How I began in RE and what you can do today! by LesGee

Post by LesGee

X wrote:
-------------------------------
I am very interested in these products. Almost done with Rich Dad Poor Dad, and looking for more information on how to become aggressively involved with real estate. Also would like more info on what books or audio tapes will be beneficial in this area as well as smart investing. Will do whatever it takes to make it!!!!!!

les replies:
=======
how many times have i heard that before.

Will you pick up the telephone and call on ads on houses for sale? No, no say many beginneers, i don't know what to say? Tell me what to say? How about give me a break! Wing it until you get good at it. Nobody is going to hold your hand, no matter how many books you read.

Will you drive to a house if the seller sounds desperate and it sounds like a steal?
No, no say many beginners, I don't know anything about a house. Huh? Why not put a 14-day inspection clause in the contract, so you can hire people to look at it.

But I got no money? Yeah, yeah if you found a pot of gold at 30% discount, you can't sell it to a gold digger for 15% discount. Give me another "noise", that one is old.

Okay, I called, I looked, it's a steal, now will you sign a contract TODAY if you found a house for only $500,000 worth $700,000? No no say many newbies, I have to read more books. I never done this before. Huh? Stay with your day job.

Your mind is your greatest enemy.

=======
The post below and above is all you need to do it now. I just saved you thousand of dollars You don't need any books or seminar if you have half a brain.

Enjoy the reprint...
=========

HOW I BEGAN IN REAL ESTATE AND WHAT YOU CAN DO, by Les Gee


( someone sent me a personal email. I have delete the persons name and posted it on the board for all to learn.)

Ques: I know you are busy. I would ask for advice, but more so I am interested in where and how you acquired your knowledge...how you began to do what you do.

Answer: Long story 1990 was the year. I was driven, unlike 95% of the newbies. This is why some newbies consider me tough. Only 5% will actually do anything, and the rest are time wasters. They want to learn and learn and learn but do nothing, nothing, nothing. It is common knowledge in seminar circles that most attendees do knowing with the info. If I was charging hundreds of dollars, then my attitude would be please waste my time it’s your money.
SOMETHING IS NOT TRULY LEARNED UNLESS ACTED UPON.


When I started, my mentor had 2 other people working for him, and 3 others wanting to learn. I was the lowest on the totem pole, due to my age, shyness, and knowledge. I didn’t even know what an escrow was. 1 yr later I was the only one standing. All the rest were time wasters who long since left doing absolutely nothing. One was even a real estate broker already. I asked my mentor about that later. He said the difference was night and day between me and the others. Looking back I could see what he was talking about. Most people have too much psychological baggage. Let me ask you => DO YOU HAVE THE DRIVE?<= You need it since no one is going to kick your butt to do anything.


My personal plan was to start my own university of one teacher and one student, ME and ME!
It was a four yr plan. Heck, in college you don’t get paid for it, so money was not going to be in the plan for my university. It was all about learning and discoverying.

My Freshmen year, I read 20 hrs a week for a year, while hooking up with my mentor 2 hours roundtrip driving a day, and learned by being his personal assistant for zippo pay. He didn’t give me the time of day. Which worked out just fine as I learn to hustle for knowledge. Realize no one is going to hand you anything it must be win win.

It’s funny after 1 yr of reading, I packed up and found another mentor two states away, since I already surpassed this guys real estate knowledge long ago. This is the honest truth. One thing he had that others don’t is balls. That is much more important in this business than knowledge.
This is a big secret folks! You don’t have to be so smart as me. My first mentor was doing fine.

My mentor would buy for $50,000 all cash and sell for what he thinks would go for $70,000, while I use to sit there with my hp12c calculator and compute internal rates of return as a substitute for the real issue...sucking wind on my fears. But that was what I was taught in seminars. You have to analyze a deal. How to calculate yields, internal rates of return, etc. Now I understand why he won’t answer most of my questions, it was just noise in replace of fear. My mentor would just laugh. Later I noticed all he owned was a simple +-x/ calculator. Hmmmm, very interesting said my light bulb that first year. Here’s another saying, YOU DON’T STEAL IN SLOW MOTION.
I firmly believe Engineer types (like me) and Real estate Investors don’t mix well. It took me years to overcome my slow methodical style.

My next mentor had 100 students from around the country paying him $1000 for a phone expert on discounted mortgages. I was one of the 4 experts. Little ole me, only 1 yr in the business with 2 houses under my belt handed to me from my previous mentor. (of course I had to put up the money.) In this next gig that lasted two months at 20 hours per week on the phone constantly, I was never stumped with a GOOD answer! It was shocking to me that I knew all the CORRECT answers and by far was the best phone coach of the four, yet there were 2 real estate licensed brokers with 10+ yrs of experience. It dawned on me, I no longer needed mentors and hence moved on to better things. Been self-employed ever since.

I believe in the universal law of helping others. The end result, however, is the world will give back ten fold. However, it does not work if that is why you help. People are not stupid, they see a con if you are one. Work on your self and good things will happen.

A lot of people think you shouldn’t teach because you increase competition, blah, blah, blah. Heck, there is no competition! People can’t get past fear. Play cashflow 202 and try helping other players. It’s the same thing. People will be attracted to those with a gentle spirit, not a selfish attitude. In 11 years of doing loans, 100% of my business is from friends or referrals. I don’t have time for the general public, anyway they don’t know me from a hole in the wall.
Even now, us “rich guys” (yeah tell that to my wife, she’ll just laugh) are in need of money from time to time. It sure would help to have a team as opposed to be a solo player.

Even though both mentors didn’t teach me much personally, they did provide me with a vehicle to learn. It was because I was so driven to learn that I absorbed it like a sponge. And contrary to their lack of time with me, I think kindly and thoughtfully about both men. I really didn’t need them, besides to eliminate my fears. I paid for that cowardness as a mini-slave.

BTW (by the way) my goal for my sophomore year was 10 yrs per week reading. My junior year was whatever I wanted to read, but I graduated from my own university 2 yrs early.

Ques: Is the game (cashflow 101) something that I should invest in? Are there good books? Or
is just going out and doing a deal the best way to learn?

Answer: Cashflow is the best one item to do. Better than any one book I found for teaching financial intelligence. It helped me think about general strategies and also when watching others how pitiful and idiotic some thinking is. Hence, it warns me not to do that. I find that (95%) most players aren’t very good, so keep practicing. And practice with different tactics. One being buy all cash, buy big deals only, buy with partners, buy alone, etc…. Play at least 50 times, then go on to cashflow 202. Play by yourself or with others. But if you must read a book here are some gems.

Books wise: Richest Man in Babylon, this is my financial bible.
Think Like a Tycoon, by Bill Greene was is my favorite Real estate Book. Out of print.
How to Build a Real Estate Money machine, by Wade Cook was my first mentors recommendation.
Private Money Financing, by Carlos Royal, Out of Print.
How To buy at least 20% Below Market, by John Reed is a good basic analysis of 30 techniques. It will help give you an idea of which way to go or it may confuse you into giving you too many choices.
Nothing Down, By Robert Allen is good.
Multiple Steams of Income by Allen is also very good.
How I turned $1000 into five Million in Real Estate, by Nickerson is considered the grand father of creative real estate.

Note all books have value. Go to the library and start reading. In one year, you can read a bunch. This is like learning Spanish. The more you read the better you get at it HOWEVER,
by far the best way to learn is by

============================== MAKING PHONE CALLS =============

consistently to potential house sellers. I have seen more change over a short time with newbies that talk on the phone to live bullets then the Engineer type (me) reading or attending seminars. For my first mentor I was his personally answering services. Got to answer calls on people wanting money, people wanting to sell their house, and people looking to place money. Here are some simple ads in the paper he placed.

I buy house fast xxx-xxxx AND Bad credit give me a call xxx-xxxx

Investors wanted to earn high rates on houses xxx-xxxx

Reading helps, seminar helps, but there is no substitute for a real live game of phone calls.
If you just read, big deal, you are like the masses. If you make phone calls, now you are really learning. What if you found a seller that has a live one. You will be sweating when you hang up.
Your mind will be working. You’ll wonder seriously what to do.

This is how you do it! Are you guys listening? Is anyone home? Do I have to preface with pay me $10,000 and I will give it to you? Or can I just give it to you and hope 1% of you will help those buyers out there. Will maybe I should bracket the big secret.



=> ACTION ITEM TO DO TODAY IF YOU GOT BALLS AND REALLY WANT TO MAKE MONEY IN REAL ESTATE.
=> Every week your goal should be to call at least 10 For Sale By Owners, Or rentals trying to => buy a house profitably. Look at 2 of the 10 best. Make an offer on 1 after the first month.

If you can do that for 1 yr, you would have talked to 500 people, seen 100 homes, made 50 offers.

I ask you who would be smarter and closer to their financial dreams.

=>You today -VS- you in one year having done that? <=

Sink that in your mind, because that is what I use to think when I started and made those first calls and could be found in a suit in a downtown San Francisco skyscraper, negotiating on a multi-million dollar deals in my FIRST month. One week earlier I had to force myself to call an ad.

If you need to find a mentor, we are all cheap. Buy us lunch. The mentors that will charge an arm and an leg, forget them, they are in it for the money. Have you conscious be your guide. We all have it within us, if we will only listen.

Lastly, real estate is not that hard. You don’t need to understand everything. I surely have holes in my real estate knowledge. We all make mistakes. It thoses that have the drive that will ultimately succeed. If you find a question that stops you from moving forward, it is probably just NOISE, that overcame your lack of drive.

A real estate developer remembered the time he built his first house. He said he did everything wrong in the beginning. He had ordered all the parts and there where sitting at the site. His dad came by and said son, what do you have to do first? Oh, start the foundation and off he went.
He looked at the whole job, he would still be sitting there in a daze.

In real estate, what’s the first thing YOU have to do? Here’s one path there are many.
1) Read books for 6 months. (optional)
2) Make 10 phone calls a week (highly recommended, you are building your real estate brain muscle)
3) Look at 2 houses per week (will come on you have to look at houses)
4) Make 1 offer (hey, you could look at 1000000 houses, but no offers gives no money.)
5) Oops he accepted, now what? (inevitable if you make offers)
6) Find money. Hey guys I found a $100,000 house for $70,000 who wants it for $80,000.
7) Get it in contract
8) Close escrow
9) Collect money
10) Go back to number 2.

Les.

Ps. Share your success and failures with the group.

http://forum.richdad.com/forums/tm.asp?m=181053&appid=&p=&mpage=1&key=&tmode=&smode=&s=#181053

Disclaimer: These are the opinions of Les Gee and utilizing these teachings are solely at your discretion and risk.