Everything Else

Many older homes will not have as much insulation as is currently recommended. You’ll need to know the recommendations for new construction in your area as a benchmark. Your local contractor can help with this. In some areas, the recommended insulation levels are higher if you have electric heat. If this is the case, you should be aware of these requirements and the heating type before you evaluate the insulation.
The obvious implication of inadequate insulation is heat loss. In areas where snow accumulation and ice dams are an issue, low attic insulation levels promote ice dams.

The next time you evaluate a property, make sure you look at the insulation in the attic. Older homes are in need of new or more insulation. You will want to figure the cost of additional or full replacement insulation.
As you look at the attic insulation look for evidence of moisture. In some cases this will appear as a dark patch. In some cases it appears as matted or compressed area of insulation. Cellulose fiber insulation, for example, will be compressed when it’s wet and will not rebound. Fiberglass insulation tends to rebound and recover its insulation g value as it dries.

HAPPY REHABBING

Many people over the years have started working in the wholesaling arena. Many of these people are very interested in purchasing their own properties and getting the residual income from rentals.

There seems to be a major item that hold people back: Money.

Here is how I am currently doing buy and hold:

I am purchasing properties with hard money lenders, fixing the properties, then getting the properties refinanced quickly with a local bank. This allows the hard money financing to be paid off, a conventional financing loan to be obtained and a good cash flow created.

You then need:
1) A hard money lender that will lend on the value of the property.
2) A bank that will refinance as soon as the property is repaired based upon the value of the property.

Here is an interesting artcle I found on CNNmoney.
The price all of the country are beginning to raise. Some areas are seeing increases of over 10%. As Dean talked about the are a lot of speculative buyers in the market buying properties.

The pace of home price increases continued to accelerate in February, according to a reading Tuesday that showed the biggest gain since near the height of the housing bubble.

The S&P Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 major markets posted a 9.3% rise over the last 12 months. That's up from the 8.1% rise in January. It was the biggest 12-month gain in the index since May 2006, which was just one month after the index showed record-high home prices.

I have students who feel the need to be transparent with everyone they encounter. I love transparency as well and try to keep my life as simple as possible. To me that means always telling the truth because that means I never have to remember what story I told to whom. The truth is always simply the truth.

The Gain the EDGE 2013 is now in the history books. It was an awesome event and there was so much great information, inspiration, content and take-aways for every DG Member that attended.

The key with any training event is what do you do with the information now that you have this life changing information at your fingertips!

In my presentation at the EDGE I spoke about how your life is a movie. You are the star of this movie and you portray a person that has had enough and wants more out of life. You are entering the treacherous waters of real estate investing!

Every day I get the opportunity to talk to many people across the United States and Canada. As one of Dean's Coaches it is fun to see what is going on out there.

What I would like to do is take a new topic every few days and see how many of you are handling things. What are you doing to succeed? By taking a look at what you are doing it will help me to help others.

My questions for this week is this:

What is the one thing you are doing to find buyers?

Your help is appreciated.

There is a saying that I heard in a past job I had. In this job we were trying to get employees to take more responsiblity for their jobs. The saying goes something like this.
People will not change until the pain of not changing is greater then the pain of changing.

I think this can really relate to what we are trying to do with real estate as well. Trying to get things going with real estate is going to require hard work. There will be road blocks that get put in your way. It will be frustrating at times as well. There will be pain in getting your real estate career going. Now if you don't get it going what will the pain be? Pain of regret, pain of not getting started in one of the best real estate markets ever, pain of not making a better life for you and your family.

Does anyone know who the Rising Stars at Edge where?

I know this isn't a real estate topic but I need some advice. I loaned money to a man who has been doing business in my area for over 40 years. He is actually a real estate broker and mortgage lender with a brick and mortar business. He got may husband and I into a terrible cash out refinance loan and later asked to borrow some of the money. He took advantage of the fact that he's been in business for so long and that we were unsophisticated in being lenders. The worst part is that a few years later he filed chapter 7 bankruptcy. He reassured us he intended to pay us in spite of the s bankruptcy. Of course, that never happened. I spoke with some attorneys in my area and I was told there is nothing I can do. Does anyone have any ideas how I may be able to recover even part of my money?