Tags: bill guerra, bird-dog, flipping, Flipping Homes, real estate investing, real estate investor, rehabbing houses, wholesaler

Does this sound familiar, “I am working full time and still needed more money to pay for the extras.”

So you begin to look at different opportunities. I know because I too looked at many things and settled on bird dogging for seasoned investors. Real estate investors.

I read and bought many different courses and settled on the one that made the most sense for me and that was bird dogging and wholesaling. These are specialties which allow one to focus on one type of investing and do it well. Focus is real important in bird dogging and the wholesaling business.

You can begin with no money, except a car and gas, business cards and other things can come once you do your first few deals. So read on, this is exactly what to do.

First find where your old houses are in the city, but avoid ghetto areas, go just one house step above those areas. Then look for the boarded up houses, pizza fliers in the driveway, and overgrown grass in the yard. These are likely abandon houses, or in probate. Good!

Now as you are looking for these houses investors call it driving for dollars. Get on the phone and look in your local newspaper under real estate wanted, or real estate in general. What your looking for are the ads that say something to this effect “we buy houses.”

Call those numbers up persistently, in several different newspapers, like the thrifty nickle, or nifty penny and tell the folks who answer you are bird-dogging and scouting for property for extra cash. Can you help them, ask them this.

When they agree, ask them what areas and what type of houses they prefer, write it down and focus in these areas looking for houses. When you find a house, get the address and look it up in the county website for the name and call the owner and as them if they are looking to sell.

That’s it, that’s about all there is to it really, then if they want to sell, call you seasoned investor back have them run the comparables on the house, and negotiate with the seller on price, terms and sale date.

Tags: Add new tag, earn money, flipper, houses, real estate investor, wholesaler

I will cut straight to the chase on why you should never use Zillow.com, PropertyValues.com or any other online property comping tool. You only want to use the multiple listing service (MLS) which is what Realtors have access too and use to comp properties.

First, understand that to “comp” means to run a property comparable, to take the house you feel is a good wholesale or bird dog deal and determine a value on it according sales on houses similar to it.

The reason is this, every other online comping services only use a radius or radial search of properties. Radius means circle, so from your subject house you are trying to get a true value on, services like Zillow’s software draws a circle around your house.

The circle can encompasses areas from 1/2 to 1, or 2 miles to greater. With your house in the center of the circle.

This is all well and good except the search brings up houses which are not all in your subdivision. It encompasses other subdivisions say across a major street. Making it impossible to compare apples to apples.

The MLS can do a radius search and most importantly can do a search by subdivision only which is what you need. Subdivision searches brings up houses that are built by the same builder, in the same era, with the same housing products available at that time. Also with similar floor plans and layouts.

The lots of land are similar in size, landscaping, and appearance, grade, and location. By location meaning in a certain plot of land, whereas across that same major street the houses are built on land differently, the land had a different grade, street plan. It could have better or less than better landscaping in its commons areas.

The house across the street could be near a nice park or a pig farm making it more or less than desirable. And because you as a real estate investor do not want to get up from your chair and run across town to determine if this is a good deal or not you need to know how to run solid comps. Thus saving your precious time.

Disclaimer. If your eager to learn investing but do not have MLS access, Zillow is better than nothing. It can help you to understand the principals and theory behind the complexity of comping your wholesale birddog deals. It is how I began, until I realized differently.

The MLS is the only software of its kind that offers the subdivision search only making it the premier comping tool. With that said how do you go about getting access to the MLS so you can run comparables, then how do you run comps that are solid once you have the software, well that is another article or e-book in its self.

Tags: flipping, property comparables, real estate investor, short sale, wholesaling

Rehabbing houses, when your new that can be tricky at best. Contractors are typically the biggest problem when it comes to renovating the house. I have see them all, dealt with them all, and hired and fired more than I care to say.

So I figured out what to do, how to see if they are good and competitive or not. I would hire them to do a small job only, like say build new steps. They would see the ugly house and realize much more work or paydays could be for them, with emphasis on ”could be” on the horizon for there pockets.

So if they could complete a few minor jobs, in the time they said the would, with the quality they said they could and cleaned up their mess, within they budget we negotiate, then they could advance to bigger tasks in the house. 

I have found this a sure fire way to prevent them from not showing up, over charging and being drunk on the job, yes drunk.

That said, I pay well, when good work is done. Some realized this, and chose to work on my houses, yet other ones realized they could not get anything over on me and would leave, or they would be invited to leave.

So try that next time, only give them a small task and see how they do! First before you allow a contractor to assume they have a big job. Another reason for only giving them a small job is this.

Once they have secured your house to rehab, they promise to get right on your job, then they search out 4 other jobs work at their pace on each of them. They work on there time, jumping from house to house. That will not work if your on a schedule or especially if your paying on  hard money loans!

So chew on that a bit.

Tags: bill guerra, birddog, contractor, flipping, hiring, real estate investor, rehabbing, renovating, wholesaler

So you want to be an investor. You have chosen a great business. I have been at it for over seven years and really enjoy it. The first thing you want to do is read and learn all you can about investing. Then you want to pick what type of investor you want to be.

Do you want to be a wholesaler, flipper, birddog, land lord or just what? For any of these specialties consider birddogging at first. Birddogging will teach you so, so very much about what to do  and more importantly what not to do. Be wise, start as a bird dog. You will be much more successful much quicker this way.

You need to do marketing for motivated sellers. On http://ezinearticles.com/?Networking-With-Seasoned-Investors&id=1374451 you will see a lot of my articles on everything from marketing to investing. Once you get to that website click on my name under the picture, it will bring up several articles that will help you. Marketing on the cheap is covered there.

Buyers list, you need seasoned investors who will buy your bird dog deals and wholesale deals. This is important to have this list and add to it, later I will write an article just on building a buyers list. You want guys and gals here that can buy your deals with cash and have the ability to close in 3 days. Yes, three days, that take CASH, not loans, then when you get this investor you will know you have one that can perform.

Educational materials. When I began my investing carreer i researched about 1 year solid to find the right course work, and I finally found it but with much effort and weeding out the other courses. Education is important as a new and seassoned invstor, to read and reread again and again. To learn grow and add to your knowledge base.

I will cover more in part II of this large topic, plus will soon have a nice little free gift for you so stay tuned. Bill

Tags: bill guerra, bird-dogging, flipping houses, real estate investors, rehabbing, wholesaling

Hello,

My name is Bill Guerra principal of Banyon Tree Corp in Las Vegas, I have a question for you, have you ever heard of a Virtual Assitant (VA) and what they can do in your personal, yes personal and business life?

OWN YOUR PERSONAL LIFE AGAIN there is only so many hours in the day. Do you find yourself burning the candle at both ends? Do you know how much more you could finish if you had someone with expertise in areas where you lack? Example, creating garage sale flyers with MS Publisher, creating Excel tables, inserting your important signature into MS Word, organizing and emailing your email list for you, then organizing your computer files? Need help compiling those Christmas card lists into one easy to manage file?

My virtual assistant (VA) Corey, whom I have built a great rapport with this year, logs onto my computer via remote access, while she and I are on the phone together she helps me get tasks and whims accomplished. I sit back and watch on my screen while she is doing tasks right in front of my eyes. We organize files, she uploads family photos (a project I never get around too because it takes me forever), and she sets up my Yahoo instant messaging e.g. Often we are busy around here so I simply assign tasks which she completes at another time. Corey even made a very nice double column shopping list with the items I regularly buy on it, (which I use to forget to pickup) then she printed the shopping list from my computer to my printer! Did I mention she does this from her home in Wisconsin? Being located out of town she is never in competition with my business. The sky’s the limit on what your new VA can do for YOU.

Click the girl.

OWN A BUSINESS, OR DOES IT OWN YOU with a virtual assistant, she will take many repetitive and mundane tasks off your hands. You know those daily tasks that whittle away at your precious time? In addition, you do not pay federal or state taxes, health insurance, office space/brick or mortar expense, no more buying desks, chairs, staplers, pens, computers, software, computer maintenance, employee breaks, nor break rooms! Pause a moment and really begin to think: what is that worth to you? Our newest VA a MBA student is Jacqueline in Florida who is bilingual and serves our non English speaking leads and clients. Click on the red banner now and give it serious consideration.

Virtual Assistance is a concept which will grow explosively over the next few years, and you can lock in your price while prices are reasonable.  Furthermore, all that my VA does, costs me only pennies a week, when and only when I use her.

Do yourself a favor click on the red banner now and check it out. I think you will agree that success is doing the one thing you do extremely well, and letting others do for you what you cannot or opt not to do. Say you’re a physician, mom, dad, attorney, businessperson, politician, or teacher: you make your money in your specialty and career, doing what you were trained to do, and let your new remote access Virtual Assistant help you with everything else. You will be amazed what you can get accomplished. You can use them as much or as little as you like! I have!

Click the girl.

Click on the red banner now and begin to wrap your mind around the concept, you will thank me later, I guarantee. Then tell them Bill Guerra in Las Vegas sent you, and call me directly if you have any questions, let it springboard you into a new era.

Thank you for your valuable time,

Bill Guerra

Ps: please do a busy friend a favor and forward this note to them.

Bill Guerra BSN | Direct 702-265-3405 | Email: bill@willbuyanyhouse.com | Web: www.willbuyanyhouse.com | News: http://www.willbuyanyhouse.com/news/

Tags: Bill Guerra in Las Vegas, help my small business, OWN YOUR PERSONAL LIFE AGAIN, remote access, remote access your PC, small business, small business VAs, small business virtual assistants, Virtual Assistance, virtual assistant

Hello, Do you know what a virtual assistant is?

OWN YOUR PERSONAL LIFE:
There are only so many hours in the day. Do you find yourself burning the candle at both ends? Do you know how much more you could complete if; you had someone with expertise in areas where you’re lacking? Example, creating garage sale flyers with MS Publisher, inserting your important signature in MS Word, arranging your email list, and organizing your computer files online?

My virtual assistant (VA) Corey, whom I have built a great rapport with this year, logs onto my computer via remote access, while I am on the phone with her to help me get things accomplished. We organize files, upload photos (a project we never get too), she sets up my Yahoo instant messaging e.g. Corey even made a very nice double column shopping list with the items I regularly buy on it, (which I always forget to pickup) then she printed the list from my computer to my printer! Did I mention she does this from her home in Wisconsin? The sky’s the limit on what a VA can do for YOU.

Click the girl.

OWN A BUSINESS?:
with a virtual assistant, you do not pay federal or state taxes, health insurance, office space/brick and mortar expense, desk, chair, computer, breaks, staplers, break rooms. Think of what is that worth? Click on the red banner now and give it a serious consideration.

It is a concept that will grow explosively over the next few years, and you can lock in your price while prices are reasonable. Furthermore, all that my VA does, costs me only pennies a week, only when, and IF, I use her.

Do yourself a favor click on the red banner now and check it out. I think you will agree that success is doing one thing extremely well, and letting others do for you what you cannot do well. Like if you’re a physician, mom, dad, attorney, businessperson, politician, teacher: you make your money doing what you are trained to do, and let your new remote access Virtual Assistant help you with everything else. You will be amazed what you can get accomplished. You can use them as much or as little as you like! I have!

Click the girl.

 Click on the red banner now and begin to wrap your mind around the concept, you will thank me later, I guarantee. Then tell them Bill Guerra in Las Vegas sent you, and call me directly if you have any questions, it really will springboard you into a new era.

Tags: Bill Guerra in Las Vegas, help my small business, remote access your PC, small business, small business VAs, small business virtual assistants, virtual assistant

A major benefit of excellent websites of Investor, Real Estate Agent, Wholesaler, Note Buyer, or Mortgage Broker is to demonstrate creditability, and so much more.

A website is of great value to you and your customers. You can put testimonials, houses for sale, contact information, products for sale, and much more on it easily. You can put the website address on all your advertising products like mailers, business cards, and yellow page ads, etc. It can pay you huge cash dividends, it has for me. I have bought well over 10 houses from my site including the very one I live in! I happen to run an ad in the newspaper that read “We Buy Houses Fast, Cash Close in 3 Days” and added my phone as well as my web address. Well, as good marketing would have it, the seller was sitting at his desk reading the newspaper at work and Googled my website, called me then I bought the house days later!

You see great real estate investor websites and realtor websites will help you find motivated sellers, listings, and sales easily. 

But there are many real estate websites for sale, and how do you know which one is right for you? You want a website that will be easy to maintain, update and change. Avoid websites where you have to become a technical engineer. You make your money in real estate not as a computer technician. The best ones offer unlimited changes so you can simply email changes to the webmaster.

Example: you want to add a testimonial with a photo on it. You type out the testimonial in your email, attach the photo, and send it to the webmaster. Simple. You are back to real estate; what YOU do best! Photos are always great, lending a personable feel.

Example: you want to add a new domain name like johnybuyshouses or lasvegasagent. Buy the domain and email it to the webmaster who points it to your website and it’s done for you. Back to real estate investing, what you do best! You see your time will not be taken up with learning to manage a website.

Attract Motivated Sellers, Attract Eager Buyers, Attract Money Partners to get started Click here

A word about SEO (Search Engine Optimization): SEO is an important activity which a webmaster should be continually working, studying, and researching on, to stay up on the latest SEO advances. Do you know what spiders and bots do? They crawl through your website, studying your websites target audience. Then the spiders and bots can decide if it’s a site worthy to place in high ranking of Google’s or Yahoo’s page. Therefore, ask your real estate investor, realtor, or wholesaler website webmaster what is their ongoing program for SEO.

In searching for a webmaster, it’s important to find one that has been in business for years. You do not want to have to spend the time researching again for someone to host your site. I spent two very long years, looking at, researching, educating myself and talking with webmasters on websites. If you know very little about websites and most do, you can spend countless hours and days looking for the site that’s a fit for you and is a solid company. Usually webmasters begin their business then drift off into the latest internet fad.

The best sites contain Back Office Pro, it’s a software program where you can upload photos and descriptions of your real estate very easily and make changes as needed quickly. Example, if you just put a house on your site for sale at a super low price and it sells, you want to be able to go in and choose the option labeled “Sold” on the website listing to stop the phone calls immediately. Because when running a small business your time is gold, you want those calls to stop.

In a webmaster, you will want to look for testimonials on their site.  Do they even bother with that?  Do the testimonials seem legitimate? When you Google their name does it pop up in the organic side of Google, which will tell you about their longevity as well?

The website should offer bilingual text so you can target an additional customer base, which will be a step above your competitors. In today’s changing market place you want the competitive edge.

Additionally, the owner of the company should be very familiar with real estate sales and investing. He will know what your target audience is and will have designed sites to cater to listings, sales, wholesale, and subject to deals. They will write the email reminders to folks who sign up on your new site in auto-responder format. Auto-responder software will send occasional emails out to your customer once they input their contact data. An excellent webmaster knows that you cannot spam your customers. That would lower your Google and Yahoo or search engine ranking.

Occasionally you try certain maneuvers that do not jive with your website or ranking. The seasoned real estate webmaster will educate you to avoid certain tasks, or verbiage with your site. Heed their advice, they do websites, you do real estate, and respect their knowledge in their specialty it pays off in the long run. 

They need to be easy to reach by email or phone. This is important so they can help you if you have questions. Do they charge for those phone calls and emails?  Are there so called up-sells to your site, after you signed the dotted line? So let’s talk price, should you get a website that is expensive or cheap? The answer lies in your business longevity and aspirations. I found that you get what you pay for more often than not in most things. I would rather spend a bit more today and have a site that will stand the test of time. Which is a webmaster who is innovative, stable, and has been around for years. I like my site which has been designed by someone who has background and backbone in real estate.

Steer clear of buying any old site today then having to deal with changing to another site later and developing all new relationships with your webmaster, his or her policies, protocols, and procedures. If purchased correctly the first time your website, and the part of your business that demonstrates creditability and increases revenue will be rock solid. Now you can go back to finding those great real estate deals. Tell them Bill at Banyon Tree sent you for a discount!

Powerful Web Designs = Powerful Results for Real Estate Websites click here

Tags: effective and affordable email marketing, email marketing, help my small business, Powerful Web Designs, Real Estate and Realtor Websites, real estate investor websites, small business, small business VAs, small business virtual assistants

Real Estate Investing on the Cheap, Bandit Signs
Bandit signs are those God ugly yellow and black signs nailed to telephone poles. You can see them in any town at any time. They are a nuisance. That’s why they are called bandit signs, because you put them out on the sly like early or late in the day. I have used them on a few occasions and got ticket by the city for them too. That was not fun.

The do bring in the motivated sellers that’s for sure! Put them in your gold mine area, up high where “do gooders” cant cut them off. If you buy the roofing nails which have a plastic or metal washer like thing on them, the signs will stay up for years. My suggestions are putting them up sparring and in different locations. This will keep the code enforcement off your case. Bill Guerra

Tags: advertising, real estate, signs

Deal Theft
Deal stealing. This is one thing I do not tolerate nor should you. Deal stealing is working with another investor then they try to steal your deals or contracts. Not cool.

Let me tell you a little story. Worked with a guy on about 30 houses, all went pretty well. Then he had a change of heart, he decided to send a fellow who worked with him around me, to steal my deal. We will call him “Allen”. A smuck.

Its nice when you are working with only a few fellow investors you can wholesale to them houses if you have too many on your plate. Well seems the thirty houses or more he got from my efforts, well he wanted them cheaper, decided not to pay the wholesale price then went around me to get the deal. This happened once that I could prove, later I found out it was not the first time he did this. Then he tried to steal a collegue of mine who is a master researcher, putting the colleague in a precarious position, not a good feeling, and trust me, in business feelings ARE important. Relationships are important, your word is important. “Allen” found this out the hard way.

I am grateful to my researcher that she did not decide to jump ship, but she is smart, she always says…”if he tryed to burn you Bill, what makes you think he wont try to burn me, maybe at a critical time like in a huge deal.” Exactly my point. Now now how is his reputation in the investor community you might ask? I will tell you his name when from “Allen” to “Mud”.

I pity him, we got pretty tight, he overlooked that and chose short term profit for long term wealth thru a business relationship. Last I heard he has several law suits pending and houses going into foreclosure.

My feeling is folks can always talk about things to try and work them out, then if there is a difference of minds that’s fine you can go your own way, no hard feelings, to maybe do business another day. Its sad, he still emails and trys to get me the researcher to “work for him.” Some folks never get it.

I have had a few try to do this, but they are few and far between. When I was a new investor one guy left me waiting in a title company for hours, I did not know what to do. So I told him the deal was off, he threatened a law suit in our business that’s called a Lis Pendens, or lien on the property, so it cannot be sold. I did not know what to do, so I gave him the deal, the last deal ever. Guess how many of the next 155 houses he has got from me, zero, nada, the big doughnut, none. Then had the nerve to call up wanting to borrow money a year later! Hey, I do not tolerate men who cannot keep there word, nor should you.

Tags: deal theft, Flipping Homes, investor, partners, real estate