"Tax complexity itself is a kind of tax." - Max Daucus

A, B, C, D, E, F, G ... something, something ... T, C, J and A.

Remember when the alphabet meant singing songs in class? We don't really either...

But now, thanks to those last four letters, it means small income tax rate reductions for individuals, and larger ones for corporations. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was signed on December 22nd, 2017 and brought many new provisions with it.

As far as Salt Lake County businesses are concerned, the new law is worth looking into. If you have yet to do so, my goal below is to highlight some specifics before your eyes glaze over ... I do remember that from school. Read More...

I’ve had some discussions lately with coaching students about marketing.  One student was perplexed and somewhat upset, understandably, that “nothing is working”.  So, we drilled down into his work to see if we could uncover something.  I asked what he was doing for his marketing.

“Direct mail” was the answer.  Good, that’s a great way to reach out to a lot of people and get decent results; although this was clearly NOT the case for this guy.  Now, I should mention that I have seen his marketing letters and they are really great – to the point, clear, and all about helping the prospect.

So, naturally, I went to “quantity” and found that he was doing about 100 a week.  Not an avalanche by any means, but certainly enough to generate a response or two from time to time.  But, “nothing” is what he claims to be getting.  Absolutely nothing.  Makes no sense, really.

Later that same day, another student approached me with a couple of questions and remarked that he was fielding a “bunch of leads”.  “Wait a minute”, I said with this earlier conversation in mind, “where are you getting these leads?”  Oh, direct mail, talking with REALTORs, and friends.

So, the first thing you could rationally conclude is that he had multiple streams of marketing going on, but with all things being equal, he should have had little or no response from direct mail.  Not the case.  He was getting the lion’s share from direct mail response.  He was having good conversations. Read More...

You’ve no doubt heard the expression that if you “fall off the horse”, the best thing to do is to “get back on the horse again.”  OK, that’s cute, we get it’s “insider meaning”, which refers to anything that you’ve done before that you’ve failed at for any reason, the best thing to do is to try again.

It’s a little subtler than that, too, of course.  It also refers to things that you may have been doing and were interrupted from doing for events outside of your control.  In other words, no so much that you failed at anything, but perhaps you were just stopped, for whatever reason.

So, this is my one-year celebration of pulling myself back on the horse – the horse of life.  You see, one year ago, a team of surgeons, acting as a team of rehab experts that included a framer, a plumber, and an electrician, rehabbed me.  They took my heart out, re-plumbed the feed lines, and put it back.

How I got to that point is anyone’s guess, and the team of cardiologists who looked at my heart muscle and say that it’s a strong as a horse’s, just the feed tubes got clogged.  They believe that there is a large amount of heredity in that equation.  Who knows, really.

I never actually fell off the horse, either.  I stopped the horse, I said “something’s not quite right”, got off the horse, and sought assistance from my health-care coaches.  No one forced me to “do” anything, but what they did do was make strong recommendations for that rehab I described above.

Once that was done, they told me to go home and let the automatic processes of the body rebuild the damage and the trauma caused by the surgery.  Then I got handed off to another set of coaches that guided me back to re-building physically. Read More...

Something peeked your interest in real estate. Maybe it was the Flip this house, or Flipping Vegas or any other the other 100 reality TV shows that have nothing to do with reality but makes for entertaining TV.  Maybe it was a radio ad from some national guru looking to build their business in your market and they want you to join their team.  Maybe it was an ad on Facebook telling you that it is so simple to make $30k a month without even getting out of bed.  Maybe it was a friend that really did flip properties or a relative that owned several rental properties.

Whatever the reason is that you decided to give real estate investing a try, you soon realized that there is a lot to know and the real estate business can seem overwhelming when you are first starting out.  I know because I felt that way in the beginning and now I mentor students through the minutia all the time.

In one of my early mentoring sessions with my mentor, he said something to me that I just laughed at, at the time but later realized how profound that statement was that he repeated to me over and over until I finally got it.

He said; if you want to get to where I am, you need to KISS your way to Riches.  Keep It Simple Stupid. Read More...

When it comes to making offers, most investors only know how to make one offer at a time.  They usually make an all cash offer, also known as the MAO (Maximum Allowable Offer) or they get a loan from a bank, hard money lender or a private investor.  This strategy has worked fine for investors and if you are only making offers on bank REOs on through the MLS, then a cash/MAO offer is really all you will be able to make.

The average number offers to get one accepted with this approach is 20-40 offers to get one accepted in today’s market for most of the country.  Some more experienced investors have been able to reduce that number down to about 5-10 offers to one acceptance by being very selective on what properties to make offers on.  In other words, they know from experience that certain properties from certain banks or listing agents simply will not accept their offers so they don’t even make the offers. 

The secret to success in the real estate business is making offers.  The problem is that most investors use the same offer process when dealing with sellers directly and they are missing some huge opportunities if they just knew how to create alternative offers that don’t require cashing out the seller.

Ask yourself these two questions: Read More...

There is a lot of confusion out there with newbies and some seasoned investors as to what exactly Wholesaling means.  The easiest way to describe this is to look at the Minnesota State Statue: 82 REAL ESTATE SALES REGULATIONS Sub 55 Definitions. Condensed Version: You cannot sell a property for another for a fee without a real estate license.  So the question is, as a wholesaler, what are you selling?  If you have a property under contract, you can sell your rights to the contract, not the property.  This is done via an assignment agreement which allows the assignee to step into your place as the buyer.  That is the basics of wholesaling. 

Some states actively go after real estate investors for incorrectly wholesaling.  These investors get themselves into trouble because they can’t explain legally what they are doing and therefore say the wrong things, like I am trying to find a buyer for the seller.  That shows intent, and as the previous FBI Director James Comey famously explained, it comes down to intent.

The problem is that your true intentions may not reflect your stated intentions because you don’t understand the legality of what you are doing.  If you just change what you are saying, to reflect your true intentions, then you will avoid a lot of aggravation and harassment from the state. Read More...

We live in uncertain times.  After the mortgage meltdown and the almost collapse of the financial industry, the real estate market has been going through several ups and downs.  The median sales price in my area went from its peak of $238,000 in June 2006 to a low of $138,500 in February 2012, back up to $210,000 in June of 2013 and we are on our way back down, currently sitting at $179,850 for January 2014.

There have been some wild swings in the past few years and the people that understand that and have kept a close eye on the trends, and have not been afraid of the market have made a lot of money the past few years.  However, I have seen most people sitting on the fence and haven’t done anything.  I can understand the feeling of uncertainty and being afraid to make a mistake, but let’s face it, if you’re afraid to make a mistake, you will never make it big.

You’re probably thinking right now “That’s easy for you to say Mike; you’ve been at this for a long time and have more experience than I do”.  While for many of you, that may be true, however, for your info, I have probably made more mistakes than most of you ever will, and I am still making mistakes.  But that is not holding me back.

That is one of the most common traits I see from those who are successful, even in this wild and uncertain market.  They are not afraid to make a mistake, and often do, but they don’t let that hold them back.

Everyone wants to minimize their risk of making a mistake and losing money or damaging their credit, myself included.  However, I see way to many people with paralysis of analysis and never do anything.  So what’s holding you back?  Read More...