Before starting with REIC, I didn’t know anything about real estate, barely made enough to cover expenses, and didn’t see a feasible way to become financially independent at an early age. I wanted to be free – I have many passions I want to explore and dreams I want to fulfill, but I knew with the life I had, it would be very later in life (if ever) for me to actually realize those.

Kris Krohn, whom I grew up with in Seattle, helped me buy my first home, nothing down. He said it had equity and at the time I didn’t really know what that meant but I trusted him. I was single, and as I started renting out my extra bedrooms, I was amazed that I was getting PAID to live in my own house (I was getting more rent than the mortgage payment) – even though I didn’t put anything down on the house; and THAT’S when I understood what equity meant!
Naturally I was very excited, and started learning all I could about real estate (I’m a real estate nerd at heart) and many of my friends and family caught my enthusiasm and decided to join REIC. A few asked me to partner with them, so they could leverage my “experience”; where I became the management partner and used their money and credit to help them achieve a better return. By so doing, I picked up 2 additional houses through partnering in this manner. I bought another residence about the same time (one year after the first one), and had exactly the same results as with the first house. Later, in November 2008, my wife and I married and bought our first house together, also with an REIC discount.

WITHIN JUST 18 MONTHS OF JOINING, I CHANGED FROM A NET WORTH OF -$30,000 AND NO HOPE OF ANY REASONABLE RETIREMENT; TO 5 HOMES, A NET WORTH OF OVER $150,000; AND A CLEAR VISION ON HOW TO CREATE RETIREMENT THROUGH REAL ESTATE. My dreams and visions will now be fulfilled. Since then, I have invested in national real estate and partnered to own 3 more local properties.

I am so excited for what REIC did and is doing for me. Without REIC, I’d be lucky to own 1 house right now.

From the desk of Kris Krohn:

I recommend reading the following article by Ryan Hinricher that discusses the possibility of a shortage of housing in the next few years. 2010 is expected to bring 2.4 million additional foreclosures and builders aren’t building according to the population growth of the country that requires 1.5 million new homes a year in addition. This may lead in the next few years to a shortage that can increase real estate prices in the coming years and make these next couple years the most important for building a real estate portfolio.

For more:  http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2010/03/01/housing-shortage-looms/

From Kris Krohn: A client was thinking about putting 80K into one of our REIC REO pools. In this pool we are buying real estate in 35 different states at often 90% discounts from what they were sold at two years ago. I bought this one house for under $7,800 and it sold two years ago for 150K. Homes like this had one of my clients very interested, but he was concerned because I take half the profit for getting him in. Once in a while I meet people who don’t like this idea because they want to make most of the money. This caused me to have a brief second thoughts. The same time I was interacting with this client, I was reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and came across the concept of “ethical egoism.” I became convinced that the best insurance policy on the success of our REO pool is making sure that the deal is also good for me. Well, after reading and analyzing that concept, I re-focused and told the client (in confidence!) that we set up the business not only for the success of our clients but also for me! To benefit the client and myself, the operation succeeds and we all win! It is important for me to create win-win situations especially when we are buying hundreds of homes at a time for 10 cents on the dollar. When I am watching out for my own best personal interests, it allows me to build the success I need to help others create their own personal success.

REIC employs a unique purchasing system and proprietary financing formula. It enables us to help people with average jobs and credit do something that few lending institutions can, which is to leverage the maximum number of investment homes onto their credit. Our complex formula considers various banks and ratios, then combines with our real estate system to achieve this.

Your success during this phase is determined by three primary factors: 1) using the right broker, 2) selecting the right loans, and 3) managing your debt-to-income ratio. And, if you’re unable to secure traditional financing for credit reasons, there are creative options for getting around that issue.

Use the Right Mortgage Broker

We maximize your ability to acquire the most investments as possible because we’ve learned the secrets of the lending industry. The key is to find the right mortgage broker who understands how to finance multiple properties on one person’s credit.
Select the Right Loans

The specialized loans we use capitalize on the best cash flows and overall profits for your portfolio.

Optimize Debt-to-Income Ratios Through Compassionate Financing™

Through Compassionate Financing™, our proprietary hybrid rent-to-own system, you can collect between $300 and $600 per month more than is possible through renting. This offsets the debt incurred by additional loans and increases your ability to purchase additional investment properties.

This is opposed to renting, where your debt-to-income ratio worsens with each transaction, and usually kills your ability to grow your portfolio after a couple homes.

Creative Financing

Strait Path™ real estate is that it can be applied by virtually anyone, no matter their history and the state of their credit. For those who cannot get approved for traditional financing, there are two ways to finance investment properties: “sandwich financing,” and partnering.

Meet Mike, our CFO of REIC and the man who handles all the money! Just a few things about Mike…

He’s from Seattle, WA and has nine siblings including him. He’s the oldest by two whole minutes and has an identical twin brother.

He loves to vacation anywhere warm and sunny. He loves the summertime but his favorite holiday is Christmas and dressed up as a ghost one year for Halloween. Along with his favorite line, the best piece of advice he’s ever received is “Don’t do a half arse job. Do it right the first time.”

It is always amazing to me that when things are going well for us we tend to pride ourselves in our accomplishments and then when things go wrong, we ask why and proclaim to the world that we don’t deserve it. During this season and beyond I would like to suggest a different approach that is somewhat counter intuitive. What would your life be like if you were grateful for every experience that you lived? I am referring to the “good” and the “bad” experiences. Now, this is obviously easier said than done, yet it can be done. Imagine for a minute that you are in the worst financial position of your life. Is it possible to love and be grateful for the hardship? Looking back on your life at all the so called horrible experiences, I could guess that if you made it through them you have become a stronger person. You now understand and have more empathy for those who experience the same. You are able to relate and offer assistance where, had you not lived through it yourself, you would have been completely unable to relate and assist in a positive manner.

I would suggest that we make every situation, one where we learn and show gratitude. I had the opportunity to live in Germany for a couple years when I was in my late teens and early twenties. There I met many people who lived through what we would all agree where horrible circumstances, and there were always two outcomes. Either the person or family grew to love each other more and they would reach out and help others, or the person would become embittered and angry always blaming this situation or that for where they were today.

So from this one example we see that there is a choice. We can choose to show gratitude and be happy even in the worst of situations, or we can choose to be defeated and become angry.

I suggest choosing gratitude.