Michigan Real Estate Investment Blog

Find, fix and flip bank foreclosures in Michigan. Provider: Michigan Real Estate Investment Blog Feed Type: Informational [report]

Most recent items from this feed:

The bitter yet profitable truth for Michigan Entrepreneurs per Ed King of Wayne State University

Please somebody give this guy a TV show. We need more of him in Michigan.

24 Months

All booms must end, one day

There are lots of foreclosures in Michigan right now. Banks are literally giving them away. I am going to make a prediction, based on my conversations with several REO brokers and active mortgage lenders who are doing decent to very big numbers (closings) in Michigan right now.

My prediction:

You have maybe 2 years to make as much money as possible in Michigan real estate, build a massive black book of contacts, lined up money – after that the game will change considerably and it will be “tougher” for new real estate investors to break into the business. The countdown starts now, in 2009.

Why is it so easy to get a foreclosure in the cheap even for a new Michigan real estate investor in 2009?

The reasons are obvious:
-Too many sub-prime loans, which went bad.
- A horde of homeowners who owe more than what that their house is worth.
- Adjustable rate mortgages that were more like traps with their promises of low rates, flexible payments to folks.

But that is the past. Done and over with.

Here is the present:

All mortgage companies that were putting out these bad credit adjustable mortgages are out of business. Done. Closed shop. Went home. If you cannot document your income by means of current W2 or 2 year tax returns, you cannot get a mortgage in 2009. Period.

The Foreclosure Boom In Michigan Suburbs Will End In 24 Months

Right now the easiest financing still open to a regular income, middle class home buyer are loans guaranteed by FHA, who don’t mind helping even new first time home buyers, even with bruised credit as long as they have stable jobs and documented income (24 month history).

These are couples that are buying houses to live in and raise families. They are buying starter homes ($125,000 range) not some crazy $300,000 homes that they cannot afford once the interest rate changes.

Right now there is a “cleanup” going on in the banking industry where banks are washing away their hands from the bad credit loans and mortgages they have in their inventory because Wall Street and the credit markets will not give them any more money till they clean up this mess that they created.

This INVENTORY CLEANUP from banks will take 2 years till all their dirty bad credit adjustable rate loans are gone. These loans are typically 2 year or 3 year ARMS and till 2006 banks were cheerfully giving these loans out.

Five years from today the ONLY mortgages banks will be left with – FHA loans and conforming / good credit loans. More importantly there will be no adjustable rate or sub-prime mortgages. Almost 99% of FHA loans are good ol’ fashioned 30 year fixed rate mortgages given to folks who have documented income and can actually afford them in most cases.

This foreclosure boom in the suburbs in Michigan where you can buy a house for fifty cents, forty cents on the dollar that requires paint, cleanup, new kitchen cabinets and a new toilet and vanity set will END. And banks will go back to discounting those houses that require more rehab than that.

Will there be foreclosures coming from job losses, divorces, deaths, moving out of State etc? Sure that will never ever go away. That is just part of life and the economic system we live in. But the ease at which you can ask and get big discounts, MLS flush with REO’s in cities around you, Loss Mitigation officers eager to dump houses, is a temporary situation that you should work very hard to profit from during the next 24 months.

For 2009, set yourself up at the expense of banks. Make money in Michigan foreclosures. Build relationships with private investors. Find people who matter in your Michigan city in real estate investing world and let them know you. Learn how to put together LLC's to buy big properties (apartments, storage units, mobile home parks, whatever) that will help you become financially free.

This recession will not last.

This 24 month opportunity will not last either.

Time to start is now.

No recession for me

I really like this video

A good excuse to open that box

January is a really good month to call old contacts and say "Hello, happy new year.”

Do you ever regret meeting somebody really great and not following up on them after the first meeting? And now the awkwardness sets in. What am I going to say? It has been so long. Where do I start the conversation?

Every real estate investor in Michigan has a drawer full of business cards somewhere in their home. People they came across in seminars, foreclosure auctions, REIA meetings, chance encounters. All of us have that box full of business cards in our homes. Open that box today. Grab a stack of cards and call them, one by one, to wish them Happy New Year.

You never know which one of them is THE ONE that might just changed 2009 for you.

7 Tips For Profitable Real Estate Networking

1. Most real estate investors think that networking is all about talking fast. Good networkers actually listen more than talk. Whether I am talking to a prospective private investor or another real estate investor for some deal or talking to a top FHA lender – I pay very close attention to what they are saying. There is a reason why we have two ears and only one mouth.

2. Dress up. Yeah I know all about the shallowness of this suggestion but have you ever seen Trump in jeans and a t-shirt? Ever seen Buffet walking around in khaki shorts? Guys for some reason have an attitude against looking good in when they are meeting new people. Most of them are trying to compete to look who can look more frazzled. It takes exactly 10 minutes to dress nice. First impression matters.

3. At seminars – sit at the top corner or at the bottom corner. When you have a question to ask – stand up, introduce your self and then ask a question. Do it two or three times: ask question, start by introducing yourself – and the speaker and the audience will know who you are. Since you are sitting in a corner – most people will turn around and look at you. So they will know not just your voice but also your face. That alone will get people coming to you at breaks, lunch sessions and at the end of the day. Just sitting and asking a question where nobody can see you is a waste.

4. Smile. Smile. Smile. People are attracted to it. Gloominess might be the national pastime in Michigan but in business settings, it just turns people off.

5. Energy is everything. There is a reason why planets revolve around the sun and not vice versa. I love hanging out with real estate investors because they are so full of life and energy in one on one conversations once you get to know them but in front of people they don’t know – most investors just buttoned up. Why so serious and defensive? Do you really think that crossing your hands on your chest and looking down makes anybody come and talk to you?

6. Business cards – make some kick ass business cards. Avoid putting your pictures and silly graphics of houses on it. Avoid the virus of naming your LLC and using the words foreclosure, save houses, investment, property, global, universal etc in it. That is what everybody else is doing it. Why would you want to be like somebody else? Moo.com makes really beautiful looking cards. They are not as cheap as VistaPrint but they do leave a more lasting impression.

7. Good networking is not about meeting somebody and then dumping your wish-list on them. It is about finding out who the other person is and letting them know you first. Build a bridge. Build a relationship first. The business will just happen automatically. Most private money and wholesaling networking opportunities should never start with, “Well let me tell you what I have been about recently…” .

Never stand alone

Most people are uncomfortable networking. They go to events, seminars, meetings, networking tables and they don’t know what to do next. Most end up exchanging one or two business cards with the people that end up sitting next to them, while missing out on another three dozen good contacts they could have made that would move forward whatever they are doing in foreclosure investing business in Michigan.

The biggest reason for this is that none of us are trained to network in a business setting. We mistakenly think that this thing is just supposed to happen magically or worse we start to believe that some people are “born” with it and some are not.

That is the slack I get all the time when I am talking networking with the members of mentoring group.

“Well Mark it is easy for you to do. You are a natural at this.”

Actually that is not true. I was probably the most shy kid growing up you have ever seen. I was a total nerd, comfortable in reading books in a corner then playing with the rest of the crowd. It took me a while to figure out once I enter the real world and then ended up as a real estate investor that nobody can help me if they don’t know who I am and what I am looking for.

So I started learning about business networking and much to my surprise it turns out to be like any other skill you can learn. There are rules to it. There are strategies that you can use to make yourself a better networker.

The biggest thing to remember: Easy to be selfish and just think about what you want. Good networkers always think about what they can do for the other person first.

Do you ask,

“Is there anyway I can help you? Anything you need right now in any of the deals you are working on?”

What would you remember? What kind of person would you want to hang out with? The one who is showing interest in helping you or the selfish one?

7 Pros Who Will Help You Make Money In Michigan Foreclosures In The Next 12 Months

1. The top residential real estate agent in your county or in the couple of Michigan cities that you want to buy foreclosures in. For example if you are in Western Wayne - I would find out who is the top real estate residential agent in Garden City, Livonia, Westland, Canton and Belleville is. If I were in the city of Detroit – I would try to find out who the top dog on West Side of Detroit is.

2. The most active FHA lender in your area. There is always ONE in each county. In that office, there is one loan officer who is just killing them. She is the one who can tell you precisely what kind of houses first time home buyers are buying in your county.

3. A really good company to fix bad credit. Lots of folks have bad credit right now. Some of them intentional. Some of them just by a stroke of bad circumstances. It would not hurt that when you come across potential buyers who have bad credit but want to buy your homes or may be you even have renters in your houses that you might want to help to get their credit fixed so they buy these homes from you. Lots of scammers out there in the credit fix up industry so try to find a local company who can give you good references and check on those references.

4. A great Property Inspector who knows his business. I know a great one in metro Detroit – send me an email to mark@markijlal.com if you need his phone number.

5. A fast appraiser. Refinances are dead. So when an appraiser wants five days to get me back a report – my blood pressure starts to go up. That is just laziness. Work with a local guy in your city and not some faceless corporation located 400 miles away.

6. Me.

7. The top commercial real estate broker who can find you good apartment deals in your Michigan County. This is for future for most but nothing wrong in going in checking out what is going on the other side of fence in commercial deals.