Archive
The anonymity of a land trust When people are getting started in real estate investing, they often assume they need to form an entity like an LLC or an S Corp first thing. The two main reasons for this are to protect their assets from lawsuit and to take advantage of certain tax breaks. In my opinion, due to formation and maintenance costs, neither of these entities are necessary...
Lease option vs. lease purchase I got a call from an investor recently needing some help with structuring a deal. He was in the process of buying a property and wanted to do “one of those lease option, lease purchase things” as his exit strategy. As we talked, I realized just how easy it is to get those two terms confused and how freely people use them synonymously. To be clear, a...
Did we buy an alligator? Real estate investors are known for being risk takers. As a matter of fact, most of the time the reason an investor gets into trouble is because they estimated too high on what a property would sale for once they fixed it up. The outcome for this speculation is that the investor gets too thin with their numbers and overpays for the property. Be...
It’s a family business I’ve got something on my heart that I really want to talk to you about. It has to do with a statistic I heard at a recent seminar. I heard that real estate investors, and entrepreneurs in general, get divorced from their spouses at a rate of 35%. That means at least one out of every three people I see at a seminar is having major difficulty in their marriage....
Empathy versus sympathy Empathy and sympathy are two very similar words that have related meanings. They both have to do with understanding someone else’s feelings. That being said, you have to focus on one versus the other when it comes to making offers. The late, great, Zig Ziglar has a story he uses to illustrate the difference between the two concepts. He talks about when he...