Previously on my Ascent To Financial Freedom…
Chapter 1: The tale of my sudden success in real estate and why I’d never do it again (Wake Up Call)
Chapter 2: Our two year roller coaster – Airplanes, Artwork, Auctions OH MY (Mindset)
——————-
Date: May 2009
Location: Austin, Texas
7 Deals tied up!!!
In one month….
I had only started my mentoring program in April.
How did that happen!!??
I was on top of the world.
If it was really this easy, how come everyone wasn’t a real estate investor?
Now what?
Time to market the properties and find an end buyer…
Two offers in, sent off to our negotiator.
Holy cow…now what?
She says.. “now we wait.”
Huh? I replied, “We wait? For what?”
“For the bank to reply to our offers”, she said.
She went on to explain a brief outline of the short sale process.
Good grief, I thought!
I asked my coach, “While I wait on these to get through negotiations, what other type of deals can I market for, I want to get paid faster than this.”
He laughed, and said, “I’m hosting an event at my house this weekend with a local attorney and he’s going to teach a new strategy called ‘mortgage assignments’ where you can get paid very fast.”
I replied, “Perfect, I’m in!”
—————————
Date: June 22, 2009
We tied up our very first mortgage assignment deal.
We promised the seller $5K (new investor mistake but we were SOO excited to get this first deal tied up, we didn’t care).
We marketed for a buyer hoping to get $15K or more down so we could get paid a $10K assignment fee…
We put on our marketing shoes and got to work!
Signs were everywhere, internet ads were up…
We brainstormed every possible way to find buyers and then implemented those ideas.
August 9th, 2009 – WE FOUND ONE!
$15,500K down payment – perfect!!
Initiation was over! On August 26th, 2009, we closed our very first mortgage assignment.
$1100 went to closing costs, $4800 to the seller and $9600 to my partner and I.
“Whoah…that was awesome”, I thought to myself.
And then I turned to Flip and said, “Lets do that again!”
After our first victory deal, we got better and better.
We tested a ton of different marketing ideas with a “Fail FAST” approach.
(Fail Fast = We did massive testing with many different marketing methods to QUICKLY figure out what worked and what didn’t and then we scaled it.)
We fine tuned our presentations, our websites…
We developed easy systems to be able to do more deals in less time.
We started averaging 3-4 closings a month.
I was happy, my husband was happy.
My family was amazed.
I found myself running to a quiet place to take a moment to just close my eyes and pinch myself.
I would think to myself, “Did we do it? Is this real?”
I sighed…and grinned. “Yes, I think we did it.”
The 200lb weight of stress, fear and overwhelm was finally lifted.
Replaced with such an unbelievable feeling of accomplishment.
—————-
Fast forward 2 years
My team and I are a huge success and we’re making great money.
I have numerous projects running with different gurus.
I’m working with multiple attorneys.
My tested and proven marketing materials are being distributed and used nationwide with rave reviews and results.
—–Enter National Real Estate Attorney Mark Torok—–
…and the Safe Act.
…Truth In Lending.
…MARS.
…Dodd Frank.
My heart stopped.
I thought, “What? I can’t do that? and that? and that?”
“What??? My marketing cant’ say that?”
OH NO!!!!!!
Just days ago, we received a bunch of boxes with our brand new marketing pieces that we were about to test out.
We pulled them out of the box and confirmed that it said those ‘forbidden words’ that may inspire a ‘special agent’ to come knocking at our door and take a deep look into our business activities.
This stinks!
One by one, we lugged every box that held over 20,000 new marketing pieces and we threw them away.
(It was a similar feeling to when Google changes it’s SEO algorithms (those evil Pandas and Penguins) and your website jumps from being at the top of page 1 on google all the way down to page 10.)
Ugh.
So I politely asked Mark, “Well what can we say? What can we market?”
He smiled back at me and said, “Just do it this way”.
He went on to explain exactly how we could still run our business and remain legally compliant with all the new laws that were coming out.
Phew.
At least business wasn’t over, we just had to make some changes.
And then the next blow came…
Mark Reveals His 3 Year Blueprint For Real Estate Investors
Mark reveals his 3 Year Blueprint for Real Estate Investors to grow rich and never worry about money EVER again.
It was far too simple…
1 house a month.
$5K fee
$250/mth wrap.
That’s it.
If you follow this plan, after 3 years, you’re making $108K in passive income and if you want…you can stop completely.
I let myself take a moment to really grasp this concept and I started to run the numbers.
He’s right.
Oh my gosh.
I got excited at first…
…and then my heart sank.
I thought to myself, “You mean…if I had used this model for all the assignments I’ve done the past 2 years….”
“I’d be making…”
I was trying to do the numbers in my head and I couldn’t.
I grabbed a piece of paper and started writing down some metrics to base my numbers off of.
We were averaging 3-4 closings a month.
If I only wrapped 2 of those every month….
Averaging $7500 as an up front fee (which is our average)…
That’s $180K in down payment fees a year, so times that by 2…
That’s $360,000.
Average of $250.00 cash flow on each property…
That’s 48 properties after 2 years…
…pulling in $12,000/mth in cash flow.
That’s $144,000 a year in passive income (after 2 years).
I kept doing calculation after calculation at a somewhat conservative level, because I know we could have wrapped more than 2 per month.
I put my pencil down and thought through what I could be doing right now had I used this model…
I could be done chasing deals (if I wanted to be).
I could go take a world cruise with Flip.
I could buy my mom a new house.
I could do more volunteer work and give to more charities.
I could travel and do more speaking to help inspire and motivate others to BELIEVE in the potential of who they can be.
I could concentrate on doing more coaching to help others follow in my footsteps.
Flip could buy his dream car.
We could get season tickets for Michigan State Football games.
We could get a vacation house in Colorado.
Oh, my list goes on and on and on (especially if I start adding Flip’s wants!!).
What was I thinking??? Why hadn’t I learned this before now???
2 years LOST… and potentially the BIGGEST mistake of my real estate investing career.
I was sad and really disappointed in myself.
How could I have ever thought that being in a transaction based business was ever going to get me to where I wanted to be…the heavenly place I call financial freedom where I get to do what I want, when I want?
The thought of chasing deals 40 years from now sorta cracks me up…
Was I going to still be coaching at that time…
No, I don’t think so because I don’t believe you should coach anyone about anything that you’re not actively doing yourself.
So what about my internet marketing products?
Well, I’d have to update them every year or two to keep up with all the changes. I don’t want to do that forever.
My last option was to find more business partners and create profit sharing agreements so I could step out of the business.
Sure… I could do that, but this sub to/wrap strategy was a whole lot less work and an incredible pay off.
I weighed my options and met with my team and announced our new game plan.
What a whirlwind.
Even though I’d become such a grand success (or so it felt), I was making a HUGE mistake in my own personal real estate business.
I had been focused only on the NOW and not the future.
I became addicted to INSTANT GRATIFICATION by only concerning myself with the upfront down payment.
I fell victim to the addiction of ‘fast money and a quick fix’.
This addiction has taken over our society.
People buy products that they think will make them an overnight success with little to no work.
People search endlessly for an “easy button” and when they realize there’s more work involved, they whine and cry like toddlers.
I truly think this is why most people don’t make it.
Instant gratification leads to acting irresponsibly, being lazy, procrastination… and many very smart people end up giving up on their dreams.
Yes, assignments, Subject-To and wraps are some of the fastest paying deals I’ve ever found but the first deal is always the hardest.
It took me 3 months to get my first assignment deal and that’s back when I had no idea what I was doing and my coach was learning that strategy at the same time.
So we were failing fast together! 🙂
Now…our students are finding deals in 30 – 60 days…AMAZING!
How is that possible? Because we are holding them accountable every week.
And as Mark says, “We are teaching them how to land the plane before we let them fly so they don’t waste their marketing dollars.”
Unfortunately, most investors who don’t have that accountability piece, give up before they even close their first deal.
I’ve learned that to be successful at anything. It’s a process.
I continually go through different stages and I improve each aspect of my business little by little.
And those hard, long lessons, I pass off to my students to help relieve some of the pain of the learning process and shorten their learning curve.
It’s been a process to build such a successful real estate business from the ground up.
But it all started with my first deal.
If I could do it again, I wouldn’t do it the same way.
And that’s my gold nugget for you.
Don’t be blinded by instant gratification and a quick buck.
Don’t get stuck in a transactional business that keeps you chasing after your next client or your next dollar.
I talk to real estate investors every day that are still in the rat race looking for their ‘miracle’ because they allowed their excuses to be bigger than their dreams.
Are you even remotely afraid that could be you if you don’t start taking action to secure your financial future right now?
I’ll openly admit to you that I’m continually working on my ability NOT to be scared.
Despite the fact that I achieved great successes, fear still sneaks it’s evil little head into my dreams or thoughts.
I feared living paycheck to paycheck, I feared poverty.
But eventually I learned that fear is nothing more than a state of mind and your mind is something you can control!! (Thank you Napoleon Hill!!)
I’ve learned that my success is dependent on my DESIRE to never stop growing and learning.
Last year I realized many mistakes in my business, one very BIG one.
I’ve adapted and changed and I’m helping others do the same.
FACT: Our time is limited.
Most of us have seen Steve Job’s commencement speech at Stanford in 2005…
In this video, Steve teaches us how to live before we die.
Do you have the “intestinal fortitude” to sit through a 14 minute 34 second video that will help teach you foundational principles that will help get you out of the situation you are in right now?
Start CHANGING your future TODAY by simply making today better than yesterday.
Dani Lynn
P.S. This 4 part series of emails is about a new project I launched with national real estate attorney Mark Torok this year which not only has had an unprecedented 100% success rate but it taught ME the BIGGEST mistake I was making in my own real estate business.
Tomorrow, you’ll receive chapter 4, the last chapter in this series. In this final chapter, my goal is to help you find CLARITY by seeing what’s possible and by opening your eyes to your own potential.
Related Articles to REI Success Strategies
Chapter 1: The Tale of My Sudden Success In Real Estate and Why I’d Never Do It Again (1 of 4)
Chapter 2: Our Two Year Roller Coaster – Airplanes, Artwork, Auctions OH MY! (2 of 4)
Chapter 3: Mistakes That Cost us Mucho Moolah (3 of 4)
Chapter 4: Gaining Clarity & Vision For Your Future (4 of 4)
