Scranton Real Estate Resources

Yesterday, I hired a designer to create for our investors a new Rental Application that you can use for your own real estate investing business.

This morning, I added the two page Rental Application to the Real Estate Investor Cookbook so that you can use it as you work through your real estate investing business operating procedures.

I have included both the MS Word version and a PDF version so that you can either use it as is with the largest number of people being able to just download and use it (that would be the PDF version) or, if you are feeling creative and adventurous, you can download the MS Word version and edit the form however you like.

With the large number of home owners that, due to the slow real estate market in many areas, are finding themselves as reluctant landlords,

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First, I strongly advise you to use the How To Get The Paperwork For Your Deal to get the right paperwork for your real estate investing from someone who is both local and can advise you on how to use the paperwork correctly.

I am NOT an attorney. I am not qualified to teach you contract law. I am not qualified to teach you how to fill out a contract. With that being said, I get requests all the time from real estate investors who ask me for a real estate contract they can use to buy property.

I strongly advise you again to use How To Get The Paperwork For Your Deal, but if you want a basic real estate contract to take to your dream team to get changes made that are appropriate for what you are trying to do and for your local laws and market then you can start with this very, very basic real estate contract.

I cannot stress the important of my warnings above to you: you need to learn the proper way to fill out a contract from someone that is qualified to teach that. I am not qualified to do so. You should have all your contracts reviewed by an attorney on your dream team that is representing you and your specific interests.

There are lots of real estate courses that will give you a contract to use and do not educate you, or even more frightening is they try to educate you in a few pages, on how to fill out a contract. It raises the hair on the back of my neck; it is that scary. While 9 times out of 10 you may be fine filling out a generic contract--even filling it out wrong. You'll only know how valuable this is when you run into a problem with your transaction and that could wipe you out completely financially if you did not get advice up front.

Until my next post,

James

With a lot of folks facing challenging local real estate markets there has been a lot of talk lately about wholesaling outside of your local market or virtual wholesaling.

Yes, wholesaling outside your local market can be done and a lot of the tools I teach can very easily be adapted to this type of investing, but I have one warning for you before you start and before I continue to share some information about it: if you are not willing to do the work that is required to build a buyers list, find deals and talk to buyers and sellers about properties in your local market, then doing it across the country still won't work for you.

With that being said... if you are willing to build a buyers list, talk to motivated sellers to find deals and put them under contract then talk to your buyers list as they inquire about the deal, then yes, this is a viable business model.

In fact, if you sort of cross your eyes funny, it is the exact business model I run here on these sites except I am doing it with a real estate license and skipping a few steps as I'll show you below.

For real estate investors that do not have a real estate license here is a basic overview of how the process works:

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To start 2009 off right, this week we are giving away Secret No Money Down Tips and Tricks as the free download when you start and finish a game on the Learn To Be Rich™ game this week.

Just register, login, start a new player and play a complete game and at the final game summary page you will see a link to download the course.

Each week, we change the course that you can download for playing a new game and finishing it that week.

Have a great 2009 investing and playing the game.

Until my next post,

James

With one or two properties tracking insurance is pretty straight forward and easy to remember, but adding a few more investment properties and tracking insurance becomes a much more challenging issue. In my office, we use a Property Insurance Report to keep track of insurance on all our properties in a nice summarized page.

On our Property Insurance Report, we track several things. Beyond the basics like property address and the insurance company name, we also track

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A less thought of but very powerful advantage to buying houses "subject to" the existing financing is the ability to buy houses using your corporation or LLC.

Since you are not qualifying for a new loan your corporation or LLC can be the buyer on properties that you are purchasing "subject to" the existing financing.

If you are concerned about Asset Protection and/or privacy of ownership, using an entity can prove to be very helpful.

Often real estate investors will use a trust--in addition to their corporation or LLC--when buying a property "subject to" the existing financing. This is NOT because a trust will not trigger any due on sale clauses, but because it can add an additional layer of asset protection by keeping your name off public record.

See your attorney for more information about how to structure an asset protection plan for you unique situation.

Until my next post,

James

You will need to find a great local insurance agent that understands what you are doing when you are buying houses "subject to" to the existing financing to make sure that property is properly insured.

An Insurance Agent is a key member of your Real Estate Investing Dream Team whether you are buying traditionally or buying "subject to", but since the loan remains in the seller's name, it is important to make sure that your insurance agent writes the correct policy to make sure that you are insured properly.

Remember that insurance premiums can vary widely from company to company for very similar coverage amounts. Be sure to get competitive quotes and to get the quotes BEFORE you buy the property. It is best to know your insurance expenses before you commit to buy a property.

Until my next post,

James

Once you buy a house "subject to" the existing financing, you'd like to be able to sell or occupy the property quickly and with a huge marketing advantage right? Well, being able to offer the property on a "Rent To Own" can give you that marketing advantage and get your property sold or occupied very quickly--especially in our current credit markets.

By offering creative financing options like a "rent to own" to folks with less than perfect credit, but with enough income to afford the property you offer something that only a small percentage of sellers are offering in your market.

Provided you can collect a large deposit toward the purchase and make sure that the

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