THE BLOG

Know All the Costs Before you Proceed with the Project – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators #76

My name is Lou Brown. I’m here with another of my 101 cash flow accelerators. And in this one I want you to be aware of what your costs are when you’re doing renovations. I know that sounds simple but it’s really not. A lot of people really don’t understand what they’re going to spend when they go into a project often. Yeah. Actually, as an investor, I buy from wholesalers all the time and one of the things is they bring me projects that are failed projects. Why? Because the on knowing untrained investor came in, purchased the property, started the renovation, ran out of money, got taken advantage of by the contractor, didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to do it, crashed and burned brings me the deal. I buy it for pennies on the dollar. I’m able to finish the renovation. It’s something you need to be very aware of, particularly if you’re just getting started in the business.

(more…)

April 9, 2020, By Scott

Always Have a ‘Scope of Work’ for Each of the Trades – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators #75

I’m Lou Brown and I’m back with another my 101 cash flow accelerators. Weird talking about renovations in this segment and one of the things that’s always very, very important is do your homework in advance of bringing in any contractors goes through the property yourself. Make a list of the items that need to be done room by room and trade by trade. Now trade by trade. So one of the things that I’ve created in my system call renovations is that separated what’s called scope of work by trade. So you should have a separate scope of work for plumbing, heating and air conditioning, electrical roofing, carpentry general and painting. So those six different trades typically done by different people, you’re giving them a different list of things to do. Now what I did is break it down room by room so that you’re actually walking through the room, walking through the project, determining by tip offs that I have on each one of the different rooms of things to look at.

(more…)

April 9, 2020, By Scott

Tie Money Releases to Permit Inspections – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators #74

I’m back with another of my 101 cashflow accelerators and we’re talking in this segment about renovations. I’ve made a fortune in the arena of renovations and I want to help you to do the same and I’ve learned an awful lot about how important the contract is. Listen, your contractor. Many times these folks are in desperation most of the time and they’re always angling for ways to get their money out of you before the work is done. I find it best to not be the owner, be the manager, so the hat that you should wear is that of a project manager and then you have the authority to release payments based on the contract when the actual sign-off occurs from the County. When they have the inspection done by the County, they’re the ones that need to organize that and set that up and be present for the inspection.

(more…)

April 9, 2020, By Scott

Understand Who Will Get Permits, You or the Contractor – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators #73

Back with another 101 cash flow accelerator and one of the things that can help you a lot is to save money when you are doing renovations. And one of the things that you have to get clear in your contract with your contractor, and I jokingly say con…tractor, it’s built right into their name, right, is that it gets you to get very good clear in the beginning who’s gonna do what under what circumstances, in what time frame.

(more…)

April 9, 2020, By Scott

Always Get Recent References on the Contractors – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators #72

I’m back with another of my hundred and one cash flow accelerators. And I wanted you to know that it’s so important when you are in the area of renovating property that you always get references on the contractors that you’re going to do business with. Now let me warn you and alert you that references sometimes are set ups as well. Do you think that the contractor is going to give you people that are going to give them a bad reference? No. They’re going to give you people that are gonna give them a good reference, like their momma, their brother-in-law, other people in their life. So what you’re looking for is references that are recent references that they had work done, say within the last few months. And you definitely want to interview those folks. You want to find out what’s going on in their world. You know, did the contractor live up to the budget that you entered into?

(more…)

April 9, 2020, By Scott

Always Have a Contract With The Contractor – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators #71

I’m back with another of my 101 cashflow accelerators where you can separate yourself from being just a landlord into a housing provider, an affordable housing provider. In fact, a certified affordable housing provider. One of the things that I teach you to do in this particular segment is to separate your documentation. So in other words, we’re entering into two different agreements. If we’re going to do a lease with the option to buy, we’ve got a lease, you’ve got what we call our standard rental agreement, and that covers the relationship that we have with them as an occupant of the property. Separately, they’re going to purchase another thing called an option to buy and that option to purchase is going to give them the right to purchase that property within a designated period of time with certain requirements within that, and as a result of them agreeing to that separate agreement, they now have that option to purchase the property.

(more…)

April 9, 2020, By Scott

Hold your bank account in a Personal Property Trust (3 of 7 in Lou’s Series on Using Trusts) – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators

It’s Lou Brown with another my hundred and one ways for real estate investors like you to win close more deals and accelerate your cash flow. Today’s tip is number 46 have a personal property trust as the beneficiary of your land trust. Well, if you’ve been following this series, you’ve learned a lot of very unique and amazing things about this powerful thing called trusts. It’s something that most people don’t know anything about it. It’s the most powerful entity I’ve ever discovered on the planet. And it’s something that you need to learn and you need to master. I love being able to pass this on to other folks because the changes and the benefits that I’ve gotten from it had been totally amazing. And I’ve heard, oh, I can’t tell you how many testimonials from others that have used my system over the years, been doing this since 1984 so there’s an awful lot of, uh, an experience that’s gone with that and teaching others as well over the last 30 years has been very powerful as well.

(more…)

April 7, 2020, By Scott

Separate Your Rental Agreement #70 – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators

I’m back with another of my 101 cashflow accelerators where you can separate yourself from being just a landlord into [inaudible] housing provider, an affordable housing provider. In fact, a certified affordable housing provider. One of the things that I teach you to do in this particular segment is to separate your documentation. So in other words, we’re entering into two different agreements. If we’re going to do a lease with the option to buy, we’ve got a lease, you’ve got what we call our standard rental agreement, and that covers the relationship that we have with them as an occupant of the property. Separately, they’re going to purchase another thing called an option to buy and that option to purchase is going to give them the rights to purchase that property within a designated period of time with a certain requirement within that. And as a result of them agreeing to that separate agreement, they now have the option to purchase the property.

(more…)

April 7, 2020, By Scott

Offer Your Optionees Back Up Owner Financing – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators #69

I’m back with another man, 101 cashflow accelerators. In this segment we’ve been talking about proper property management in formed property management, profitable property management, and one of the great profits enters that you have is giving your residents the opportunity to someday own that home. Now in the marketing that we do remarket there, find people that have a significant down payment that they could put down on the property. Why would they give it to you? Because they can’t typically qualify for a traditional loan. Half the bank. Well aren’t you a great service provider in your community? We call you an affordable housing provider and actually under our [inaudible] program you can become a certified affordable housing provider. And we provided all the documents that training the tools, the marketing, their websites, a complete package to open a business in your local community that attracts those kinds of folks.

(more…)

April 7, 2020, By Scott

Rent on a Lease with Option to Buy – 101 Street Smart Cash Flow Accelerators #68

I’m back with another my 101 cashflow accelerators. And one of the things that is very important in having a successful real estate business is paperwork management. Sorry guys. This is a detail-oriented business. The paperwork does matter. Finding the paperwork absolutely matters and it’s important that you always can put your finger on it. One of the things I developed over time, you know, if you think about it, once you get into a real estate transaction, it can be quite thick over time and you’ve got the have different segments, uh, to be able to find things quickly and easily. So I found these six part olders that uh, pretty much just show you what you can do with each one of these segments. So if you look at that one section, and if you start with this section over here, uh, that’s the first section.

(more…)

April 7, 2020, By Scott