Dean Graziosi Presents The Stories of Success Interviews

Read the Exact Strategies of these “Magnificent Seven”

They are people just like you, who reveal in their own words what happened when they discovered Dean Graziosi’s books

and other real estate investing information.

Their true, unrehearsed stories - captured and put into black and white, in their entirety!

Feel free to duplicate what they’ve done, if you like

and reap the rewards as they have done.

SpecialMessageFromDean Thank you for trusting me enough to invest in my book. I’ve done everything I can to make sure I don’t let you down, and I’m confident you won’t be disappointed! This is the “special bonus” I promised you during the show. What I didn’t mention was how I made it even better than I promised you it would be. What do I mean by that? Well, not only does this booklet contain the information I promised you, it contains extra bonus information and step-by-step advice that you didn’t expect to receive. What you have here is a combination of two very powerful sets of information that will be super helpful in taking you to a level of financial freedom that you’ve never before experienced. I have included real life stories of my latest student’s successes. Through live interviews they explain in their own words what they have done to succeed as new investors. Some of them were deep in debt when they started, and others were just plain broke! By reading their candid stories, you’ll learn exactly what they did, you’ll discover what worked, and you will basically be able to duplicate their actions and create your own success… if you so choose. I’ve also woven in top notch information from my friend and bestselling author David Bach. His latest books, "TheAutomaticMillionaire" and “StartLateFinishRich” are packed with practical information on eliminating debt and building wealth. I’ve included many of David’s top tips and instructions on what you can do immediately to take control of your finances, right now…even if you’re buried in debt! Why have I done this? It’s simple actually, I really am committed to delivering value to you, hopefully more than you expect. I also want to deliver the absolute best information possible to help you get and enjoy the kind of life that you not only desire, but one that allows you to enrich the lives of others. If there is anything else you need, don’t hesitate to contact my office or visit us online at www.deangraziosi.com. I offer additional information, as well as training through my Academy Program, (which some have called one of the best real estate investing programs in the country). Once again, thank you! You can do this, choose to do this, I am behind you all the way! Best Wishes, DeanGraziosi

The Truth About Money and Life

My friend David Bach writes in his book, Start Late Finish Rich "it may not be politically correct to say so, but the brutal reality of life is that in almost every case, if you sit down and ask yourself, you will find that 90% of your problems can be fixed with money." David also states that if you live in America, you live in one of the most blessed countries in the world. As a society, America has achieved more financially over the last century than the entire world has in all previous centuries combined. Our standard of living is higher, our life expectancy is longer, and our educational and recreational opportunities are greater today than they've ever been. So why are so many people living paycheck to paycheck? There are many reasons. Most of us are not really trained about making, spending, saving or investing money. However, as a truth, those facts are only responsible for so much, because any one of us can learn to change any of those four things. Perhaps the truth is as simple as you get out of life what you choose to go after. As unpleasant as it may sound, most of us are where we are in life because we've chosen to be there. Either directly or indirectly, your choices have landed you right where you are. None of us can change our yesterdays, but you can make different choices today which, although none of us are promised them, can and will ultimately change your tomorrows. You have made a choice by ordering my book. By reading it, along with this special bonus booklet, you will have the ability to make new, powerful choices that will change your life. Read the following interview with Laura Johnson for an excellent example of how quickly different choices changed her life. One last thing before you start. The interviews included in this booklet were done by Tony Policci. I asked Tony to do these for me in the interest of time, and to ensure that I didn’t influence the information shared by the people interviewed. Tony is one of my most trusted team members, he shares my vision of helping people create financial freedom and he loves real estate too!

Interview with Laura Johnson:

Stories of Success Finalist

At the time of this interview, Laura is in her early 50’s, has been single for 4 years after being married for 31 years. Her kids are grown and she stumbled upon Dean’s book by accident. Here is her story. 

Tony: Hi, this is Tony Policci. Thank you so much for making time to talk with me this morning. I really appreciate it!

Laura: No problem! Thank you!

Tony: Dean’s goal here is to help educate his other students. I don’t know how you felt when you started out, but a lot of times people will look at what Dean’s teaching or what other people are doing, first they’ll be skeptical.

Then, if they move from the skeptical stage to, “Yeah, I think this works,” oftentimes they get stuck right there because they feel like, “Yeah, this may work for them and this may work for so and so, but my situation’s different. It’s not going to work for me.”

As you know Dean is all about encouraging and helping people it’s just a matter of taking a little bit of action. If you just can take some action and move forward and persist and do some things, you’ll be amazed what you can achieve.

Laura: Absolutely!

Tony: So that’s kind of what we’re looking for. I want the truth of your story. I don’t want you to give me a “rah-rah, go Dean” thing. I just want to hear your story. Tell me what you did, maybe talk me through a deal or two, tell me about the kind of strategies that you use if you go after a particular type of property or deal, the processes that you use, things like that. No detail is insignificant.

Laura: I’ve actually only done one deal since I bought the book in April.

I found a little For Sale by Owner. I was driving around with a realtor, actually, and saw a little vacant, rundown, For Sale by Owner house, and called on it.

They were in Florida. I went back and forth, and used the mentor hotline, of course, because I was scared to death to even make the first phone call. They reminded me that the worst somebody can say is, “No, I don’t like your offer.”

That was a big step for me. I’m like, “yeah, what am I so afraid of? It’s just another human being, and I’m going to have a conversation about a house they’re selling.” In my head, it was this big, huge thing. And it’s really not, to speak to another human being and have a conversation about something.

It’s really not as scary as it seems. Although when you’re inexperienced, it does seem really scary.

Tony: Yes, absolutely.

Laura: So I went ahead and I went back and forth with the owner of that house. I got it for a great price.

It was a great success story. It was like a textbook story. Got it, fixed it up, rehabbed it in 6½ weeks, sold it in a week, and made over $21,000 for 6½ weeks of work. So, it was a great success story.

Tony: Very Nice! Laura, can you tell me how you got started as an investor?

Laura: I knew nothing about real estate, Tony. My boyfriend was watching Dean on TV, and I sat down and I was totally skeptical that anybody could believe that somebody could become a millionaire by buying a book off TV, and I was one who ordered it 15 minutes later.

Tony: Good for you!

Laura: Yeah. It came to me and I read it cover to cover. I just started doing what he said.

I started researching locations for where are houses selling. Everything he said in the book about that, and I talked to numerous real estate agents before I found one that really wanted to work with me and was excited to work with me and saw my vision.

I really don’t know what else to say. It was just doing what Dean taught me and going to the forums at www.deangraziosi.com and talking to everybody when I had questions or insecurities and getting that support.

I turned out to be successful. I know that it’s changed my life, and it’s going to continue to change my life. It’s what I’m going to be doing a year from now; I’m going to be doing this full-time. That’s my goal.

Tony: You said that you read the book cover to cover and then just started doing what he said. So the first thing that you did, if I heard you correctly, was that you started researching areas to find out where houses were selling.

Laura: Correct. I chose to target certain areas. Just driving and driving and driving.

Tony: Tell me about your research. What did that consist of? Was it something very scientific and formulated, or did you just get out there and start driving around? What did you do?

Laura: I just got out there, I started driving around and looking for where places were selling. Of course, I started meeting and speaking with real estate agents because they’re really the best source, I think, of knowing where the most popular areas are, as far as school districts and all this and that.

But a lot of it I did on my own through different websites and speaking to people, starting to talk to people. I did grow up here and I raised my kids here, so I had a good base. I’m not starting off in an area that is unfamiliar to me.

So, I had a pretty good idea of where I could start looking, and where not to look. I narrowed those down with the help of my realtor. Then, it was just legwork. I was constantly driving around, looking for the vacant houses, looking for For Sale By Owners, looking as MLS’s. It was just a lot of time invested to discover the best neighborhoods, the best-looking neighborhoods, things like that.

Enrolling in Dean’s Real Estate Success Academy is one of the best business decisions you could ever

make, if you truly want to give yourself every advantage, in your

quest for real estate investing success. Call 800-315-7782 Ext. 235 Or visit www.deansacademy.com

Tony: Right. What did you look for in these neighborhoods? Did you go with Dean’s ugly house strategy?

Laura: I did. I looked for the ugly house in the nice neighborhood. That’s what I still look for to this day. I’m diligently, every day, searching for my next deal, which I haven’t yet found.

Tony: Okay. That’s what this FSBO was that you found? This For Sale By Owner was one of those?

Laura: Yes, it was vacant. It was an estate sale. The former owner’s son lived in another state, and nothing had been done in the house. It’d been empty for over a year.

It was kind of tragic story behind the house, so I guess the son took a long time to even want to start to deal with it. I was leaving messages and he wouldn’t call back, and the neighbors all told me the story of what happened and said that so many people were calling in the neighborhood who were interested in the house, but he never called anyone back.

So it was, I guess, a matter of timing that I left him several messages. For some reason, he opted to call me back out of all the people that were calling him. And, 1-2-3, we had a deal done.

Tony: What did you say when you left messages? Do you remember the kind of things that you said on the messages you left?

Laura: The first time I left one, I just said, “Hello, my name is Laura Johnson, and I was driving in the neighborhood and I saw your sign. And I copied the number and I’m interested in speaking to you about the house you have for sale.”

That was it. That was basically my first message.

Tony: Okay. Then nothing happened right.

Laura: Then nothing.

Tony: How long did you wait before you called the second time?

Laura: Only like 3 days. Not very long.

Tony: Okay.

Laura: So about 3 days later, I called back again and just said, “I was following up to my other phone call. I wanted to know if the house was still available, and if you were interested. I would really appreciate a call back.” I left all my numbers, 3 numbers that I have. Then nothing, again.

Then the third time, I guess I waited about 3 more days and I called back. I said that I was looking at some other houses, which I was, but I said, “I really do particularly like your house in your neighborhood, so I was giving you one more shout out to see if you

wanted to sell the house and if I could get in and look at it.” He called me back after that third phone call.

Tony: That’s great! So the old adage “the third time’s a charm” worked in this case!

Laura: I guess it did! I didn’t even think about it that way, but yeah, I guess it did.

Tony: Well, you were persistent. Who knows, it might have taken 4 more calls. If other people had been asking about the house, I’m going to guess that most of them gave up after a single call. Sometimes it’s action, just that simple, that makes all the difference.

Laura: Yeah, and I wasn’t aggressive; I was just expressing an interest in it. I guess, hindsight, knowing the circumstances, that perhaps my being persistent with the phone calls just gave him the push he needed to say, “Okay, let me just be done with this. I don’t want to think about this anymore.”

Tony: That may very well be exactly how it happened for you.

So when you finally talked to him, how did that conversation go? Was that when you found out the tragedy that happened to his parent?

Laura: He never told me the history personally. I knew from the neighbors going into my conversations with him.

I just asked, “How old is the house and how many bedrooms?” and this and that. He told me that it was his parents and they passed on, and it needs a lot of work because his father was a do-it-yourselfer who didn’t really know what he was doing.

He gave me the lock code to get into the house. There was a lockbox on it. So I was able to go in there with my boyfriend, who happens to be in the home improvement business, so we’re a good match. (Laughs).

The place was half gutted. It was a real mess. Rooms were half-built onto the garage. Floors were half-finished; half-tiled and half-not tiled. It’s like he started 1,000 projects and never finished one of them.

So we came up with our rehab numbers. I called him back and we went back and forth on it a little bit.

When I finally said, “Well, my bottom line offer is $225, 000,” because he was asking $275,000 for it, I said, “Well, the best I can do with all the work that has to be done is $225,000.”

He said, “Well how fast can you close?” That was how it went.

Tony: That’s a good response.

Laura: Yeah, that was a real good response. I was really shocked because I was originally going to offer $235,000, and I said, “You know what? I’m going to go in just a little bit lower and see what happens,” for unknowns and all this and that, and being my first

deal. So I even went in $10,000 less than I was nervous about doing. He just said, “How fast can you close?”

Tony: Good for you!

Laura: That was real exciting. Exciting and scary, all at the same time. It was a real mix of emotions, because it was a big leap.

I know I hadn’t signed contracts or anything at that time, but I knew I could make it work. Yet that fear factor side of me, the skeptic side was still in pretty good balance with my excitement that I can make this happen.

So, it was a mix of really happy and really scared. Actually, the whole process was that. But the more I got into it and the more I went on the forums and talked to people about my fears that came up and what if this and what if that, and got past that, the balance shifted to, “This is really, really happening and it’s really going to work.” Then I was jumping up and down.

Tony: It is an awesome feeling! But on the other side of that, we all have an “inner critic” that comes up and tries to prevent us from pushing through to reach one of our goals. Would you mind talking a little bit about the kinds of thoughts and things you had to battle with in your head? The kinds of fears and things that other people might have in common. What can you recall?

Laura: My biggest fear of course was that I was going to be a failure. “I don’t know anything about this. I’m going blind off of something I bought off of television, and I’m putting a lot of time and, of course, my money on the line, my future on the line with this.”

Because really, that’s what it is when you take that big first leap in real estate; because, in my situation, I wasn’t doing an assignment or anything. I put my own money down and using a home equity line for all the rehab costs and everything.

But yeah, the biggest fear was just that of being a failure and not making it happen because of my ignorance about it. But, deep in my heart I knew that it really was possible, because Dean comes across so genuine and I could tell he has good intentions, even over the television.

I’ve never met the man, but even over the TV he exuded that his intent is really to help people and not to just make money off of selling his books.

Now of course, after having been a student and taking advantage of the things Dean provides us, I know he really wants to help people succeed. From going to the deangraziosi.com site alone, anyone can see that! The site is what got me through the fear that I was in this alone. But you know what? This just clicked for me, - - I wasn’t in this alone.

With the forums and everything, and that site and the wealth of information that people share there and how we encourage each other, it’s not like you’re in this alone and you’re going blind. That was the greatest support mechanism.

But my fears were just stepping out and doing something, and the fear of losing everything that I had right now, what I was putting on the line to be successful in this. And all those, messages “What if I can’t sell it? What if I lose money on it?” There’s so many things that can keep you up sleepless at night.

Tony: So the support and the encouragement from others on the forum was really important.

Laura: Major! Absolutely major to me! No doubt. To be able to come home at the end of a long day of working in that house and be scared that you’re going to go over budget, or what if it sits empty like some of them?

There are some houses around here that I know people have tried to invest in. I’ve seen them buy them and fix them up, and they’re still sitting there empty. They go from For Sale to For Rent. One of my biggest things is that I know it’s because of the location.

So, finding a great deal is one thing, but I learned from Dean to be really careful about location, because you can have a good deal, but it’s not a good deal unless you can do something with it in the end.

Tony: That’s so true.

Laura: Because there’s a neighborhood right around me that, almost sadly, the entire neighborhood is in foreclosure. You can steal these houses, but the point is that nobody wants to live there.

So, the people who are losing their houses, I’m not sure where they’re going. But they’re going from foreclosure to empty to sitting For Rent. I don’t know what the deal is with that town.

My point is that you just really have to know what you’re getting into and know your location. Do your homework on that. It’s key, for sure!

Tony: Did you go through Dean’s Academy or use the hotline and the forum?

Laura: I used the forum and yes, I joined the coaching mentor program, yeah. I never heard it called the Academy before. But the mentor program, yes. I signed up for that and I used that. Yeah, that I have that available to me. Besides the book, when I joined the mentor program, those lessons, those online lessons, those were invaluable, without a doubt. I forgot to even mention those, because I would sit up for hours at night doing those online lessons.

They teach you a lot and they go a lot into depth in a lot of different areas. They give you assignments, so actually it keeps you on track of doing all the things you need to do.

Tony: Did you find it hard to do those assignments, or was that easy?

Laura: No. I found it quite easy, actually. I guess because I was so excited about it. I have stacks of notebooks and town maps and everything.

No, really, I love every aspect of doing this. I don’t find any of it to be a chore. I’m very intrigued listening to all the people who actually go out there and make a buyer’s list and a seller’s list and do the assignments.

To me, that’s so far out of my comfort zone, but so many people are doing it really well that that’s the next thing that I’m going to challenge myself with is trying to do that. Because inadvertently, just through telling people I do real estate, I have my own buyers list right now, if I can find the right house. I had 2 scooped up right out from under me from cash buyers. The bank verbally accepted my contract and then cash buyers came in and scooped them right out from under me.

Tony: Oh. So you have some competition out there.

Laura: Yeah. There’s a good bit of it. It’s very hard for me. I find it astounding that I even say that in this market, with what’s going on, but it’s really hard to find the right deal in this area where I live.

Tony: Are you thinking about looking in other areas?

Laura: I am. I’ve actually actively started looking in a couple of towns in Pennsylvania.

I was put in contact with a nice realtor out there. I’m going to go out right after Christmas and meet her personally, and she’s going to start showing me around with some investment houses.

I want to invest in a couple of houses that I can rent. Like my first flip, that was real good and real exciting, but I want to generate income with real estate. I want to combine the income-generating part of it with the flipping part of it.

So, I think that’s the only way you can ever really quit your job and do real estate full-time. You have to generate some type of income. So that’s my next goal is to get a house that I can actually rent and generate positive cash flow.

Tony: Awesome! You told me earlier about interviewing a bunch of different agents. What was your process like for doing that? What made you choose the one you used?

Laura: My process for that was simply driving around and looking at all my target areas where I would want to invest, whosever name happened to be on the sign that was hanging out front, I would contact them and have a conversation with them about getting into see that particular house.

Then, I would go ahead and go into explaining I was an investor and what I was looking to do. I would be asking a lot of them. I laid it all out on the line.

Some of them never would call me back again. Some of them would never send me any listings, so that was an easy clue.

Some I would work with and I would email them back and forth, because it’s pretty demanding when you’re an investor and you’re looking every single day. You want action and you want somebody who’s going to answer you right away, “Yeah, let’s go get in this house this afternoon at 3:00.” That’s the kind of person I’m looking for.

I finally found one. Liz. She was actually a previous investor herself, so she knows exactly where I’m coming from and she knows the type of house I’m looking for. So she was a gem of a find, and she’s very happy right now.

She did very well in investing. I guess after a while, she didn’t have to do it anymore. Her and her husband, they did it together, and now they’re both realtors on the other end of it. But she was a perfect find for me.

Tony: Is she actively working for you right now, looking for properties?

Laura: Yes, she is. Every day. She calls me every day. We talk every day.

Tony: Beautiful!

Laura: Sometimes more than once.

Laura: But I found her by the process of elimination, just by taking an agent’s name off of a For Sale sign and calling them up. It was just random. It was whoever’s name was on a house in a neighborhood that I was interested in, I called them and found out whether they were interested in a working relationship or not. It took about 7 or 8 of them, I think, before I found Liz.

Tony: Okay. That’s a really smart thing to do, too, because since your focus is looking for the location, if you can find an agent that is familiar with the area that you want to buy in, who is also willing to do the things that you need them to do.

Laura: Exactly! Then you have the right combination.

Tony: That’s one of those things that people might overlook. Never underestimate how important strategy simplicity is. I don’t know if you went out there with that intention.

Laura: No, I didn’t! It’s just how it happened.

Tony: Sometimes our intuition is brilliant beyond our own understanding.

Laura: Yeah, thank God for that, right?

Tony: Amen! Can I take you back to this deal again?

Laura: Yes.

Tony: Okay. So after the guy accepted your offer, asked you how quickly you could close, take me back to what you did next. We’ll walk through the whole process.

So he says, “Okay, how quick can you close?” Then what did you do?

Laura: I said, “Well, I’m already preapproved.” I said, “I have X amount to put down. 20% down and I’m already preapproved for a mortgage.” I said, “So we can do a closing within 30 days.

So, he was happy about that. Things got a little bit delayed, though, because he wanted to do it as a For Sale By Owner. But because of the estate, we were sending documents

back and forth, and it got a little complicated. So he ended up hiring an attorney and we ended up using real estate attorneys in doing the closing. That all went pretty smoothly. We went back and forth and back and forth.

I had and/or assigns put in, even though I didn’t use that. I didn’t really understand, at the time, what that was really for. I just knew that it was important to put it in there.

Tony: That gives you the ability to purchase it yourself or hand it off to another buyer.

Laura: Or hand it off to someone else, right. If I was in that position to assign, exactly.

So, we went back and forth. The closing went off really without a hitch.

Man, I got the keys to the house. The day after my closing, I had the dumpster delivered, and we just dug right in and got started.

Tony: Was it you and your boyfriend that went in and did the work yourselves?

Laura: Yes. We did all the work ourselves except for the sheet rocking.

Tony: Was that fun? Was that exciting for you?

Laura: Very, very. I love it! I’m addicted to it!

Tony: Really?

Laura: I’ve always been pretty handy actually, so I’ve been able to do tiles in the floor. I can tile the bathroom, tile the kitchen. I learned how to lay a wood floor this time. Do all the painting, install light fixtures. I do all that kind of stuff. So, we worked together. He, of course, installs cabinets, does all the molding and plumbing and electric. He does all that kind of work.

So yeah, between the two of us, we made a really good team. We did the whole thing, except for the sheet rock job.

Tony: Now, do you work another job, or are you in a position where you don’t have to work?

Laura: He does it full-time, of course. But a year ago I was working full-time and I had saved up enough money to go part-time. I tried to make it with my art. I’m an artist, as well.

The starving artist theory is quite true. So, at the end of that year – that’s when I believe in everything happens just as it’s meant to – I was struggling with the fact that I was going to have to go back to work to a boring job that I knew I would never be able to retire from, a $15-an-hour secretary job.

That’s when I saw Dean on television. I ordered the book and I said, “You know what? I’m going to give this the best shot that I can, because this will change my life, and going back to work at a full-time desk job is not going to make it for me.” I wasn’t happy.

There it is. It came into my life.

So I had the big drive to make this happen. I was blessed in being part-time, that I had the time to invest in it, too.

I admire the heck out of these people on the forums who work full-time jobs and they do this only in the evening and on the weekends and whenever they can, and they’re making it happen. I look up to them so much because I had 4 days off a week, 2 weekends and 2 days off every week. I put hours and hours and hours into this to make it happen for me.

So, I can only imagine how much it takes for somebody to fit it into a full-time schedule. It’s really admirable. I was very, very lucky, in the situation that I was in, to be able to devote the time.

I think that’s why it happened for me so fast, because I had that time, within a month of buying the book and reading it, I found a perfect house to flip. I think that had a lot to do with the fact that I was blessed with the time to put into it.

Tony: Right. You read the book, and while you were excited and had the desire to go do this, you started taking action. You didn’t just sit on it and say, “Well, maybe in 3 weeks, when I have more time.” You started with the time that you had, and you had ample time to start.

Laura: Right. But it is, it’s a matter of doing and not reading. My boyfriend, well, he’s now my fiancé, so I guess we worked well together.

Tony: That’s awesome! Good for you! Congratulations!

Laura: Thanks! He had 2 other programs that he had bought over the years, because being a home improvement guy he always had the desire to do this, to invest in a house and make money on his own and fix it up. He never took the action. How funny is it that I did, and then he’s working for me?

Tony: What’s the difference there? Is the difference, you just said it, he never took action.

Laura: Action. Exactly! He never took action. Yeah, you have to have that. You have to have that motivation in your heart to really want to make it happen and change your life.

Tony: You said earlier about how you felt about seeing Dean on TV. I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been a consultant for 15 years. I’ve worked with a lot of people.

Some of these other gurus that you’ve seen on TV I know personally, and Dean is the real deal. I love working with him, he really cares about delivering value to people, he really cares about changing people’s lives, and he’s got a good heart.

So, you have not judged him incorrectly. He really is a great guy and he’s got a heart for helping people make a difference in their lives.

Laura: That’s good to hear from you. But you know, intuition, again. I go on that a lot. I follow my intuition a lot in making decision in my life.

It’s all about trust. I think that has a lot to do with it, because if I didn’t have that intuitive feeling about Dean and from going on the site and seeing all the people talking, and that he takes his time to put his blogs on there and to speak to everybody, I don’t know if I would’ve jumped into it as much as I did, even though his knowledge is impeccable.

You could read the book and not like the man and not deny that his methods are going to work. It was the combination of his personality and the people on the forum, and just the excitement of people getting out there and changing their lives, and that it was something. When my marriage ended, I found myself back at a desk job, because I wasn’t out in the working world. I worked for my ex-husband that whole time, since we were 16. I put him through school, did the whole deal. Then, there I was, out in a menial job market where the skill requirements far surpassed me with the computers and the software programs. So, this is really like my lottery ticket, finding Dean and finding real estate. It’s something that I can do. And as long as I do it smartly and listen to what I’m being taught, that I can be successful at it and change my life at 53. That’s a really liberating and very empowering place to be

Tony: That just sends chills up my spine, hearing you say that. It does, because what I’m envisioning in my head you went through these life circumstances with your marriage. It must have been, at some level, very devastating and scary for all that to change and to find yourself out there and not knowing how or what you’re going to do to make your way in the world. I’m assuming your kids are grown.

Laura: They’re grown. One in college, one in the Air Force.

Tony: So you’ve been through that whole stage. Now here you are at this phase in your life wondering, “What am I going to do?” Now you’ve got something that you know is yours. You can control your future insomuch as you’re able to control it.

You don’t have to be a slave to a job. You know that you’re competent and capable of making something happen for yourself.

Laura: Absolutely! I did it the one time, and it is awesome. My kids were skeptical of me because, I will admit, I’ve tried a few things in the past that, “Oh, I’m going to make a lot of money off this. It’s going to be great!” And, of course, it didn’t work.

So, that also played in the back of my mind about trying something new, because is it going to be another scam? Am I going to be a failure at this too?

Of course, with money being involved in all of that and in this market, when you tell your children and your family that you’ve decided to invest in real estate, they really think you went off the deep end. So, to have successfully completed this house, the way that it all went down was one of the greatest, joyous days of my life to be able to say to everybody when they go, “How’s the going?” I’m like, “Oh, that house? It’s sold. I’m looking for my next one.”

Tony: That’s awesome!

Laura: It really is! It was one of the best feelings in my life, other than when my kids were born, I’ve got to tell you. It’s just so empowering. Really, it’s exciting as heck!

Tony: That’s great!

Laura: I look forward to being successful, to be able to share that with my family as well. I’m encouraging other people to do this, just like Dean is, because the more you give, the more you get. That’s what I believe in life.

I’ve always believed in that philosophy. I’m positive that’s why Dean is so successful, because he really truly does give. So he deserves everything that he gets, every bit of success.

Tony: He’s a very generous man.

Laura: I hope that when I’m successful…well, just an example, and this is just a tiny, small thing. I made $21,000+ on that house. So, did I pay off all my bills right away? No. But I do have some friends that are living from paycheck to paycheck and are worse off than me? So, I sent them $1,000 with no questions asked and no expectations of return. To be able to do that was amazing to me!

Tony: I agree! Being in a position to give to others in a way that truly helps is deeply satisfying.

Laura: It was absolutely amazing. It was one of the best feelings that I ever had, to be able to do that and to just say, “You know what? I’m doing this because I can, and it’s just for you, and I don’t want anything back.” That’s awesome!

Tony: To have enough so that if somebody needs something, I can do more than just say, “Well, God bless you! I hope you get through this.”

Laura: Right. Exactly. You can take action to help them.

Tony: It’s a tremendous feeling.

Laura: It’s is a tremendous feeling. It’s an absolutely great thing to do, to be able to do and to be blessed enough to do that.

I live with an attitude of gratitude my whole life. But now, it’s even more so. It’s multiplied a thousand times that this has come into my life. It’s going to change my life and the people that I touch. I think it’s just really exciting.

It’s so much more than making money. It really is. Everybody needs money to live, but when you have money and you can share money and help other people, that’s really what it’s all about.

Tony: I could probably go on for another hour, but we’re running out of time here.

I wanted to just ask you a couple more things about this deal, just to wind it up. I know that you purchased it with your own money. Now, after you finished the rehab, did I hear you say that a week after you finished the rehab you sold it?

Laura: Yes, while I was still working on it people started coming through the house.

Tony: So what did you do, put a new sign up in the front yard when you started working on it?

Laura: Actually, my intent was, in the end, to do For Sale By Owner myself. But I admit that the fear got really big and I was a little overwhelmed with the rehab in itself and the condition of the market, that I didn’t have the self-confidence enough to market it myself. So, I called my realtor who was driving me around, the good one that I found.

Tony: Liz. Right.

Laura: Yes. She was driving me around when I spotted this one on my own. So I bought it without her, and then I ended up calling her to say, “Liz, my house is almost done. Can you come see?”

Actually, I had it on Craigslist and I had started marketing it. But the fear factor just kicked in that I couldn’t afford to sit and hold this house. I had to sell it. I had to make it work.

So, I called her and she came over. She told me, actually, that I was selling it for too low of a price. She put the word out there. Before I was even done, people were coming through.

I actually put the last paint on it 3 days before I signed the contract. I was finishing up the inside.

Tony: That’s beautiful!

Laura: Yes. And, I still made what I was going to sell it for myself after her commission, because she told me that she could sell it for more than what I was asking. So, it basically covered her commission.

Tony: It doesn’t sound like anything could have gone any better.

Laura: No. The only thing that could’ve gone better was that if a person had walked in and wanted to buy it and I sold it on my own and saved that commission. But other than that, she’s invaluable. I was happy for her to get every penny she had, because she had that buyer pool that just sent people flying through the door.

Tony: That’s important.

Laura: It was very important. It was really amazing how it all worked out.

Tony: Well, Laura, that’s a great story. It’s very encouraging

Laura: I don’t know how much in there I have to help other people, but I hope there’s something in my story to help people because I just wish it for everybody. Success in whatever you try.

Tony: Are you kidding me? There’s a ton of wisdom in what you shared today.

Laura: Oh, good.

Tony: One of the strange paradoxes of life, in my experience, is that we oftentimes cannot see how valuable our own story can be to others. I’ve just had to learn to accept that I don’t know what I’m going to say or what I’m going to do that is going to be helpful to another person. We may never know what we can offer that will change another’s life.

Laura: You just never know how far-reaching the smallest thing you do affects people.

Tony: Your story is going to encourage people. There’s lots of gold in what you shared with me, I just am so grateful for you taking the time to talk with me today.

Laura: Thank you! It was my pleasure, Tony.

Tony: I look forward to hearing more from you and I look forward to hearing more of your success stories.

Laura: Great!

Tony: Are you going to let us know when you and your fiancé are getting married?

Laura: Sure will!

Tony: Thanks! Bye now.

Laura: Bye.

End of Interview

Write any thoughts or notes you may have about what you learned from this interview here:

See a special video message from Dean that reveals a special program that walks you through your first deal, step by step at www.deansacademy.com

Interview with Grady Corbin: Stories of Success Finalist

Tony: Nice to speak with you. Where are you guys located? Grady: We are in the beautiful Ozark Mountain, Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Tony: Man, is it cold up there today? Grady: That is right, where are you Tony? Tony: I am down in Arizona and if I told you I was cold today it would be true but it would

tell a comparison on what you are experiencing because I think it is about 45 or may be 50 and I talked to Dawn, she is in South Dakota and it was negative 30 there with the wind chills, so she has got that record for today.

Grady: It is cold here like 15 degrees, sleet snow, and ice and all that sort of stuff. Tony: Oh, it is good day to be in on the phone I guess. Grady: Yes, you bet. Tony: Grady, basically what I wanted to do today is I would like to talk to you about, how you

get started investing? What your basic strategies are? And what your favorite things to do are, if you have a favorite thing, and then you walk me through one of your deals.

Grady: Okay. You bet I will. I am very happy to do this. I will speak in broad terms about

how my wife and I got into this and how it happened. Tony: Okay, how did you get started? Grady: We got started by—we had a couple of rentals, investment properties in addition to our

primary residence that we just got lucky on a few years ago and fixed them up. We did not know what rehabbing meant. We just knew we could put them in rentable shape and lease them out. So, we had some success with a couple of properties, but we just did not really know anything about real estate.

Tony: Right. Grady: We had a little bit of positive income but it was one of those experiences that just kind

of left me wondering what to do with myself. I have a good bit of free time. We are living comfortably. We did not have this idea that, ‘Oh my gosh, we are going to get into real estate and make a big fortune and that is going to solve all of our problems.’ We did not have any problems. I had a lot of free time and took an early semi-retirement from my career and I was really looking for something to do so. I saw the

infomercial by Dean early in the wee hours of the morning and just decided to order the book and go from there. That is when I got really interested. Well, as soon as I finished the book, I was in touch with Dean’s office, and we got to go into the mentoring program.

Tony: Okay. Grady: We decided, “If we are doing this, let’s go all the way. Let us see how far we can take

this.” So, we paid the money, signed up for Dean’s Academy through PMI, and accessed the advisory line and all the curriculum. This was about one year ago. I just committed myself, like in old days of being a student. I set up the computer, did my research, read, did some investigating and, just poured 30 to 40 hours a week into it, because I wanted to accelerate my learning. I figured I have signed up for this Academy course, and they give us the incentive that if we do five deals, after our fifth deal, we can get back the money we invested in the training. Well, quite honestly, that was really what drove me. It was like, if I am putting my money into it, I am going to work this thing.

Grady: We got further than that already, using the concepts and the techniques that we learned

from Dean and his teachings. We just took it to the next level and beyond. Right away, we started making offers and got in some houses. We sold a couple, rented out a couple, and kept going. We just closed last week on our seventh deal. So, I guess you would say we started by osmosis at first, as part of what was going on, and then we got into real estate investing, very intentionally, by actually sinking money into it and learning the concepts of investing. That is kind of how we got kicked off to what we are doing now and, “wow” this has been a fast year.

Tony: Why? Grady: This has been a whirlwind year because I have really put my heart and soul into this,

helping out with the rehabs myself because I do the handyman work. I do all the bookkeeping and the records, the closings, and I arrange for the financing. My life has been very solid. I do not mean to imply that my wife has not been in it, but she works full time in a clinic, so I do 80% of the actual work, and all that entails.

Tony: Are the primary deals that you go after rehabbing houses? Grady: It has turned out that way, so far. What we did was, of the five houses, a couple of

them needed really serious rehabbing and a couple of them did not need much at all, so we have gotten some exposure to both. There are some really neat things about getting a place that needs a lot of work and bringing it to a nice level and then renting it out or flipping it. Also, there are some really neat things about finding one that we just sweep, clean, and touch-up some paint, and immediately rent it out.

What we have done so far has all been pretty much the same. We look for a single

family dwelling, two or three bedroom, one or two baths, in one of the smaller cities,

either where we live or around here. We live in a rural area and we have three smaller towns around us. This is an interesting area because of Tyson’s. The Tyson industry employs a large amount of people here, so there is an influx of employees, almost continuously, looking for housing. Also, we are right in the neck of the woods where the Wal-Mart industry is headquartered. So we found that even though the real estate market was down all around the U.S., in our little area, things were still popping. So we got into that scene very early.

I felt really fortunate to have learned enough to actually get in and take part and do

well. We have not made gigantic amounts of money, but we have had a solid year. We feel like this is our foundational year to go forward.

Tony: Do you think you would have paid attention to the fact that you have ongoing, viable

industries there and that there is a continual need for housing? Do you think you would’ve paid attention to that without coming across Dean’s materials?

Grady: Honestly Tony, I do not think it would have occurred to me because it just seems like,

you know, people come and people go. But now after being so immersed in this whole industry, I am fascinated with it. Everywhere I drive now, just as a matter of second nature, I am looking at houses.

Tony: And looking for profit? Grady: Yes. Like the way this house is designed, or that one looks distressed. Then I see one

with a “For Sale” sign, or “For sale by owner” and think, “Maybe I should check it out.” Things that that make perfect sense to notice and keep an eye out for if you are interested in making money. It has felt really good to us to form a company, an LLC to develop a bit of an identity for ourselves as real estate investors, and all of the prior things that go along with that. I went through the book and the course, just step by step, I just basically letting Dean do what he does best, which is cheerleading.

I found myself going back, again and again to the DVD’s and the CD’s. I would lose

confidence often, early on. I just did not have the confidence and was fearful to take the plunge and risk. But I kept hearing Dean’s words echoing “Be a doer, you are a doer.”

Tony: Right. That is awesome. Grady: Dean’s words kept me motivated. Tony: It is interesting that you did not have that confidence even though you already had a

couple of properties under your belt that you guys, I am assuming, would still own. Grady: We actually have three now. One, we are selling using a special technique Dean

teaches, that basically requires two contracts. It is a rental property we have and we wanted to get rid of it. We developed a rental agreement with a woman who really

wanted to buy it, but cannot quite afford it right now. We are in a position to offer her an opportunity where she could sign a contract, and pay a chunk of earnest money and then we just extend the time period until she finishes paying for it.

So, people hear me talk about this and they say, “Wow, I never thought about that,” and

I said, “Well, I got the idea from Dean Graziosi”. Because at the end of it, at the end of her last payment, which is actually just a rent payment, we then do the paperwork and credit her back and she has paid for her house. That is probably going to be my favorite technique. I am going to have to say. You truly need to buy a house, flip it and get a chunk of money and move in the next one because it is exciting. But I enjoy seeing people and helping people.

My wife and I both come from care giving professions. It is delightful to feel that we

can help someone or do a favor for someone or make them be able to have a place to live and some sense of pride of ownership and still do okay for profit wise for ourselves because we are not greedy. And this is just a workable program and it took me awhile to get going. I wanted so much to believe all things that I was hearing Dean say and read about and I wanted to believe it but six, seven or eight months ago—now, I have actually done the deals, I keep kind of pinching myself looking back—“You did this. You actually did this.” It did happen.

But that is what we are doing now of those rentals. I would never have not known to

do that; I would not have had any idea that I could go ahead and take some down payment from someone and just rent them my property and make them responsible for all the upkeep and maintenance which can be a headache for a landlord and took that out of the picture. And of course, if this person defaults then I get the property back and they lose all that money. Obviously, we hope that does not happen but we feel protected because meanwhile our investment is being paid for. And that is probably my favorite thing to do right now, it is to do a sort of a rent-to-own, but it has got a few extra little bells and whistles on it that makes it really attractive and safe with living properties.

Tony: That seems to be a common theme with Dean’s successive students as they all seem to

care more about doing things that are helpful to people as opposed to doing things that just make them a lot of money and I think that is because that is what Dean, that is the kind of energy he gives off.

Grady: It is. Tony: Have you had a chance to meet Dean yet? Grady: No, I hope to get too. No, but my background is in psychology and in human

relationships and that is one other things right off my back, when I first, my first impressions have been when I got see him on infomercial and all the other things—I knew right away from all the other people that I had seen, there was something pretty different about him. And as I got to know more about his personal story and all of the

ways, and even hearing from second or third persons who do know him and had met him, that he is a generous man and I think that always comes back. Be creative, be enterprising, and still live and let live and I think a person would do just fine. That is a theme. Thank you for pointing that out—the theme of his programs.

Grady: I do think that Dean stands apart from the masses of people that are out there doing

things that his integrity the honesty and just being such a real person. He just tried out to convince me through, he does not know me personally, but he does now. I think he knows me personally because of—but he does not know me as a person but he has affected me deeply in those areas. I kind of get a feeling sometimes when I am watching these other people promoting their programs that it is all purely staged and not that there has not been success and not that there are ways but I just know that some of that stuff, some of the other people that I hear speaking kind of just make me feel, “I do not know. I do not know about that.” There is ulterior motive here.

I did not have that feeling in Dean’s materials in his book. I just did not have that feeling. I felt like, “This is somebody I think I could go with.” Well, I have had the same reaction. He said- he seems neat. He is lively. He seems honest. And he makes a lot of money and that has also helped a lot of other people making a lot of money. And I will tell you another little thing, just as a tip Tony, when I first called in that number, I think after I got the book or may be just after I ordered the book—that is what it was. In a timely manner about, I do not know, seven or eight days after, here comes his phone call and of course it is a recorded an automated message but it had just it made me feel so good that he would even think to set that up even if that is done in a mass way, you know, it called lots people, but to have being Dean Graziosi calling up, his automated recording, calling at my personal home phone and hear his voice and used my name and say you know, “I know that you are going to do this. You can do it. You have taken the step, go for it. Do not back up, do not be afraid. There are a lot of mistakes to be made and I made lots of those mistakes and I can tell you how to avoid them.”

Tony: He really does care about not only encouraging people but trying to help them believe

in themselves. One of the things that Dean understands is if he can just get the people to go out there and try something to take some action, that their odds of success explode, I mean exponentially increase because it is the fear that that is not going to work makes them fold in taking that first step and if you do not take the first step then you are never going to take the second, the third and go do anything. You will be glad to hear that.

Grady: That is exactly right. That is exactly right and I remember that. I remember in his

materials, he said here are the three reasons why most people do not—90% to 95% of people who buy the book or enter the program do not ever follow through and they do nothing with it, and you said the reasons are and he delineates, no number one is this and number two. Number three, fear whatever and he shows he does an excellent job in those earlier works of his. And taking each one of those reasons of why a person would not or might not succeed and dispelling that very thing about, “Okay, if you got

fear, here is why you are afraid, it is because you are unfamiliar with it or so on and so forth” and then he elaborates very convincingly on how you can overcome that.

But I got to tell you, I got to tell you, I was just almost to the point of creeping and

shaking in my boots as well. The very first time, I have not been for the advisory line and I do not know how they were of immense help to me, to keep talking to the coaches on a regular basis, but to make that first offer for me was just, “Man, that was like pulling a tooth,” I knew I was prepared, I have done the research, but I had a lot of trouble of pulling the trigger, you know, the very first offer to go out and I kept hearing Dean say “Go drive the neighborhood.”

Tony: Yes. Grady: Do this, step one. Step two, do this. It is so systematic that I can follow that so I said

okay, I am going to do step one. And I would do step one and the techniques and then I would do that and then I would do step two and that is why it worked for me. I just want to say one other thing about that. I remember hearing Dean Graziosi keep talking about, “If I can do it, anybody can do it.” I started from this and from that and if these people can do it, you can do it too.

While that is a valid point in many ways, I do not know in some other ways if that is really true to say, “If I can do it, you can do it, or anybody can do it.” I do not think I agree with that wholeheartedly because if I can do something it is because I was able to overcome an obstacle or two and one of those had to be fear or stop being a slave to my own ideology and my own beliefs in the past. Thinking that, yes I could do it if I had extra amount of money or extra amount of support or something along that direction but I do not have that. I am kind of jumping around here but we try to make this a little bit more “Okay, I would follow.”

If I set out to do something and I accomplish it and then, so I say to you, “Well if I can

do it, you can do it.” Why do you not jump in because I find myself promoting Deans program. I go in the store to buy materials and they say, “You sold another house?” and I say “Yes,” or I go in the bank and do some banking and these tellers all know me now so well at the title companies. They call me by my first name. I really like that and I said, “Hey, do you want to buy a house?” Just like I am talking up everywhere I go. I am in the mindset of being a real estate investor and looking for creative opportunities to invest, to buy, to sell and to do any sort of technique that I can. But it is because when I say, “If I did it, you can do it,” that may necessarily be true if you do not have the same situation around your life that allows you to start up and go and take those steps.

It was through seeing a lot of other people and hearing their stories that led me to

believe that, “If they did it, then maybe I can do it” and sure enough I turned that into “Maybe I can” to “I am going to try it” to “I actually can do it.” Now, I am looking back and saying “I did it.” Tony, it feels so good.

Tony: I’d say awesome. Grady: It does feel awesome. It is an awesome feeling. I got carried away the other day writing

a little story in response to Meagan who works for Dean and I was responding back to something and it was late at night I kind of got caught up and I wound up writing a full page, telling her to thank Dean for us and some of the other benefits that had come about as a result of this getting in the program, like being able to employ a couple of people full time who did not have a job and being able to help people get in houses and helping them get their financing and this kind of old man has just had been so rewarding. I cannot say anything negative about Dean or his programs; it’s all been positive Tony.

Tony: You know, that is so good to hear. It is fantastic. As a result of working with Dean, it

has expanded my own horizons about some of the things that I can do and working towards—so I really understand. I did one deal myself last year. Before I first got started getting involved with Dean, I kind of walked my way through it and it turned out tremendously well, but it was helpful not only to me but for some other people. I understand how exciting that is and it is rewarding knowing that it is possible.

Grady: Yes sir buddy, it is possible. And I was as much of a skeptic. I examine things

critically. I do not mean it with criticism but with a careful eye and I do not commit the things very lightly to make decisions or jump into a business or do something. I just do not do that. I am in my mid 50’s and I have had a couple of real successful careers all ready in the past 10 or 12 years. I have been able to just, my wife and I will lived comfortably on our old farm here with our animals and kind of just moving along, but I have learned that I do not commit easily to things but when I do commit to it, I jump in with both feet in the same way with when we bought our first property, our primary residence, when we have started our relationship and our marriage, what we decided to get into this real estate investing, it was kind of we talk it out and then it was like okay. If I throw down the money, for me it was like okay, it was not that much but it was several thousand dollars but I said I am just going to like shut my eyes and pay for it and just about working like crazy.

It has been exciting and new everyday and I keep getting a little of—every time I go a closing or I go talk to another home owner or look at another strategy, I fill another little gap in mind and my knowledge about this. So, there are so many twist and turns to it and people keep saying, “Oh, so you are studying to be a real estate agent” and I would say “No, I am not a real estate agent. I do not have a license and I do not want one.”

Tony: Right. Grady: And they say, “How are you doing real estate investing without buying and selling and

investing and without having a license to do it?” and I said, what I have told them, “Well you know, I entered this course” and that can often lead to discussion about it. And sure enough, in this little town, I have ran into one other person who said, “You

sound like Dean Graziosi” because I was talking about this money back at closing and what we can do with this and the guy says “I bought the book. I bought the book about a year or so ago and I read it and I was going to get into it but he said I just never did.” I said, “Well when I get into to it, I do not get into everything and anything that comes around down the pipe but when I get into something it becomes kind of an obsession for me so I have a passion.” My wife says I have serial passions. Because this real estate investing is the latest one but those are like the other things.

I can tell you what we planned to do Tony, I could tell to what we plan to do is we were very specific that we want to get into this, use these principles and techniques that we have learned and they are working for us. We want to do this for another two or three or may be four years. We are saying three to five years we want to be what we expect to be at that point. We will learn to work real hard for a short period of time to reach this goals and I think we will.

Tony: Walk me through one of your deals? How do you find your properties? Grady: Okay, well the first one we found was through a friend who was a real estate agent and

fairly new at it. She was not as skilled and experienced as she could have been but was very helpful and she agreed and we got all excited and said we are going to have you on our team. We are going to start buying houses and you can be our agent. And she found us a place, so we looked at a bunch of houses and the first one we found worked out okay and was mostly rehab. We lined up getting into that, but really, it was not the most interesting. They get increasingly more interesting, it seems like, but one that I am probably most proud of is, I was out actually just doing what Dean says to do which was I made up these letters introducing myself to lead on doors, like a little mail or except that I would hand deliver them, it could just give me a chance to meet people.

Tony: Right. Grady: And I was going and I found the house that looked distressed and I wanted to put this

little mail out or a little flier I developed on the door, based upon the one Dean gives in his book as an example and I have been doing that in a few houses here and there, and right next door there is a gentleman out on his porch and I just said hello and he said, “Nobody lives in that house” and I said, “Okay, I said we buy houses and I was just looking at this one.” And his eyes kind of lit up and he said “You buy houses?” and I said “Yes,” so he waves me over and I go over and we introduce ourselves and we start talking.

He did not even have his house on the market but what he was doing was he was

recovering, very, very serious surgery that had changed the entire quality of his life and he found and he and his wife found themselves in this position where that they were just retirement. They really just wanted to get away. They wanted to get rid of the house. They just started talking about getting in their new camper and going to Oregon and live out their days with their grandchildren. That sounded pretty neat to me. I have grandchildren so I could identify.

I said, you know what you want for your house or what the terms are and so forth? He did not really know it but that started a discussion that we had several times and we built a rapport with them and we did not really know how to do this, he said, “I want all my money at once,” because we were offering like which you consider financing it. Would he do partial, a balloon note or some sort of other way, he was not open in any of that. So, we were trying to keep in mind one of the main principles of Dean’s teachings which is, do not get emotionally involved because that can work against you.

Tony: Right. Grady: Even though my wife and I had now talked with him several times, it must have taken

me a full day, it seems like, to put together an offer based upon doing the research and the formula that Dean teaches about how to make an offer and how much to make that offer. So we put it all together and made them the offer, they called us back and said “No, we will not take that and we do not want to do it” and the offer was basically that we would pay them partial, a partial amount. He needed money. Through this research that we had learned to do, I ask him what he needed, how much, get all the details basically, Tony, is what we were doing. And they said no.

And so we said, okay, we thank you very much and I we gave him a card of our agent, a real estate agent. We said, “Good luck and we understand if you need to sell the house for more than we can pay, but we have to buy it for this amount in order for us to make a profit and that is why we are doing this.”

So, we just kind of let go and moved on. Within about two weeks, our phone rings. He calls us back and he says my wife and I reconsidered, we do not want to put this house on the market and we want to sell it to you, you and your wife, and here are some new terms that we could take and we basically had a meeting of the minds. They came down and we put our paperwork back together. We did the figures and felt like we could still make a little money on it.

So, we bought this house on the specific technique of using a contract for deed. Honestly, I did not fully understand the concept of a contract or deed that well, and I have a hell of a time trying to explain to these people and still try not to look foolish about how we were trying to buy their house, but it is essentially is this, we made them an offer of a cash amount of about $18,000.00. They wanted, I believe, about $82,000.00, I believe or something like that. We offered them $16,000.00 because, that is what he needed to pay out this camper. He did not want to have to leave with the payment.

Tony: Okay. Grady: We gave them that figure and then took over his payments. It is all done through a title

company and what a contract or deed was, was I take over the house and he still in the payment he is still liable for the mortgage. So, it became our property but we made his

payments and they moved off to Oregon and it worked out great. We rehabbed the house, in about six to seven weeks and we spend about $12,000.00 to $13,000.00, I happen to know a splendid little family that have been doing some work for us. I was able to help them arrange for themselves, this is what was so rewarding.

They were living in a little rundown trailer that they had been in. This a really neat family but that is all they would ever had or they ever owned and they got to—I went with him at their request to get their financing at the local bank and assisted them and we worked it out and they got their financing and they were able to buy that house and they appreciated so much how nice it was. I mean we really made a beautiful. We did a lot of little extra things and I would still stop by and visit with them because we’re friends I am always amazed at how well they take care of it and how beautiful it is and what a sense of accomplishment that we had.

We set it up with them to balloon a pay off note in one year so we had a full year. We got all this done under some funds and of course pay and paid them off and they were delighted to get their money early, this is not expected and it was just like—I went around kind of beaming I think, for about three days with a smile on my face and my wife kept looking at me and saying, “You really feeling yourself here about this,” I said “Well, I am incredulous a little but at the same time I am saying yes, we did it.”

Tony: Yes. Grady: Yes, we took the principles, the techniques; we took the plunge to make the offer. We

built a rapport. We developed a situation and this is the first that did not even have a house on the market and it was not been even know that this could happen for them. We did not have to use a real estate agent. So there was commission manner that will say which allowed us to offer a little less and allowed them to be able, I mean to be able like—and all that worked out.

When I first reported this success story, it was the best we had. Well, we got a couple more since then that are, I think, are just as neat.

Tony: When you paid these people off in three months, so nine months early, they we’re all

excited. I mean, this is really a win because this is a win for you guys, this is a win for the sellers, and this is a win for this little family that you put in the house.

Grady: Yes, and let me put an addendum or footnote on this story that makes it really even

greater of a story to tell. What happened was, because of what I had learned about contracts and how that is what everything hinges on, if I had just written a contract in a standard fashion or if I had just gotten a real estate agent to do up their standard real estate, we would have lost. We would not have made the full profit that we wanted to make and here is why. The typical contract states—this deal is based upon the house appraising for a certain amount of money.

Well, that is commonly understood. I wrote a special addendum on the contract that said “This is our selling price irrespective of what the appraised value comes in” and the way I explained it to these people by having a personal relationship with them, I was able to talk them through it and have them understand it that, “Okay, if this house comes in $10,000.00 more, that is just lucky for you. I will not ask you for more money. But if this house’s appraises at less than money than my sale price, you have to come up with a difference or I cannot sell it to you.”

So they understood, they really wanted the place. By now they have looked at it a few times and they have envisioned themselves in it had chosen who is going to get which room and all of that and that is always an exciting stuff especially when there is many people as we had looked at that house.

So, we were lobbying for them to be the ones to get it but low and behold, the appraisal came in a little low Tony, and so when they went to the bank, they still needed like $2,800.00 to be able to actually close the deal. We were faced with either losing $2,800.00 or losing the deal and one of the things I remember learning from Dean and his program was there is a thing called promissory notes and a private note and that sort of thing. And so, I developed this little private note between myself and his family just said, “Okay, you know, we want you to have the house. So you can pay us the other $2,800.00, over time,” and I worked out the terms for them at no interest for 18 months.

So they are paying us now, with that private note the difference about 170 or 80, not much. I made sure that they are working class people and in they are frugal, but I did not want to burden them, they were going to have a new mortgage payment as it was in the first one.

But we made them a payment that they could handle. It gave us the guarantee that we

would still get the full profit that we needed even though it would be spaced out overtime and that is okay. Thus, that is like residual income. That is great! They are very diligent about paying every month right on time. You know, it is very important for them to do it. They are people of integrity also. So, that is an example of how, I guess the person in the average business world with these things would come to mind but I would never thought to have done that. I would have just said either. I have to just sell the house for the last or whatever but this was a way that allowed us to get our full profit. Even the last part of it is staggered out of overtime but it worked out great.

Tony: That is fantastic. A Simple little thing too. Grady: A simple little thing like that and it could have been a deal breaker and to keep him

losing the deal and then losing the house they said sure, we can afford that amount of money if you will do it for us for extra amount of time and I said okay. We were glad to do it. We were not hurt or diminished financially at all by not getting the full amount at that time. We still made some profit and we were happy with that.

Tony: When you look for properties now and when you do these contracts, have you ever used a real estate attorney to help you with contracts or how did you learn about that? Was it through the coaching, how did you learn that?

Grady: I learned about contracts first from Dean’s programs and then of course the coaching

helped us with a special curriculum course on it. And then yes, I have talked to two different attorneys and we are fortunate not only in the sense that our favorite title company and there are several here and our favorite title company to use, the gentleman who heads that up is a licensed attorney of the state and has a special interest in real estate. And so he always likes to remind me in a joking way that he says, remember when you keep bringing your business here you always get free legal advice. That has made me feel great, that has made me feel great, that has been a real good benefit because I can call him up any time and say “Bob, what about this and that the other,” and he just gives me the legal scoop on it and then I feel like I can step them to a deal with some confidence that I have done this legally. One of the houses that I just sold in one of my rentals and I was telling you about earlier that I was selling on the rent-to-own thing. I drew up all the paperwork and the contracts myself. He said just bring them in and let me look at them and he did not charge me anything. He looked them over and he said this is sound and this is enforceable and this is a problem here. You might want to change this wording and I made those changes and then, you know, I got my contract and it was signed and everything went over. So, I felt great about that.

Tony: What would you consider to be your secret or your strategy, I mean are you looking for

particular types of properties right now? Grady: We have been focusing on single family dwellings as opposed to apartments or condos

or duplexes or something but that might change. I think right now we have not looked at getting any properties anywhere other than in the town areas because we are thinking, okay families are coming here, families do not have children and children have to school and want to be close to you things, city related, and so that has been our focus.

Tony: Are there price ranges that you are in or how do you determine what you are going to

go after? Grady: I think what we did was, we wanted to start out kind of conservatively but also

incidentally that was one of Dean’s teachings as well. He says start out with something—let us just say, under $100,000.00 and that seem safe to me. So the first house we bought was only $45,000.00. The second one was only in the 80s. We bought another one that is in the 40s and another one in the 60s, so that just kind of gives you a picture and that was, again, a calculated way that we were instructed to do it so we would not be like we were, you know, jump—it seemed less scary to us to do it that way. So, that is all that happens.

Tony: There is one thing that I really wanted to ask you though when earlier you talked about how much apprehension, that is not the word that you used, but that is what I perceived that you had about making that first offer. What was it that you think was the obstacle that got in the way? What was the fear or concern or the obstacle that you had to overcome?

Grady: Yes, it was probably just a mental or I should say in this case an emotional thing for

me. I was literally thinking like this Tony, it was like okay, “I want to make this offer and then what if they accept it and then what.” It was like, “Well okay, I made offer and they accepted it. Now, I got to follow-up through on this.” I have got to come up with the financing, follow through on my end of the deal. I am also a person of integrity and I do not like to tell people things that I cannot follow up on. I would not want to get started, I am not that way anyway, but I certainly did not want to get started on this business by telling people or tying-up people’s properties with contracts and not be serious about it.

Tony: Sure yes. Grady: I am serious and I want to be taken seriously. So, the fear of just making the first offer

was, “Okay, if I make it, I can make offers all day,” but if they are ridiculously low and nobody takes some “Okay, I am getting practice here but I am not getting any deals.” And so, to make an offer I had to feel almost like I was so psyched up that I would be ready and what it did was it forced me to get prepared and I already have some idea of how I was going to do that deal and how I was going to finance it before and I have learned actually, as we have done more and more that, that is exactly how I get passed the fear of making the offer. And just like being taught, it gets easier. It got ways. The second one was a little easier. The last couple we did, I just kind of strode into the deal and we did the formula and made the offer.

It was just like okay, okay, this is how they do it and this is what he was talking about

here. It becomes a way. You get it to get into the habit. It is a learned skill and you can do it.

Tony: If you had to summarize your process, your strategy and everything in just a couple of

sentences, what would your formula be? Grady: Finding a property, being interested enough in it to go research and find out all the

details that I can about it. Get some sense of what I could make on the deal. If I were to keep it as a rental or fix it up and sell it, and then making an offer based upon that and knowing that the offer will be low, a discounted offer, but I am an investor, and I have to look out for myself. I do not have an agent buying for me or an agent selling for me. I am an investor and I have to do that myself. So, that is the formula. And if it is not going to be able to make some money on it or have it turn into a reasonably beneficial thing which is learning to just pass on and know that there is just dozens of other properties out there just waiting.

Tony: I think that is the key right there, it is being able to walk away. Grady: Yes, and that was not easy for me. It was not that easy for me. My wife has helped me

a lot with that. She said remember what he said, you have to be willing to walk away. Tony: Especially if it is so hard to get to that point where you make the offer and this and that

and then suddenly the numbers do not look great, but there is emotional and time and stuff invested in it, then it can be tough.

Grady: That is it, right there, you nailed it. You just said exactly what it is. By the time I get

around and making an offer on the property that I am interested in, I am pretty emotionally involved with it already, not like in a paralyzing way, but I have already got my mind thinking in terms of what I can do with this or maybe in some cases already somebody in mind who is going to want that house.

This last deal we did, people were calling on my advertisements, I always keep a buyer’s list. Dean taught me to do that. Keep up with these people that call you that are looking for this house even if they do not want that house and call them once a month. Or when you get another property and say, “If did not work out for you, how about this one?”

And so this last house, we just closed on last week was bought by a woman that I had

on my buyer’s list for three months and she have been in California and back a couple of times and really wanted to live here and I could just go on and on success stories.

Tony: How do you find your buyers? Grady: I found buyers so far through three of them through friends talking about saying, “Hey,

I have got this or are you looking or whatever.” Word of mouth, and then we have ran ads in the local newspaper. It is about the only way, honestly Tony, that we have ever advertised just local. In a very inexpensive local newspaper ads here and I see that is really how we found them. Now, we found one also through our agent. We have used several real estate agents that we had now more or less settle on a particular person, a woman who is very good and but most importantly willing to work with us and just say another thing about investors using real estate agents. They can really get a lot of things done and get those to access to lots of properties.

The same property that I was referring to that we closed on last week. When this place

came available, she calls us first, our real estate agent. She decided to get on board with us and not do everything in a conventional way that she was taught but to be open to think outside the box, be creative and that got her on our team and her being on our team means that she is now making money and she will call us first when she gets a property list and sometimes even before it hits the books and say, “Hey, here this one and this is what you want to go look at it,” and we are like, “Sure, let us go look.” You know, every time we go, she has a chance to make something through if we get a deal.

So, that is how we find the buyers, local advertising, word of mouth, and then a real estate agent. I cannot say, that is the good about them.

Tony: Grady, you have given us just a ton of great stuff today. I so appreciate you being open

and honest with me about it, both you and your wife Kathleen, is that correct? Grady: Kathleen. Tony: Okay, I just wish you guys continued to success in what you are doing and I have

absolutely no doubt that you will make it happen. - End Of Interview

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To find out, visit http://www.deansacademy.com or call one of our friendly enrollment team at 800-315-7782 Ext. 235

Interview With Lorina “Rina” Krisak:

Stories of Success Finalist Tony: Hi Lorina, this is Tony Policci. Am I saying that right? Pronounced low-rhee-nah ... Lorina: Lorina? Yeah. Or you can call me Rina? Tony: Rina? That's your online name right? Rina? Lorina: Yeah, well that's what everybody actually calls me. Tony: Well, I'll just call you that. Okay, so anyway today I want you to basically educate me

about what your experience has been. What you've done and talk about your strategies. Give me some specifics about what you do. Some of the folks that I've talked to, they found one or two things that they kind of zeroed in on and they work on those kinds of deals specifically, that kind of stuff. So to begin with what was the first deal? How did you get started?

Lorina: We've actually had some rentals for a number of years. So that's always been my

strategy is to buy and hold. And then we've refinanced after a certain amount of time, but it's been just one here and there you know. And now this year, since I got Dean's program we've really accelerated. And I want to try the different new strategies that I learned about. So, I would prefer to buy and keep everything, but at this point it's not possible to keep everything. So, I did two bird dog deals this year, which has been really cool. I made some good money doing that and the investor that I worked with is now going to be one of my cash backers too. And I met him on Dean’s site. So, that's been something new that I tried that I enjoy it and kind of have perfected now — the bird dogging — so I can do that and the wholesaling with the and/or assigns — I haven't been able to get any of those accepted yet. Because I mostly go after the REOs, and they don't like to take the and/or assigns, so you pretty much have to go with cash and then, or do it as a bird dog deal. As far as the first one we did in the program, that — do you want to know like from start to finish the details?

Tony: Yes please, these stories will be going out to folks just like you, but most who have no

experience. Explaining everything will be of huge benefit to them. So tell me everything that you did. I mean if you stopped to eat at McDonald's ... want to know what you had. (laughter).

Lorina: Okay. Tony: You know leave nothing to chance. Just give me your whole process. Lorina: Okay, usually — the one's that I found have come across on my email from my Realtor,

or from researching online and looking at the different Realtor's sites I have found.

And then I'll call her and say, “I want to look at these.” But this particular one came across my email when the price was lowered a little bit. But it actually had been on the market for many months. And I have seen it in a picture before, but it — the picture didn't do it justice at all. It wasn't that, you know wonderful house to start with, but in the picture it looked like a little box. And I hadn't paid attention to where it was.

And it's actually in the best neighborhood in our town, which I hadn't realized. Then when I took a drive by the rest of the half of block of property that it sits on is also vacant, and another gentleman was trying to sell those lots. Basically, he was trying to sell two lots with nothing on them for the same price, as they were asking for these two lots with the house and the little shed on it. So, I knew it was a good deal already.

And they were asking like 59 — think it had dropped to 57— I don't remember really where it was at when I offered. But I offered $40,000 and I thought that they would counter offer half way and they didn't. They took my offer, but in the meantime I had gone home and looked up the owner, and found out that they had owed some taxes coming up and that was within a few weeks. And I had cash on hand from refinancing another property, so I could close quickly. I think that's why they jumped on it, which was good for both of us.

Tony: Right. Lorina: And then we were able to rent it out right away. Actually, there was already a guy

living there. I think he was paying $375 or something like that. But he was going to be moving within that month, so then I put it on the market for rent for $450 and got somebody in there within four days. So, that was kind of the fastest with maybe the best cash flow for what we paid for it this year.

Tony: And you guys used hard money to buy that outright correct? Lorina: We — yes, because I had already refinanced another property in order to have cash on

hand to work with. Which really wasn't what I would consider money out of our pocket. It was equity from another house.

Tony: Sure. Lorina: But we used it to buy that. And then we could refinance that, but there really wasn't any

point at the time, because I got a good rate on that other one. And until I need more cash to work with, if I do, then we can always you know refinance that one.

Tony: Right. Tell me about the bird dogging strategies. Because if I heard you correctly, it

sounds like that's something you just started doing. Lorina: Yeah, I'd never heard of it before. So I'm getting to know different people on the

DeanGraziosi.com site.

Tony: Right, right. Lorina: There were a few that had asked about the deals up here, because everything is really

cheap compared to other parts of the country. And I was kind of putting in some of them that I had been looking at you know in my journal or in different forums. Anyway, and then one investor said, “Well, would you possibly want to look for any for someone else?” And I said, “Sure!” Because I already had two in the works and I — my husband kind of wants to keep it at a pace that doesn't get out of hand.

Tony: Right. Lorina: So, I said, “Sure, I'll look for some for you.” So, within a couple of weeks I lined up —

you know I looked at a lot of houses and I had made an offer on the first one trying to do an/or sign, but the bank wouldn't take it. So, we did have to go the other route and do it as a bird dog. But he paid me $1,500 for finding the house. He paid $26,900 for it. It ended up being — having an extra lot. It's a three bedroom, one bath. With a newer garage, two stall garage. And we actually just finished rehabbing that one and I've got renters moving in for him at $750 a month.

Tony: Nice. Lorina: Yeah, but he had to put a little bit into that. Because when I walked in, I'm seeing you

know what has to be done. And then my husband went in as the rehabber and he talked with the investor. He ended up putting a little bit more I think than he would have originally. But it raised it by — it raised the equity in it by more than the extra that he put in. I think he ended up putting — I was figuring $20,000. He ended up putting in a little over $30,000 into it. But I think it raised it from what I would have thought $80,000 to now $100,000. So, he'll get his money back out of it, plus the rent is good.

Tony: And so, did you find this deal the same way that you found the one that you purchased? Lorina: Trying to think. Yes, as soon as it came across my email. Because you know any time

something new comes on the market, I've got her sending them anything under $150,000. And any time a number drops or something new comes on, it — as soon as it's on the MLS, it comes across my email. She may not even see it, but it comes directly to my email. And then I'll jump on it right away, if I know it's a good deal.

And then the second one actually that I did a bird dog on, he made the offer on it. You know I found it and then he offered really low and they actually took that one too for cash. So, I'm learning a lot from him, because he's being brave on these and actually doing stuff that I haven't tried. And then he's also been investing for years and years, so I'm learning a lot from him too, which is great. Plus, now I have a cash investor that'll back me on deals too.

Tony: Now this is the investor that you met on DeanGraziosi.com?

Lorina: Yep. Tony: And is he — you're not located close to him I'm guessing. Lorina: No, he's on the west coast actually. So, it's been kind of fun. I've gotten quite good at

this. I'll send him pictures of the properties. Actually, I've looked at many houses for him and he'll actually pay me to do that too. Well, I haven't insisted on all of them. And I just take pictures in a certain order and then I'll send him emails and kind of write — or he'll ask questions and then I — you know we talk on the phone. He and his wife are pretty awesome.

Tony: You said that these deals come to you via email. Did you set that up with your real

estate agent, so that they're automatically forwarded to you or something? How does that work?

Lorina: I'm not exactly sure how it works. But as houses are put in the MLS, she's got criteria

put in that will direct certain listings to my email. And right now I have her — I have it so that the ones that are directed to my email are anything under $150,000 and single-family within my target area, which is Douglas County, Wisconsin. This includes Superior, the town that I have most of our properties in.

Tony: Okay. And how did you find your real estate agent? Lorina: Kind of by accident. I know how I would look for another one, if I needed to. She was

the listing agent on the first house that I looked at last year. And when I met her and she is just so full of — what do they call that? — vinegar or whatever.

Tony: That saying “full of Piss and vinegar” from 1938 in John Steinbeck's, The Grapes of

Wrath: Lorina: Yeah, she's a little spitfire. A tiny lady and she's — I'm not going to guess her age, but

she's a grandma.

Maybe near to being a great grandma. But she and her son have tried being landlords — tried you know renting things out and they hate it. So, it's a perfect union for me and her to work together. Because she gets so excited about the deals and making sure I'm making money and of course, she makes money too. Not a whole lot on the little dollar amounts, but we have so much fun together. And she's willing to try any of this new stuff. She hadn't heard of all these things either. You know the things I'm learning through Dean, but she's willing to try any of them, so it's pretty fun.

Tony: That is awesome. It's great to have somebody that keeps it exciting. I don't know how

you could do it otherwise.

Lorina: No, I don't think — well, I mean you could — but I couldn't do nearly as much on my own. I've learned a lot from her too, as far as filling out purchase agreements and how to deal with other Realtors and banks and whatever, so.

Tony: Can you walk me through your process of how you approach a deal first time you talk

to the seller? Yeah, what do you do? Lorina: Well, when it's with the banks, I'm not talking to them directly. But I have learned a lot

as far as talking to for sale by owner. Matter of fact, I was just trying to hurry an older gentleman off the phone, so I could make the call to you. Because I called — actually this is a guy who — do you want to hear this a little bit?

Tony: Yeah, of course! Lorina: Okay. I actually — the second house that my investor purchased, we just got done with

that. Really there wasn't much to put in that, but we were waiting on the levelers to level the bottom of the house. Anyway, I have renters moving in there now. But this lady gave this other gentleman as a reference. So, I called him and left a message and I didn't know if he'd call me back or not. Because he had foreclosed on the house that she was living in without telling them. And so I didn't know — he hadn't returned any of their calls either recently, so I just left a message and he called me back today.

Well anyway, so we talked a little about the reference. But it turns out he has a couple of other places, he just really wants to leave right away to go to Florida. Which it sounds familiar in a whole bunch of stories that people tell.

Tony: It does, yeah. Lorina: Yeah, and so he's describing his houses to me and how much he wants and how much

he's got into them. And then the further into the conversation he said, “But you know I just want to leave. So, yeah take a look at them and tell me what you want to pay.” So, I don't know if this is going to be a good you know potential buy or not, but that's what I'm — I wrote down all the information and I'm going to go by the houses and talk to him some more, and maybe I'll be getting a good deal out of this. I don't know.

Tony: Great. When are you going to go look at it? Lorina: I don't know. I literally just got off the phone with him and that's the first time I ever

talked to the gentleman. Tony: Oh, okay. Lorina: So, we'll have to follow-up and I think I already know the houses he's talked about.

Because one of them is Packer colors which is green and gold, so I think I've driven by that house a few times. I just got to go check it out and I'll see how far he'll be willing to come down. Because I don't think he owes really on one of them, and the other one

he said he has about $60,000 into it. And it's worth about $150,000 right now. He had it appraised like a month ago. So, I will see what I can do there.

Tony: Ah, good luck on that. Lorina: Yeah. Tony: Look forward to hearing about it. How about talking to the banks then? You say that

you've gotten some REOs through the banks ...any secrets or strategies that you found to be particularly useful in doing the RAOs that you've done?

Lorina: Well, they very much like when people offer cash. So, what I do is offer cash with an

inspection contingency. And cash doesn't have to mean cash, it just means I'll have the money by the time I buy it.

Tony: Right. Lorina: So, I've got to sometimes put the cart before the horse. I'll offer cash and then I go to

my banker and say, “I need some money.” So, but it's always worked out and I think if you got a good deal, you're going to get the money somewhere.

Tony: Do you have a standard percentage or amount that you'll ask for reduction for with cash

deal? Like if the bank wants you know $50,000, do you have a figure in mind that you always go down? I'm going to drop it by 10 percent. I'm going to offer 20 percent less of what the bank tells me they want for it. Or do you just gauge it per property?

Lorina: I gauge it per property actually. Because if I already know that the property is worth 30

percent more than what they're asking, or you know even more — I'll try to guesstimate actually with my Realtor how much they might be willing to go. Because sometimes I think it's — well, I need to try the strategy that Matt Larson and Dean have been talking about and offer really low on a whole bunch of properties. I really need to do that and I'm going to be trying that. But so far I've tried to guess what the bottom dollar the banks will take is, rather than go really low and have them counter offer. I'd rather have them accept the first time, so I kind of guesstimate on it. And that may not be the best thing, but I'm still getting a really good deal.

Tony: Well, hey if it's working then... Lorina: I don't know. Tony: I mean if we're doing a deal and making a profit — well, I think it's human nature once

we get a great deal on something to look back and say, “You know I think I could have done a little better.”

Lorina: Yeah, I haven't really done that to myself. Because I know if I'm making some money

— if I'm making $10,000 or $15,000, hey that's good to me and I'm going to move onto

the next one. The one thing that a person has to realize, you're not limited. You know what I mean?

Tony: Great. Lorina: If you had to go out and find the best two deals you could find and that's all you got to

do in a year, you're probably putting a lot more pressure on yourself. But if you can go out and get unlimited deals, I mean if you look back and think, “Oh, I could have probably made 5,000 more dollars off of that.” So, what? You know what I mean. Just go on to the next one and keep adding them up. Don't kick yourself for what you could have done.

Tony: Exactly. Yeah. Lorina: Right. Tony: So, I think the whole point about best is a deal that goes through. I mean that's good

enough. Lorina: You know I've been noticing that. I know a lot of people even following on the site —

there's so many that are finding good buyers — I mean end buyers and they're finding good deals, but unless you actually close it, you really aren't making anything. You're doing a lot of research and you're learning a lot, but you want to get out there and actually do the deals. You know?

Tony: Right, right. Lorina: Yeah. Tony: You said that your strategy, or the thing that you prefer is you prefer to buy and hold all

the properties, which obviously you can't do. Why is that important to you? Is it the cash flow aspect? Because there's another reason what — tell me about that.

Lorina: Well, I think right now especially in the bottom market that we have the down market.

It's such a good time to buy and then hold it till the market goes back up. Plus, the cash flow is so great. And then the reason I like that better than say a signing or bird dogging is because once you get your payment from that that's it. I mean you can reinvest it, but it's not going to be a continuous return. And that's what I like about the buy and hold, because it's — you're not only — it's not only rising in equity — you know what I mean, improving in value, it's giving you money every month that you can reinvest.

Tony: Right. Lorina: That's probably why I like it.

Tony: Do you use — you have kids as I remember, correct? Lorina: Yes. I actually only have two left at home. Tony: Okay and ... Lorina: Yeah. Tony: Do you have a property management company help you with your rentals? Lorina: No. Tony: You do it all yourself? Lorina: Yep. Tony: And how is — have you ever had property management, or is that been your style? Lorina: I've just always done it. That's part of what I like is the interaction with tenants and

finding my own. And I get really good people in and it's just been really good relationships. And most of them that move out of our places are actually moving into buying a home and they've rented from us for years. And I actually like to help them to maybe find a place, or give them advice on how to go about it.

Tony: Right. Lorina: I got a call last night from a guy who saw one of my ads on Craigslist and he was — I

had this last place listed as a lease option too. And the people that are moving into this last one that we bought, they are so excited to do a lease option. And they're going to rent through me and then we're going to write up the lease option.

Lorina: But they'll be getting the house at a really good deal too and they're so excited. And I

love that part of it; the interaction with other people and seeing other people really happy and helping them get a good deal too.

Tony: Yeah. Lorina: So, I was going to say this guy called from one of my ads that — I probably should take

it off there now. But anyway, he was just excited about the lease option. I told him of course that it was already taken. But then I asked him where he had been looking on Craigslist and he said, “Just under the 'for rent'.” I said, “Well, you know what? Try going on the real estate for sale, because there's so many places up here with lease options right now.” They might not be the best deals. That's why I'm not jumping on them, but they'd be really nice for people that want to buy a house. So, I kind of talked him through that. So, even though he — I didn't get anything out of it. I felt happy to

be able to help somebody. Maybe put them on the right track to buying a house. You know?

Tony: Sure, sure. Yeah, I think it's important to — I don't know how to say this, but

oftentimes people are so unwilling to do things, unless there's something in it for them. And ...

Lorina: Right. Tony: I think that coming from a place of abundance, where you're willing to do something

for somebody just because it's the right thing to do. Or just because it helps them brings things back to you.

Lorina: Yep, and that's what I loved about Dean the first time I saw him on TV. I'd never even

looked into a real estate program. I've just done things that I kind of you know stumbled across or whatever and I've always enjoyed it. But when I saw Dean on TV, he just really impressed me as a person. That is the only reason I called in and — well, not the only reason. It looked really good too, obviously for making. But it just looked so sincere and he just looked so sincere. That was the main thing that made me call in, and wow has it really changed everything for us and just really excited about it.

Tony: Well, I loved working with Dean. He is truly an authentic, ethical guy that I've ever

worked with. I absolutely love working with Dean, because he's real. He really cares about providing value for people. He's awesome. He's just an awesome guy and there are a lot of things that he does that don't make it out onto the boards, or into the newsletters or into the emails about helping people.

Lorina: He must look for that in people he works with too. Because every single person I've

talked to so far, you know Megan and Wally and you and whoever, or even online, I find that same — the same character in each one. So, he must — that must be really important to him. That's cool.

Tony: Yeah, I haven't seen anybody long-term in the organization that doesn't have a heart for

people. Lorina: Yeah. Tony: So, but anyway getting back to this. You talked about Craigslist — no, no I'm the one

that took us off on the tangent, not you. The Craigslist is that where you focus a lot of time on as well, like placing ads and looking for things?

Lorina: Well, I do now because I'd never heard of Craigslist till I was on the forums. And I

don't know who was the first one to mention it. But it was like, “Craigslist? What is that?” Until I kind of looked at it and “Ah, which house can I put on first?” Just recently in the past two months was the first time I used Craigslist, just from anybody on the sight saying, “Go on Craigslist. Put it on Craigslist.” So, I did and wow. What

an awesome thing. I've only ever used the local newspaper and I know that's online too. But once I started putting ads on Craigslist, you can — oh and being it's free you can change it. Like the last house I had for rent, I just kept changing the wording or adding incentives or whatever, until I got the renter I wanted. And it's kind of fun, because you can — and even the last time I put the ad in I wrote, “if you have any comments on this property, or can give me any pointers on what types of properties to buy, or whatever.”

It's so funny, because I've had people saying, “Well, it sounded like you were just starting out. So, I had a lot of response to that too. And there's a lot of people wanting lease options and it's too bad I didn't have more than one to put out there. But I got a list of people to give a call to, if I have another property, so.

Lorina: Yep. You know what else I want to try, if I can — we're just finishing up three

properties and getting people moved in. So, it's been kind of busy, but now after Christmas I'm going to focus a lot on — well, I want to pick up a couple of more properties — but I want to do some — some of these places that are advertised as lease options, I want to do — I heard Mason Street talking in one of the classes about a friend of his that that basically was all he did. If I remember correctly, he would find people wanting to rent the places. He would put in the paperwork that he had the right to assign the lease or whatever. And he'd get people in there and rent it out for a little bit higher, say $100 or $150, $200 a month. And there's this cash flow without ever having to buy the property or own it or anything. So, that'd be kind of neat to try.

Tony: Yeah, it is. What is your process with finding these renters and maintaining the

management of the properties? How do you do that? Lorina: Well, I advertise — up until like I said this last property using Craigslist, I had just

advertised in the paper. And I know what current rents are — the market rent in the area for some other types of homes, and just from researching you know and watching the paper. I have other friends that have had rental properties. So, I always keep my rent a tiny bit below, which is still really good cash flow for me. And then I get people calling right away. And what I do is take applications for say a weekend, or if I need to for a whole week. And then I do my calling and kind of screen through those and take the best ones for me, the best match. And that way I figure nobody can say I'm discriminating, because I'm not rejecting anybody in particular. I'm just choosing the best one out of the stack of applications I have.

Tony: Right. Lorina: And once I get that family, or couple or individual or whatever into a property, I have

chosen the one that I believe will be the longest-term and the best renter to have there. And honestly, once people move in they stay for years. I don't hardly hear from them, unless they send the rent money or a Christmas card. I just call to check on them and I like to use some little incentives, once in a while. And say you know, “Is there anything that could be fixed up?” Or whatever and it's not very often that you know

they have — nobody has big requests. Just little stuff and send them a card. And I like to try to remember birthdays for kids and stuff, but I'm not doing so great on that. Anyway, just build a good relationship with them and they stay for years. And they're just so happy and they'll — a lot of times when they're going to move out, they have a relative that wants to rent the place. And there's been people that have wanted to rent from us just from meeting us and you know coming to look at a place. But if it's already taken, they'll say, “Well, please, please keep me in mind. Because whatever you have I want to rent from you.”

Tony: Wow! Lorina: So, that's where it's a people thing you know? Good PR. But, yeah and we've never had

a horror story at all. I've heard lots of them, but I've had people move out. There's one couple that moved out and three months later they sent me their last rent. Because they hadn't paid for the last month, but I helped them move a load over to their house, so I knew where they lived. I didn't have to follow-up though, because they sent the money. I don't know just been really blessed.

Tony: That's nice. Lorina: Yeah. Tony: How do you choose from all these applications? I mean what — is there — I mean is it

— do you run credit on them, or is a gut thing? Lorina: Do you want me to be really honest? I don't know if this is strategy, but it's pretty much

my first impression. If their references check out, I usually can know right away who I want in there by meeting them. Which I don't know what it is and I don't know if that's something you can teach somebody. I bet it is. I bet if I really broke it down I could list what I'm actually looking for. But it just kind of comes naturally. And you can tell — you get to know — you learn to tell who's telling the truth and who's not. And not that that's usually ever a problem, but you can pick out the sincere people. And just by — and a lot of times by the questions they ask you.

Like if they're concerned with things about the house, or they're asking about the money or when can I — they'll have the deposit and they need to give their landlord 30-day notice. You know different things like that that you would want as a tenant be respectful of you. If they sound like they're dealing with their current landlord that way, that is a good sign.

Tony: Yeah, that makes sense. So, you — when you say meet people — obviously you won't

go out and meet everybody that gives you an application. Lorina: Well, actually I do. Tony: Do you?

Lorina: Yeah. Because they don't get an application, until they've come to look at the house. Tony: Oh, okay. Lorina: That's when they'll fill out an application. Tony: Okay. Lorina: I don't just have people filling out applications that aren't interested in a property, or

that I haven't meant, so. Tony: Do you do that on an individual basis, or do you have like you know a particular day,

where people can come by and you're at the house for them to look at it when you run the ads?

Lorina: Well, what I like to do is if one person calls and wants to look at it, I'll set up a time.

And then as additional people call I'll set them up within 10, 15 minutes of the other people. And so, I'll be showing it for a whole — I might even be showing it for an hour or two hours.

Tony: Right. Lorina: But you know for me to be at the property. But then you've got people coming in and

out, plus they are seeing other people looking at the property and potentially wanting it. So, that creates a little bit of competition and is a good way to get somebody in the home.

Tony: Right. Tony: Have you found any problems with scheduling the times? Like when you say, “Well,

look you can come on Thursday at 3:00, or today at 2:00.” Anybody balk at that, or do you find that when they call they're pretty much willing and able to come see it?

Lorina: They're pretty much willing, unless they work. But my schedule is pretty open, so I just

ask what's good for them. The first person that calls I'll ask, “What's good for you?” And then the next person that wants to see it I'll say, “Well, I'm going to be showing it at 1:30 on Saturday. Could you come a little before that or a little after that?” And usually they will when they know somebody else is looking at it. Usually they'll ask for a little before, or a little after. But it comes around in the same time frame basically, so.

Tony: See, now that's a great strategy. Because well you may not think about this. It's little

things like that that trip people up. Lorina: Yeah?

Tony: Yes, people will be like, “Well, how do I figure out when to show it?” Should I be

running over there whenever somebody calls? Or should I schedule at 10:00 and if people can't come between 10:00 and 2:00 then tough? So, you know all those little details. Well they may seem everyday and not important to you. For the person that's never done this that could be like the nugget of gold, because it's the little things that trip us up.

Lorina: Right, it's things you kind of learn in your own experience over the years, but you'd

learn them gradually if you don't really think about it. Tony: Right. Now when you talked about you know the way that you meet the people and the

way that you're feeling, if their references check out. Do you call the references? Lorina: I always call references, yep. Tony: So, always call references. And do you get two, three however many they can give

you? Is there is a minimum? Is there a maximum? Lorina: Well, what I have on the application is employment references for current employment

and then previous landlord for not just the one they're in, but the one before that. And there's a lot of people that actually have owned their home and they're now renting. So they may not have good references in that area.

Tony: Right. Lorina: But then I always put — or I have a line on there that's in case of emergency. And it's

not actually for if there's an emergency, although that's good to have. But I — what I actually use it for is, if I need to get a hold of somebody say after they move out. I'll tell you about an incident that happened. Only once that I had to do this, but it gives you their — most of the time people will put down their mom, their dad, their sister. You know because in case of emergency you put down your next of kin.

Tony: Right. Lorina: So, that is a good way to locate people. Because usually a parent is living in the same

house for a long time and they're going to be there for a long time. So, if you ever need to track down this person that is renting and maybe moving from place to place, that's a good solid way to do it. Plus, I have called parents on young renters before, since they put that down. I have called — I will say, “Well, do you mind if I call and talk to your parents?” Especially, if they've moved straight from home.

Tony: Right. Lorina: I did do that once and they turned out to be some of the best renters we've ever had. I

like to give people opportunity. Maybe like the girl that is moving in to the one place.

She actually is only 24. She has five kids. I want to tell Dean about this story, because I'm excited about what's going to happen with it, what I know will happen. But even though she may have made mistakes when she was younger, she was raised in a family that the mom — well actually it was just her mom — her mom was an alcoholic, a drug addict and she actually promoted her daughter's sexual activity. So, when she's 14 she had her first baby. You know she's got five kids, but when she was 18 she moved away from home, out on her own. She's going to school to be a nurse.

I think she's an LPN right now, but she's going to be an RN. She just impressed me so much, because she's got this attitude where she said, “I do not want the same thing for my kids as what I had. And not that they won't make mistakes and I'll be there for them, but I want to teach them that there's better for us in life.” And her mom even yet will ask her, “Why don't you just go on welfare. You could make so much a month off the government and then you won't have to work for it?” She says, “Mom, I want better than that for us.”

Tony: Yeah. Lorina: “And you limit yourself if you keep yourself you know on the poverty level.” She said,

“I want to work hard. I want to make things better for us and move ahead with life.” And when I told her about Dean, I said, “Well, you know what well actually ...” No, she mentioned about being a landlord and I mentioned about being in this program and she's like, “You know what? I saw it on TV and I wanted to get that really bad. And I want to be a landlord someday, and I want to get into real estate.” And so, I told her a lot about the program. I said I'd lend her the book. And she's so excited, she says, “Well, can I ask just ask you a question? Will you be like my mentor?”

Tony: Oh, how cool. Lorina: So, yeah. Anyway and that's just, I wouldn't — you know I wouldn't hear that from just

anybody and think, “Oh, yeah she's going to make something of herself.” But she just has such determination. I can't wait to see what she's going to do. All right what was my point? Oh, giving her a chance. Yeah.

Tony: Right, right. Lorina: So, there's all these people that you know they have different problems in their lives.

But you can tell their character is there and they're going to try their best and they're not going to rip you off. And you want to try to maybe give them a little boost, so.

Tony: Right, that's great. It sounds to me like the way you make things work is that you go

out there and you take action. You've got people that you set up as a team. You've got this great agent who sends you properties. You look at them. And then you rely an awful lot on taking action — following up on people — calling and building relationships and then your gut instincts. And you don't prejudge people. I mean you really give everybody a chance. I mean that sounds to me like your strategy, or a part

of just how you operate your life. What else would you say? How would you summarize, or what kind of suggestions or advice would you pass on to others about what you do and how you make it work for you?

Lorina: As far as everything, or the rentals? Tony: As far as everything real estate investing. Lorina: Okay, well you want to do your research. You want to obviously try to find a good

deal. And when it comes to dealing with people in any area, if you treat them well they will generally treat you well. If you're talking about tenants and even homeowners, or anybody. You know treat them well and be honest and they're going to pretty much treat you well back. And if you expect good out of them that's most of the time what you're going to get.

Tony: Yeah. I love that ... Lorina: I know it has nothing to do with real estate, but it kind of does. Tony: No, it is true. There's the story of two young guys that are moving from one town to

another. They don’t know each other, but they happen to be traveling in two separate cars, at the same time, to move from the town they have lived in all their lives, to where they're going to go to college. They both stop at the same gas station and the one guy is out pumping gas and the other one goes in to buy something to drink. He asks the man at the counter, you know, “How's it going?” The guy goes, “Great. How are you doing?” He goes, “Oh, wonderful. I'm moving from little town up the street to college town.” And he goes, “What are people like there?” And the guy behind the counter says, “Well, what are they like in Little town where you come from?” And the young man says, “Oh, they're great. You know everybody helps each other. They're loving. They're considerate. They care about one another. You know they're hard working people. I'm going to miss that town.” And the man behind the counter says; “Well, don't worry. They're just like that in college town where you're going.”

Lorina: Aww. Tony: So he goes outside and gets in his car and the other guy who's been pumping the gas

comes in to pay. And you know the man behind the counter says, “How you doing today.” And the young guy goes, “Well, you know I guess its okay. I mean I’m moving up to college town up the road, and going to go to college up there. And I'm kind of excited for a new start. I really didn't like the little town that I came from. Can you tell me what's it like up there in college town?” And the man behind the counter says, “Well, what's it like in little town where you came from?” (Now remember this is the same town that the other young man came from). Well the kid says; “Oh, it was miserable.” People were mean, cruel. Everybody's selfish. There's not a good soul among the lot of them. It's just miserable. I was so glad to get out of that town.” And

the guy behind the counter says, “Well, unfortunately they're like that in college town where you're going too.”

You know for me there's a huge lesson in that. It's a lot of what I expect and what I look

for from people is very often what I find. Lorina: Right. Tony: So, I think your point is well taken. You said two other things that I want to ask you

about before I let you go. The research and getting a good deal. What do you use to do your research and how do you know that you've gotten a good deal?

Lorina: I use comparables from sales. I use the county Web site. I — that's a lot of it. And if

you know — you got to do your research to know what the value of the properties are in your area and to know if you have a good deal or not. You can create a good deal by offering a lot of low and getting one accepted. But there's a lot of times where you can find a good deal, or just by watching and you have to be fast though to grab it. Because there's other people that know what a good deal is too.

Tony: Yeah. Lorina: So, you got to do your research and you got to be ready to take action. That's the other

thing. Tony: Okay, awesome. Lorina: You have to be ready and do it. Tony: What do you look for on the county Web site? Do you look at tax evaluation? Lorina: I look at tax valuation and what they consider fair market value. I know that's not

totally accurate, but in our area it seems to be pretty close and I can start on that. You know and if it's low I might — if the taxes are low, I'll take that into consideration too. Because obviously, if you're renting out you want low monthly costs.

Tony: Right. Lorina: But then you don't know for sure if somebody has done improvements or whatever, but

I like to look at that just to get a rough idea to start on. And then also there's land shark or whatever to go in and see what people owe on their places too, so that would be important.

Tony: Okay.

Lorina: And just different information. And a lot of times I'll just use the county Web site to find people too. You know see who was the last owner. See when it switched, or try to find — locate an owner. Yeah, or to see what bank owns it.

Tony: Right. Awesome and that's all free. Anybody can do that. Lorina: Yep, anybody can do it. Tony: I don't have any other questions. I really appreciate meeting you over the phone and

reading your posts on the Web site. It's just cool to get on the line with you and talk, so.

Lorina: Yeah, it's really fun. Thank you. It was very nice to meet you too. Thank you so much. - End of Interview Write any thoughts or notes you may have about what you learned from this

interview here:

Interview with Greg Murphy: Stories of Success Finalist

When Greg started he had NO credit, no capitol and very little hope. Now his life is completely transformed. He went from working 60-70 hours a week, to stay broke –to where he’s now making more money than ever before - and has slashed his work hours in half! Here is his story…

Tony: Good morning Greg. I hope you’re well! I want to get some information about your strategies for investing. I am going to ask you tell me a little bit about how you started, what you have set about doing if you have a specific type of property that you pursue, any types of deals and I am going to ask you to walk me through your deal specifically. Just to begin with, how did you get started?

Greg: Basically, like a lot of folks, just watching the late night infomercials, I always wanted

to do it and then just getting so fed up trying to struggle by. I just went ahead and ordered Dean’s course one time and just read it and started pursuing it. It was pretty devastating when I started because I do like a lot of people. You get these books in the mail and you just do not take the time to look and you kind of get overwhelmed.

I was doing all this while working 50 to 60 hours a week. Let me tell you my lifestyle when I first started this. I was working 8 to 10 hours a day so I would come in and did my family stuff and I would get up out of bed like 11:00 or 12:00 a night and I would do my reading and all my online stuff from 12:00 to 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning and get up and go to work the next day. So it was really tough for me to get started because I was working a lot of hours but I was just getting by. I wanted more and I knew there was more out there I just had to get started with this.

Tony: You are working 50 to 60 hours a week in your construction business; tell me about

your family? Greg: I have a wife and four kids and three of them are grown and I have got a six-year-old so

we are doing baby stuff doing all these things too now. So we have got a little one and we are trying to take care of him so she supported me and invested for me to take a chance and try it and I just went for it man.

Tony: How long did it take for you to get through that phase before you were able to actually

do something? Greg: I was a little slow coming out of gate now. I was not one of these students that just

bought it and then in two weeks made $30,000.00, it didn’t work that way for me?

Tony: You had a lot going on-- Greg: I had a lot going on but you have got to remember now for the amount of time that I put

in and probably would be equal to the time because I was doing a lot, an hour at night of reading each night really late and I have had to go out on Sundays and talk to people and stuff. So it was probably a month or so before I really did my first deal which was kind of an owner finance and I sort of went to the lease option owner finance kind of stuff simply because my credit was in really bad shape.

Tony: You know Greg, a month to your first deal, with everything else you had going on is a

phenomenal accomplishment! Greg: Well, okay. How about I walk you through one of my deals? I will walk you through one of my deals from start to finish and this is kind of the

strategy I adopted. I ran ads in the paper and put out fliers and did internet ads like I buy houses and pay

cash, that type of thing and debt takeover, I was kind of filling in my ads and we do a debt takeover. Because you mentioned debt taker and you raise some eyebrows about that because they are thinking, wait a minute, I have got somebody who is willing to take over debt I need to find out what this is about. So they are calling me.

This guy calls me out of one of my flyers and he says, I have got a house for sale. He told me the address and I went and looked at it and I called him back and I said, it was a house he had sold on finance. He owns it free and clear. He said, I want $45,000.00 for the house and so I said, if I paid you cash, and close really quick, what is the least you would take and I just hesitated for a minute and he said, it does need a little work on it so I might take a little less. Maybe $37,000.00 or $38,000.00, so I just hesitated for minute. Dead silence. I did not say a word. I just sat there. He paused for a minute and he said I might take a little less because it does need work on it.

So he said, why don’t you not just come and look at it and walk through it. So to make

the long story short, we did go look at the house and walked through it. I made a list of everything it needs and I am just sitting here, this is what I would give you. I can give you $26,000.00 for it and this is what I need to do for it. I said, I know it is a lot different than what you wanted, but let me just tell you this. I said, try this on for size, what if I just leased your house from you while I am remodeling it and I will just pay you while I am trying to sell your house. He is like wow, you can do that and I said sure, how much would you rent this home for, and he said $350.00 a month.

I said I will just lease it from you for $350.00 a month and I am going to go ahead and

remodel it out of my own pocket. Then I will just pay you rent on this thing while I am trying to sell it for you because I mean, they are setting on the market with the realtors for three and four months at a time now. He liked that so we went ahead and signed the deal. When it was all said and done, I bought the house on contract from him, which

means he was my banker. He deeded me the house and everything subject to me closing on the house in three or four months.

Because I cannot really sell it unless I own it, I picked up a deed on the house. The day

I signed the deal with him, I didn’t put any money down, not one dime. I already had a lady that was ready to buy, so I went that afternoon and closed with her and she paid me $3,000.00 down on the house. She moved in and remodeled the house out of her own pocket. That was part of her agreement because I sold it to her for $65,000.00 and I wanted 10% down. She gave me $3,000.00 down and then she did the remodeling for her other part. So do you follow me so far?

Tony: I am following you so far. Greg: So it is just I am buying the house with no money down on contract and the day that I

buy from him, I sell it to another lady on contract. Tony: Beautiful. Immediate turnaround. Greg: Immediate turnaround, I did not take any money out of my pocket and took in

$3,000.00 that same day. Two and a half months later, she closed and I put another $32,000.00 in my pocket. Plus, she paid me, I made $200.00 something a month. She was paying me like $450.00 a month and he was charging me three something a month so I made about $200.00 a month clear profit, while she was remodeling the house.

Tony: That is beautiful. So let me ask you a few things about this. You ran ads and you put

flyers out and this deal came to you through one of your flyers? Greg: Yes my flyer, that is where I get my biggest response at for me, is on my flyers. I flood

the town with flyers. Tony: Where do you put those? Greg: I put them in drugstores, they do not let you put them at Wal-Mart but every once in a

while, you can find a bulletin board and stick them in there and put them in grocery stores, in the checkout aisles, around banks, anywhere around banks and just simple, “I buy houses and we do debt takeover”, that type of thing. I put them at the grocery stores and do some bandit signs at the stop signs. But I get my biggest response with just itty bitty notebook size flyers. I do not make them real fancy. I just put I buy houses with a magic marker and I keep really low key on that, I do not try to get too fancy.

Tony Do you write your flyers out by hand or do you make one up and copy them? Greg: I make one up and then copy it. Tony So they all look handwritten?

Greg: Yes. Tony: Got it. So this guy calls you and put you this deal together. Where did you get your

contracts for the deal? Did you get this right out of Dean’s kit? Greg: If I do a lease option I do them out of the kit I got with Dean but now, if I do a contract,

I just get a lawyer to draw me up a contract. Tony: What does it cost you to have your lawyer do that? Greg: About $125.00. There was another thing too, because if I have to, the reason I try to do a contract for a

deed type thing as opposed to a lease option more so because you cannot create a note with this thing and you cannot sell the note to other investors. So if they cannot come through with their end, because what I do is like I told this lady. I have done the mortgage with her and I said if you can get your own mortgage, I’ll discount the house.

So what I mean, I was going to sell it to her for $75,000.00 but I told her if she could

get her own mortgage out, I will do it for $65,000.00 because if you sell a note on the internet, they are going to trash you out, you are not going to get full price for it anyway. I do that with everyone. I give them my option, if I do the note, like I have got two deals I am doing right now the same way. A lady picked up a flyer I had, and she called me and said her mother has got a house and she is letting it go back to the bank. I asked her if it was an FHA house. I said really. She said yes.

I said I would be interested in it and she told me, she wanted to get out and was behind

on payments. I said, how much are you behind on payments. She had missed two payments and they were only $128.00 a month. It was a low income payment. I said, it takes awhile to get all this done so why don’t I pay your back payments, I will just take care of your payments until we can get this thing out of your name. They were all over that. Well I already had another guy lined up to buy the house from me so all I did was took his money that he paid me and paid the back payments. Do you see what I am saying?

Tony: Yes. You are using other people’s money. Greg: I closed with a lawyer that morning and I took his money that afternoon, so I bought the

house and sold it all in the same day and now, he is doing the same thing, he is remodeling it for me to get the discount.

Tony: Let us go back to the original deal that you told me about. You said you had a buyer

already lined up, a woman, what did you do to line up that buyer?

Greg: I ran ads for buying and selling. When I am running my ads, They say “three bedroom, two bath house for sale. No money down. Rent to own”. Something like that and I get them crawling out of the woodwork because everybody is having a hard time getting mortgages right now. So the two buyers I got were through my flyers saying “three bedroom, one bath house for sale. Financing available. Rent to own” that type of thing.

Tony: So financing available and rent to own, are those the things that you think are causing

people to respond? Greg: Absolutely. You just put something like no banks involved, rent to own, owner

financing, anything along that because when they see that, they are crawling out of the woodworks. Mind you, you are going to get a lot of people that are going to be time wasters, tire kickers, they have not got a job and they have got no money to pay down, they are calling to find out what this is about. But I have got what I am using recorded messages and that type of thing just kind of screens some of them.

I am going to get a little bit more elaborate with it with the website and they can come

and fill out a little survey on my website and I can screen them because you know all this time, if they have got no money down and really bad credit, there is not a lot you can do.

Tony: Right, this lady in the first deal, correct me if I am mistaken but it sounds like she did

not know she could get her own mortgage when she responded? Greg: No, she did not. She thought that she did not have any credit. She had some bad credit

a long time ago and did not know what her score was now. I got a little credit application thing I got too so if I go to sell the mortgage or if I sell it to another investor, I will have all their paperwork. But I was taking in $3,000.00 and I was going to make a couple of $100.00 a month. I give every buyer a time limit, if they are going to do their own financing. I do not just say get the financing whenever you can, there is a time limit on it. Anywhere from 12 months or 24 months or something like that if they are going to get their own financing.

A lot of that depends on the situation, would it be the house or how much money I am

clearing or if they are really shaky on the credit, that type of thing. But almost everybody I am getting are B or C type credit, like a 500, or 550 credit score, maybe 600, something along those lines. I always do this little thing because it does not cost me anything.

Everybody I get, I run them through a mortgage broker because they are dying to make

loans anyway. So I just get a mortgage broker friend of mine and say I have got this lady who wants to buy a house, if you can get her a loan. So he does my credit checks for me because he is hungry to make a loan anyway and I tell him every time I go there, I do not know if they can even buy a peanut. I will just send them to you with hopes. He will call back and say, they are no good or they might be good later or they are

really close, if you give them two more months, we can get them financed. Then he has come back at times and told me, he said, man, these people cannot even buy nothing with cash. [Laughter]

Tony: This guy is a friend of yours. Or did you find him? Greg: Yes, I found him through just asking around who was making loans and all that type of

thing. Tony: He has done well for you so you continue to send all of your people there? Greg: Yes, I send them to him first and like I said, he does not mind doing it because like he

says, if I run 10 or 15 for you, I would get one; I am doing good right now. Tony: That is awesome. So have you built any other sort of team of people that you use on a

regular basis? Like for remodeling, I know you said that you do construction, do you involve some of your own business in the remodeling or other contractors that you know?

Greg: I do as much of it as I can, and I can do it all, but sometimes I hire out because I make

better money if I am doing the marketing and setting up the finance, then I do slinging a hammer. Do you see what I mean?

Tony: Absolutely, yes. Greg: There are cases where I can do a little bit of stuff, I do not have to hire, but I try to get

the people to put sweat equity into it and to get whoever is buying the house from me to put as much as they can into it, whether it be sweat equity or money. They are a lot less likely to walk away from it if they have got something invested.

Tony: What kind of incentive do you give them to get them to do that? Greg: I give them discounts on the house. Tony: Everybody is motivated by saving money. Greg: Like this house I got right now that I am going to do the mortgage for this guy. He is

already really close to being financed. I probably would not carry him over a month but he is going to do all the painting and the work for me for his down payment. He paid me like $1,000.00 down and he is going to do all the work on it but I know for a fact that he is really close to being financed because I have been monitoring him for awhile. He was another one I got through a newspaper ad. But it is like saying I want $75,000.00 for the house and I tell him, if I do the mortgage for you, it is $75,000.00 but if you can get your own mortgage, I will take $65,000.00. It is less $10,000.00, that is good incentive.

Tony: When you find these people from the ads you run, the potential buyers, walk me through the process of what you do, I know you said that you are going to take the credit report, my guess is that you probably get them prequalified so you know what kind of house to match them up with. Is that correct?

Greg: Yes, I have a little form I use when I have got them on phone. It is not an online form,

it is just a thing I print up off the computer. Tony: While you are talking to them, you fill it out? Greg: Yes. I get their name, and as much personal information as they will give me with the

first time phone call which is not going to be a social security number or anything. I usually do not even ask for that right away because I would not give mine that way. I do not expect them to give me theirs but I will get their name, phone number, what areas they want to be, what kind of payment they can afford a month. There is no way to get them something they cannot afford. They are just going to get in trouble with it. So if they can afford $500.00 a month easily, then they can come up with $3,000.00 down and they want a three bedroom house, I know exactly what to match them up with.

Most of the time, I have already got a house or two waiting just to get somebody in.

But usually I go after potential buyers first. I guess you would say because I do not want to have a house sitting out here and me out scrambling around trying to find somebody. So I am constantly trying to find people looking for a house that has got some money to pay down and as soon as I get a house under contract, I might stick a for sale sign in the yard for maybe a week just to see what response I get because somebody may come through that can pay you cash. But usually, it’s not more than a week from the time I get a house, if not before, I have got somebody in it.

Tony: That is awesome. Greg: I am not much on buying houses with hard money and remodeling them, to let them sit

there for a few months. The last one I did, I bought it, completely remodeled it myself. I made a showcase out of it. I paid $43K for it, sold it for 80. It took me about nine months to sell it. Right down the road I bought another one on contract, I did not use my money, I had another lady lined up to buy it from me as soon as I bought it, she we went and did the remodel. I took in $3,000.00 the same day I bought it and then when it was financed, I put another 12 or 14 in my pocket. So, I made just as much money with a lot less effort to continue doing it the other way..

Tony: So you can do 15 or 20 of those kinds of deals in a nine-month period. Greg: You can do as many of them as you can find. I still do it every once and awhile. I mean

a lot of the local bankers in town, know me, so if they got a property, they will call me. I will tell them the only way I’ll look at it is, if they are going to do the financing at a

very low interest and most of the times, they will let me do it because they want to get rid of the house.

Tony: Give me an example of a hard money deal that you have done. Greg: Well, what I am involved in right now is a hard money deal and it was just definitely

like I said. My banker called me up. He said, hey man, I got a 3bed 2bath over here, we are foreclosing now. I said, well, tell me about it and he told me about it and he said, we need this much far and I said, let me go and look at it. I went to look at it and call him back and I said, listen, I will give you 46 for it and I want $3,000.00 the day we do it and I am not paying over 6% interest.

He said, okay. You got a deal. So I bought it with their money and get $3,000.00

extra, and that maybe was paint and carpet, just a paint and carpet job. When I wind up and get everything done for like $1,100.00.

Tony Nice Greg: And the week after I got it. I took in another $3,000.00 and sold it out on contract. Tony: That is great. Greg: Now, when their loan comes through I am going to add probably $46K - $49K on it, so

whatever that comes out to is my profit, which would be $25,000.00 to $28,000.00 Tony: When you put this house under contract, you said earlier that you will give them a time

limit. What you are doing for them while they are paying you is basically leasing to own, correct?

Greg: Yes. Tony: Until they get their own financing. So they are covering the cost of your mortgage and

you are cash flowing a little bit on all of these too, is that correct? Greg: Yes. Keep in mind that they are buying, they are not renting. If they got a leaky

commode, they are not calling me they are fixing it. You understand what I am saying? It is a whole different thing.

Tony: Right. It does not sound like this has happened yet but let us say somebody gets to the

time limit. If you give them 12 months and they do not get there? What happens at that point? Do you have financing that you come in and do for them?

Greg: Yes, a lot of us it is going to depend on how they have been. I put strict rules in my

contract like 5% late after the six of the month, after 30 days contract can be canceled, and so forth. If I have somebody that is complaining all the time and being late, then I will just simply do not renew their contract. Of course I have not run into that yet. I do

not just do any lease option with them like this other one did. I bought it on contract and I actually sold it on contract.

Tony: And that contract is depending on them getting the financing? Greg: Yes. Tony: When you started doing this, were there any mistakes that you made, any lessons that

you have learned that helped you get this system of yours down? It sounds like you are very organized, you have everything spelled out. You have written your contracts to favor you and protect you, which is fantastic and the way it should be. Was there anything that happened where you had to learn, a hard lesson on your own?

Greg: Yes. I took one buyer in with no money down and he was going to work a little bit

extra. That did not work good! You want to be able to get some money down and you can be your own judge about it. Let us just say, if I am picking up a foreclosure for somebody that is in pre-foreclosure, say, they’re three payments behind, whoever wants the house will pay those three payments or I am not going to do the deal. There are just too many deals out there that can be done with no money out of my pocket. If the terms aren’t right, I will just move on to another deal.

This last one I took over was two payments behind. So the guy I sold it to paid me two payments down. He paid the back payments up at the close, he is doing the work and that is the only way I will do it. I would not do it the other way or just rent, I prefer not to rent. I go to sell them whether it would be lease option or sell it on contract either which way.

Tony: So this is the strategy that you are going to maintain. Greg: Right now, unless something changes. I am going to try to do it because it is kind of

like wholesaling in way. I can make money right now and then cash flow. You think about this. If I get 50 properties under my belt and I am cash flowing each one of them, $200.00 or $300.00 a month and I am taking into $3,000.00 every time I do. You know I do not give these two years where they finance it. I am making a living while I am doing it.

Tony: Right Greg: So I am making money upfront and while that is going on the minute, they get too.

You understand what I am saying. I am making money three different ways. Tony: And it is not taking money out of your pocket to do it. Greg: And I can do as many deals as I get time to put together. Tony: That is fantastic.

Greg: And if I have four deals that fail, it does not hurt my credit because I did not use my

credit. It did not hurt my cash flow because I did not use money. You see what I mean. That is a whole different thing.

Tony: Yes, it is beautiful. How does that change your life now? Are you still doing 50/60

hours a week in your home business? Greg: Oh, Lord, no! I really took control of my life now. I mean I really got control. I work

in my own leisure now you know; when I get a certain amount put into my account then I will probably not even do the construction much anymore. I can do what I want now - - start when I want and quit when I want. This is wonderful.

Tony: If things continue the way that they are going, how far into the future do you perceived

that point where you have enough in the bank being—are you months away, years away?

Greg: If I really push the issue and I still got some obligations that I am trying to finish up and

so, I am not doing it. When I get where I can dedicate, 30 or 40 hours week on just my real estate, oh man, I will say, where the wider foreclosure hit the market now and why people are losing houses now. I will say within 12 months from now, I do not think that there could be any problems for me to have 15 to 20 houses under contract.

At that point, I do not have to do anything. I can wait for them to cash out or I can live

off the cash flow. Tony: Yes, that is terrific. Earlier you mentioned a really good negotiating strategy when you

are talking on the phone about posing the question, and letting them answer it while you keep silent.

Greg: Dead silence, yeah knowing when to stay quiet, that is the best thing I ever did. I will

tell you, you can talk yourself right out of a deal. Tony: Sure Greg: What I do is let them do the talking and if I talk, and if they say they want $50K, I don’t

come back with “well, I will give you 25” because all you are going to do is make them mad. I let them tell me and I let them stretch it out as long as they can. I will just wait and I do not get in no hurry. You have to control the situation because there are two ways that is going to be, you are going to be in control or they are going to be in control. If you are not, they are.

And I let them talk and I am doing that too, because I want to develop a little bit of

rapport. Tony: Yes, what else do you do to develop that rapport with people?

Greg: Well after I get them on the phone and we talk, I let talk about what they want. I kind

of hesitate and let them get down as low as they’ll go. Sometimes they’ll get down to where they’ll start out at 30 and then maybe get down to 25 and they’ll say something like well I owe 25, I got to have 25. And I’ll say well let’s just go take a look at the house. And when I get out and go looking at the house, I don’t get out with a briefcase and all that. I keep it real simple and casual and I just get out and I walk around and I look and talk to the people. And then I start trying to find out kind of what they’re situation is. Because you know if you start getting too personal on the phone you can ruin things, because a lot of folks will be five payments behind and won’t even tell you until they get to know you.

Tony: Right. Greg: I just walk around and look at house, and talk a little bit and kind of find out what their

situation is. If they’re selling because they want to, or because they have to. You know just kind of develop a little rapport with them. And then once we find that out, then I’ll go back out with a little clipboard thing I carry. Just real simple. I don’t try to get too fancy. And just walk around and start looking at the house and kind of get an idea of what we’ve got to do to fix it. And every time I make an offer on the house, I always tell them why I’m making the offer and why it’s different from what they want. Unless it’s a situation where they say “hey I owe $30K on it”, if you want to pay it off, then you know you can’t go lower than $30K on your offer.

Tony: Right. Greg: Unless you’re trying to negotiate a short sale or something along those lines. So

usually by the time we get through talking, we’re on a first name basis and I try to call them by their name as much as possible because everybody respects that.

Tony: Yes. Greg: You know once I’m talking with them if it’s Bob on the phone, hey Bob, my name is

Greg, you doing all right? You know, when I talk to them I call them by his name. You know people recognize that. They remember that.

Tony: Yes. It’s personal. Greg: It makes it personal. And I don’t ever judge, I just walk through and listen to their

story, I let them do as much talking, as they will. And I do as much listening as I can. And I try not to, because I’ve talked myself out of some deals just by running my mouth when I should have been just keeping it shut.

Tony: Like that saying “God gave us one mouth and two ears because we need to listen twice

as much as yap!”

Greg: That’s right. That’s exactly right. And I do you know. In my advertising, I’m getting a lot of folks going into foreclosure. And not every deal, everybody that I talk to with a foreclosure is a good prime candidate. Every deal is not good for what I’m doing and I’ll give you an example. I had a lady call me from one of my ads the other day, and they’re three payments behind and they got some kind a low interest or interest only loan that was coming due. Anyway they’re payments were like $1,800 a month. Well you know I could do no good with that unless you want to do a short sale, which takes a lot of time. I’m not big on short sales. I think they’re great. I think a lot of people will make some killer money with them. But short sales take time. I sometimes get them and I’ll pass them off to another investor. If it’s a really good area and a really good house, sometimes I’ll tie it up with a contract and try to wholesale it. I just don’t put as much effort in those type of things as I do my main cookie cutter kind of thing that I’m doing.

Tony: So what do you tell these folks if you just couldn’t help them? Greg: I told them that I would look at their house and their situation and I would pass it off to

some other investors. And I know some guys up in Memphis I met through some networking that specialize in short sales and they’re going to try and help them. You know my thing is, I’m not going to buy a house or even take one rent to own from somebody because no matter what house I get, I’ve got to be able to sell it back out on contract. I’ve got to have an exit clause. Whether I’m trying to just flip it or whatever, so in order for me to do it, any house that I buy, I’ve got to be able to compete with the market rents in that area. Do you see what I’m saying?

Tony: Right. Greg: So most people down here can’t pay $1,800 a month. So whoever buys that house is

going to have to buy it outright. So it’s just something I didn’t want to fool with. Tony: Right. Greg: And I try to go with a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 3 bedroom, 1 bath. You know 1,400, 1,500

square foot house, stuff like that. Tony: Okay. And the price range that you’re typically operating in is… Greg: I like to go in anywhere from $35,000 to $80,000 houses. I might go on $100,000

house but it’s a rare, down in my area. Tony: Okay. Greg: Now a medium home price around here, if you can get around, if you stay in the $80’s

and $95,000 houses, you get a lot more people that can buy them. Tony: It’s a lot easier to manage a payment on that then it is $100 or $200,000 house.

Greg: It doesn’t matter if you buy a $350,000 house for $150,000 if you can’t find somebody

to buy it from you, what difference does it make. Tony: Yeah, it doesn’t make any because you, you got a great deal on something that you

can’t sell. Greg: I mean let’s just say you’re financially able to make the payment on it for a year till the

market it goes back up. Why would you want to do that when you can go out here and scoop up an FHA house or nice average 3 bedroom, 2 bath, mom and pop, cookie cutter house that the average working Joe can make a payment on. Which you know around here, you want to stay between $500 to $800 a month payments. If you can keep them like that, you can sell them all day long.

Tony: That’s great. Well we’re getting close to the time, we’re running out of time so if I had

to ask you to summarize what your strategy is and how you make it work, what would you say.

Greg: Okay what I would say is, lease option, owner finance. Because you can buy them with

basically no money down. And you can sell them the same way. You don’t have to sell them that way. You can take over one and actually remodel it and then just wait for somebody to come by and cash buy it. I don’t recommend that because you’re going to be setting on it and making payments for three or four months. What I would recommend doing is find a highly motivated seller, take over their debt, tie the property up under contract, do an owner finance or a lease option and pick up a deed if you can every time. Just about anybody going into foreclosure has no problem signing a warranty deed for you. Then you can sell it the very same way. Under contract to a motivated buyer.

Tony: Greg, I really appreciate your time and your willingness to share so much information.

Any last tips? Greg: It’s my pleasure Tony. Yeah I guess I would say to new students to get out there and

learn how to do at least one thing, and that will build your confidence to keep going and succeed!

-End of interview Write any thoughts or notes you may have about what you learned from this

interview here:

Good Tips to End Bad Debt If you're one of the 190 million Americans that have credit cards, you probably know that they can be a problem. What if I asked you what the biggest problem with credit cards is; what would you say? David Bach tells us, it’s not what most people think. The most common answers are we buy too much, or we accumulate excess debt. While those are true, biggest enemy is not the debt on credit cards; it's the interest on that debt. For example, A couple named Terry and Tammy have around $30,000 on credit cards. They couldn’t seem to reduce that amount no matter what they tried. The debt was spread out on five different credit cards, at an average interest rate of 19.98%, a pretty typical rate for people in this situation. The monthly minimum payment, which they could barely afford, totaled $750 most of was interest. To make matters worse, they were adding more than $500 a month in interest charges to the debt down, which made it even harder to pay down. To explain to you what this really means, at that rate they are paying more than $6000 a year in interest. Terry and Tammy have to earn $10,000 each year just to pay the interest on those cards because of the tax rate. The First Step to Paying Down Your Credit Cards Assuming you are in credit card debt, the first step to make a real dent in your cards is to get the interest rate lowered. Before I go into the actual technique to lower those interest rates, I will say something you probably already know, even if you deny it. This is all common sense, but when it comes to non-essentials, if you don't have cash, don't buy it. Hello! This is pretty darn simple and it really works well. You only want to borrow to get rich, you don't want to borrow to look rich and you don't want to lease your lifestyle, do you? Well, if you are borrowing to look rich and lease your lifestyle, here’s a painful truth - you're guaranteed to stay poor and that's no joke! Think about what you bought on your credit card recently. Was it a need or want? Be honest! In order to get out of debt, we have to get you to stop spending. The good news is, you are not at the credit card company’s mercy. You just have to know how to negotiate with them. As long as you operate on the assumption that they need you, as much as you need them, and maintain the attitude that if they don't treat you right, you’ll take your business elsewhere. With this philosophy, they will usually be just fine about accommodating your requests, (when you remind them of this politely of course). Keep your cool, and never let them intimidate you. Yes you owe them money and yes you are legally and morally obligated to pay off your debts, but that doesn't mean they're ever entitled to treat you badly, take you for granted, or charge you an unfair rate. The Technique The fastest way to start saving and erasing your credit card debt, is to “talk down” the cost. That means getting your credit card company to lower interest rates. Here is how you go about doing this. First of all, find out how much interest you're currently paying. It is usually listed at the

bottom of your statement, and sometimes you need to read the fine print. Don't be confused if they quote you a “rate over prime” as in your rate is only 9% over prime. This doesn't mean your rate is 9%, your rate is 9% plus whatever the so-called prime lending rate happens to be a time. So if today's prime interest rate is 4% and your statement says you're just 9% over prime, then your total interest rate is 13%. The next thing to do is find out what the competition is offering so you know how much better you might do elsewhere. That doesn't mean start applying for new credit cards, what it means is do some simple research. Go online to one of the many websites specializing in consumer finance. Look at what the prevailing rates are, as well as what kind of introductory offers are available. (Two sites to check are www.bankrate.com and www.lowermybills.com ). After arming yourself with some specific information about the rate you pay and the rates available from other banks find the customer service phone number on your credit card statement and then call your credit card company and ask to speak with a supervisor. Do not ever try to negotiate a lower rate with the first person who answers the phone. The people who answer the phones generally don't have the authority to approve changes, so you'll just be wasting your time. After you're connected to the supervisor, tell them that a competing bank is offering a much lower interest rate than the one you're currently paying and unless he can match or beat the competitor’s rate, you can transfer your balance to the competitor. Don't be vague, tell the supervisor the name of the competing bank and the actual interest rate its offering. Chances are that the supervisor will agree to lower your rate on the spot. Also there are different levels of supervisor departments that handle these calls, on average there are 2 to 5 levels of management over the supervisor you get the first time. So if he doesn't give you what you want, ask to speak to that supervisor’s manager, and if you don't like what he or she tells you, ask to speak to his or her superior. One other thing, make sure you write down the names of everyone you talk to. If you're told company policy forbids giving out names, ask for an identification number. Not only will this enable you to track all of the supervisors and managers you're bound to be dealing with, it will also make customer service people wary of offending you. Generally speaking, as long as you're polite and reasonable they will probably try their best to satisfy your request. Ultimately they want to keep your business. If you don't get what you want, apply for an account with the company offering better rates and transfer your balance to that card. Now the key here to get out of debt is you have to stop spending! Transferring your balances to a lower interest, or zero interest promotional rate cards, then continuing to purchase on that card is not helping you! You're going to have to stop spending money on your credit cards in order to get out of debt. One last thing. Many of the zero interest credit card promotional rates, (as well as everyday low APR’s on standard credit cards) change if you miss even one payment or are even one day late. They can and will jack your interest rates up phenomenally, so it is important, even crucial to make sure that you do not miss a payment and that you are not late.

Here is a story of a couple that followed this advice and sent David Bach a letter explaining what happened. My husband and I are in our mid-fifties. Although I had heard the idea of calling the credit card companies to lower the interest rates, we were like everyone else - Really? Sure, me dealing with a big corporation? Well, yesterday I decided to try it for myself. Here is what I emailed my husband after talking with the first credit card company. Guess what! I called the credit card company about lowering our interest rate. (This card has been at the outrageous rate of 24.98% since forever.) The first person spoke with immediately said she could lower it to 13.9% from 24.98. I thought to myself wow that is awesome but I courageously went on. I asked if I could talk with someone about lowering to below 10% Matt – the next guy, asked what I was paying elsewhere and I told him another card was at 9.75%. Without a pause, he said he could go one better to 8.96% starting August 19th. Amazing! In just five minutes time the interest rate went down 16%! I was excited and armed with that courage I called another card company. I had a Visa which collected Miles – it had an annual fee of $120 and an interest rate of 19.5% In one short call this was switched to a Visa Select card which has an annual fee of $29, no miles and an interest rate of 11.5%. Originally I had planned on only calling the first credit card company that day. But having experienced so much success, I forged on to the last card. This card's interest rate was at 18.50%. The first person I talked with tried to find a lower rate 2 times with various departments – but apparently nothing was available at that time. I questioned why another card company was able to give something immediately, but here I would have to wait for some promotional letters or calls from the company. Again she put me on hold and I was put through to another supervisor. – James. He was able to lower the rate to 12.99% starting next month. This is exciting – all these will save us so much in interest! Following those calls I put together an aggressive repayment plan with the help of a debt repayment calculator. We are looking forward to being credit card debt free in a little over a year PLUS saving literally thousands in interest! Thank you! Now we are looking at the Latte Factor - somewhat hesitantly on my part - what will I have to give up? Seriously, I am excited to Finish Rich - even starting this late. Where was this teaching when we were in school? Bev Rempel Canada ------------------------------------------------------- That’s pretty great information wouldn’t you agree? Its solid advice from financial expert, David Bach, to eliminate the choke hold credit card debt can have on your life. In the success story on the next page, you’ll see how one young lady used credit cards in a smart way, which started building her fortune almost instantly!

Interview with Dawn Lutter: Stories of Success Finalist

When Dawn Lutter agreed to do this interview with Tony Policci, it was close to Christmas. She was living in South Dakota, with hopes of heading to California soon. On the day we spoke it was very cold in SD, with the wind chill at ­30° degrees. It’d had only been about a year since Dawn moved out to SD because of some major tragedies in her life (also right at Christmas time) and when she arrived, she was, as she put it, “freaking out.”  She was so used to being outside all the time and it was so cold there! But it was near her family and she needed to be there.  

 Here is her story.  Tony: Dawn, tell me about how you got started, what you did first. I want to know your

strategy. A lot of the investors that I talk to, zero in on one or two things they found to work and then they just continued to repeat that. I do not know if that is true for you or not, but I want you to share with me what your “secret” is. How you make what you do work, what you look for, how your deal is working specifics of those deals?

Dawn: Okay, well beginning I wanted to just do fast transactions. I really wanted to just get

my feet wet and it has changed a lot. The first thing I did was get my corporation ready and then I went with my “biggest secret.” My mentors and coaches from Dean’s Academy really pushed the idea to work with other people in finding of their investors, so I did. Because life is full for everybody and I really have to say that was probably one of the biggest things for me. To find other likeminded people because even though I have coaches and stuff like that and I am going to call them all the time. I need help too, like when I have to evaluate a property, or just to see things in different whatever. So networks were kind of like the biggest thing.

Tony: So you were determined to make this happen and establishing your own corporate

entity to hold the properties you would eventually invest in was your first step? Correct. Then something I think I will always feel is the biggest thing was finding likeminded people and networking to find different properties, and that can help me get to some of the goals I set. Right now my goal is major cash flow and now I am thinking things through I am making sure really the cash flow is significant because I have a major goal that I want to help a lot of people and I do to want to get stopped later on by not having enough cash flow. So that is important.

Tony: You have a great story about what you actually did that lead to your first deal. Will you

tell us about that?

Sure, one of the first things I did was go out and buy a newspaper and look through the

classified ads. I just called some people that said “ I buy houses” you know, ads like Dean talks about where they look like an investor, and so I called and one person answered and I talked with them and eventually they agreed to have lunch with me. So I had a lunch with them and developed a really great relationship with them and we went house hunting one time. This person was ready to pay cash for everything and I was just watching because I was definitely not ready to pay cash for anything.

I was kind of like; okay I’ll just go and maybe assess what the properties look like, even though I am not sure what I am doing. So I went and he ended up finding a really major fixer- upper. We spent the whole summer working on this and then he found another property and that was about half off market value.

He was able to negotiate about half off of the comparables or the tax assessed value.

But the tax assessment was even lower than the comparables and it was so low he was kind of scared I guess. He was not sure if he should get into another project when he has a couple of other ones going on. Well I thought I’m definitely I am going to jump in to it. So that is how I got into that. I did not go actually looking for any specific kind of home. I worked on that deal and I learned a lot! I still am always learning, but I was not solid on seller financing so I had trouble at the beginning negotiating and to understand the seller financing. Now I understand it so much more.

At the beginning I called the helpline a lot and I was learning all about different kinds

of loans at that time. Luckily the seller was patient with me, but I think it was also a little tough for them, (I was trying to buy more time to figure out what I was doing). So it ended up I had to do 10% down which meant I had to come up with $8,000.00 for down and the rest was all taken care of.

I was not quite solid on understanding the seller financing at that time so I ended up putting $4,000.00 on a 0% credit card and then I did have about $4,000.00.

So I paid for it that way and then when I closed on it that day I got a $3,500.00 check

from the renters. So, that covered the credit card cost. Then within a couple months with my other series of deals, I got money back from the Dean’s Academy Program so I recouped that 10% down (the $8,000.00).

I am just finishing a deal now where we are doing a contract for a deed and I will get 10% interest. So how it is working is 10% down, 10% interest on the old loan and then a following lump sum payment after the 12th month. So that’s the way they will pay the whole thing.

In Dean’s program he is really big on action. And I really understand that. You are not going to learn unless you do something, and he has really good information and the Academy coaches are there to decrease your amount of risk.

We all have some risk but I think I decreased my risk probably 99% because I had great coaches and now I am really thinking things through and they are walking me through to think and process things. It is exciting. I am working on apartments now so I have some more passive income and how to do it greatly and without money down or credit because you know now I have tapped into my credit a lot in the short period of time, so as everything kind of comes around but I am really learning these strategies that is very cool.

Tony: Can I ask how many deals you have done so far? Dawn: Nine. Tony: Nine that is awesome, and out of those which one is your favorite? Was it the one that

you made the most money on, was it the one you did the quickest? Tell me about favorite deal so far.

Dawn: My favorite deal, I like them all just because I learn a lot. I mean—sometimes I do

things so I can learn. But it does not cost me, like this contract I am working and finishing up on. I did not know how to do it. So a lot of them are like well that will be good. That will be good that I feel I understand it for later purposes so sometimes I like my best deal, my best deal is the best one that I am working on right now. The focusing on what is happening now.

But I think I still like the one that I took a picture of that send it in to Megan. And that

is probably the best one. Even though it was my first deal, the duplex because it got my feet wet and it created that action.

Tony: Okay, can you walk me through that deal from start to finish? Dawn: Certainly. I found it with the other investor I told you about. He was already involved

in a few deals and he told me about it. The owner purchased it with her. He ended up going through a bankruptcy and she had no idea it was happening until she was right smack in the middle of it.

She did not want to be a landlord and totally wanted to get rid of it. It was tax assessed at $140,000.00—well I first offered $65,000.00. She said she needed to have $75,000.00 in order to cover expenses she already had, so I thought that is okay, I will go with $75,000.00 and I already added at that time it was already inspected by the other investor.

I did hire a lawyer to help me with the purchase agreement because I was not confident

of writing it up quite correctly my first time. So I had a lawyer to help me and got that done. It went pretty smoothly. Now she had previously listed the property with a realtor and by the time I heard about it, her contract with the realtor was about to expire. That is when I made the offer.

Tony: After the contract expired with the agent? Dawn: Right, which was about a week later. But there was still a sign or something that listed

the property up for sale. I do not know, where but two people called the for-sale ads and wanted to rent the house. So, they were calling during the time I was making the deal and their credit was fine so I had the renters right away. So right at the closing time that is when I was able to get all of the rent. They moved in and that worked out. The new tenant even agreed to do some of the minor fix ups so we worked out a deal on that.

My exit strategy with this property is when the economy changes, I will sell it. I got it

at $77,250.00 I definitely got the best deal and I did not do any work. I did not have to really do a lot of work to it. It all just kind of happened.

Tony: You know what I find amazing is so many of Dean’s students I talk with all have had

what some might call “lucky breaks” but that luck only happened because they had taken some action!

Dawn: Yeah, it was really cool! The tax assessed value is about $140K, but in a few years

when the economy changes I can easily make at least $200,000.00 minimum on the house.

Tony: Wow! Dawn: Yes. Tony: How exciting is that! I think the awesome thing I am getting from your story is that

even though you are not 100% sure of what you are doing, you still move forward and with a little bit of action and a little bit of luck, you made something happen. Often times so many of us are afraid to take any action because we think we need to understand and—

Dawn: Or process right. Tony: Yes. And understanding does not always come from learning; it comes from doing like

you said earlier. Dawn: After I did these transactions I understand that there is a whole lot more that I did not

even realize. Like my sister with this no money down house and the government housing programs. How would anyone just know about this? They wouldn’t. It was only because of my research, and when you put things out there, things come back. I have to say this too, as with anything that you are sure is a great deal, like Dean’s program is a, great deal and you are like yes, yes, I need to get this going, but then you say “I am going to wait till this happens, or that happens, and then when this happens, and this happens THEN I will get the program and then I am going to do it.”

Do you know what? If you keep waiting for the perfect moment, it is never going to come, you have to create your own opportunities and things never feel right 85% of time. I had no idea how I was going to create all of this stuff and sometimes I was really sweating.

Tony: Yes, sure. Dawn: But I am able to learn that successful people do not have to worry about how things are

going to happen. It is just more like you do the action steps, you make a decision fast, but you change your decision very, very slowly, you do not keep switching your mind on things. You make your decision and then just go with it and if it is not quite exactly all the steps. So you did not quite do it. It may cost you some money, at least you learn from it and hopefully you do not do the same thing that might cost you more money next time.

Dawn: I would have to say every single day I have an obstacle, everyday, but I do not

necessarily view it as an obstacle anymore. It is more like okay that is just another thing that I figure out how to do it.

Tony: Right. Dawn: You know how to make things work. This being an example, I never said this to PMI

or anything like that, but my mom, the day that we flew out to go to speak at the coaching students Christmas party, my mom was still in the hospital. I had been working on my speech for months, and I was then kind of freaking out and I am like “golly, this is not working. But I keep telling myself “she going to be there, it is going to be fine.” So she takes a stress test at seven in the morning and our flight is at 12:30. Well she made it on the plane; she even had time to get a Swedish massage! Not only did it all work out, but she felt fantastic. Sometimes if you focus on all the details that are right, you are not stressing and your mind will work properly.

Tony: Right. That is so cool. What a great story. Dawn: Thank you. You guys are awesome for sure. Tony: Thanks. I have already told you I just love working with Dean and I just love

everything that we are doing with the whole organization. It is great to be a part of it. So let me see if I can summarize what we have talked about so far, Dawn. The first deal you found was a result of building relationship with this other investor did I get that right?

Dawn: Correct. Tony: Okay, so you found this guy and basically said “Hey, I want to get into investing and I

am looking for somebody to kind of hold my hand and give me a little guidance” is that it?

Dawn: Well what I did is… I kind of––because I was reading Deans book—I tried to act like I knew what I was doing.

Tony: Okay. (laughs) Dawn: But then I learned, do not even try to act like you know exactly what you are doing. As

I had lunch with them and then we went to start looking at homes and––yes, basically he was going to hold my hand, just kind of help me while I was getting the feel of that area, but I tried to act like I knew what I was doing.

Tony: Okay. Dawn: But he knew that I totally did not know what I was doing. Tony: So he saw right through it? Dawn: I think so. Tony: Okay. So what is your strategy now for finding deals? How have things changed? Dawn: I still had new networking friends that know of different properties all throughout the

United States, just a few of them. Now if I go to San Francisco, I would probably contact them and say I want to be looking at properties there. And that is my strategy and a lot of them seem to be really great buys for REO’s.

Tony: Okay. Have you joined any like local real estate investment groups or any of that kind

of stuff? Dawn: Well, I am in South Dakota and there is none. Tony: What are some of the other ways that you have done in your investments, is it all been

seller financing? Dawn: No. What I found out was a self directed IRA. I purchased the self directed—I had my

money––I guess this is another, almost like a miracle. It is not like I have lot in the IRA at all.

Tony: Right. Dawn: But I had like $23,000.00 that is all. However, I switched back into a self directed IRA

and then I found a foreclosure, I could purchase, so I bought this foreclosure at $18,500.00 .

Tony: And you are holding that one or did you flip it.

Dawn: No, I am holding it, it’s worth $53,000.00. I have the property managers that are helping people who were foreclosed on reestablish the credit and stuff like. They are getting back into the home and a property management company is handling it all and I just cash flow it, I get 300 a month.

Tony: Nice. On something you said earlier that I forgot to ask you, but you mentioned on this

duplex deal that the agent sign, was still in the yard? Dawn: Yes. Tony: Okay. So the people called the agent and to rent the house and then what did the agent

do, call the owner? Dawn: Yes and she emailed me. Tony: That is beautiful. Dawn: A few times. Tony: Wow! Dawn: I know. She goes—it must not happen to that also because she emailed me, she goes

“this is amazing, somebody else just called.” It was actually three people who did that, three people, but only two and they kind of worked out, so yes. But that was kind of funny.

Tony: Now based on that experience, here is an idea out for you. When you are working on a

deal, stick a sign in the yard stating the property is available immediately for rent. It will depend on what local legalities are with that, but it sure seemed to work great for you in your case. There was a sign there, the agent no longer was on contract.

Dawn: Right and it did not even say for rent, it said for sale. Tony: Yes. It is amazing. Dawn: But that is true completely and the owner contacted me, emailed me about it that gives

me information. Tony: Beautiful. You said that one of the things you are focusing on now is apartments. Dawn: Right. Tony: And now, do you mean the entire building or you are focusing on single apartments or

condos or things like that, that cash flow?

Dawn: Cash flowing more on commercial because––the commercial end, something like that like a four-plex or five-plex, but to think a lot bigger. Passive income is my goal and later on of course I plan on buying and selling, but passive income is my goal so I can really make a difference.

I am still learning much though and getting an education on making sure I think things

through completely especially if I am going to do it with no money down and stuff like that, to think of all processes through. So I was thinking more of apartments in more emerging areas, because again I am not really settled down and so I am not really exclusively focused on one area, there is always areas that you could go to.

Tony: Right. You found traveling––I know you have already said California, do you have

your sights on any other places to explore? Dawn: For a living, is that it? Tony: Yes. Dawn: Yes, right now there are different things in California that I wanted to go to. And so

that is where I want to go now. I am kind of like open, very open. Because I did not expect my life to be like this at all, so going with the flow and just not worrying about what is going to happen tomorrow. It is okay. Just like I said, people die and you do not know what is going to happen tomorrow, but we do know we have today.

Tony: Right. If you were to summarize your investing strategy in a couple of sentences, and

take your time to think about this before you answer. How would you do that? Dawn: My investing strategy. Tony: Yes. Dawn: I believe my investing strategy is to educate myself, the Dean’s Academy and mentors,

and also to educate mhyself while going out there and doing things. My investing strategy is really networking and getting connections in all aspects, the joint ventures or partnership. I am still working on the real estate clubs, but it just seems like those two areas are key for me. Like Dean said, going out there and taking action, that was my way just going out there. And I want to be more or less hands off on properties I am not carpenter. I am not an electrician or plumber or anything like that.

Tony: Right. Dawn: And that is a beginning to––it is like well, I do not like to do any of that stuff at all but

you know it is more in that ranking and find people that because you do not want to get, I do not want to get bogged down with that stuff anyway.

Tony: Right.

Dawn: So more of creating a team or that helps me. That is the biggest thing I think.

Especially when you are not knowledgeable in this certain area and people isn’t that right?

Tony: Right. Tony: So the networking allows you not only to gain exposure to different opportunities, but it

allows you to leverage your time and energy? Dawn: Exactly, the time and energy and aside from my family, time is my most valuable

resources. Tony: I couldn’t agree with you more. Dawn: We can all have our goals and visions that if you want them to go to the exponential

level, you kind of have to leverage your time, leverage your knowledge, and take action.

Tony: That is fantastic. I have no more questions to ask you. I am so grateful that you took

the time to call me today and I just wish you more tremendous success and thank you for sharing what you have shared with us. I look forward to hearing more about your success stories. Is there anything else that you want to add, for the benefit of people that will ultimately read some of what we talked about today?

Dawn: I believe something that for me is very important. I have big goals on training and

reaching others and then making a huge impact. Tony: Yes. Dawn: With real estate or whatever I do, if I ever start to think it is more about me, than

serving other people and helping contribute on this earth, then I have lost. If I am working on helping others become better and reaching their goals, reaching out and helping serve others, then I have done well.

So for anyone listening, if they think more like; “okay, I just want to make a million dollars just for me” I think you will go further, a lot further if your goal is to serve others.

Tony: Profound. I love it. We are done, thank you so much. - End of interview Dawn also took advantage of the top notch guidance and coaching available from the pros at Dean’s Real Estate Success Academy. Find out if you qualify for the same kind of one- on-one guidance by calling 800-315-7782 Ext. 235

Interview With Anita Wilson: DG Superstar Inner Circle Member

NOTE: The full interview with Anita was lost due to technical difficulties, so the format below is written by Anita herself. Her story is incredibly inspiring because she was completely cash­poor when she secured an amazing deal that gave her an instant cash flow! 

I have been self employed my entire life. If there is one thing that I know it is business.

I have owned and successfully operated a number of businesses, which included a legal document service, clothing stores, Private investigation firm, notary public, Cellular Phone Stores and a computer consulting agency over 12 years.

I know business and now I am taking my thorough knowledge of business into the investment realm and again - I will succeed again. If I don't I will just revamp and start again. It never pays until you get it right.

I found a house that was FSBO. He originally wanted to do only conventional financial but I came correct. I outright told him that I had no money but I really wanted his property.

You see prior to me telling him that I called about the property and after a little small talk I found out that he was a retired school principal and he and his wife started investing in 1973 so they could retire early. Now he had no kids at home they all live down south out Florida way. He really wanted to get close to them but felt locked down to California because of all the property he owned. He was pretty set with money and selling the home way under value just to get rid of them.

So now I knew what his buttons were. He just wanted to go. So I found out how many properties he had here and asked how much for each. All of the properties were paid for 100%. This is what he told me.

$229K for 4/2 1574 VACANT (appraised 4/2/08 295K $290K for 4/2 2204 OCCUPIED (rent 1800 appraised 355K) $310K for 4/3 2303 OCCUPIED rent 1950 appr. $386K)

I knew there was no way I could get any sort of financing at all let alone on three houses, so I THOUGHT A LITTLE DIFFERENT. I made him this offer.

202K for the $229 house with 5000K down - 1300 month with 500.00 going toward down payment monthly (can rent for 1600-1800) and complete owner carry at end of one year for 191K (included him paying escrow fees of 2K for me upfront and including them back purchase price). This would give him 11K as down payment total

after one year or approx. 5%. After that 100% of payment toward purchase price and OWNER FINANCE!

225K for the $290K house with 5K down - tenant already in home on 2 yr lease paying 1800 monthly. 1200 of that going toward monthly payment and 600.00 month CASH FLOW for ME! Price includes escrow fees. OWNER FINANCE!

265K for the 310K house with nothing down. 1000K of monthly rent going toward purchase price and 950.00 CASH FLOW for me. Price included escrow, OWNER FINANCE!

Now you may be wondering how I did that AND got him to finance and everything else. Here is the story. Since I knew all properties were owned free and clear and he was set with money and just want to get rid of them and leave I made this offer. Owner finance all of the properties for me and I will make monthly payments to him in a nice amount for each. He no longer had to worry about managing them or the responsibility. He signs them over to me and I in turn give a promissory note with the term. He did not want to deal with any realtor's so this went old school. Where you word is bond.

Now he has a monthly check coming to him and his wife (they are in their 70's) for 2800.00 every month for the next 30 years and they don’t even have to work for it. Yes, there were getting more but this owner told me this. He had to start somewhere when he started and so do I. This gentleman gave him a chance and let him buy his first house in 1963 owner finance. He called me after midnight last night and asked me if I really wanted then all, I said yes he said meet him at the escrow office at 11am today. He and his wife are now planning on moving in 2 weeks! He told me he was giving me MY chance, just don’t mess it up.

GOD IS GOOD and so is DEAN! Thank you Dean for giving me the courage to step up, find the buttons that make people work. I now own 3 beautiful houses and have made a really good friend (the owner) in the process.

P.S. Did I mention he would take no interest on the financing? The 10K I am using to put down came from the line of credit I still had open with bank from my business.

- End of interview Write any thoughts or notes you may have about what you learned from this interview here:

Build Wealth and Decrease Debt Here is some fascinating information I recently learned from David Bach. You’ve probably heard so-called experts say that if you owe credit card debt, paying it off should be your top priority. Then once you’re done with that, you can start saving. While that advice may sound practical and the intentions behind it are good, it represents the single biggest mistake people make when it comes to dealing with debt and credit cards. That is, devoting all your resources to paying off your credit card and not having anything left over to pay yourself or to start saving. Here's why. If it takes the average person roughly 10 years to pay off credit card debt, you may focus all your energy on that debt and not save a penny. Then before you know it, another decade has gone by and you haven't made any progress towards financial freedom. When people have been surveyed about why they put off saving for the future, their need to pay off debt is always a top factor given. For example; take Karen and Victor, a couple who has $25,000 in credit card debt. They saw a TV show where one expert said “you must pay down your debt before you do anything else with your money. If you don't, you'll never be responsible, and if you're not responsible with your debt, money will be repelled from you.” Well this sounded like some kind of a curse, it shook Karen and Victor up, and so they did what they thought they should do. They kept paying down their debt and putting off saving anything. Unfortunately they were paying only a little more than the minimum. Specifically they were $25,000 in credit card debt and they were barely paying $500 a month. At this rate it would take more than 35 years to pay off the credit card debt. But, if they increased their debt payment by just $10 a day, and at the same time started adding $10 a day to their savings they would get out of debt in less than three years. More importantly though, a $10 a day extra contribution to their savings would yield them nearly $700,000 at retirement, because they were both in their early 30s. Together Karen and Victor were earning about $75,000 a year, so coming up with an extra $20 a day or $600 month was NOT easy. They had to go through all their expenses and figure out what they could cut. Hey, David never said this would be easy, all he said was that it was possible - and if you really want to get out of the mess you are in, here is how to do it. The Magic Formula for Paying Off Credit Card Debt Say for example you have $10,000 on your credit card, with an average interest rate of 20%. The minimum payment for a $10,000 balance is $250. If the minimum is all you pay each month, it will take 37 years and you will pay more than $19,000 in interest charges before your balance is paid off. It should come as no shock to hear that the key to getting out of credit card debt is to pay more than the minimum due each month. But how do you budget for, and figure out, exactly “how much” more to pay? The formula for figuring it out is really quite easy. Aim to pay at least $10 a day more than the minimum payment. Using the formula with the same $10,000 balance above, let’s see what happens. If you increase that monthly payment by $10 a day or $300 a month you be out of debt in just 22 months - less than two years and you only have paid about $2000 in interest. Where can you find 10 extra dollars a day? Look closely at what you spend your money on. If you buy a Mocha Cappuccino every morning on your way to work,

that’s an average of $4.50 before you even start your workday. That adds up. Go to www.finishRich.com and use David’s Latte Factor ® calculator to find out, it's easier than you might imagine. Let’s Do A Quick Review of the Key Points Regarding Credit Card Debt and Wealth Building

Dealing with your debt doesn't mean putting the rest of your life on hold. Your real enemy isn't the debt, it is the interest. Your first line of attack it to get it lowered. You can't get rich if you constantly carry credit card debt. Decide to stop using credit cards to buy things you can’t afford and pay cash for the things

you can afford. Commit to making more than the minimum payment due, even if the $10 per day formula is

not within your reach to begin with. Commit to always pay your credit card bill on time. Set up automatic payments online if

need be, but don’t be late.

Before I end this section I want to share another true story of a family who followed the advice of David Bach, so you can see the amazing impact of using these simple, effective techniques. Dear David, I happened to pick up The Automatic Millionaire at the bookstore and spent the next 2 hours reading it in their chair. I finished it and then bought it and brought it home. The next day I went out and bought all the rest of your books and spent the last 2 months reading them. I was profoundly affected. I, a coffee drinker my whole life and that would be a 3 Starbucks a day person, completely gave up coffee. My family was in shock but that's where I began. We are in a weird situation; I came to find out by reading your book. We had plenty of money for retirement we just had no concept of what we did with our money. First I began to read statements and know where we stood. I realized we were saving so much, 20% for retirement, and were always broke and near the point where we would almost have to sell our home. The 20% is not negotiable as my husband is a government employee and has that taken out whether he likes it or not. But we are always cash broke. When we retire we will be doing excellent, so your book affected the "now" how we are responsible with all the little Latte factors that were so out of control. In the last 2 months I have put my family on a budget, in 20 years we have never been on a budget or known what we spend. I know all our assets, accounts, interest rates. Just another example we had $50k in a noninterest earning account for 20 years. I moved it to a money market. I shaved off $1000 dollars a month in wasteful spending and we are going to be able to keep our home. We make well over $200k a year, but were going negative $1000 dollars a month. Just this last week, I got to put 600.00 dollars into our savings account. My husband was shocked. Your book has changed my life. This year my income has been about 1/3 of its usual. I have my own Real Estate

business. I am so grateful for your frankness and simplicity. I am certain that if my income had been much higher like previous years I would have squandered it and felt broke and had NO idea where our money was or what it was doing. Now that you have given me the tools I am confident that when the good times are back I will be prudent and live well below my means. Every single day each member of my family has to write in the log what they spent for the day. That has transformed our spending. I am committed to doing that for the rest of my life. I think you are such a blessing because you encourage and give step by step ways to manage your life. Just today I called to see if we had the best rate on our term life insurance. I used the chapter from smart couples finish rich and called one of the numbers you recommended. It was awesome, easy. I am not exaggerating when I say my husband and I had NO IDEA where our money was just two short months ago. One more example: I reviewed our checking account statement for the first time in 20 years and realized we had 200 dollars of overdraft charges on there. We had the money in savings to transfer to our checking but we never thought about it because we knew we had overdraft so we didn't worry about it. Imagine, one year of 200 dollars per month. I wonder how many thousands of dollars we spent on that without realizing. You can be certain there will be no more charges like that. You have saved my family thousands and thousands of dollars in the future. You have made me realize that God calls us to be good stewards of what he gives us. I was being so lazy and irresponsible. I hated accounting and math. I now know it doesn’t matter if you like it, it must be done. I can never thank you enough. I hope God continues to rain down blessing upon you. - Kimberly Newton

Finish Rich Even if You Started Broke In David’s books you discover that in addition to paying down and ultimately ending your high interest debt, you will also want to develop a few habits that may be new for you. The first one is to pay yourself first. To do this, you have to make it automatic, and you have to do it with pre-tax dollars using some tax free vehicle like a 401K or a Roth IRA. The second habit is to make more money so you can save and invest more. You can do just that with the information in my book and the awesome real estate investing strategies I teach you. The third is to give more away. Making the principle of tithing a normal part of how money flows in and out of your hands. Tithing means to give back, or give away one tenth of what you bring in. This is a universal principle. The more you give, the more you will receive. Think of this not only in terms of financial gain, because what you get back may come in even more valuable forms than currency. Our fellow man, indeed our world, needs the help of generous prosperous people. If your strategy for building wealth is without a provision for giving, it is incomplete. Now, let’s get to our seventh and final student story of success.

Andrea & Chip Weules Interview

Tony: Hey, Andrea and Chip. This is Tony Policci.

Andrea: Hello.

Tony: Dean just finished his new book, which will hopefully be ready by the beginning of the year. He wanted to include in it some bonuses - actual students walking people through a deal that they did.

So, that’s what I’m going to be asking you guys about today. So, share what you’re comfortable with, don’t share what you’re not comfortable with. No detail is insignificant.

Tony: I just saw your video today. That’s fantastic, you guys. What an exciting story! I was cracking up.

Chip, I love what you said; “We watched the video and it just got us up off our butts to go do something.” Man, not only did you do something, but you slammed out 4 deals pretty quick!

Andrea: The deal that we’re probably going to talk about today was our Elk River video, and our deal there was, between those 2 properties that we did, it was kind of the questionable point where we either don’t do it and just keep talking about how we’re going to invest in real estate, or we find a way to actually make this happen and do it.

Since then, we’ve definitely been rolling.

Tony: You guys are in Minnesota, right?

Andrea: We’re actually in Colorado, but 4 of the deals that we’ve done were in Minnesota.

Tony: You were in Colorado, but you did the investing in Minnesota?

Andrea: Correct. We’ve actually never even seen them.

Chip: We live in Colorado.

Tony: How cool is that! How is it that you wound up doing the investing in Minnesota, from Colorado?

Chip: The way we found these deals in Minnesota, we started telling everybody we made the decision that we wanted to be real estate investors. Rather than saying it, let’s get out there and do it. So, we started telling everybody, our friends and family and any connections that we had – remotely anywhere near real estate – that we were going to be successful real estate investors, that we wanted to start reinvesting in real estate.

So, we just started telling everybody. I can’t stress how huge that is, the networking, and just letting everybody know what you’re going to do, just because you never know where that first deal or the next deal is going to come from. Somebody could know somebody or somebody might even have one for you.

So, we were just talking to a friend of ours, who I’d known from high school, and said that we were going to start investing in real estate and that if he knew of anything, if we could close on it, we’d pay a referral fee. That’s what you say you’re supposed to do, right?

So, we started doing that, and he actually talked to a friend of his who works for a bank. They had some properties that they were looking to sell. They were a motivated seller. They wanted to clear them off of their books, in Minnesota.

We live in Colorado and the properties are in Minnesota, but we were like, “What the heck! Let’s at least do some research. This is the first real deal that’s come our way, so let’s at least look into it and see what we can find out about it, and see if it’s the right deal for us.”

I talked to my friend and he set everything up. He contacted the bank and found out some more information on the properties in Minnesota. And after doing some research on them and looking at them, we decided this was a perfect opportunity for our first 2 deals. There were actually 2 properties, so we decided to try and take both of them on at the same time.

Tony: Okay, I’m with you.

Andrea: In addition to just looking at the properties through the bank, we then took the next step, to do some research on the community, which the community’s called Elk River. It’s a town, and it’s northwest of the Twin Cities.

So, we made some contacts there just by playing around, number one, on Craig’s List and different other free sites there, visiting the town’s web page, and searching for property managers. That was one route that we had learned about, was buy and hold.

So, we got a hold of a great property manager that we’ve been really happy with. He’s almost more of a handyman than a property manager, but also a very good property manager.

He went in, actually, pretty much, as our home inspector, to go out and check out the property, so that we had a true idea of what repairs and what work would have to be done to get them so that they were rent-ready. And then, also a good grasp on what we could rent them for in that town, how to get them rented quickly.

That was very helpful, so that we knew what kind of income we could get off of the properties, and also what work needed to be done beforehand, to get the properties up and running.

Tony: This was a friend of somebody there?

Andrea: No, this was somebody that we found online. We called and interviewed several, based on what we’d learned through Dean and his group was to make as many contacts as you can and interview people.

He just ended up being the person who had the personality and the experience that matched our personality types and our needs for this.

We actually have never met him in person ourselves, either. But just from several long phone conversations, exchanged emails, and pictures and things like that on the property, he had forms and contacts that we could use for the rental, for the property management agreement, and kind of went from there.

It’s somebody that we just found from doing our own research and following the interview step processes that you recommended.

Tony: Great.

Chip: It was really nice finding him and talking with him, because this is what he does for a living, so he had lots of contacts in the area, for repairing construction, repairing the properties, or for renting the properties, or for other people in the area that know about the community itself.

So, he was able to supply us with a few names and numbers, so we could actually find out more about Elk River itself, and to see if that was the community that we wanted to be in. And we found out lots of interesting information on that, that they just put in a Home Depot, just put in a Wal-Mart, they have a light rail or public train transportation system that runs within a mile of our 2 properties.

We found out that this is a nice, developing little town, just by giving him a call. And him knowing the area very well, he was able to give us more information, further cementing this was a great deal for us to get into.

Tony: Super! So, what did you guys do next, after you got confirmation that these houses checked out? How did you work your numbers and do all that?

Andrea: The next step was pretty much, after we gathered how much we could get in rent for the units, which we found out was anywhere between $1,000 and $1,200 a month per unit, we figured out the BPO, because the bank had already had a BPO of the area but the market was also declining and the bank was off the scene here. So they were in a similar situation where they just kind of wanted to make it go away also.

So we calculated, we made an offer at about 50%. We just decided we’ll take half of what the BPO says it’s worth. The BPO said it was worth about $150,000, so we made an offer of $75,000 each.

That was countered back with they said, “We’ll accept $80,000 each.” We said, “Well, how about you cover closing costs?”

They said, “We’ll pay a certain amount of closing costs.” So then, we negotiated so that we could roll the rest of our closing costs to try to keep our down payment lower, or the amount of money that we had to come up with out-of-pocket lower.

So we said, “We’ll actually pay you more, but you pay for all the closing costs.” I think we agreed on $81,600 for each of the units, but they would handle the closings costs, which was a nice thing for us. So, we had to, again, come up with less money out-of-pocket.

At that point in time, we started going through the process of trying to finance the properties. We found, first, a loan package that we thought we could use with only putting 10% down, which was very appealing to us because we could pretty much cover that. Again, we didn’t want to take a lot of money out of our own pocket, but it was something we could cover.

Well, using that program, after we did all the documents, got everything scanned, kind of started going through the approval process, it came out that the HOA for the community was in pretty rough shape with, obviously, our 2 foreclosures hadn’t paid the HOA in a long time, plus there was several other properties that didn’t have the HOA current. So, because of the delinquency of the HOA, we couldn’t qualify for that 10% down only.

So, it wasn’t necessarily us, but it was something we learned that not only did the properties have to be great, but the standing of the community in the HOA has to be in good shape. So, that was a good learning lesson for us.

Chip: The bank was very uncomfortable just with the HOA being the way it was. It was a brand new community and it was trying to get started up. So, a lot of the people that had purchased properties in there were either doing it for investment purposes or had purchased them incorrectly and were going through some form of foreclosure or losing those properties.

So, the HOA was last on their mind as to keep current. So the bank was pretty scared about the fact that the HOA was rather new and not fully funded.

Andrea: Right. Also, this was this spring, when the market was definitely officially taking a downward turn. I think banks were just starting to watch everything more closely.

So, it came out that we wouldn’t be a problem at all to buy the properties as an investor, at 20% down. Well, we didn’t have 20% down, nor did we want to spend that kind of money of our own money.

Tony: So you’re talking about $32,000 down, somewhere in that range, is what they wanted?

Andrea: $32,000.

Chip: Which is nice if you have it.

Tony: Right.

Andrea: Right. So what we did, we called up Dean’s team. We’re like, “You know, we know this is a great deal. There’s no way around it. This is a great deal. But we keep hearing that you can keep doing all these deals out-of-pocket, with no money out-of-pocket. Now how is it that we’re supposed to do that again?”

So they said, “Have you explored private money?” We said, “Well, no. I don’t know who would we go ask.” Then they said, “Start with friends and family.”

So, one night we had a conversation. I said, “I know my dad is frustrated with the stock market right now and has plenty of money invested in it. But maybe if we said that we would give him a guaranteed 20% annual return, I bet you he would give us the money.”

We called up my dad and had the conversation. “Hey, we don’t actually want you to give us money, but we would like you to loan us money. We guarantee if you give it to us for 6 months, that we will give you a 10% return on your money, or 20% annual return,” figuring in 6 months we could refinance the properties and get the money out.

He absolutely agreed and was excited that we were exploring something new in real estate. So then, he gave us the money, which we were able to use for our down payment.

Tony: Okay.

Chip: I was just going to say that’s another really good point. Don’t discount the fact that your friends and family may want to help you. Ours really did and we never would have considered asking. They want to see you succeed. They’re your biggest supporters.

So, if you have something that’s really solid and something that you believe in, they believe in you too. They’ll show you, if they can, or they’ll help you some way. So that was great that Andrea’s dad was able to help us out.

Tony: Yeah, that’s exciting!

Andrea: I think a lot of it was presenting it in a business case. Not that our families wouldn’t loan us money anyway, but just saying, “I want this to be a business deal and I would like you to be a money partner on this.” Presenting the numbers and their return and how we will get their return out of our deal ourselves was definitely very valuable. I think it would work on many people, not just our family.

That was good. Since we could get the private money, that freed up the money that we did have to make all the necessary repairs when we did close on the property. So we did have some from cash then to do that.

So finally, we had this all approved and we’re able to go to closing. We actually, because of the wonderful relationship we’d built with our property manager, we signed

powers of attorney and he was able to close on them. All we did was wire the money in, and he actually showed up and signed on the property for us.

Tony: Nice!

Andrea: We haven’t seen the properties yet, other than lots of pictures exchanged. Because the market had declined a little bit, when we did get the appraisals they only appraised at $145,000. But still, only having a purchase price of $81,600 opposed to the $146,000 value, it was definitely a fabulous deal.

So then, what we did as soon as we closed on the property on Thursday the 29th, we had brand new appliances being installed on Friday the 30th. Within the next week, we had several showings for potential renters, did the final touches on paint and drywall and plumbing. The toilet tank was cracked and some carpet needed to be worked on, and a few repairs like that. But it was all pretty minimal work, and a lot of which our property manager did the actual labor himself, which gave us a much better price on the labor. So, that was great.

Actually, had our very first renter moved in on June 14th. That first renter, because we didn’t necessarily want dogs on the property, but this first renter was ready to move in right away. It was just her and her daughter and a dog.

She paid that first month’s rent, the prorated month’s rent, the next month’s rent, the last month’s rent of her one year lease, and a $3,000 security deposit. So that was very exciting.

I said, “You know what? I think you can definitely have a dog there,” which actually she’s turned out to be the model tenant. The house is cleaner than our property manager said he’s never seen his own house look that good, let alone a rental property.

So that was definitely a good decision to be a little bit more flexible there. If they’re willing to pay the security deposit, chances are they’re pretty confident in their ability to keep the place in great shape.

Tony: Your property manager handled the credit app and everything for this tenant?

Chip: He did all the background checks, the credit checks. He did everything like that. Every time he met with a promising tenant, he would give us a call and kind of give us a rundown or breakdown of who he’d talked to, his thoughts, because he’s the one meeting with them. Definitely his opinion is invaluable in that situation. Just his thoughts and everything.

We told him that we didn’t want a dog, but he just said, “We’re going to have to change our policy for this lady, because she was the model tenant.” He’s been doing this for years. We’re the rookies, so we take his word for it. She’s turned out to be great.

Tony: Awesome!

Andrea: She pays her rent every month at least 5 days early. She’s just that great. So I said, “We’ll never raise her rent if she wants to stay forever.”

Tony: Wow! Now that’s property one. So, that’s been rented out?

Andrea: Correct. Yup, that one was rented out within 2 weeks.

The next one, he had several people showed and we had several possibilities. Finally, we had about 4 different people that were potentials at the time, a lot of with credit problems or just didn’t quite leave our property manager with a comfortable feeling. Then, he did come upon one.

So at this point in time, our first mortgage payment wasn’t due until July. So we’ve already got one for surely paid for.

Then, we could probably try to hurry somebody in there at the beginning of July, but we just didn’t ever have the right fit. Then he came upon a great couple that was exactly who we wanted, but their other rental wasn’t going to be up until the end of July, so they didn’t want to move in until the beginning of August.

But, great credit, great, great financial picture that it was worthwhile for us to make sure that we got the right person in there. So we decided that we could definitely cover that initial month ourselves, to get the right person in there.

Chip: I was just going to say the way we bought the properties and for the great short sale negotiation that we had done and negotiating a great price and the down payment and all that, our monthly mortgage payment wasn’t very much. It was only less than $80,000 with the down payment.

So with the first tenant moving in within 2 weeks and us not having the pay the first month’s rent on the other one, by the time she had paid that, we had the luxury to wait and make sure we found that perfect second tenant, or a really good second tenant because, basically, her rent would cover the mortgage almost on both places.

Tony: Beautiful! You guys are probably at about the $600 range on the mortgages?

Andrea: At that point in time, they were both right around $400 to $500 with the actual mortgage. Plus, we had $100 for each of the units for the HOA, which covered all exterior maintenance and all that that we had to pay. So it averages about $550 each, so around $1,100.

Both the properties are rented out at $1,150, at the higher end of the $1,000 to $1,200 range. So that first, that prorated month’s rent plus the next month’s rent, just that one property paid for both mortgages that were due on July 1st.

Tony: That’s fantastic!

Andrea: We didn’t cash flow that first month, but we were able to cover the fact that we didn’t have a renter in.

Chip: That gave us the luxury to find that great second tenant.

Tony: Chip, what would you guys have done, what was your plan had you– not found renters immediately– and Andrea, I’ll come back to you too? Had you anticipated that scenario?

Chip: We did. We did anticipate that. Throughout the whole process, a couple months here, we were making sure everything was lined up and doing it right. We did anticipate that. We found out what our mortgage payment was going to be and we started to save up a little money in case that did happen.

We did have a little bit of time to play with, because at that first mortgage payment’s not due when you first finance. They finance the first month’s payment into your mortgage. So we had them do that.

So, we had a little bit of cushion and a little bit of time there, from our research on these properties.

You definitely have to plan and we definitely have to make sure that they’re ready to go and that we’re making the right decisions, we’re buying the right properties and doing the right strategies. But from everything we had found out and everything we’d researched, we felt pretty confident that these things were going to rent.

But had they not, had we had to wait another month or so, you see how we bought them so well that the mortgage payment was pretty low, we could’ve dropped the rent a little bit. We could’ve dropped our asking price for rent. We would’ve been open for some negotiations or for some questions on that. Could have been a little flexible.

But we also saved up a little bit, just in case. We kind of planned for it. But fingers crossed and knocking on wood and all the lucky things you’re supposed to do, it worked out like it’s supposed to.

Tony: So Andrea, tell me what kind of apprehensions or anything you guys had about this? Was this your first deal or was this your second?

Andrea: It was our first real, I guess I can’t say first real deal. It was actually our third and fourth deal. We had done a bird dog deal, but that was pretty much no money out-of-pocket, and that was more of a learning experience than anything.

Andrea: Yeah. We had friends that were going to foreclose. They’d accepted they were just going to walk away. We just couldn’t be okay with that.

We’d seen the videos, we’d seen how to do lease options, and we’d seen how to do short sales. We were just so uncertain on how to do it.

We’d learned a lot through watching that. I think it kind of built our confidence to an extent. But I guess we had several different concerns about this one.

One, it was in a different state. We’d never actually saw it. We still haven’t seen the properties, other than pictures ourselves. So that was one big reservation is just we could’ve spent days and days, and we actually did spend days and days and days researching the numbers and the community and the information.

But just to be able to say, “You know what? If we’re going to do this, we need to make this happen. This is the best set of deals that have come across our computer. So we need to do this.”

That was part of it, just not being able to be there and touch it and experience it all first-hand. Secondly was just the money concern. One, when we realized we had to put 20% down, we didn’t have it.

So having Dean’s team help us think a little different, to help us break out of, “Okay, we know how to conventionally do this. How can we be more creative and truly make this happen?”

Then last, we just, “Okay, so now we’re not only using our money, but we’re using family’s money. Is this really what we want to do? Yes it looks good on paper, but will it actually happen?”

Truly, if we may not have done this deal, we might not have kept going with real estate. It’s kind of our push us over the edge where, “You know what? We can do this. We can make this happen. We can be creative. If we truly want this to happen, we can go for it.”

I would say definitely just the not being there, having to rely on others, which is important. We’ve come to realize, actually, in real estate investing, people do want to help each other.

It’s not just Dean’s team, but going out and meeting other people that are in the business, they are usually arms wide open to people and willing to work together. So, that was great.

Tony: That’s pretty awesome! Chip, what about you? Did you have any different experiences personally than the ones that Andrea just told me about?

Chip: It was the concern of, “Are we going to do this or are we going to keep talking about we want to do this? So, let’s do it.”

Then it was just that nervous, I don’t know how to explain it, it was just that nervous first step. “We’re going to own investment properties and we’re going to figure out how to do this. So let’s do it.”

“Is it really that easy? Is it really?”

It is a lot of work, but it’s fun and you’re taking control of your financial picture and your future. It’s something that Andrea and I can work on together and we’ve loved doing every since.

No regrets. I’m super happy we did it. We’re going to keep going forward. We’re going to keep doing deals.

But just that initial first step. Many, many nights we agonized over, “Should we do it? Should we not do it? Should we do it? Should we not do it?”

At the end of the day, I’m super happy we both said yes and we went for it.

Tony: You guys look pretty young in the video. How old are you, if you don’t mind?

Andrea: No. I’m 28.

Chip: And I’m 30.

Tony: Okay. You both looked really happy. Chip, especially you. You just were laughing your behind off.

Chip: It’s been a blast. I don’t know, just to know that Andrea and I are in charge of our financial picture,. The stock market’s up, the stock market’s down, you have a job, you don’t have a job.

You can take hold of your future and know your financial picture. You actually have some say in what’s going to happen.

It’s great. Andrea will probably tell you why we’re really super excited on the second part of this Elk River deal here. The check we got at the end was quite nice. I think anybody who gets that would be really excited.

Andrea: It’s just funny. I have to add to that a little bit, Chip’s excitement. Chip is kind of a quiet, reserved kind of guy. He’s comfortable with his little group of friends.

Since he’s taken on the real estate investing, we can be at a family get-together or a work event, he’ll come to maybe my current job. He’s not thrilled to be there, but he gets one person that is actually ready and willing to talk about real estate and real estate investing with him.

I’m telling you, his eyes light up, his whole attitude, demeanor, everything is just on fire. Honestly, he is ready to live and breathe and do everything with real estate.

Yeah, he’s a whole new person when it comes to real estate investing. So it’s definitely been an exciting addition to our lives.

Tony: That’s terrific! Tell me about the second part of the deal, this big check.

Andrea: What happened is come July, mid-July, beginning of July, we found those renters that were going to move in on August 1st. So we had less concerns about covering the next month’s mortgage and all that. We pretty much had that worked out.

Our next step was we wanted to cash out refinance. Because we’d gotten such a great deal, we could get some of the money out – especially the private money that we had borrowed – out of the deal and still cash flow on the properties.

So, right now, we were currently cash flowing between $400 and $500. After property manager’s fees, the HOA, and the mortgage, we were making about $400 or $500 on each property. So, right around $900 total.

So then we started redoing all the paperwork and talking to different financing companies as to how we could refinance these 2 houses. That, of course, was a little difficult too, because, again, credit restrictions were coming down on us.

So we found a couple mortgage private investors and mortgage companies that would do a cash-out refinance in less than 6 months, which was huge, especially because, number one, we had improved the properties. We’d done the repairs, put brand new appliances on them, all that, and we also had renters with guaranteed income. We had leases on the property, so that helped us with the refinance.

So when we refinanced the properties, we finally refinanced on August 13th. Our new mortgage loans, we took out 70% of each of the properties. So now we had loans of just over $100,000 on both of them. We got a check that day for $60,000.

Tony: Yahoo!

Andrea: Granted, a handful of that, we paid back the private money. But still, just to have, all of a sudden $60,000 show up in your bank account’s amazing! You’re like, “Man, I think maybe one of us might make that in a year with bonuses, maybe.” Just to have it show up in one day was such an amazing feeling.

So then, in less than 6 months we were able to pay back our private money and still have cash in our pockets to go out and start researching and figure out the next deal. So, money in our pockets to do more marketing and advertising because, as we mentioned, just letting people know that that’s what we do or that this is what we want to do is half the battle, finding out where the deals are and letting other people bring deals to you. So that was an absolutely amazing experience.

Tony: Yes it is amazing! I know what it’s like to get a big check like that and it’s awesome!

Chip: It is awesome! How great does it feel to not only do a deal, but to have a nice, big, fat check, and you have money and know that you’ve done it right.

Tony: I think this is the first time you guys had done anything like this. You had so much concern and trepidation going through it. Then, on the other side of all that, seeing this big check, what a tremendous payoff both emotionally and financially!

I get it. Yeah, it’s cool. It’s way cool!

Chip: The cool thing is the properties still cash flow. We still get positive rent every month out of these properties.

Tony: How long did you lease them for?

Andrea: We did one-year leases. Then 30 days prior to the expiration of their lease, they can either renew their lease or could, I guess, move on.

Tony: Did you have to use any kind of real estate attorneys or anything on these deals?

Andrea: No, it worked out because Minnesota’s also a title company state. So, everything was just done through the title company and using the Minnesota contracts and leases that the state provides.

Tony: So, very simple stuff. You didn’t have to modify anything or write anything. Just your agent handled it all.

Andrea: We actually didn’t even use an agent. Most everything I got myself off of the approved Minnesota web page.

Tony: Wow!

Andrea: Another thing that Dean’s group taught was utilize all the documents that are already out there. I knew that the Colorado ones wouldn’t necessarily work. There’s specific things to Colorado; I assumed there would be specific things to Minnesota, also. I don’t think they were drastically different, but it was still good to check it out.

Tony: So what did you go? Did you go to Minnesota’s board of real estate?

Andrea: Yeah. I actually did the Secretary of State for business, and it sent you to all the different real estate ones that were available, too.

Tony: You told me about the research that you did. The Internet’s a wonderful thing. Tell me about your process for researching this neighborhood, these homes, and everything from 1,500 miles away or further. I don’t know how far Minnesota is from Colorado, but it’s a good jump.

Andrea: Yes. About 1,000 miles away.

Chip: It’s not next door! I’ll let Andrea talk to the Internet part, because that’s where she’s a master at that. I can’t find anything on the Internet.

For research, talking with our property manager and his contacts, he has names and numbers. So just picking up the phone and calling somebody or even calling the local title company or calling the city.

I talked to the city administrator for a couple other deals we’ve done and got to be good friends with them. Just finding out more about their plans going out and just talking to them over the phone, letting them know what’s going on, confirming that with everybody else, talking to other investors or talking to realtors in the area who really know what’s going on in the area, who knows what the town’s currently like and what the plan is for development, all that stuff. They’re just a wealth of information.

So, just talking to these people. By the time you start talking to 2 or 3 people, you start getting same positive, and negative feedback as well, on the town or the properties or the market, anything going on there. But once you start talking to multiple people, you start getting a very solid picture, a very clear picture so you can understand doing that way.

There you go to networking again. You never know where your next deal’s going to come from. Now they know you’re an investor; they might have a great deal for you. I

enjoy talking to everybody, but Andrea is much better doing the Internet part, so I’ll let her talk on that.

Andrea: For the most part, I just used a lot of the recommended from different calls, different web pages that people recommended, then just used standard search engines to say, “Okay, here’s what we need. We’re looking for a property manager in Elk River, Minnesota.”

So you go to Google and type in “Property manager for Elk River” and you get a whole bunch of things that maybe aren’t accurate, but you just slowly work through it and talk to the people who will talk to you. Chances are they’ll give you another number. So I can’t say that I’ve done anything overly creative, but just working through it.

Tony: Speaking of working, I’m assuming that one or both of you probably had jobs or something, as well, that you had to contend with.

Andrea: We both work full-time jobs and we also have a 5-year-old little boy.

Tony: Okay. So you’re busy.

Tony: How did you fit all of this stuff in?

Chip: Don’t watch 20 hours of TV a night.

Andrea: Yeah.

Chip: To be honest with you, we don’t miss the TV all that much. We still watch a few TV shows here, a couple ones that we don’t like to miss and that we’ve watched forever. Come home and relax but don’t get into the vegetable stage, where you come home and relax until its bedtime and then go to bed. You end up watching TV all night long.

Spend your breaks at work wisely. You can become very creative.

We both have planners that we work with and we plan our day out. You can become very creative and very efficient, if you know what you want to do and that you want to get that done. You’ll make time for it.

Andrea: Oh, go ahead.

Tony: You said something interesting there about using your time wisely at work. What could you do at work on, say, a break or a lunch hour? What were some of the things that you did that helped you move forward toward your goals?

Chip: Sure. Doing research. Andrea and I, we work a lot, so we don’t have really structured lunch breaks where we can get an hour off. It’s come in and you do your work and you work 10 hours a day and that’s what you do.

Today, we’re setting aside time, both at work, so that we can make this call. It’s something that’s important to us. We found that the other people’s success and their stories really motivated us, and we want to return that favor. It’s very important, so we set aside that time.

Make time for it. Plan it in your day. Take your lunch hour, if you do have one, and rather than just eating your lunch for a full hour and sitting there, eat your lunch and read a book about real estate. Learn about it.

Get on a phone on these properties. I did a lot of research in talking to our property manager or other investors in the area. A lot of people work during the day, especially investors or people in real estate. So getting a hold of them and talking to them at night time, when you get home, after dinner and all is not always an option.

So you just make time. You use that hour or those 15-minute breaks wisely.

Tony: Okay, great! Andrea?

Andrea: I would say also one thing that we learned right off the bat, from signing up for Dean’s program, was we were given the commitment that if we’re truly going to do this, we have to give a minimum of 10 hours a week. So us just saying, “Yes, we’re going to make sure that we give 10 hours a week,” we make sure that we find our 10 hours to give each week, whether it’s tuning into a seminar video one night a week, whether it’s researching thing, whether it’s driving through a neighborhood on our way home from work because we have an extra half hour, “Let’s make sure we check out what’s for rent in this neighborhood.”

Just making sure that we’re committed to it and that we’re doing it. Giving ourselves a list of, “These are 5 people that I’m going to call sometime today. So, make sure that I make time to call these 5 people before the day’s out.”

Then another thing that Chip and I try to do often is write down successes that we did that day, what have we accomplished that day, and share them with each other. Because it’s a lot easier to get up and be motivated the next day if you feel good about what you did that day.

Tony: Great, that’s solid practical and doable!

Chip: Or just sharing those successes at the end of the day.

Tony: Yeah, that’s great! That’s probably good for the marriage, too.

Chip: It’s positive motivation on whether they support each other. It facilitates that, definitely.

Tony: We’re almost out of time here. How has this, being able to do these deals, how has it changed your life? How do you foresee things moving forward in relation to your financial future, what that’s going to mean for your child or children and for your goals as investors?

Andrea: That’s a big one. For the most part, I think it’s brought us closer together, to an extent, because we are both passionate about the same thing.

As Chip mentioned several times, it’s just nice for us to be in control of our financial future and what opportunities come our way, as opposed to hoping that that stock market’s going to do what it needs to do and that our 401(k) is going to take care of us.

I think we truly realize that unless we want to work until we die, we have to do some other drastic things ourselves. Learning about real estate together has kept us more inspired to do something different.

Chip: Meeting with other people who are like-minded, who are other real estate investors, they’re 100% positive and they’re out there. It opens your eyes to a whole new world and all new possibilities. They keep you pumped and motivated, too.

So it just keeps you positive, keeps you moving. You kind of get that buzz from that first deal gone well, so you want to do it again.

Tony: Right.

Andrea: Also just with our little boy, depending on the day, some days he’s like, “No, we’re not looking at houses again!”

Then other days he’s just into it and he’s like, “Yeah, let’s get this one. Yeah, we should get this one. Oh, we need to get this one. Let me draw you a picture of the next house you have to get.”

Tony: That’s what my boys would do.

Andrea: Just trying to get him engrained that there’s different ways to live life other than go to school every day and come home and do your homework and go to bed. Let’s do something different on the weekends. Let’s do something different, exciting, that we don’t just go to work and come home and that’s our life, that we’re always learning and experiencing new things. So hopefully, he’ll get in the habit of doing more than just the standard everyday life.

Tony: How cool would it be to have a son that grows up to never have a job because his parents were real estate investors and he liked that and decided to do the same thing.

Chip: That’s true. Whatever he decides to do, we’ll support him.

Tony: Of course.

Chip: If he wants to get a job or be a doctor or a lawyer, just whatever.

Andrea: A mechanic.

Chip: A mechanic, even. He wants to be a racecar driver right now.

Andrea: He wants to change cars. He just wants to change tires.

Tony: Does he? That’s great!

Chip: He’s into that, but we’ll support him either way. But, like you said, for him to be able to depend on himself and make that happen and not to be dependent on and making somebody else’s company run smoothly, for him to have that option, that’s a huge thing. To know that we can provide him with that choice, it’s a great feeling.

Tony: Yeah. That’s terrific! What are your plans moving forward? Are you guys looking for specific types of properties right now?

Chip: The deals that we did in Elk River actually lent themselves to 2 other deals in Minnesota that were very successful. So, it went that route.

We’re always open to different ideas, different types of investments, particularly in real estate, something that we know and love. So, we’ll do that.

But we’re in the process of writing out our 2009 goals. One of my goals is I want to acquire a multi-unit property, either a mobile home park or an apartment complex, a small one, a 12- to 25-unit thing.

I want to learn about commercial properties is my goal, but always open to the idea for getting more great deals like this one that we just explained.

Tony: Okay. Andrea?

Andrea: Pretty much the same thing. If there’s a great short sale in a nice neighborhood that we can either do a lease option or get it at a great deal and sell it to somebody else, or buy and hold at a great deal, that’s something we’re definitely open to, too, and are continually spreading the word.

Hopefully, the market will turn around, and it’d be nice to get in on some nice land deals, as we’ve realized there’s great returns in that. Then we’d like to get in some more raw land. While the market works on turning itself around, do some land development so that we have, with a larger group of people, but have a piece of property that’s ready to go and ready to build on when people are ready to buy.

Tony: Right. Cool. Very cool.

Chip: We want to own it all and do it all.

Andrea: We’re interested in everything, obviously.

Chip: If it’s a good deal, I want to do it.

Tony: How helpful has networking with other people been? Was there a time when you got on the deangraziosi forum and asked a lot of questions, or did you rely mostly on the hotline and the coaching?

Andrea: We did a lot of the classes and teleclasses online, and then just called in with our specific issues, because it seemed like we kept coming upon properties and just being able to have somebody to call and say, “Okay, here’s the numbers we worked, here’s what we’re thinking. Are we missing something?” or “This is our big holdup on this one. Can you help us get past this obstacle that we’ve thrown at ourselves and help us be more creative?”

I think a lot of it, we used just the classes to get new ideas and simulations, and then a lot of the hotline to keep us moving forward instead of just being content researching over and over again.

Tony: Great! Well, we’re out of time, you guys. Are you both at work right now?

Chip: Yes.

Andrea: Yes.

Tony: Man, gosh, thank you so much for making the time to talk to me. I wish I could talk with you longer. I’d like to find out more about your bird dog deal.

You’ve given out great information. I so appreciate you taking the time to do that. I wish you guys the best of luck in the contest.

Chip: Thank you! Can I share just one last thing?

Tony: Absolutely! I’m trying to be considerate of your time. I could sit here all day long.

Chip: Just one last thing I think would be helpful. With our deal, with this successful deal, we did a little celebration. None of us had ever been to New York before.

We went out to New York. Spent 5 days out in New York. Got to see all the sites.

We went to Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium. Just took in New York, and it was awesome! It was a wonderful trip.

Just knowing that from that deal we were able to make that happen, to be able to do that, it was great! That was truly a great vacation, because we made it happen. I just wanted to make sure that there is the other part, too, where we actually enjoyed it.

Andrea: We’re actually using some of the money for fun stuff, too.

Tony: That’s good!

Andrea: Making our lives that much more enlightened.

Chip: I just wanted to share that.

Tony: That’s it, too. Because really, if you’re not having fun, if you can’t look back and say, “You know, this work that we did, this fear, this uncertainty, everything we went through was part of us having this incredible time, this incredible moment.” Because the deals, I imagine as you continue investing the deals, some of them will not be as exciting as these first few. They might seem to be routine, although I don’t think it will ever be boring.

Chip: Yes, let’s hope not.

Tony: But the things you do as a result of the money that is created, the wealth that’s created, the people that you help, the experiences that you share as a family, those are the things that will last. Those are the things that you will treasure; at least that’s my judgment.

So I think that’s absolutely one of the most important things you could do is share that. Is there anything else, Andrea, or either one of you, that you feel you’d like to share with somebody? I’m willing to stay as long as you guys are.

Andrea: Just this thing about Dean’s program in itself is there’s lots of other real estate people out there who offer programs, offer camps, offer training courses and all that. I think the one thing with Dean is, number one, he seems like an everyday person, represents himself that anybody can make this happen.

The fact that him and his team show so much more care for their students. “If you are successful and actually truly go out and do what you say you’re going to do and make it happen, not only is that awesome for you, but I’m going to give you your money back. I’m going to offer a contest that you can go on an awesome cruise or go to an island and all this stuff just for sharing your story,” which is something we love to do anyway. There’s just not anybody else out there that seems to be more focused on its students, to build it program, other than just selling something.

Chip: How great is his message? Just to think a little different, to get off your butt and get out there and make something happen. He’ll be there to support you all along the way, him and his team.

Look at this. We were able to do some successful deals, and we’re successful, and we get to share our success stories now with you. It’s awesome! It’s a lot of fun!

Tony: It is awesome! I absolutely am delighted that I’ve had the opportunity to meet and work with Dean and call him a friend.

Chip: Him taking the time, he makes it special. He makes you feel like you’re part of the team. He’s really showing his gratitude for you taking on the challenge. He’s there to support you 100% of the way. I think it’s great.

Tony: I’m not one of Dean’s employees. I’m an independent consultant. I have my own business. So, whatever I say to you guys, it’s not because I’m trying to kiss up to Dean.

Chip: No, no, no.

Tony: But he is the real deal. I love this man. He is generous, he’s a man of integrity, he’s got a heart for people, and he really, truly wants to help people change their lives.

So I’m delighted that you guys tapped into that and that you’re spreading that message. Chip, keep talking at those parties and telling people about what you’ve done because you know what? I think that helps perpetuate your own success. The one thing that I love about Dean is that he’s always willing to try and help somebody better themselves and improve their situation.

Chip: I wholeheartedly agree!

Tony: I’m just psyched for your guy’s success. I think that’s awesome, and I look forward to hearing more from you.

Andrea: Wonderful!

Tony: Again, thank you very much for your time, unless there’s anything else you want to add.

Andrea: Nothing.

Tony: Alright, well you guys have a Merry Christmas! I just pray that you’re blessed, and look forward to hearing what you do in 2009.

Chip: Definitely! We hope to be in touch. Thank you very much!

Tony: Super! Bye-bye!

- End of interview Write any thoughts or notes you may have about what you learned from this interview here: It’s no coincidence that most of the successful new investors are all people who are Alumni of Dean’s Real Estate Success Academy. Dean’s investment coaches and the Academy curriculum is exciting, interactive training that you’ll look forward to. What’s more, we even refund your entire tuition if you get out there and use what we’ve taught you to become successful by completing five deals in the time period we set for you! One or more of our Academy classes may be just what you need to jumpstart your investing career! To find out, visit http://www.deansacademy.com or call one of our friendly enrollment team at 800-315-7782 Ext. 235

Ready to Get Out There and make Some Money Now? Dear Friend, We’ll you’ve come to the end of the bonus manual, but not to the end of our journey together! Now it’s time for you to get out there and use what you’ve been reading about. I also want to remind you of all the resources I have in place to answer your questions and keep you moving towards your goals of success! In addition to my follow-up emails, monthly newsletter and weekly video blogs, there is a ton of tools and other investors to network with and learn from at my main website, www.deangraziosi.com. There are also links on that site to other resources I’ve created to help you succeed. Here’s something I do that you have to join in on. Every month I do a tele-training class that you can participate in for FREE. You have the option of calling in and joining by phone, or listening live over your computer. Sign up for notifications by visiting www.askdeang.com ALSO, when you visit that site, you’ll be able to listen to previous trainings, all FREE until further notice. So don’t wait until it’s too late, check it out as soon as you can. Then of course there is my advanced investor training sort of like my own “college of wealth creation” actually, it’s not a college, it’s an Academy, and you attend classes from the comfort of your home. As you’ve noticed, I listed little commercials for it throughout this booklet, because I stand behind it 100%! The education you’ll receive will do a lot more for your bottom line than most Ivy League School Diplomas! Take part in my Success Academy and experience amazing results in your investing. This may be the best value in real estate investing training on the planet! For more info visit http://www.deansacademy.com/ or call one of my friendly enrollment advisors at 800-315-7782 Ext. 235 and say you are interested in the different options for one-on-one training. That’s it for now, but you’ll continue to hear from me on a regular basis, and make sure I hear from you too! Now make something happen for yourself. You can do it, I know it! Sincerely, Dean Graziosi

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