Month: September 2008

One of the concerns many of Kathy Kennebrook’s students seem to run into is; once they find the deal, what do they say to the motivated sellers? How should that conversation go? On top of these concerns, many of Kathy Kennebrook’s students say they are not really comfortable with having a conversation with a stranger, so how do they handle that conversation?

Okay, so you’ve practiced what you are going to say, you have a plan, you have your paperwork, you’ve probably procrastinated a little, then scheduled your appointment with the seller, so now what? You still feel those butterflies in your stomach and you’re still not comfortable with how the conversation with the seller is going to go. What should you say first? How should you make the offer? What if they ask you something you don’t know? What if they accept your offer? What if they don’t?

Being “ready” or prepared is a relative term. Just because you don’t feel quite ready or totally comfortable dealing with this motivated seller face to face to make the deal doesn’t mean you shouldn’t just jump right in there and do it. You absolutely should!! Kathy understands this concept first hand after having many conversations with motivated sellers. And it only gets easier every time you do it.

Kathy Kennebrook believes that there are definitely some things you can do to get prepared for a conversation with a motivated seller, especially if you haven’t done it before. With adequate preparation you can become more ready than not, and by being more ready, your chances of a successful conversation with your seller are greatly increased. Readiness is not just a practical matter; it is a state of mind that affects our emotions and feelings of preparedness. When you feel more ready to have a conversation with a motivated seller, you begin to relax, creating a more comfortable atmosphere and leaving you with fewer things to worry about.

Having conversations with motivated sellers is an art can be practiced. Kathy Kennebrook knows that with the right approach, it doesn’t have to be scary or unnerving. In fact the conversation with the sellers and the making of the deal should be fun, exciting, challenging and fulfilling, knowing that you are helping this motivated seller solve whatever problem they are having that necessitate them selling their property.

But sometimes it just seems like there are “demons” who hide out, just waiting to turn a normal, intelligent person into a quivering bowl of jello. When we get in front of the seller, we stutter, we mumble, we keep changing the subject, anything to steer away from the matter at hand. And worse still, we start to sweat, our hands begin to shake, and our memory of what we were going to say just fades away and we forget important facts we wanted to share.

Kathy Kennebrook shared a scenario where she had an appointment with a motivated seller and drove around the block four times before turning into the seller’s drive-way, just to try to calm the jitters she was having. She ended up buying the property and later on the sellers mentioned to her that they had seen her going around the block several times. Fortunately they all had a good chuckle over it.

So how do we get past these jitters? And how do we get ready for these all important conversations with motivated sellers?

Be sure to read part two of this article next week when Kathy Kennebrook shares many ideas to get ready for these all important conversations with sellers and get your deals made!

In the meantime, be sure to visit Kathy Kennebrook’s website at marketingmagiclady.com where you can find many tools she has available for buying and selling properties quickly for your Real Estate Investing business.

© 2008 by Wendy Patton

Some of the largest expenses you will incur as a Real Estate Investor will probably be your attorney bill. As investors we need attorneys for handling evictions, reviewing contracts, setting up our estates, drafting contracts, etc.

I started investing in real estate in 1985. As my investing business grew I built up a network of attorneys, this was something that just seemed to happen over time and thousands of dollars later. I first found an eviction attorney, since I had many rental properties. I then ended up needing to create a few LLC’s (Limited Liability Companies) for my various properties and partnerships. With this need, I hired a corporate attorney.

Over time I ended up with some tough cases against some of my past tenants owing me larger amounts of money. I wanted a “pit bull” attorney, a litigator, to go after them, so I hired a litigator. Over the years, my assets increased rapidly with my real estate purchases, and I found myself needing an estate-planning attorney. I wanted a living trust created. WOW and this is just a few of them.

I realized that legal fees were something that you must incur in any business; however, saving legal fees was even more important to me. I needed experts in all areas of law, but I hesitated to call each of them unless I really had to have their representation. Each call was a minimum 15 minutes I was billed for – at $200/hour – every time I called it cost me $50. Sometimes I would call for a simple question and get a $50 bill.

As a Real Estate Investor, you will have many questions. It is too expensive to pick up the phone and call an attorney for each little question you will have. So, what do we do? We either ask someone (another investor) who has experience, but they might not be giving us a legal opinion, or we do without. Both paths can be very costly or end up disastrous. Kathy Kennebrook has had the same experience in her Real Estate Investing business as well so she wanted me to share this important information with you.

Back in 1997 I was attending a real estate seminar and someone spoke on a service called Pre-Paid Legal. Up to that moment I had not heard of it, but I was fascinated by what it could help me save in expenses. I absolutely loved the attorneys that I had in my network, but I didn’t want to spend unnecessary legal fees either. To this day I still have the same attorneys as I did when I first started in this business, but now I also have the service called Pre-Paid Legal. It has saved me thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars each year!

Pre-Paid Legal has several different components to the plan. The first plan is called the Expanded Family Plan. It offers many services. It is not a be all end all for the real estate investor, but it is so reasonable, that you can’t afford to NOT have it. As a member this plan gives you access to A+ rated law firms in every state, all over the United States and also 4 Provinces in Canada. What you receive with this plan is amazing: unlimited phone calls to your local attorney firm, review of personal contracts up to 10 pages in length (no charge and unlimited), one business contract review per year, representation in court if you are personally sued (the trial and pre-trial hours continue to grow each year you are member up to 335 hours in year five), audit representation on your personal tax return with a tax attorney, drafting of yours and your spouses will (with updates each year), court appearances for moving traffic violations (accidents and speeding tickets), and much more. The great thing about Pre-Paid Legal is that it works in other states, other than where you live, if you need an attorney. I invest in many out of state properties. The attorney’s in my network are not licensed in those states. Pre-Paid Legal will refer me to an attorney in those states for my real estate needs, and also any speeding tickets. The cost for this plan is only $25 per month. You can see why it is a no-brainer if you are serious about investing in real estate, for that matter even if you are not.

There is also a Home-Based Business Rider available in most states. This add on plan gives the real estate investor: 3 business contracts reviewed per month up to 15 pages in length, 3 collection letters per month, and 3 business letters written on behalf of your business per month. As a member you will also get access to a website full of downloadable contracts and also many articles on small business. The website you will receive access to is called: www.gosmallbuz.com The cost for Home Based Business Rider, as an add on to the Expanded Family Plan is only $14.50 per month. If you are in a state that has this plan, you will definitely want to take advantage of it’s availability.

The last plan that Pre-Paid Legal offers and that Kathy Kennebrook and I personally have is the “Identity Theft Rider”. This plan will not only monitor your credit daily and tell you of anyone that touches your credit, but the plan will also restore your identity if it is confiscated and misused. Did you know that one out of every four families this year will be affected by Identity Theft? This plan can be added on for only $9.95 per month.

All of the plans are for the entire family: kids to the age of 23 if a full time student, and your spouse or significant other (if you live together). Identity Theft is for both partners.

I use Pre-Paid Legal with my current attorneys to formulate my legal team. For me, this service was, and still is a no-brainer. I could give you countless number of stories on how I have used it over the years and how it has saved me thousands of dollars, I’m sure Kathy Kennebrook can as well but here are just a few of mine:

Example 1: I was refinancing an apartment building and needed a rushed appraisal.

Unfortunately, the appraisal had mistakes in it and was not completed on time. I tried to get my money back. The cost was $2400! The mortgage company and appraiser ignored my many requests for reimbursement. I even sent certified letters requesting a refund. No response from anyone I was utterly and completely ignored. I decided enough was enough and I called Pre-Paid Legal. That same day they sent a letter out to the appraiser (no charge to me) and the mortgage company. Within 2 weeks we had received a check for $2400 returned to us. Amazing that my letters meant nothing, but a letter from a high-powered attorney firm got a response!

Example 2: When my daughter had turned 16 she had 2 car accidents involving other people (4 accidents in all, but that’s a whole other story) I called Pre-Paid Legal for representation for these two accidents and they went to court with us. At 16 years old you can lose your license for this many accidents in a short period of time. At both appearances they were able to get all the points removed and her record is pretty much clean. She did have to pay the fines and attend a 1-day class, but she didn’t lose her license nor did our insurance go up due to potential points on her record. Having an attorney on your team really makes a difference!

I felt the need to share this information with all of you. I wish I had known about the service when I was starting out as an investor. If you like what you have read about the service and would like more information, you can go to www.chooseyourlegalplan.com and review the plans first hand. If you like what you read, you can sign up directly right on the aforementioned site. If you have further questions please call Kathy Kennebrook at 941-792-5390 and she will be happy to answer them based on your specific needs or wants.

To your success,

Wendy Patton

One of the things Kathy Kennebrook loves about Direct Mail is that fact that you can also control the number of sellers who are contacting you at any given time by controlling the number of mailings that go out. You can also control the types of sellers who are contacting you and the types of properties you want to purchase. In a changing market, this ability is especially important and using direct mail is the only marketing tool available that gives you the opportunity to pick and choose the types of sellers you want to deal with.

Another really great advantage of using direct mail to locate motivated sellers is that since it is targeted to specific lists and specific types of sellers, you are getting the very best use of the marketing dollars available to you. Kathy Kennebrook understands that the more direct mail campaigns you do, the higher the response rate gets. So the more you do it, the less it costs per lead and per deal. Direct mail is the only marketing technique out there that allows you to have these controls.

In addition, you are using your available marketing dollars to target specific types of sellers as opposed to other types of marketing like signage or an ad where you are hitting a much broader market area and hoping someone in that group has a property for sale.

Kathy Kennebrook firmly believes that you should always have between three and five marketing techniques working for you at any given time and one of them should absolutely be direct mail campaigns to motivated sellers. You can continuously customize your mailings so you can target specific types of sellers within your market, so you are able to “flex” with your market as your market continues to change. Direct mail is the only type of advertising that allows you to do this.

There are several great ways to get the lists you need to mail to. For the most part they are very easy to get. Kathy Kennebrook gets lists to mail to from her local newspaper, from the property assessors office, from mailing list companies, from the courthouse, and from on-line resources.

There are also several national mailing list companies that can customize whatever types of lists you need. Kathy Kennebrook suggests that you make sure the lists you are using are coming from a reliable source and that the information on them is current.

When deciding what marketing tools to use in your real estate business to locate motivated sellers, direct mail absolutely needs to be one of your primary tools. It is definitely one of the most inexpensive, effective, and powerful tools there is to locate highly motivated sellers and create very profitable deals for your business.

For more information on attracting motivated sellers and buyers for your real estate investing business, be sure and visit Kathy Kennebrook’s website at Marketingmagiclady.com.

By: Kathy Kennebrook, The Marketing Magic Lady

Kathy Kennebrook is often asked whether or not there are still good real estate deals out there with the market constantly changing like it has been. Kathy Kennebrook believes that the real estate market will always experience ups and downs and as Real Estate Investors we need to be trained on utilizing the best tools to locate the motivated sellers within those markets.

Kathy Kennebrook also knows that we need to learn to be flexible in our marketing in order to bring in the highest number of new deals. Kathy Kennebrook often hears comments like, “you were just lucky” or “you got in on the real estate game when there were still lots of deals out there, it’s just not that way anymore”. Those folks couldn’t be more wrong in their thinking. This is just “stinkin’ thinkin’” as Kathy’s friend and mentor Ron LeGrand would say. There are always deals to be made if you know where to look for them no matter what the market is doing. This is just a matter of having a marketing mind.

Kathy Kennebrook also knows that using direct mail to attract motivated sellers is always one of the best tools in the real estate business for locating highly motivated sellers on a regular basis no matter what the real estate market is doing. There are several reasons for this.

The first reason is that generally speaking, there is no competition for these properties whatsoever. Most of your competitors don’t use targeted direct mail campaigns to locate motivated sellers; and the sellers themselves generally don’t know they are going to sell their property until they receive contact from you.

You see, Kathy Kennebrook knows they have a problem to solve regarding their property; they just don’t know how to do it until they receive contact from you and know you are there to help them. These are the unique sellers your competitors simply don’t know about.

Secondly, once you build a machine whereby you have direct mail going out on a regular basis, you create an ongoing source of leads as you continue to build credibility with the sellers you are mailing to regularly.

Not only do you have deals coming at you today, you are constantly planting seeds for future deals. Kathy Kennebrook knows that Direct Mail campaigns are the only marketing technique where you can create this scenario. As these sellers’ situations change, they will contact you first because you have taken the time to create credibility with them through your mailings, even if they are contacted by someone else in the interim.

For even more information on locating highly motivated seller in any market, be sure and check out her article next week.

In the meantime, make sure you visit Kathy Kennebrooks website at Marketingmagiclady.com for even more information and resources to locate highly qualified motivated sellers and buyers for your real estate investing business.