Lead GeneRation Online | Boston AREIA

Thur 4/17 was a ROCKIN' meeting about funding!

April 19, 2014 by bostonareia Leave a Comment

Thursday’s meeting was absolutely ROCKIN’! Standing Room Only!

These are just some of the comments we got:

Anya wrote, “A can-do approach to real estate investing!”

Ann wrote, “There was a lot of great information!”

Karen Lee wrote, “This was my first meeting with BostonAreia and it was full of invaluable info on raising capital. I initially went to get more info on the IRA funding for real estate but left with a bunch of new ideas. Many thanks to Bernadette for arranging this meet up. I’ll be back.”

Kathryn Acciari wrote, “Good morning Bernadette,It took me a few years, but I finally made it to a meeting and I am very happy to have done so. Last night was quite informative, and I am excited to be looking at next steps. What a friendly and professional group of people you have at BostonAREIA. I hope to be a regular attendee at the meetings and to also be able to provide folks with some connections and leads in Worcester County. There are deals out here. Thank you!”

First, I want to thank the members that took the time to walk up to me to thank me for such a great meeting and thank you to those who took the time to send a quick note! I love the members of Boston AREIA!!! Kathryn is absolutely right about what a friendly and professional group of people we have.

A quick recap…So, we started our 5pm coaching session which focused on building and developing your connections through networking. I hope that everyone got a lot out of it and if you are a member of Boston AREIA and you want a copy of the powerpoint, make sure that you contact me at dette101@gmail.com. Remember folks, it’s important to contact the people you met at the meeting no later than Tue and plan to get together for coffee.

We began the meeting and of course, everyone knows that ENERGY IS EVERYTHING! The energy you put into something is what you will get out of it. So, first 5 lucky investors had their business cards pulled out of the proverbial hat and were given the opportunity to stand up and promote themselves to the group. We followed this with forced networking…which gave folks the opportunity to exchange business cards fast and furious with rehabbers, wholesalers, investor savvy Realtors and more…I think that section is a favorite among our investors!

We followed the networking section with Dickens Pierre-Louis putting together a market update…we actually sped through this section because we had so much jam packed into the meeting…I will be posting this soon. Thank you soooo much Dickens! Our mentee, Mike Fitzpatrick got up and talked about how he and Jacqui are progressing and asked if folks could please vote on their logo – check out the blog post! Then, Peg Graveline and Lisa West of JEM Property Group and Dan McKenna of Mckenna Family Homes walked through the numbers of the Walpole deal! They made it real and dispelled some of those beliefs people get from the flipping houses shows on tv. After that, we introduced our phenomenal panel of funding experts. Peter McLoughlin talked about hard money, how it’s used, what a lender will expect from the borrower, one of the hottest topics based on questions asked by the group, was Investing through your IRA with Kevin Collins of Advanta IRA, then Ric Beaudoin of Sage Bank went over traditional lending, Kim Harrington covered how to develop your funding partners and Peg Graveline covered JVing with other investors to get your deals done. What a great night! I have to tell you, I had more people walk up to me at the end of the meeting to tell me how much they appreciated the programming and the speakers! Thank you so much to Peter, Kevin, Ric, Kim and Peg!

Next month, we are doing a special coaching session from 5pm – 5:30pm for members. Ric Beaudoin is going to come back and he’s going to go over becoming credit worthy for those with credit problems and maximizing your credit score with those who don’t have issues, but would love tips to get your score as high as possible. After that, it’s all about exit strategies….so, the contract is signed, NOW WHAT?

See you next month! And, remember, if you need something or if I can help with anything between meetings, feel free to reach out to me. Happy Investing!

Yours in success,

Bernadette Trafton, Boston AREIA Chief Connector

Diary of a Newbie Real Estate Investor

April 16, 2014 by bostonareia 4 Comments

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO CHOOSE OUR LOGO!

Direct mail and a Website Logo Contest

Jacqui and I are still scouring the market to try and find a good rehab deal, and recently we have been focused on direct mail and our website development. It’s been about two weeks since we sent out our first round of direct mail marketing. No responses to date, but we are optimistic that if we stick with it we will find a good rehab deal. We are continuing to refine and add to our marketing list that we are using for direct mail. Our list was created using the following data sources: expired and removed listings from MLS, foreclosures, and houses that we identified by driving for dollars and looked up in the public record.

To try and keep things organized we are also in the process of setting up our own website. We are working with Thrivehive to design the website and are utilizing the marketing platform. The Thrivehive marketing platform provides you everything that you need to create tracked phone lines and to start building a database of potentials sellers, buyers, or others. We are looking forward to using these capabilities to track the effectiveness of our direct mail marketing.

We were shocked that we actually had our first lead come in a few weeks ago when an absentee landlord found our webpage after extensive google searching and contacted us.

The owner lived on the South Shore and was interested in selling a six family apartment building that he owned in the Framingham area. We checked out the property and initially were not very impressed with the location or the condition of the building so we didn’t investigate or move forward. A week later I called the owner back because a friend of mind provided me with more information about the specific neighborhood the apartment was located in and suggested it might be worth a second look. Go figure when I contacted the owner back the property was already under agreement by another investor. Lesson learned – do your research and move quickly.

We were shocked that such a barebones website could actually generate a credible lead. We are excited about redesigning our site with Thrivehive’s help and will have something available soon that can help us to keep the leads coming!

We are also looking to pick a logo for our company Fitz Property. We have used a logo design website and have narrowed the top designs for you to vote. We would love your input. Also if you think you have a better logo idea, we want your submission! If we select your design as our logo we will offer a $200 prize. Please submit any ideas to mike@fitzproperty.com and jacqui@fitzproperty.com

Thanks for reading!

Mike and Jacqui

Are you an amateur or a Pro?

April 9, 2014 by bostonareia 1 Comment

Are you networking your way to success? We all go to networking meetings, collect business cards, shake hands and network with people. MOST people go home, put the stack of business cards on a shelf and don’t really do anything with them. However, what we do afterwards is what truly determines if we are amateurs or pros and ultimately this dictates our success. On Thursday, April 17th at 5pm, we are doing a special coaching session from 5pm – 5:30 pm for members of Boston AREIA only. We will cover how you can go from being an amateur who just spends your time going to meetings to a pro.

Learn to:

Develops your connections
Provides value
Become a person of influence.

Members must RSVP for this coaching session by Tue 4/15 via email at dette101@gmail.com.

See you on April 17th!

Happy Investing,

Bernadette Trafton, Boston AREIA Chief Connector

Simplified real estate investing property analysis by our Sept speaker Larry Goins

August 28, 2013 by bostonareia 1 Comment

I ask Larry Goins our speaker in September to send me some real estate investing articles. One that he sent me was on property analysis. I chose this one because everyone always asks me how to buy a property right. You make your money when you buy the property, so use this guideline and make sure the numbers work. Make sure you head to our Facebook Page and first LIKE US and then make sure you go to the FB event page and pre-register for this event, seating is limited so to guarantee a seat, please pre-register on FB. Also, in order to receive a copy of Larry’s new book “HUD HOMES HALF OFF”, you must show up to the event on Sept 19th and you must be a member of Boston AREIA; become a member today!.

Simplified Property Analysis – by Larry Goins

Before you start making offers, learn how to analyze a deal. Many Investors have multi-page spreadsheets that list the return on investment 15 years down the road. It lists every conceivable expense that could ever incur.

If you need a calculator, it’s probably not a deal. If you are running these numbers to tell if it’s a deal, it’s not a deal. If somebody says, “I have a house and the after repaired value is $100k, it needs 10k in work and you can pick it for $50k”. That’s a deal, right?

Remember most deals are made, not found. This means it wasn’t a deal until after the negotiation process. You want to hit home runs, especially on your first deals because you need to make sure there is plenty of profit in the deal. The worst thing you can do is get involved in a marginal deal and get discouraged before you get started.

Get used to analyzing and making offers before you get off the first call. The goal is to get your offer to them and start the negotiation process.

Just starting out? I still want you to see the properties before closing on them but eventually you’ll complete the transaction without looking at them just like we do. Don’t worry because I have included specific techniques to do the work for you.

Before I make an offer, I need the answers to 2-3 questions.

After Repaired Value: People tell me “the current value is $___”. This makes no difference if it needs work. We’re not basing it on “as is”; we are basing the value on after repaired value. The first thing I need to know is “what’s the after repaired value?

Amount of Repairs: What’s it going to cost to fix up? This is where you’re going to catch a little resistance from people and especially with Realtors because they don’t want to commit to a figure. One of the phrases that I use alot is “just a ball park”.

Potential Rent: If this is a rental type property I’ll need to know what kind of cashflow it’s going to have to make sure the numbers work at the total cost. I’ll need to know if it’s a For Sale by Owner, what’s their loan balance and are they current on the payments. You’re probably thinking that the seller or realtor doesn’t know this information or won’t tell you but I’ll show you in the section on negotiating exactly how to ask those questions and get your offer to them before you get off the phone. I’ll show you how to make low offers and not have them hang up on you.

In my market we have to be able to wholesale houses at 70% of appraised value. (This may be different in your market) This includes purchase, repairs and closing costs, so I have to buy the property at 60% – 65% or less.

When running numbers, you always want to use worse case scenarios. For example, if your seller says that the house is worth $80-$85k, you are going to use the $80k. If they tell you it needs $10- $15k in work, you are going to use the $15k. We always figure in the rehab closing cost, so that is the worst case scenario. If an Investor is paying cash or has their own money, they’ll actually make out better. If they also do some of the repairs themselves, they’ll make out better. Because we are basing our rehab cost on hiring someone else to do the work and we’ve already gotten 2-3 estimates on the repairs, we give those to the buyer.

Remember, when you want to make money in real estate investing, follow those who are making money in real estate investing! Bernadette Trafton, Boston AREIA Chief Connector

Are you working the probate angle in your real estate deals?

July 31, 2013 by bostonareia 1 Comment

Good afternoon,

Are you working the probate angle? Working probate means spending some time at the courthouse going through probate records. Not all courthouses are automated or have an internal network where people can go online and check recent deaths. So, the process can be a little tedious, but, can definitely be worthwhile. First….what is probate?

Probate is the court process used following the death of an individual to deal with the decedent’s estate. Often real estate must be sold as part of a probate or estate case. You can purchase real estate in probate either through an auction or a direct sale. Although there are differences between the two processes for purchasing probate real estate, many of the same requirements exist, no matter which procedure you use.

Ideally, you want to connect with the Executors and the Attorney involved in the case before probate is settled. If you can connect with these folks before probate is settled and let them know that you are a cash buyer, you may get a phone call finding out what you want to offer. The sweet spot is when the new owners are out of state and have no idea what to do with the property. Often times they don’t want to be a landlord and they want to get out from under the property as soon as possible. You will want to send a letter to all of the Executors as well as the Attorney. Their information is filed within the documents that are at the courthouse. The first thing you look for is whether or not a Fiduciary Bond has been filed. If there is no Fiduciary Bond, there is no property involved in the estate. So, look for this first or you will be sending letters to estates with no property which is a waste of your time and may upset those receiving the letters. Be prepared to send the letters 6 times. If they see consistent letters from the same investor, chances are they will call you first vs the person who only sends one letter. And, don’t expect a greater than 2 percent return on the letters you send. Like many other direct mail marketing campaigns the return isn’t spectacular. 2 percent is actually high.

Make sure you make an effort to build a relationship with the Attorney involved in the case. If you build a referral relationship with them, they will notify you when they are working a case and their clients want to sell a property in your investing area. Make sure to let them know that you are a cash buyer and have the ability to close quickly.

When you go to the courthouse, be prepared to make friends with the clerks that work at the court. Bring them a snack…I would say donuts, but, be proactively healthy and bring some fresh fruit or something healthy and tasty for them to nibble on. Bring a ream of paper with you. If you give them paper, they will be more willing to let you copy items or print items depending on their system. Realize that the folks at the courthouse are underpaid and often times stressed. Be their ray of sunshine in an otherwise stressful day and they will be much more willing to help you and show you how their system works.

Hopefully this helps you in your pursuit to find properties. If you have a specific area you want me to cover, let me know. If I don’t know, I will find an article that will help you!

Happy Investing!

DESIRE. COMMIT. SUCCEED!

Bernadette Trafton, Chief Connector

Bernadette@BostonAREIA.com

Independence day special for your Boston AREIA real estate club

July 1, 2013 by bostonareia Leave a Comment

Good afternoon everyone. I hope you are all getting ready to have a fantastic 4th of July, Independence Day Celebration with your friends and your families. I have been working on some great things for the folks at Boston AREIA. First, we are offering and Independence Day Special to everyone! For those who join Boston AREIA by July 4th, you will get $25 off of Individual memberships and $50 off of Joint memberships! Great Independence Day Deal for everyone. Click here to view the membership plans (the options for the Independence Day is the last step before entering payment info).

Now, I’ve been talking to someone about how to get your deals funded WITHOUT hard money. I know that hard money serves it’s purpose. Chris Roche is one of our vendors. But, I think I’ve got the answer for many folks. There are of course ways to fund deals if you have bad credit, we have programs that can help with that. But, what if you have a good credit history and you don’t want to pay 12-15% for hard money? There has to be a innovative solution. One would think. Well, I met a team of folks the other day who are providing business loans up to $150k or more. You qualify personally, but, the loan goes in your business name and is treated like a line of credit. So, need some money to partner with folks and fund that deal? You can take a draw. Flip a property, collect your ROI, pay off the loan and have the money available for the next property. At your real estate club – Boston AREIA , we are always looking for ways to make it easier for you to do deals and reach your goals.

Keep your eyes on the emails because we will be doing a webinar with this team next week. I’ve been having some fun preparing for our Christmas in July event on July 18th. Presents for everyone! It is Christmas, afterall! Desire. Commit. Succeed! Bernadette Trafton, Chief Connector, Bernadette@BostonAREIA.com

Christmas in July! ‘Tis the season to invest in real estate!

Join us for a Networking Extravaganza!

• Network to your heart’s content

• Build your Power Team

• Introduce yourself in front of the room

• Gifts for all! (It is Christmas afterall)

• Win prizes: real estate education, coaching and more!!!

• Share your deals and have a blast!

Bring you deals, your energy and LOTS of business cards!
Monthly Meeting 5:30 pm Networking—6:30 pm Meeting Thursday, July 18, 2012 Crowne Plaza Boston, 320 Washington Street, Newton, MA Free for members; $25 for non-members Validated parking

Do you have a professional headshot?

June 13, 2013 by Bernadette Trafton Leave a Comment

Do you have a professional headshot?

If you are like me, you have always shied away from getting a professional headshot. There are so many reasons…mainly the time it takes, the cost and just not knowing what to wear and what not to wear. Well, at Boston AREIA, at our June 20th meeting, we have a solution for you! It’s listed below. But, first…

Why get a headshot?

Today people don’t just surf the web, they want to instead experience it. This photo viewing experience can cause emotion from your readers, and in turn, that emotion creates buyers and followers.

In general, studies show that people like to buy services and products from people they know, like and trust. Seeing those real people, in high quality photographs on your website creates emotional connections to the faces your readers see online.

Having a strong, up-to-date photo of yourself on hand is smart business. Use it to brand your image on your website, market yourself on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Tips and additional information:

What to wear?

Solid colors photograph best, and most people look good in midtones (green, blue, brown, etc.).
Avoid white and colors that approximate your flesh tones.
Avoid wearing clothing with patterns or accessories that distract from your face. Very bright reds, yellows and oranges can also be distracting.
Men: wear a suit jacket sweater or nice dress shirt
Women: a blouse or tailored jacket
Make sure to iron 🙂

What will you receive?

You’ll receive a high resolution digital copy of 3-5 images from the shoot.
You have permission to use this image for web, business card and print needs for your business, however Latimer Studios reserves copyrights of the images.
Included is basic retouching of the image as needed to make you look your best (blemish removal, teeth whitening, etc)

How to sign up:

There is a limited amount of spots open, first come, first serve.

Time: June 20^th before your meeting. Your time slot will be between 4:00- 5:15, I will email your specific time. Each headshot session will be around 10 minutes.

Location: Crown Plaza, 320 Washington St., Newton, MA

Cost: $50

Email me at Laura@latimerstudios.com if you would like to get headshots and I will give you your timeslot and a link to pay for your headshots via PayPal.

I’m looking forward to meeting you all and being apart of such a great organization!

Warmly,

Laura Latimer

www.latimerstudios.com

How to get the most out of your real estate investment club

June 5, 2013 by Bernadette Trafton 1 Comment

Like us on Facebook to be entered for a contest to win real estate education and more…

I know that sometimes coming to a real estate investment club can be intimidating. Who are these people? How can they help me? Who do they know? Do I just go up and say hello? I don’t want to sound stupid…

Life is short…don’t sweat the small stuff! And, remember, you are the one in control!

I’m a big WHY? person. I feel like to get the most out of any real estate investors club, heck ANYTHING, you have to know why you are going to begin with. What is it that you want to get out of the group? Write a list for yourself:

Networking
Education
Motivation
Deal sharing/partnering with other investors
Increase profits
Building Power Team
Access to group buying discounts
Build Buyers List
Build Wholesalers list
Build Rehabbers list
Opportunities to speak in front of room
Opportunities to share what you’ve learned
Opportunities to present deals in front of the room
Online access to other members
Deals email sent
Access to service providers who help organize my business, increase my online presence and increase my lead generation
and more…

Now that you know why you are attending and joining the group, you can develop a plan for the meeting. Now, at Boston AREIA, we hold open networking from 5:30pm – 6:30pm. Members and attendees are encouraged to get there early. If you get to the meeting early, you get the lay of the land. You have time to come up and introduce yourself to the Club leader. In the case of Boston AREIA, that’s me! 🙂 . You are going to want to have a good handle on who you want to be connected with because the Club leader will know who would be the best connection for you. The best way to get the most from the club is to get to know the person running the meetings. They are the person in the position to help you the most.

Get there early and network with the vendors. DON’T BE A WALL FLOWER! Find your seat, then walk around and talk to everyone. Make it a goal to solidly connect with at least 5 people at each meeting. Get everyone else’s card, so you can set up followup meetings. But, AT the meeting, connect solidly with 5 investors. If you focus on 5, then you can begin to develop a relationship with people. Take the hour for networking and use it for networking. When the meeting starts, if there is forced networking (you’ll have to come to Boston AREIA to learn what that is), take part!

Any opportunity to get in front of the room- Buy/Sell, forced networking, etc…TAKE IT! Remember, everything you want is outside your comfort zone. Stay until the end after the speaker is done and then stay and network with everyone. Offer to buy a drink for a more seasoned investor in the bar and stick around and listen. You will learn the jargon and you will hear great stores and be presented with opportunities.

Those who stick and stay get paid. This means come to the club consistently, get to know, like and trust people and let them get to know like and trust you. You will form long-lasting, profitable partnerships and the road will bring you places you never knew existed. See you at the next meeting!

DESIRE. COMMIT. SUCCEED!

Bernadette Trafton, Boston AREIA Chief Connector, dette101@gmail.com

Hope your Memorial Day was wonderful!

May 29, 2013 by Bernadette Trafton Leave a Comment

Bernadette Trafton, Chief Connector

Good afternoon everyone! I hope your Memorial Day was wonderful! I got to spend mine in Newburyport, MA at their annual Memorial Day Festival. 2 days of Crafters, live music, food and more. I think the most fun I had was with my son at the silk scarf booth. You actually drop paints into this long bin and you make a design on top of the water solution, then you carefully lay a white silk scarf into the bin and the design you made in the water adheres to the scarf. Very cool. I love that stuff. Anyhow, onward to real estate.

Mike Jordan is pumped about the upcoming June 1st event being held at The Point, 147 Hanover St, Boston, MA. 12pm – 3pm. For members of Boston AREIA, there is no cost for the event. Please come prepared to grab lunch. The Point is giving us the room for free, so, we encourage patronizing their facility. 🙂 If you are a visitor and pay $49.95 for the event, Boston AREIA will buy your lunch.

Friday is the last day to register for the event. Please visit http://bostonareia.com/resources/calendar-of-events/, go to June 4th on the Calendar and register today!

Real Estate 101 For Newbies – Presented by Michael Jordan

You’ll learn:

How to Find Deals
Deal Analysis
How to Find Funding
Working With Contractors
Marketing

Mike Jordan is a native of MA. He grew up in a construction family and remembers being on job sites and helping his family as young as 8 years old. He’s been personally investing with his brother Jimmy for over 5 years, is skilled in rehabbing, short-sales and buy and hold situations. He and his brother currently own about 50 units around the Boston area.

Tony Youngs and the members of Boston AREIA ROCK!

May 17, 2013 by Bernadette Trafton Leave a Comment

Tony Youngs and the members of Boston AREIA ROCK! Last night’s meeting for Boston AREIA was awesome! Yes the Big Bad BRUINS were playing (AND WON, MIGHT I ADD! Boston STRONG! WOOYAH!) and it’s college graduation weekend…so traffic was horrible getting to the Crowne Plaza in Newton. Gregory Amaral said, “Traffic was crazy, I was following people from New York and New Jersey, I was thinking where am I?” But, folks made their way through the traffic to get to the meeting to learn from Tony Youngs.

The folks who were there early networked from 5:30 until about 6:40. We decided to start the meeting a few minutes late because people were straggling in after battling the traffic. The room was full of energy! The members and guests of Boston AREIA were there to network and learn from a master of foreclosure and the hidden market. We started the meeting with a little “forced” networking. This is a segment designed for the folks in the room who may be a little nervous just walking up to someone and starting a conversation. We bring specific groups like Realtors, Lenders, Lawyers, Wholesalers and more up to the front of the room by category. Then in a fast and furied manner everyone who needs to connect with them comes to the front of the room and they exchange business cards and agree to connect later on a more personal level.

After our forced networking segment we went over upcoming meetings, we had a Buy/Sell section where investors presented wholesale deals. There was a lot of interest in Fabricio and Christy’s deal, it’s always great to bring flyers. They passed out many! A deals email goes out every Friday after the meeting to present the deals to our whole list. After Buy/Sell, our vendors came up and talked about how they can help investors save money and use tools to expand their businesses. Big shout out to Jason! You already know that I LOVE my new SEO/Website guys and all they offer.

We brought Tony Youngs up right around 7:30 pm. He was phenomenal. He trained, entertained and kept the audience engaged and hanging on

every word. My favorite part was when he spoke about the hidden market. Tony told people, “The hidden market is my favorite because there’s no competition, it’s a market where the property isn’t on MLS, there isn’t a for sale sign in the front yard, it’s not in foreclosure, it’s not listed on Craig’s list and even the current owners have NO IDEA that the property is for sale.” Everyone looked at him in disbelief, thinking, what’s he talking about. And, then case after case he proved his point. So, much so that folks made haste to the back table to sign up for his all day seminar on Saturday!

Big shout out to Dickens Pierre-louis for taking pi

ctures! I had several people come up to me and thank me and our membership grew again with people signing up for the membership after the meeting. Folks congregated around Tony, drilling him with question after question.

I drove home a happy organizer because despite the traffic and what it took for folks to get to the event, everyone seemed happy. I was too wound up after the meeting to go to sleep, so I jumped on line to answer some email and make some connections with folks. At 11:44 pm, I got this email, “Tonight meeting was the best! I loved the way you introduced all of us by our profession. It was very easy to connect with each other. Also, the guest speaker was awesome. The topic was just what I needed. I am coming this Saturday and will register and buy the Boston boot camp kit. Thank you once again, Anna Whang”

DESIRE. COMMIT. SUCCEED!

Bernadette Trafton – Boston AREIA Chief Connector – dette101@gmail.com – 603-834-4587