Johnny Devine

Too many real estate investors fail to achieve their dreams because they fail to properly launch their investing careers or because they reach a crossroads and don’t know which way to turn. Confused about the next step to take, they spin their wheels, do nothing, and eventually opt to walk away from real estate completely and go back to a life of mediocrity. To prevent this from happening to you, follow this simple seven step roadmap to success.

Step One: Education – The right education is critical to your success. Before getting started you should begin learning about a variety of creative techniques. You don’t want to spend so much time preparing to invest that you never launch your investing career, but you don’t want to go off half-cocked and fire at everything that moves either. Learn enough to be able to write an intelligent offer and then make it happen. As your career advances, continue learning as you go along. There’s a ton of accumulated investing knowledge available, so take advantage of it. Keep in mind, too, that education doesn’t have to be a $2,000-$3,000 guru-sponsored super course. You can sometimes learn more from a $20 book, but never quit learning or you will quit growing.

Step Two: Planning – What steps are you taking to reach your goals? Are you sitting around with a pad of paper and a pen planning how you’ll spend your real estate profits or are you taking a series of deliberate steps to all but guarantee your success? How many calls are you going to make today, this week, or this month? How many properties will you look at? How many offers will you write? Real estate is a numbers game, so you need to plan your numbers and then you need to follow up by analyzing your activity. If you don’t keep score you won’t know if you’re winning or losing. It all starts with a plan and ends in the winner’s circle or the employment office. Planning – or failing to plan – will determine where you’ll be in a year and how much money you’ll have.

Step Three: Team Building – Major league ball teams don’t wait until the season starts to begin looking for members of their team. Their team-building effort starts months ahead of opening day. As a Real Estate investor you need a team of professionals in your corner. Start today with a small title or escrow company and a mortgage company. Make sure they understand creative real estate and have experience. If you’re not working with a mentor familiar with creative investing, you need to find one. He or she can shave years off your learning curve by helping you to avoid some of the stupid and costly mistakes they made.

Step Four: Circle of Influence – Who are you listening to? Your brother whose idea of creative real estate investing is buying a time share in Arkansas? If your circle of influence – people who give you advice – don’t know and understand real estate investing, they’ll constantly be taking aim on your hopes and dreams because they don’t understand the concept or because they don’t want your success to shine a spotlight on their mediocrity. Tap into as many creative – and successful – real estate investors as you can at your local REIA meetings.

Step Five: the Right Sellers – Wasting time trying to browbeat somebody into accepting your creative offer is unproductive and demoralizing. Make sure that the sellers you’re dealing with are highly motivated to sell and good things will happen. Don’t be afraid to walk away from the wrong deal even if the price is right. Know your ideal situation and then capitalize on it when the opportunity presents itself.

Step Six: Hobby/Business? – Is real estate investing going to be your pathway to prosperity? While there are plenty of opportunities for you to have fun, never lose sight of the fact that you’re playing in a very competitive sandbox. You have something going for you, though. A lot of investors lack the education, training, and mindset to prosper. If you’re one of them, you should save your money and take up stamp collecting or join the rock club. If, however, you’re serious about success and give this business the effort it deserves, your future is a blank check – and you’re holding the pen.

Step Seven: Stick with It – Real estate investing success won’t necessarily come overnight. That’s not to say that you won’t become an overnight sensation, but be prepared for the possibility that it might take 3-5 years to achieve a level of success that inspires you to throw all of your time and energy into enriching yourself. Real estate investing is easy, but it’s not simple. It takes work, effort, and a willingness to keep plodding ahead even when your big payday is years away – instead of mere days.

By following this seven step action plan you can set your sights on reaching all of your personal and financial dreams. Real estate investing is one of the most lucrative careers in the world, but you’ll have to dedicate yourself to your success. How bad do you want it?
Now go get it!

Sean Flanagan went from dead broke, living off Ramen Noodles and selling used pallets from the roadside for $20 a day, to a self made real estate multimillionaire in under 2 years time. He now shares his secrets with thousands of students across the country.

He has a FREE audio course titled 7 Secrets to Making Big Bucks in a Slow Real Estate Market which you can get right now by quickly visiting http://www.yuckyhouseleads.com He also gives away a coaching program for new real estate investors where he offers a risk free trial to prove to new real estate investors how much money they can make with his program at [http://www.yuckyhousesystems.com]

As a real estate agent, you know that success equals money. The more successful you are, the more money you make, right? For the most part, yes. A successful real estate agent will have those commission checks rolling in. Sure there are dry spells. Real estate is a cyclical business. But the long-term successful agents realize that by doing what they do best, they can weather any type of economic storm and market downturn.

If you got into the real estate industry to make money, join the club. So did your fellow agents. But is that your single motivation for working as a real estate agent? While money, especially making large amounts of money in those hefty commission checks, is enticing, it shouldn’t be the sole motivator for your business. If it’s all about the money, then that will become crystal clear to your clients and prospects and you will have a hard time developing a lifelong referral business.

So, what’s the secret of the top real estate agents’ success? It’s pretty simple, really. There are two major components to building a successful real estate business.

The first is to have passion for the real estate industry. If you are passionate about real estate it will shine through in everything you do. Your expertise will come naturally because you stay on top of what is happening in your market. You will network with professionals who can help your clients and provide them an all-around excellent experience, from lenders to title companies. You will exude confidence that clients can feel comfortable with.

Lacking passion for the real estate business? It will show. It will show in your lack of knowledge. It will show in your lack of enthusiasm. It will show in every aspect of your dealings with clients and prospects. And in the end, lack of passion will cost you. Because who wants to work with a real estate agent who doesn’t care about his own business?

The second component necessary for a real estate agent’s success is the true desire to help others. You’re working with people who have goals. Goals to buy a home. Goals to sell a home. Goals to build a real estate investment nest egg. Without clients, you can’t make a deal. Without a deal, you can’t close a transaction. Without a closed transaction, you can’t get that lovely commission check.

It boils down to the fact that you have to want to help others achieve those goals. If you don’t care about your clients’ goals, then you don’t really about your clients. And that will lose you clients and certainly not gain you any referrals or additional transactions down the road with the few clients you managed to work with.

Successful agents have their clients come back to them for every real estate transaction. Successful agents get referrals through their client base because of the good word-of-mouth from past clients. Successful agents make each and every client feel like she got the best help possible from a real estate agent who cares.

Tina McAllister is a ghostwriter for busy professionals and the author of The WAHM Agent [http://www.thewahmagent.com]

You can find more tips on how to work with real estate clients and market yourself as a top-notch real estate agent here

You don’t have to be a massive sports fan to notice the effect that the best coaching has on teams: the best coaches get the best results possible from their players. This often tends to result in wins and championship. If a team performs poorly, it will to replace the coach rather than replace the players.

Like anything that has the potential to be greatly rewarding, real estate investing is risky. You need to learn the ropes you so can minimize that risk. Real estate investing is a business where mistakes can be massively expensive. You can’t afford to make the same mistakes over and over; you have start out with good strategies, apply them well, and learn from any mistakes you do make.

Sound, sensible real estate investment practices must become your habits quickly if you are to succeed at investing in real estate. A good real estate coach can help with that process. For one thing, the instant, objective expert feedback you will get from a real estate coach brings accountability into your process. You will understand the consequences of your actions, and cannot rationalize away your mistakes and missteps, pass the buck or pass on the blame.

According to Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest football coaches of all time, winning is a habit, but so is losing. Which habit would you rather have, winning or losing? That’s not a question you had to think over very long, is it. A good real estate coach can do what even the best book or class cannot help you form winning habits.

A real estate coach can also help you put together a business plan, and give you specific ideas as to what you need to do in order for your venture to be a success. Like a sports team, you will only reap the benefits of a good game plan if you carry out the game plan successfully. A good coach will keep your nose to the grindstone and put your feet to the fire. A good real estate coach can keep you moving forward, and help you through rough times and answer questions. A good real estate coach can also provide support, motivation, knowledge, and help you keep your focus.

When you choose your real estate coach, you should choose someone who is actually active and successful as a real estate investor, and not someone merely trained in real estate who skipped the whole important middle step of being successful and went straightaway into training others. They should have many verifiable properties, and local properties are always better local properties are indicative that the real estate coach works locally, and will be available for training and answers. If you hire someone as a consultant, they should genuinely care about your future. Make them demonstrate this. If they don’t care about you before they take your money, they won’t suddenly start to care after they take your money.

Peter Vekselman has been successfully investing in real estate since 1996. He has completed over 1000 real estate deals, owned a construction company, been a private lender, and owned a property management company. To learn more about Peter please visit http://www.coachingbypeter.com

Corporate real estate operation makes an integral contribution to a company’s value across the globe. Let us dissect the title into corporate, real estate and operation. Corporate represents a corporation, or a legal entity which is formed to undertake some business. These are limited liability entities. Now the term real estate is confused with other synonyms, but it must be known that real estate represents a certain piece of land along with any fixtures (buildings and objects that are permanently fixed to the land). The term real estate is very often used in common law (a system of law developed through tribunals and by courts). Operations refer to the activities carried out by an organization to achieve various goals.

Real estate is essentially a capital asset. It can be said that at least 30% of the total capital pool of corporations is real estate. Naturally, corporations must focus on corporate real estate operation strategy in order to manage this valuable asset. Corporate real estate operation strategies must act towards assisting the overall competitive strategy of the organization. Their business objectives must give high priority towards management of such a capital asset.

O’ Mara (1999) put forth a theory regarding corporate real estate operation strategy. According to this, organizations may pursue either of three distinct generic strategies for the corporate real estate operations and management. Standardization strategy, incremental strategy or value-based strategy can be applied into corporate real estate operations in order to enhance the contribution of real estate in building the business value of the corporation.

A value based strategy uses the medium of real estate to express the planned direction and values of the organization. This method influences the thought process of the stakeholders, employees and customers by representing its value through the physical settings. Corporate objects are used effectively to express the corporation-community relationship. The building design and its function are used to convey what the corporation wishes to communicate to the customers. While this strategy uses design to convey value, mould behavior, and encourage future expectations, it can be an expensive scheme with an uncomfortable trade-off between aesthetics and functionality.

An incremental real estate strategy defers strong commitment over matters that the corporation is as yet unsure of. The physical needs for operation are met, but there is no rigid plan regarding aesthetics. Now this is good because the corporation moves forward surely though in increments. The forecasting horizon is shortened comfortably and the organization’s flexibility is conveyed. Location remains a major commitment, and the buildings are put up somewhat at random. Financial investment remains sub-optimal.
Next is the standardization strategy relies upon confident predictions about facility requirements in future. The rational style of the corporation is exemplified through standardized corporate real estate operations. The allocation of resources is under control. The strategy employs strong use of real estate as an asset. These standard objects strengthen the dominant image of the corporation. But these standards can be perceived to be rigid, preventing the objects from adapting to fresh demands. The process of mere repetitiveness may not do much for the organization.

Any corporation must ideally employ feasible corporate real estate operations that best enhance the company’s perceived value in the eyes of the market.

Richard B. Chai is a freelance writer. He generally writes content for websites, and is available for projects. Some of his latest projects have included articles on management of entitlement processes, and project and development services.