It’s the little things like a free dessert or beverage that makes customers feel special and appreciated.  There is nothing difficult or expensive about paying attention to your customers likes and dislikes (Wayne’s Eggs) — remembering their names and keeping track of their buying preferences.  Little things frequently produce big results.  Unfortunately, many business owners miss the small things and then wonder why they lose the business to a competitor.  Here are just a few of the “little things” that can set your business apart from the rest.

• Smile
  A smile is contagious and makes people feel welcome.  Oh, and by the way, it takes fewer muscles to smile than it does to frown.  Plus, research from the 1970s and 80s suggests that your facial expression might influence your mood.  (Try putting a smile on your face and see if you feel happy.)  So, make sure you have a smile on your face when you’re dealing with your customers, so they know their business is important to you.

• Take Responsibility for Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes and training your customer service team to quickly apologize for mistakes and rectify them is one of the mos
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For whatever reason, a lot of real estate investor have this idea that a career path in real estate is strategy-based; we’re all supposed to start with wholesaling, move on to the bigger checks (and bigger complications) of retailing, then buy single family rentals, and then, we we’re really knowledgeable, wealthy and experienced, end up in apartments or notes.

In real life, there’s no such prescribed life cycle; lots of people start out in rentals, or even note-buying; I myself discovered wholesaling only after nearly 5 years in the lease/option business.

But there IS a path that we should all recognize and be on that has nothing to do with our age at entry, or our favorite asset class or exit strategy, and that’s the journey from trading our hours for (highly-taxed) dollars to having our lifestyles completely paid for by our assets.

This metamorphosis takes place in 3 stages, the terms for which were coined by the great Pete Fortunato.

     Starters are folks who are still learning and exploring the trade. They’re willing to do what it takes to get educated and to do the hard work of finding deals, which means that, in a sense, they’re still trading hours (spend finding, constructing, and managing properties) for dollars. If they&rsqu
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      I’ll admit, I had an advantage over many of you when I got started in real estate:

     I had no money and no way to get any.

     I was just out of college, effectively self-employed, had a mountain of debt weighing me down, and had no assets that I could borrow against. Let’s just say that the nice bankers I met with were anxious to work with me…in a couple of years.

     How is any of that a good thing?

     Well, it meant that it was “Creative finance or die” in Venaworld. I had no choice but to offer to assume loans, or buy on land contract, or ask for seller carrybacks, or some combination of those things, if I wanted to buy and hold a property.

     But for many years, I had a limiting belief about seller financing: that the sellers who did it did it for the same reasons that banks and private lenders do: for the “return on investment”.

     In other words, I thought that they were doing math in their heads that went something like:

     &ldq
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              Ah, for the good old days of 2009.

              Finding deals was SO easy.

              We didn’t even need a marketing budget; there were literally thousands of bank-owned and short sale deals just sitting right there in MLS, and a day of looking at 15 houses and making offers would usually turn up at least one at literally fifty cents on the dollar.

              Of course, figuring out what “fifty cents on the dollar” meant was a guessing game; so few houses were selling that coming up with comps was nearly impossible.

              And getting those deals sold was a teeth-gritting, anxiety-producing process, too; even at a 40% discount, there weren’t a ton a motivated cash buyers in the market, and when we called 10 who’d specifically identified that kind of property in that area as their favorite, they’d all say, “Yeah, I might be able to get there in the next week or 2”. Buyers saw no reason to go running down the hill with their hair on fire about any particular deal, because there were SOOOO many deals available.

          &
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Why it’s Hard to Learn Creative Finance (or Anything Else You’re Struggling With)

When a topic (say, real estate, or creative real estate), or anything else) is brand-new to you, it's easy to hear, read, watch, whatever it is you do, something that strikes you as true and valuable...

But because your brain doesn't have anything to relate it to, it seems to store it in a place that's not accessible when you want it.

It's like there's a set of organized files for some things (I know how to quilt, or play the guitar, or drive to the grocery store) that if something else comes in that can be related to those "(I'm learning how to make collages, oh, hey, it's similar to making quilts. Here's a ukulele, oh, it feels like a tiny guitar, but oh, hey, the tuning is different this way. I need to go to my friend's house, oh, it's go to the grocery store and then turn left, right, left") it's easy to process and remember.

If there's nothing in there that the brain can relate to what you just learned, the new info seems to go into a junk drawer--or get misfiled.

"They're talking about options on houses. Those sound awesome. Apparently, you need some cash, which I have, and a seller who doesn't really want to sell, whi
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Entering into escrow on a home can be both exciting and stressful. The excitement comes from knowing you are close to moving into the new home. The stress comes from issues that will arise.

Budget for Closing Costs, Prepaid Loan Interest, and Home Insurance Premiums

As part of any closing, you need to go through certain steps to make sure you are both getting what you think you have purchased as well as paying for it. Each of these steps has an associated cost, known as closing costs. You have to pay them before you can take possession of the home. If you do not, the deal will not close and you will lose the home.

When going through escrow, costs associated with closing can accumulate quickly. Here is a closer look.

Cost Considerations

Prepaid loan interest is an ugly little surprise for many first time home-buyers. The lender will often require you to pay the interest that accumulates between the day the loan is funded and the day you are actually scheduled to make your first loan payment. Many people mistakenly believe they have roughly a month before they have to start paying. This is rarely the case. The sudden requirement to pay a hundreds or thousands of dollars can be a nightmare. If at all possible, you should try to get the lender to fund the loan as close as possible to the actual closing date, even on it. Try to avoid closing the loan on a Monday. The lender will have to fund the loan the previous work week, which mean
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"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." -Robert Louis Stevenson

In recent years, some cryptocurrency traders have been caught off guard by the surprise tax bill generated from their trading activities. Many others have simply failed to report these transactions to the IRS at all, unaware that they even need to. Those folks in particular are in for a rude awakening someday, as the IRS expands its enforcement against crypto traders.

So, what are your responsibilities as a crypto trader? What if you’re not actively trading these assets, but simply holding them? What records should you be keeping?

Crypto is Taxed as Property
Let’s start with the most important thing you need to understand about crypto, and its relationship with the IRS: The federal government taxes crypto like property.

In other words, the IRS looks at crypto the same way it looks at houses, cars, paintings, even baseball cards. While
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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? 
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Over the past, the most common question I have heard is “what are you going to do about the Dodd-Frank Act”?  And my common responses have been, “not worry about it” or “understand it and work around it”.  So what is your response, and will you survive not that the dastardly bill that is now in full affect?

Many people are worried that this new law that has been in effect since January 10, 2014 will put them out of business.  There are many new regulations pertaining to lending and one segment in particular that affects investors the most, especially in the coming years with our current economic situation and that is seller financing.  People are worried that these new regulations will have a dramatic impact on our business, and I have heard several people predict that parts or all of the Dodd-Frank law will be repealed.

I don’t put a lot of faith in congress repealing anything these days.  Look at Affordable Health Care for instance; does it look like that will be repealed?  No, so why would you expect the Dodd-Frank Act to be any different?  The Dodd-Frank Act was a response to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown crisis to put the blame on a segment of the economy that was politically acceptable and to repeal it now would be an admission to that fact.  In an attempt not to offend certain political ideologies here, I will not get into the cause of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown crisis, or the political reasons for appealing the Dodd-Frank Act, but I will explain what it means to us as investors.

Here is the simple break down, as I understand it.
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