“What Box” is coming
I’m often asked where I go to learn about real estate investing. Truthfully, Ashley and I have been blessed to meet, befriend and attend seminars with some the most creative real estate investors out there. And we go back to the same classes time and time again.
Chances are that if you are reading this column on Sunday morning in Bartow County, I’m sitting in a class in Atlanta with over 100 investors from across the nation learning from Dyches Boddiford on how to use Land Trust. This isn’t the first time that I’ve been to a course taught by Dyches. I go to them regularly and often retake the same course multiple times. The reason I do this is because it keeps me sharp on the content, but as things change with new legislation, the courses change as well.
Dyches is not the only real estate investing teacher I go to repeatedly. In September I will be at a course taught by my good friends and mentors Bill Cook and Peter Fortunato about creative deal structuring. The title of the course is called “What Box.”
To put it plainly, Pete is a deal structuring genius who has the ability to take any deal and construct it 10 different possible ways. Bill has the ability to take the most complex deal structures and relate them in such a way that even a novice real estate investor will understand the concepts.
Put those two together, and they become a creative deal structure teaching powerhouse.
I believe this will make the third year in a row I’ve been to this event, and I’m very much looking forward to it.
You may be asking why I’d be excited about going to a seminar for the third time on the same subject. The reason is “What Box” teaches creative deal structuring. And in this real estate climate, we’re using the strategies we learn from Bill and Pete on almost every offer we make. Here are a couple of examples just from this week.
We met with a couple who had inherited a house after their parent passed. The house had a mortgage on it, which meant they also inherited another payment each month. The sellers did not want to be landlords, and the second payment was draining their savings. The other issue was that the mortgage balance was for more than the property was worth. These sellers couldn’t see a way out.
As we talked, we learned the monthly mortgage payment was well below current rent rates. With this knowledge we offered to buy the house from them subject to the existing mortgage. This meant that we would leave their mortgage in place after we bought the house and we would make their monthly payment until it was paid off. This took a huge burden off of the sellers. They agreed to our proposal, and we got a cashflowing rental property.
Next, we met a seller who was out of work and out of money. He was living in his house without power in 95-degree heat. He owned it free and clear, but he didn’t really want to sell at the time. It was just the only thing he could see to get him out of his situation.
Instead of just offering cash that day, we offered to purchase an option from him to buy his house for an agreed upon price, sometime in the future. This worked for us because we were running low on cash and needed to finish some deals we already had going. This worked for him because it got him some cash right then in the form of option consideration. This also gave him the time he needed to get things back on track before he sold us the house.
We’ve also gotten an owner finance deal with zero interest and no payments for three years recently, but I’m running out of space to go into that one.
If you’d like to learn more about deal structures like the ones I mentioned above and more, be at the “What Box” seminar September 14-15 in Atlanta, Gerogia. The cost is $447 per person. To sign up, go to www.cashflowrei.com or call Kim Cook at 770-815-8728.
Joe and Ashley English buy houses and mobile homes in Northwest Georgia. For more information or to ask a question, go to www.cashflowwithjoe.com or call Joe at 678-986-6813.