A new way to connect

You may have noticed that there are some new buttons around the blog here. We’re on Google+ now! We’re trying to connect with you wherever you’re most comfortable and there are some very cool tools there that we’re excited to use in giving you a clearer picture of what we do for you. You can visit our Google+ page by clicking here or by clicking on the red “g” button at the very bottom of the page.

We’ve also added buttons at the bottom of each blog post to make it easier to share the information we have here with your friends and acquaintances. See you there!

It’s a great time to buy

I’m sure you’ve heard what’s going on with the market recently: mortgage interest rates are at a record low, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped dramatically a couple of times recently and home prices keep going down. Sure, these are indicators that the economy’s having trouble finding its feet and that means tough times for many people, but let’s look at it another way.

Imagine your favorite secondhand store. Personally, I like hunting around secondhand stores every now and then because you can find some totally awesome stuff. Of course, the definition of awesome depends on who’s talking. One time, I found a great surplus US Navy peacoat and snatched it up. I get compliments on it all the time, which means I’m fairly certain I made a good find there.

11549 203395197595 505137595 3146157 3452542 n 294x300 Its a great time to buy

my clown pants, including awesome bowling shoes

Another example of a treasure I found at a secondhand store is a pair of pants referred to at my house as my “clown pants.” I found them for a whopping $5 and have given them a great home. To me, they’re a great statement of panache and I can totally make them work. To my wife, they’re an embarrassing eyesore and she threatens to send them back from whence they came when I’m not looking.

There are some things at the secondhand store that don’t stay there for long because they’re pretty much universally awesome. To bring this back to the earlier discussion, the market indicators mean that real estate is on sale, virtually sitting on the clearance shelf with a big sign on it that says “Huge discount!”

In a couple of very specific real estate markets, you can make your investment dollar go much farther than it would in other places and we’re helping our clients buy as much of this clearance sale real estate as we can find. There are currently two places where the conditions are just right for what we’re doing and those are Las Vegas, Nevada and Phoenix, Arizona. We’re not just scooping everything up; we’ve got very specific criteria for choosing what our members buy to make sure you’re getting a valuable piece of property. We want you to end up with the real estate equivalent of a baseball autographed by Joe DiMaggio that someone had hiding in a drawer and not the $5 clown pants, just because they were cheap.

New national events page

national page 300x247 New national events page

REICNational.com

We’ve got an exciting new page where you can find all of our events across the country, but you probably haven’t seen it yet. It’s so new we haven’t plugged it into this website quite yet, but you can see it right now at www.reicnational.com and play around with the page. If you’ve ever wanted to get a friend to an event, this is a great tool to use. Or if you’ve wanted to come to an event, but were having trouble finding one in your area, this will help you find one close to you.

We hope you like it as much as we do.

Don’t scare yourself

Remember watching Jaws for the first time? It was terrifying. You knew it was an undersea monster, eating teenagers and destroying boats. The key to building that sense of terror is that you didn’t actually see the shark until the very end. It was more terrible in your mind than the shark was in real life.0 300x225 Dont scare yourself

In a similar way, when I was a kid, we liked playing hide and seek, but hated it when my dad played with us. I love my dad, but he has a completely twisted strategy for winning at hide and seek with his kids. He’d hide somewhere dark and not in a way that we wouldn’t find him. For example, he’d just stand in the closet and close the door. That was it. When we’d open the closet door, he’d yell and jump out at us. While we stood there screaming at the terror that just lunged out at us from the dark, he’d run past us and get to base. Here’s where these come together.

It’s the things we don’t see that frighten us.

It’s true with investing as well. The part about investing that frightens most people away is the uncertainty. We can’t see what’s going to happen in the future. There’s another blog post about that. The other part is that with our Accelerated program, where we’re helping our members find great investment properties in Phoenix, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada, the fear is that you don’t get to see what’s going on there unless you live there or you take frequent trips to visit. And how can you be sure that the investment is really a good one? It’s easier when you live in the same city to know which neighborhoods are good, where the good schools are.

Don’t worry. We’ve got that covered. We have relationships with local agents and property management groups who know what’s what because they live there. They make sure that our investors don’t buy up slums or get tenants who will tear the place apart. Our local resources turn on the lights so that you don’t have to look into that dark closet, hoping that a horrible surprise doesn’t jump out at you. Real estate investing doesn’t have to be terrifying.

Updated website

I know it’s been awhile since you’ve heard from me, but I’ve been working on some big things. The biggest one is right in front of you. If you haven’t noticed already, our website has been updated! Most things are in new places and we’ve got updated information on many of our pages. I did my best to test all of the links, to make sure they go where they’re supposed to, so if you come across something that’s broken, please let me know so I can fix it.

There are even more updates coming soon as well. The next big change coming is we’re totally revamping the events page to make it easier for you to register for events in your area.

I’ll keep you up to date and now that the main work is done, you’ll see more regular blog posts.

15-Minute Seminar video

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“Are you sure REIC isn’t a scam?”

With all these experts around making a living selling their real estate investment secrets, banks falling apart, Bernie Madoff going to jail for his huge Ponzi scheme, and Enron running itself into the ground and taking all its employees’ retirements with it, we’re especially cautious about trusting people with the money we’ve worked so hard for. You’ve undoubtedly wondered whether REIC is a scam, right? I’ll admit that I wondered about it and even went searching for information about it. You’ve probably come up with the same thing I did when I went looking for information on whether REIC is a scam: not much at all.

I cornered Kris Krohn and told him that I’d expected to find more negative experiences, considering how much he talks about real estate being a tough industry (especially considering the current market) and the emotional connection we all have with money. Having some irate customers seems to be one of those things that comes from doing business, just part of the deal. But REIC seems to have very few members who aren’t happy with us. Kris explained that we don’t have many unhappy members because we work so hard to make sure they understand the risks and don’t make them walk the minefield themselves. We’re always there to help you through the tough parts.

Another thing that I’ve learned as I talk to the people here is that REIC’s program is designed to benefit the company when our members succeed. It’s in our best interest to make sure your real estate investment portfolio is growing and doing well. That means we work hard to make sure our members are happy because that means we’ll be happy too. We all win together.

Review of “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us” by Seth Godin

Tribes Review of “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us” by Seth Godin

“You can choose to lead, or not. You can choose to have faith, or not. You can choose to contribute to the tribe, or not.

 “Are there thousands of reasons why you, of all people, aren’t the right one to lead? Why you don’t have the resources or the authority or the genes or the momentum to lead? Probably. So what? You still get to make the choice.”

 —Seth Godin, “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us,” p. 146

 Are you looking for a good leadership book to read to start the New Year? This is a good one; better than I thought it would be. If you have ever attended one of the Prosperity Summits co-sponsored by REIC, you may remember how many times Garrett White said the word “tribe.” When I attended my first Prosperity Summit, Garrett probably said the word “tribe” at last twenty times. Because he said it so many times, I became curious about 1) what a tribe is, 2) how to create one myself, 3) how to become a tribe member, and 4) what the big deal is.

Garrett read this book and began to understand the power of a tribe. I read this book and began to understand the power of a tribe. You will, too.

What do tribes have to do with real estate? In a word, nothing. But that’s not important. The way tribes tie into what we do here at REIC is this: when you have extra income produced by real estate, you have extra time; if you have extra time you can help the world by living your soul purpose. Those you affect, help, work with, lead, etc. while living your soul purpose are your tribe. Real estate is the tool used to finance your soul purpose so you can build a tribe.

Make the choice to read this book this year. It can change your perspective on many different topics. The year is fresh; opportunities to lead a tribe abound. Don’t let the year slip by without doing something great!

If you are interested in reading my full book review, click here.

Introductions to REIC and real estate investing

Funny meeting you here, on the internet at REIC’s blog. This is my first time writing here, so hi, I’m Rob. I’m going to be updating all kinds of things on the website, so keep an eye out for the changes coming in the next few months. I just spent the last week (except for the time I was sleeping) in meetings here at the REIC office, taking a crazy crash course on all the things that REIC does. No, seriously, all week. I took tons of notes and I’ll be sharing those with you over the next little while. For now, all I’m going to say is that REIC is committed to helping our members complete their personalized game plans.

Photo on 2010 12 02 at 16.08 300x225 Introductions to REIC and real estate investing

Before I get to those notes, though, I want to make you a little fly on the wall of our staff meeting this morning. You’d undoubtedly prefer to be a fly on some other wall, but this last week, REIC had three major, exciting things happen at the office that I want to share with you.

1. I mentioned that I was in meetings all week, so we’ll start with that one. Let me be clear that I’m not important enough to warrant this kind of attention on my own, but I was part of the training for a new outside sales group as the notetaker and general scribe. We had about a half dozen highly skilled sales professionals who are going out to share REIC’s resources with a broader group and they’re excited to get out and help more people get on the path. Don’t worry, this doesn’t change the level of personal service you receive as a member of REIC, we just want to help as many people as we can. I’ve got to say that the more we learned about the details behind what REIC does, the more impressed the sales guys and I were by the company. If you’re already a member, you’ve got first-hand experience with it. If you’re not a member yet and are looking at the blog to find out more, let me tell you that everyone here is focused on what would be best for our members.

2. The next big thing that happened at REIC this week was our first Boot Camp. It was a training for the people who have gone through the home study kit and wanted some more information and training. It’s a manageable amount of good information and there was lots of personal interaction with the team here.

3. The last big thing we did last week was hold our first coaching graduation. We brought together people who went through all of the personal coaching steps and purchased their first investment property. Exciting, right? You can do it too and you’re not alone. Our members do this all the time, we just wanted to make sure they realized what a big step it is to make their first investment deal.

Did you catch how these three things are all the similar? The essence of REIC is training you how you can become a real estate investor and connecting you with the talented team of people here who are excited and committed to helping you succeed. And not just some generic ‘you’ printed on some script we’ve got on our computers.

We’re committed to you, the person reading this blog post right now. Stop rolling your eyes because I saw that and I’m serious. If you don’t have your personalized blueprint yet, you can get started right now. Just click here and we’ll get you started. If you’re not ready yet, that’s cool too. I’ll see you back here soon.

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle

newearth A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle

My book review for this month is A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle. Click on the title to read the full review.

After reading my review, I’m sure it’s obvious that I liked it—a lot. But many of our blog readers may be wondering why reading a self-help book will help them invest in real estate. Allow me to run a few ideas by you.

I’m guessing that you are investing in real estate, or are interested in investing in real estate because you want more out of life—more wealth, prosperity, time for family and friends, and a thousand other reasons. If you are not investing in real estate yet, you may be looking onto REIC to see if you want to play the Strait Path game with us. In either case, chances are that you aren’t in the financial position you’d like to be for a reason. Most reasons have something to do with your mindset.

Reading A New Earth could be your first step in beginning to look at the way you see yourself, life, your lifestyle, your paradigms, etc. Tolle has an interesting way of explaining how our minds (specifically our egos) succeed at ruining our hopes, wishes, dreams, goals, and the good things in life that make living fun and interesting. From our relationships to our bank accounts, our egos have a huge amount of control over what we manifest, or fail to manifest, in our lives. The ego is our enemy. Tolle shows his readers how to quiet the ego so they can begin to manifest what they want.

After reading the book, chime in. Let me know what you think.

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