Friday, July 27, 2007

Real Estate Investing’s Inner Game

by Craig Higdon
Granted, the mechanics of multifamily real estate are slightly different than for multiunit residential, but in this case the questioner is already a commercial real estate or “income producing real estate” investor. So you need to place a guardian in your mind to sift out those limiting beliefs. So as you develop your commercial real estate investment techniques, remember to focus on your inner game to manifest your outer goals.

THE INNER GAME OF COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE

Every once in a while I get an internal reminder that I am a work in progress. In this instance it was not one of those “hit you over the head with an 8 pound sledge hammer” reminders that you get when you have been particularly blind to your own faults. It was more of a little “A Ha!” that had larger implications if uncorrected. And by being aware of this quiet reminder, I hope to avoid the previously referenced sledge hammer in the near future!

The subject of my internal wake up call was driving a beautiful new black Mercedes 550S Class sedan and was waiting to make a left hand turn across my lane. The driver was female, looked like she had just gotten back from the salon, and was politely waiting for me to pass. She did nothing wrong, sat there calmly waiting for me to drive by, with her flasher on. As I drove by I thought to myself something like: “Oh boy, there goes another rich twit in her paid for …”

Whammo.

The guardian of my mind popped into my head waving his mechanical arms like the Robot in an episode of that 1960’s television series “Lost in Space.”

“Warning!” “Warning!” “Danger, Craig Higdon!!!”

For those of you too young to know the reference, I’m sure that you can find an old episode somewhere on cable TV. You won’t have to wait too long before ol’ Mr. Robot shows up to give you a demonstration.

Anyway, do you realize what my “guardian” did for me? He trounced all over a “limiting belief” and gave me a chance to correct it.

Choosing Our Beliefs

For those of you not familiar with the term “limiting belief,” I first came across it while investigating Neurolinguistic Programming, or “NLP” some years back. NLP is a study of internal and external communication processes and its effect on human behavior.

One of the things that you learn in the course of studying NLP is that in large part our behavior is governed by our beliefs … and that our beliefs are what we make them! Think about that for a moment … we chose all of our beliefs! Everything that you believe about everything was a choice that you made. You will have to take my word for it for the moment because I could fill volumes on just this aspect of NLP.

Just for fun, you might want to examine a belief or two that you have. Start with something simple like: “I believe that peanut butter is good for me.” Now ask yourself a few questions:

When did I start to believe that? What evidence do I have that makes that true? What evidence do I have that makes that not true? What do I get out of believing that? What would happen if I did not believe that?

There are more questions to ask that would help you to change a belief, but hopefully in the course of asking yourself the questions above you came to the realization that you decided to adopt that belief at sometime in the past based upon some rules, some evidence, or an experience that you had. This has some interesting implications, doesn’t it?

And what does this have to do with commercial real estate investing, commercial loans, and construction projects? Quite a bit, actually.

One of the questions that I get frequently is: “How do I get started or go to the next level in commercial real estate?” The overly simple answer to that is: “Well, first you have to believe that you can!”

Limit Those Limiting Beliefs

Let me illustrate this. I have had people who owned multiple 1 to 4 unit properties, maybe 20 to 30 units in all, ask me how to buy their first apartment building or other piece of commercial real estate. When I get that question I have to chuckle … because they already have an apartment building! It is simply broken up into smaller chunks. Granted, the mechanics of multifamily real estate are slightly different than for multiunit residential, but in this case the questioner is already a commercial real estate or “income producing real estate” investor. He just hasn’t realized it.

He doesn’t “believe” that he’s is a commercial real estate investor and has thus artificially “limited” his options for investing. He does not yet “believe” that he can invest in other types of real estate.

So let me get back to my story and my little mental guardian. I passed the nice lady in the Mercedes, saw her make her turn in the rearview mirror, and we both went our merry ways. As I drove away, I changed my thoughts about her to: “She has done well and I wish her to continue to do well.”

Because I have had a little training in NLP I was able to catch myself looping into an old belief about wealth and wealthy people and make the “change” at the time in my thinking. The experience did serve to remind me that I need to be vigilant in my “belief monitoring” and that I might want to make a personal inventory of my beliefs concerning wealth in the near future.

And if you don’t think that you have some buried beliefs about wealth and being wealthy that are working against you in your real estate investments, my friend, you are simply kidding yourself. They are all there in the daily newspapers, T.V. shows, magazines, etc. You probably can’t go 10 minutes without hearing or seeing something “bad” about making money or being “rich.” Have you ever heard the phrase “filthy rich?” Uh huh. And I’ll bet that you know a bunch of others, too.

So you need to place a guardian in your mind to sift out those limiting beliefs. This will help you with any self-sabotage you may have encountered in your life. It is not easy without the right tricks, but it is very rewarding. So as you develop your commercial real estate investment techniquesArticle Submission, remember to focus on your inner game to manifest your outer goals.

Note: NLP is slowly being supplanted by a more powerful “technology” called Hemispherical Integration. You can find out more about it at the web site NLPLA.com.
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Flipping Real Estate: Calculating Costs

by Heather Seitz
Don’t get taken on your first real estate deal. Learn how to calculate the real numbers when flipping real estate and how to really make money in real estate in any market condition.

If you been in the real estate investing business, or more specifically been flipping real estate, for more than a few days, you’ve inevitably gotten an email that reads something like this:

“Investor’s Dream. This property will go QUICK.

- Property Address: 1234 Main Street

- Asking Price: $100,000 (Add or subtract zeros!)

- After Repair Value: $150,000

- Repairs: $15,000

- Profit: $35,000

- Details: Needs paint, carpet, tile, new kitchen, update bathroom, some roof damage.

- Tenant occupied. Need to evict!”

STOP! Before you read on… Take a guess at what you think the “real” profit’s going to be on this real estate investment…

If you haven’t ever gotten an email or fax broadcast like this, then rest assured, you will! I’m about to probably tick off all of the late night infomercials and pitchmen out there! Sure, I understand that when you’ve got 30 minutes (or 90 minutes, for that matter), that you’ve to sell what’s sexy… not what’s real!

Now it’s my turn to expose the real deal on real estate investing! This goes for flipping real estate itself (i.e. properties) or simply flipping the contract (also known as assigning the contract). When you’re flipping real estate, you need to be able to calculate the “real” bottom line and if your assigning the contract, you need to know your numbers so you don’t get blacklisted from investors! This one piece of information will keep you from getting into trouble because of any “real estate bubble”!

Purchase Costs

Here goes… Have you EVER purchased and sold a piece of real estate for FREE? If you're not sure what the answer is… It's an emphatic NO... You are going to have costs to buy, costs to hold and costs to sell. This holds true even if you are buying a property for all cash. (Think title fees, attorney’s fees, recording fees, etc.)

If you’re not getting a mortgage, your purchase costs are obviously much lower, but nonetheless, there are costs associated with any real estate transaction. Plus, more than likely, if you’re relatively new, you’re probably not paying all cash for property anyways. You’re probably going to be using a hard money investor for your initial real estate investing financing!

For a quick calculation, you can estimate anywhere between 3% - 5% for closing costs to just acquire the property. That’s 3%-5% of the purchase price.

Holding Costs

How much is it going to cost you each and every day to own this piece of real estate? See, if you’re making money in real estate, you’d better believe that there are a lot of other people that are going to expect to get paid and they get paid in the form of mortgage interest, property taxes, utilities, property insurance, etc. Each of these is an expense each and every day that you own the property. Here’s an example… A hard money loan on a bread and butter type piece of real estate might run you 15%. Let’s say you got the property for $100,000. Every month, you are paying $1250 in interest alone. Let’s say that taxes and insurance are another $200/month and then utilities at $100. Right there, the property is costing you $1550/month – or roughly $50/day. See, why it’s important to know your not only your holding costs on a real estate investment, but also how long it’s going to be on the market before you can flip the property.

Selling Costs

Here’s the third part of the real estate investing puzzle. When you want to turn around and sell this piece of real estate, it’s going to cost you yet again! Are you going to use a real estate agent and pay a commission or 3-4-5% or even more? On $150,000, that’s anywhere from $4500 to $7500 chopped of the top. Then, you can figure 1-2% in closing fees.

If you can remember this… and apply what you’ve just learned to each and every real estate deal that you do, you’ll be safe flipping real estate in any market. You see, if it’s a hot market, you can calculate less time for holding cost. But, in a slower market, make your offer based on 6 months or 9 months of holding costs. It’s really simple math! And real estate really is a numbers game…
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