Boys fool around while they are single and girls, well, they shop.

So, obviously, with that mentality, I over-treated myself on occasion and became a practitioner of retail therapy. I was doing pretty good for myself after college. I landed a really good job right out of school (especially for the job market and especially for Utah county) and was spending a little too much—not more than I made, but almost!

Anyways, as I read through the book draft, one thing stuck out to me. Spend less now and make the sacrifice to not spend for a few years in order to create room for building wealth! So save, invest and skip out on the stuff that you don’t need.

This isn’t a new idea, but reading that concept in the context that it was in (a book talking about making money, legitimately) struck a chord. To me that meant, stop eating out, stop compulsive shopping, stop buying things that I “need” (cause let’s face it, girls “need” everything for everything). And me, being in love with fashion, should know and accept that fashion comes in cycles and that if I miss a season, I’ll see quite a few of the same styles in a few seasons or in the thrift store.

For those of you who read the blog, know that I love getting my news updates and editorials from MSNBC. They had a great article called “How to Escape a Shopping Addiction” with 10 steps Gotta have your steps. For those of you who have shopping addictions, be it in retail, electronics, big masculine toys, this might be a fun read. Enjoy!

“SAVE MONEY… SAVE MONEY… forrrr… retirement…lol… im getting old & is scared of the futre”

This friend of mine is not even 30 yet! But unfortunately, this thinking is not uncommon. A lot of us have asked this question with quite a bit of serious concern. What would you say to her to help her get out of her scarcity mode??

Kris shared a story about his grandmother and how she shared the journey she and her children took to come to America.

She shared with Kris what it was like during WWII. She had met a wonderful man, and had gotten pregnant by him before he left for war. This was a huge embarrassment as she became larger and larger.

She thought her fiancé was dead because she didn’t hear from. She married a man to be legitimate, and he went to war. Her fiancé returned and she broke the news which was hard. Eventually both men died in the war, and she ended up with two children and no husband. She went into hiding as the Russian soldiers entered her village. Her father disappeared and she came up to see him shot by the Russians. She also was shot twice but managed to survive. She ended up in a death camp, escaped, was raped by the Russian soldiers, and finally was reunited with her children.

This was the beginning of Kris’ father’s life. All he knew was a war-wracked Germany. At 32, Kris’ father came to American to find a new life. He found Kris’ mother; they had 9 children; he purchased land and built a home for them. He would say “I never had a father growing up” – Kris realizes the impact he has on his children.Kris’ father knew what he didn’t want, but hasn’t gotten beyond that.

What is your next frontier in your life? Are we creating the results we want in our life?

Exercise on where we are, what we want to change, and what we want.

The longest list is what we are focusing on – let’s focus on the things we want to create. Are we o.k. with where we are? Are we up to the challenge to creating what we want? It is our birthright to grow what we want. We don’t realize the light that we are missing. Our subconscious takes in a lot more than we have.

If we can’t imagine what we want, we will never achieve it. We must think things into reality. Thoughts become things.

What is the link between what we do here, and what is manifest in the rest of our life?

If you came up with something new, this is the inception of Creation – you are manifesting something new in your life. The next step is to put it into action. This is a manifestation of the divinity within you. Defining what you want is creation. The more distances we cross spiritually, intellectually, physically, etc. the happier we will be as conscious creators.

It’s a powerful and highly profitable system for the following reasons: 1) it incorporates the best elements of lease options while eliminating the flaws, 2) it relieves investors of the time and effort required to maintain rentals, 3) it generates much higher profits than either rentals or flipping, and 4) it provides substantial benefits to tenants.

Leasing: The Benefits Without the Flaws

Almost everyone wants to own a home, rather than rent, but there are many who are unable to qualify for traditional financing. A lease option gives renters the opportunity to purchase a home within a specified period of time and if certain conditions are met.

Renters like the lease option because it offers a gateway to home ownership. Investors like the lease option because it allows them to collect an option consideration (down payment) and receive a higher lease payment than they would otherwise receive in rent.

Unfortunately, lease-to-own options are risky for many homebuyers because of the way in which greedy, misguided investors apply them.

These investors collect large, nonrefundable option considerations and stipulate a short time period for the lessees to purchase the home. Then, when their tenants are unable to get traditional financing, they boot them out of the home and begin the process all over again with someone else. Many actually hope their tenants will be unable to purchase the home. One of the key elements of sustainable investing is service to individuals, communities, and society.

But this uncompassionate type of investing does not exist to serve, and is therefore unsustainable. It might make a handful of unscrupulous investors good money, but it weakens communities in the long run.

In contrast, the end goal of Compassionate Financing is for tenants to purchase our homes.

We deliberately do everything in our power to ensure that they do, even providing financial coaches and assistance with credit repair. We’ve implemented a number of revolutionary elements into our contracts to reduce risk and create a more equitable arrangement between investors and tenants. Interestingly enough, this approach typically makes us more money than most investors who use traditional lease options earn. It’s a triple-win scenario — we win, our tenants win, and the community wins.

A lot of people have asked me lately if this economy is good for lease options. I believe the economy has created a perfect opportunity for investors to utilize a lease option strategy, and likewise created a bridge to homeownership for families struggling under the weight of bad credit, job loss, and tight lending guidelines across the board.

Homeowners are finding that a lease option can help keep them from slipping into foreclosure, and even turn a scary situation on their primary residence into an opportunity to become a real estate investor.

If lease options are set up correctly, the investor saves thousands of dollars in vacancies, repairs, and eventual selling costs while enjoying a positive monthly cash flow from day one. In addition, investors do not have to take care of property management and maintenance, and they are giving families that have been hit hard by the global crisis a chance to achieve home ownership.

The question remains: how many families are out there looking for lease options? A common misconception is that only a small group of individuals are interested in a lease option program. I believe investors underestimate how many families could benefit from a lease option. The hundreds of families I have helped enter a rent-to-own program typically fall into one of three categories:

1. A family with great credit and a good job that can qualify to finance a home today. They are interested in building more equity than the banks will allow, and do so by spending thousands less on a down payment through a lease option. These families may already be homeowners, but are looking to move. They have discovered that in order to move into a new home without selling their existing home, they must have a minimum of 30% equity in their existing home. The only way many of these very qualified candidates can now purchase a home is through a lease option. In many instances, they spend less money and build more equity, but still enjoy the benefits of homeownership.

2. A family that purchased a house they should not have qualified for, but loose lending practices and dangerous ARM loans allowed them to buy the home. Many of these families found that as their ARM’s reset, they could not afford the new mortgage payment. Perhaps they defaulted on a payment or two, perhaps they sold the home as a short sale, or perhaps they slipped all the way into foreclosure. They still have a good, stable income, but the new mortgage was out of reach, and their credit has taken a hit. They can no longer qualify for conventional financing, but they are not willing to go back to renting, because they are used to the benefits of homeownership. These families are great candidates for a lease option because they want to be in a home and they can afford the payments.

3. Renters who are looking to become homeowners are the top candidates for lease options. With millions of Americans renting, and many looking for an opportunity to be homeowners, investors can find great tenants to enter a lease option. Renters may not be able to qualify for a traditional loan, or perhaps they need to work on their credit score or save money to purchase a home. A lease options provides a slow, safe path to homeownership.

Now, if someone asks you if lease options are a good idea, either for investors or potential homeowners, you can offer a positive response. Lease options do not have to be predatory; they can be beneficial to everyone involved in the transaction. The current economy is the perfect time for the lease option.

We just had our annual wealth summit with over 700 people in attendance (almost 4 times as many people as last year). Many of our clients brought friends and family members to the event, introducing them to what most of them hope will help them re-build their retirements and build a future for their families.

This month’s issue of Newsweek contains an article, “The New Math for Retirement” and the tagline? “Financial advice you’ve gotten in the past may have been misguided and miscalculated (hmm…401(K) anyone?”)

The article then goes on…”There’s one key fact of life that most retirement planning advice gets wrong: the way people actually live and spend when they retire.” Imagine that?

When you stop working and retire, you still have to buy food, buy gas, pay utility bills, etc. What kind of retirement is that anyways? Bills? Responsibilities?! Doesn’t retirement mean sunshine, beaches, pina coladas, vacations and visors? Sure it does if you saved up a billion gajillion dollars and plan to stop contributing to mankind and experience personal growth and development. You don’t have a billion gajillion dollars and have about 5 years before retirement?

Well luckily, through REIC, some hard work and an “I-Can-Do-It!” attitude, we’ll help you every step of the way to help you achieve that financial liberation you need to become successful, not just financially but in every aspect of your life. Reading our blogs and watching the testimonials of others who have “made it” is a great first step.

Real estate is not an easy road, but we’ll be right there with you. So all you gotta do is just start walking! Visit our website and attend an event to learn more!



When we say that we are “afraid of failure” we are making a broad generalization that glosses over the things that truly worry us.  This fear is paralyzing, and yet, because of its nonspecific and meaningless nature, we struggle to defeat it.

The fear of failure is a vague term that encompasses a broad range of dread and apprehension.   The key to beating it lies in recognizing each of its component terrors, and overcoming them one-by-one.

I want to take a moment to address one of the actual, specific fears included in this pantheon: it is the fear of embarrassment and humiliation.  For many, the fear of losing face in front of others – of being mocked for attempting to achieve something of great importance – is a powerful paralytic.

Consider the true purpose of fear: it is a biological response stimulated by the perception of threat, and enables us to avoid situations or activities that could endanger our lives.  And yet, this important mechanism can be warped to create panic and terror over things that offer no true threat or danger.  Such is the case with our fear of embarrassment.

Has anyone ever died of embarrassment?  Perhaps.  I suppose one could find an example of an individual so overcome with the intense emotions of shame and humiliation that a physical response, such as a heart attack, actually occurred.  Yet, I imagine that these circumstances are rare.  Furthermore, they are entirely the product of the mind; they threaten us only because we believe they can threaten us.

This fear of looking foolish stifles our drive and creative energy.   We wait for others – perhaps friends and family – to give us permission to attempt something new.  We pause, and wait for another to traverse the untested trail, hoping they will validate our belief that treasure is waiting at the end; in so doing we forfeit our claim to the prize we intuitively sensed was available.

If you were freed from the shackles of shame and embarrassment, what could you do that you are not currently doing?  Would your decisions be easier, and your view clearer, if outside opinion was irrelevant to your thinking?  How much of your daily routine is determined not by your own desires, but your wish to avoid the critical eye of your peers?

When we learn to recognize the illusory nature of the threat of embarrassment, the windows of possibility will open to us.  Among the fears that contribute to our dread of failure, this is among the greatest.  The peace and confidence you will achieve by relinquishing this unnecessary burden are well worth the effort.

~Christopher Wood

How we got involved in REIC is a pretty good story. My wife and I were in the market for buying our first home. We visited a home we were interested in, then went to a nearby park to let our toddler play and get a better feel for the neighborhood. While we were at the park, another young couple with a girl the same age as our own came to the park to play. I approached them to ask about the neighborhood and how they liked living there. They said that they didn’t live there either, but were just visiting friends. The man wondered why we asked, so I told him about our house hunt. We started talking about real estate, then real estate investing. He said there was a better way, and told us about REIC. Duncan Peterson invited us to visit one of the seminars. We liked what we heard and made the investment.

How has your experience been with the coaching program and actually doing real estate?

We haven’t done any real estate yet. We did invest in the Alpha REO pool. I think that our coach is still Trent Rogers. We had some meetings with him several months back as we tried to free up some capitol with investment condos we own, but the ball was left in our court as we figured out what to do. Since then we’ve tried to sell and/or refi our condos without any success, so we may be stuck renting them out for the time being. Perhaps when the market warms up again we’ll try to sell once more.

Why do you think that people should get involved with REIC?

#1 reason: REIC is made up of great people. Everyone that I’ve ever spoken with in the company is open and honest, cares about you, knows what they’re doing, and loves what they do. Its great to work with people like that. Whenever I leave the REIC office I feel uplifted. Now put on top of that the great investment opportunities, and there is no reason for people not to get involved with REIC.

How is REIC helping you accomplish your life goals?

We hope that the Alpha investment will pay off in the long term. Other than that, we’re hoping to eventually be at the point where we can do our first lease option investment in the coming few years. From there, we hope to accelerate our earnings. We still need to figure out our long term goals more concretely, but right now we’re just saving for a comfortable retirement – one where we’re not dependent on anyone else (including the government) for an income, one where we have month to month discretionary income, and one where we have the resources to bless other people’s lives.

Being a little overly enthusiastic I actually searched on Craig’s list and KSL but about ever day with new properties that I thought were a great deal. Every single time, my transaction specialist would review the property and find some reason, that I couldn’t find, that showed me that it wasn’t really a great deal.

It really helped me to appreciate all that the research department goes through and how difficult it is to find a legitimately good deal. I ended up making four offers. One was a bit out of my price range so I made a low offer and it was rejected. Two were short sales and there were others with offers ahead of me… short sales are kind of a slow game. One of the offers was accepted!!! I had an inspection done on the house and it didn’t pass perfectly but the sellers were willing to spend a little bit of time bringing it up to our expectations.

I really liked the house. It had been completely remodeled inside so it had brand new carpet, paint, doors, windows, bathrooms, kitchen and even a brand new electric stove. To be hones my wife was a little jealous especially of the new windows and stove. We have pretty old windows on our house that let in a lot of cold air and she seriously would have swapped out the stove if we had gas hookups in our kitchen.

Obviously the coolest part is that the day I bought the house my net worth increased by thirty thousand dollars and it will continue to grow from this house from now till the time I sell it. Another cool part is that I will make money through helping people. It is such a great feeling knowing that I will actually help empower people and help them purchase the home from me rather than being stuck renting and never making any headway.

~Tony Purcell

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