David Lindahl's Commercial Rea Estate

David Lindahl is the author of Donald Trump's book series: Trump University Commercial Real Estate 101: How Small Investors Can Get Started and Make It Big So when I found out David Lindahl is holding a free seminar on commercial foreclosure, I drove 3 hours to go to that seminar.

As with residential real estate investing, the number one criteria to look for is Motivated Sellers. And for commercial real estate, the motivated sellers are banks and mom & pop organizations. The money is to be made if you can identify the problem (find out why they are motivated), see if you can fix the problem, fix it and it usually increases the equity right away.

In addition, if you can find a property in the path of progress (ie, new home depot coming soon), you will have a good holding property with great appreciation potential. Investors can find out about any new development from the city hall's planning department. Also look for revitalization zones that the city plans to invest money into. Usually, there will be grant money available for investors to go into these areas to revitalize the area.

David Lindahl also talked about market cycles which run from peak to valley to peak in about every 8 to 12 years.You can find out about where the cycle is by reading the newspapers. When the media say buy, you should actually sell and move the money to other emerging markets. How can you tell the market is just starting to come back to life? The rent will increase for the first time in a while. There may be job announcement and people are moving in for long-term jobs. Permits for constructions are increasing, etc.

What's Your Exit Strategy?

Before you start to look for deals, ask yourself these questions:

What is your exit strategy?

There are several basic exit strategies and there are many many more out there. Your exit strategy will depend on what you are trying to achieve. For example, passive income or quick cash.

1. Cash Flow - buy and hold for passive income
2. Retail Flip - buy, fix and flip to end use (homeowners)
3. Investor Flip - buy, fix and flip to other investors who do not have the time to fix up the property.
4. Wholesale - buy and wholesale to other investor at discounted price without fix for quick cash
5. Rent to own - aka. lease option. The tenant pays rent and has option to buy the property few years down the road.
   

And what area fits that strategy?
Eg. Wholesale, investor flip, cashflow rentals in Kansas City vs. Retail flip in Houston
Lease option has the potential to turn negative cash flow property into positive cash flow.

Make sure the property value matches your exit strategy

Which area within a city are you going to invest?
Look for neighborhood with lots amenities such as school, church, shopping, transit, etc. The government has put in effort to develop/re-develop the area. The best way is to check out the city planning and development website. Most cities have comprehensive long term and short term plans for areas within the city on their website. Or talk to the city planners and pick their brains.

I find that I have more success focusing on one or two strategies at a time and really learn the ins and outs of the strategies. Too much going on at once is too mind boggling and confusing.

How to Get Started in Real Estate Investing

This is how I got started investing in real estate.

I had no knowledge in real estate nor business when my friend introduced me to the book Rich Dad Poor Dad: What The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! I was working at my first job as a chemical lab technician after graduation from university and thought to myself "is this all there is?"

So I decided to become financially free and started following the advise in the book "Rich Dad Poor Dad". I attended as many FREE seminars being held in my area as possible.

In one of T. Harv Eker's free event in California, I met Robert Allen for the first time ever and it was in person too. What he said struck me. That it is not the how that's important but the why.

I didn't purchase Robert Allen's program until years later when his company started doing seminars in Canada. If there's a free seminar about real estate, I am there. I went to Robert Allen's free introductory seminar and later bought his program. I have to contribute how I got started to Robert Allen's program.

I started out flipping condo in Canada. Then I went to the USA to buy foreclosures. All with nothing down (aka I borrowed all the money). I would like to share what I've learn about real estate investing on this blog. So please check back often!

If you'd like to know more about Robert Allen's famous nothing down system Click Here!

What the bleep do we know — Continued

--- Written by Jordan Lin, www.vantagerei.com

There is hidden message from water.

Before, I used to think holy water, or water that had prayers of Buddhist monk would have some sort of power is a little bit out there and mysterious. But from the studies of a Japanese researcher Mr. Masaru Emoto, it totally proved such power exists. The way he figured out the messages in water is by the crystals water would form. If the water was taken from very clean sources like glacier water, it would form beautiful crystals. If the water is taken from polluted sources like tap water, or polluted river, it would form ugly crystals. Sounds logical, isn’t it? There are some pollutant inside the water that would somehow interfere with the forming of crystals so it’s quite reasonable. But then he brings the experiment farther. He takes the bottle of tap water and have a Buddhist monk do prayers on it and compare the difference, amazing results were found. The water before prayers would still have deformed and ugly crystals. But the water after the prayer is somehow purified, and forms very beautiful and complete crystals. Interesting isn’t it? There is more, I would list few of the findings below:

Music can have effect on water. If you let the water listen to classical music, it forms beautiful crystals.

Water can read too. If you write words like love, thank you, hope, gratitude, God, or Buddha on the bottle, it forms beautiful crystals. On the contrary, if you have words like hate, killing, dislike, it would create ugly crystals or no crystals at all.

The more pure, or clear the thoughts are, the better the effect. If it’s done in a group with pure and clear thought, it would have even better effect. The result happened immediately, and distance have less part on the effect.

Due the the copyright of the pictures, I cannot put it on my newsletter according to their website. So for those of you who is interested, here is the links to it.

www.hado.net/index.php

Owner Financing KCMO Rental Investment Properites - Great Cash Flow

We are now offering seller financing for our cash flowing investment properties. If you cannot get financing to buy real estate, owner financing is an excellent way to go. Do not wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait!

The Numbers (Real Deal)

Down payment: $10,000
Loan amount: $55,000
Interest: 8%
Amortization: 30 years (3-year balloon)
Taxes (2008): $674.52 per year
Insurance (2008): $367.24 per year
Monthly gross rent: $750
Monthly mortgage payments (PITI): $490.38
Current property management fees (10%): $75 per month
Cash Flow: $184.62 per month
Cap Rate: 22.15%

Check out our website for more info: www.vantagerei.com

This is the time to buy when everything is on sale.

How do you know you are protected from the investment? These are properties that cash flow positively every month, meaning, you are paid to own these investments. Not to mention other advantages of owning real estate such as tax deductions, appreciation potentials, passive income, etc.

To learn more about the benefit of owning positive cash flowing properties, read Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. This book changed my life. He writes in simple, easy to understand manner and it's in story format. I used to hate everything business related but this book was different. No business background required.

Anyone what wants to learn more about real estate investing, I highly recommend this book.

Global Positioning System (GPS)

GPS is a handy tool for real estate investors. You enter the address of a property you want to see and it takes you there. It is especially useful when we go to a new city where we want to invest.

We have a Garmin nuvi 350 GPS. Garmin (NASDAQ) is founded by Gary Burrell and Dr. Min Kao, and their world headquarters is in Olathe, Kansas. Olathe is one of the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri.




I have to mention one of the good things about investing in Kansas City which is surrounded by many beautiful and modern cities like Olathe and Overland Park. In 2008, the US Census Bureau ranked Olathe the 24th fastest-growing city; CNN Money ranked Overland Park #9 on the "100 Best Cities to Live in the United States” list. Imagine a city (Kansas City) with under valued real estate surrounded by higher priced cities like Olathe and Overland Park. The revitalization of downtown Kansas City has started and over $4.5 billion dollars have been invested. With the high price of oil, people have begun to move back into the downtown core area where they work. Greater Kansas City is headquarters to:


- H&R Block (NYSE)
- Embarq (NYSE) – Communications carrier. Las Vegas, Nevada metropolitan area is its largest market. Employs about 18,000 people.
- Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE) – Employs about 70,000 people
- YRC Worldwide Inc (NASDAQ) – One of the largest transportation and logistics providers in the world. Employs about 70,000 people.
- Commerce Bank (NASDAQ)
- Cerner (NASDAQ) – Health-care information specialist. Employs about 7,800 people
- DST Systems (NYSE) – Information business. Employs about 10,500 people.
- Novastar Financial (NYSE) – Mortgage lender. Employs about 2,032 people
- Applebee's (NASDAQ) – Employs about 32,260 people.
- Interstate Bakeries Corporation (NASDAQ) – Largest wholesale baker and distributor of fresh bakery products in the US. It owns Hostess, Wonder Bread, Dolly Madison, Butternut Breads, and Drake's brands. Employs about 25,000 people.
- Great Plains Energy (NYSE) – A holding company that owns Kansas City Power and Light Company which provides electricity for the city.
- AMC Theatres – The second largest movie theater chain in North America. Employs about 21,000 people.
- Hallmark Cards – Employs about 16,000 people.
- The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis (NYSE) has one of the largest drug manufacturing plants in the United States and the plant is located in South Kansas City. Employs about 100,000 people.
- Federal Reserve Bank headquarters – Bills issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City are marked with the letter "J" or the number "10." Employs 925 people in Kansas City.

The Key to Attracting Anything You Want in Life

I am reading a book called "The Key - The Missing Secret for Attracting Anything You Want" by Joe Vitale who's also feature in "The Secret."

This book is about consciously, we may know what we want (ie. health,wealth, happiness) and we think we practice the law of attraction to achieve what we want but subconsciously, we may have old believes or old programmings that are actually asking the universe for other things or even things we don't want. When our conscious and subconscious mind are not congruent, we seem to hit blocks and unable to attract what we want in life.

In this book, Joe talks about several clearing methods to get rid of our stuck energy in ourselves so we can receive what we ask for in life. I summarized some of the clearing methods on a Squidoo Lens. Check it out here

http://www.squidoo.com/thekeybyjoevitale