remember that as an investor, you can't control what the bank does.

You can only control YOUR RESPONSE to what happens.

Focus on what you can control and you'll do just fine.

I'm assuming this is a rent house.

I would not re-sod or do anything with the lawn other than have it cut and maintained.

Managing your operating expenses will help you to create even more leverage in your investment business.

Learn how to spend and learn how to cut corners.