Archive for Strait Path Real Estate

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

Jan 3 | by | Book Review, Mindset, Real Estate, REIC Insider, Some food for thought, Strait Path Real Estate
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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.

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

Nov 29 | by | Book Review, Mindset, Real Estate, REIC Insider, Strait Path Real Estate
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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.

Market Still in Prime Condition for REIC-Style Real Estate

Nov 12 | by | Mortgages, Real Estate, REIC Insider, Some food for thought, Strait Path Real Estate
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House 300x199 Market Still in Prime Condition for REIC Style Real Estate

Today being Friday and all, I thought I would surf through news websites to see if anything interesting was going on in real estate news. As it turns out, I found an interesting nugget written by Alan Zibel from the Wall Street Journal. The article is titled, Home Prices Decline in Nearly Half of Metropolitan Areas.

The point Zibel makes in the article is that median home prices are still falling all across America. Home prices fell in 76 out of the 155 (or about half) areas that are tracked by the National Organization of Realtors. These numbers are for the third quarter 2010.

The reason? The government tax credit that was provided to mostly first-time home-buyers ended, so fewer people are willing to buy a home. Also, because multiple banks had fraudulently filed foreclosure documents on a huge number of homes, the investigation process has deterred would-be foreclosed property buyers.

This is good because it means that the real estate market is still producing great real estate deals for REIC clients and investors. When banks figure out their foreclosure problems, foreclosure numbers are expected to rise. This means that REIC will be able to keep providing inventory for their Strait Path, Strait Path Outright, and Strait Path Accelerate programs.

Learn and Grow Over Time

Nov 4 | by | From the Coaching Corner, Mindset, Real Estate, REIC Insider, Some food for thought, Strait Path Real Estate
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Sapling Small1 300x200 Learn and Grow Over Time

“Principle-centered people are constantly educated by their experiences. They read, they seek training, they take classes, they listen to others, they learn through both their ears and their eyes. They are curious, always asking questions. They continually expand their competence, their ability to do things. They develop new skills, new interests. They discover that the more they know, the more they realize they don’t know; that as their circle of knowledge grows, so does its outside edge of ignorance. Most of this learning and growth energy is self-initiated and feeds upon itself.”

—Stephen R. Covey, Principle-Centered Leadership, p. 1

 If you have been a member of REIC for a while you are familiar with the program. Your membership fee brought about a learning curve which, for some of our members, is huge and intimidating. For others, it is simple and common-sense. For everyone, though, it is a great learning experience.

 One of the main features of this experience is the actual education our members receive through the coaching sessions. Our coaches are very well versed in all components of the Strait Path process. They know it so well because they have done it themselves, and because they have taught it to so many people. It is difficult to teach a subject well without knowing it intimately.

 If a member plows through our coaching program, they are done in 3 to 6 months. But their game plan covers a ten-year period. So, what can our members do to keep the enthusiasm they experienced during their coaching alive over their ten-year game plan period? I have a few suggestions:

  1. Read one good book per month – There are literally thousands of good books available that will keep your love of learning alive during your game plan period. We have started providing you with title suggestions, and will continue to do so at the rate of one to two titles per month. Pick a subject that you would like to dive into and start reading.
  2. Contact your coach regularly – Your membership provides you with coaching for life. Most of that will be done soon after becoming a member, but in order to stay grounded in your goals, meet with your coach at least once per calendar quarter. Calling your coach once per month will give you the opportunity to see if we have anything new going on. Based on past experience, it is likely that something interesting has happened.
  3. Read through your game plan – Doing this will keep it fresh in your mind and help you to stay on track.
  4. Utilize opportunities to learn – Opportunities to learn are all around us. Seek them and you will find them. When you find an opportunity, see it for what it is: an opportunity. Not all opportunities need to be taken in order for you to continue your personal growth while you are on the Strait Path to Real Estate Wealth.

 By following these four simple suggestions, a couple things will happen. One is that they will soon become a habit. Then the fruits of these efforts will fulfill what Covey stated above: growth energy that is self-initiated will feed itself. When that begins, hold onto your hat because it is going to be an interesting ride!

 Comments? Add them below.

Profitability

Jun 21 | by | Some food for thought, Strait Path Real Estate
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Profitability

“It’s not how much money you make, but how much you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for.” —Robert Kiyosaki, author, Who Took My Money?

For most investors, profitability is the primary, and in some cases sole, factor used to decide whether or not to invest in something. They fly from deal to deal with no system in place.

Like an eager puppy that runs to whoever will pet it, they rush into any deal as long as they’re convinced that it will make them money. Unfortunately for them, their profits are as fleeting as their focus. They make good money on one deal, average money on another, and lose money on the next. They’re reduced to calculating returns based on averages over time, rather than the performance of each individual deal.

Also, investors who elevate profit above all other factors are those who tend to spend money as fast as they make it. They have to keep making it in order to support their extravagant lifestyle, which creates a self- reinforcing cycle. They become addicted to money and lose the ability to put it in its proper perspective as a tool and a byproduct, rather than an end in itself.

In Strait Path real estate, we’re not just looking to make money — we seek sustainable, consistent, and predictable profits. We don’t want the highest returns — we want the best returns when considered in light of every other investment factor.

Without a holistic approach, perspectives on profit become misguided. No amount of money is worth exposure to high risk and/or creating a win-lose transaction. The more time and effort you have to spend on a deal, the less it should be worth to you. The more you must depend on appreciation, the less appealing the opportunity becomes.

Service to Tenants and the community

Jun 2 | by | lease option, Real Estate, Strait Path Real Estate
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ServiceSign Service to Tenants and the community

The best part of Compassionate Financing is that it provides tenants huge benefits that they cannot get in any other way.

While it frees you from having to repair toilets, it gives tenants the opportunity to make improvements and feel as if they’re really creating a home environment, which is difficult for renters to achieve. Tenants have the feeling of control and ownership while they are buying time to improve their credit.

They can build equity much faster than they can with conventional financing. They can acquire seasoned loans since they are living in the home before purchasing it. They can take advantage of the opportunity of home owner- ship with a relatively small amount of money.

And with our system, it’s almost a guarantee that they will, in fact, be able to purchase the home. Furthermore, we encourage investors to give tenants an equity bonus when they purchase the home.

You’ll find all the details on the Compassionate Financing system in chapter seven.

Keys to compassionate financing

  • By giving tenants the opportunity to purchase a home, you relieve yourself of the burden of property maintenance, decrease your risk, and increase your profits.
  • You eliminate the predatory nature of lease options, as well as the risk of lost appreciation by using better contracts than standard contracts.
  • You help tenants purchase homes. It serves them better and makes you more profit in the long run.
  • Compassionate Financing gives tenants substantial benefits, such as the ability to make home improvements, time to improve their credit, and the opportunity to build equity. In exchange for these benefits, they are willing to pay more up front, as well as on a monthly basis.
  • Once you’ve gone through the four-phase Strait Path process (plan, find, purchase, serve) with one home, things really start to get exciting, since your success builds exponentially. The more properties you buy, the more you’re able to buy. One home can easily become many over time. Once you purchase a home at a discount and it generates profits, you can leverage those profits and the accumulated equity to purchase another property, and another and another. This is what we refer to as “achieving critical mass,” which is detailed in chapter eight.

Compassionate Financing

Jun 1 | by | Strait Path Real Estate
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Every component of the Strait Path system is important, but Compassion- ate Financing is the engine that makes it all run. Compassionate Financing is a rent-to-own program similar to lease options and other seller-financing programs.

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 Flawsimages%5CHouse%205 Compassionate Financing

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.

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