The article below leaves us with more questions than answers.  You may not know where your next customer is from & that is okay.  Be open to working with great people from all over the world.

We have been investing in one particular neighborhood in the US for 15yrs now.  To the average person the neighborhood “appears” relatively the same today as it did 15 years ago.  “Appearances” can be deceiving.  This neighborhood we focus on is comprised of approximately 300 homes.  There is a combination of a townhomes, duplexes, single family, multi-family & recently added stacked townhomes.  Fifteen years ago many of the homes were owned by people who had owned them for 20yrs or more.  Some of the owners were second generation of the same family.  Most of the owners were born either near this neighborhood or at least in this particular state.  Many of the owners were either male or husband & wife.  The last 10 years have brought a noticeable change to who is currently renting & buying in this neighborhood.  Today many of the new renters/buyers are not necessarily from the area or state or country.  Today’s renter/homebuyer is as likely to be female as they are male.

We encourage new people to the area to look at our properties.  We encourage them to ask questions they have about the area?  To help answer we focus on keeping up with the local economy, jobs, schools etc.  We stay away from opinion and just share facts.  We don’t get into whether this or that is good or bad.  We have found that success for us today involves being open to and marketing to the world.

At the end of the day a persons character is more important than where they are from.

http://www.rew-online.com/2014/08/29/foreign-investment-in-u-s-real-estate-widely-underreported/

Have you noticed its everywhere.?  Have you noticed how everyone wants to offer it?  It doesn’t matter whether its free or paid for a lot of people are offering advice.  I find often I’m overwhelmed with advice.  The real problem is finding good/quality advice.

Flipping real estate attracts a lot of unsolicited opinions & advice from others.  We just started a new rehab on a property that had been vacant less than a year.  The second day on the job we had the neighbors stop by.  In less than 5 minutes the neighbors were offering a lot of unsolicited advice in regards to what & how we should be doing to improving the property.  With a smile & patience we listen, nod & smile more, then we continue to listen, nod & smile more & still we listen, nod & smile more.  Finally we just start working again.  Whether their opinions are good or bad are irrelevant,it doesn’t matter because we didn’t ask for their opinions.

If we are really listening when we are in conversations then we will be aware of when someone truly wants our opinion.  We have found the best people to get advice from are those who are good listeners.  The good listener hears what we you are saying, they reflect on what’s being communicated.  They are more focused on what we are saying then thinking about what they want to say.   The good listener will say less, however when they do speak it is more likely to be quality information.

We wish you the best finding the quality over the quantity.

One theme we have seen repeated more than once at american-flipper.com while we have been involved in investing & flipping real estate actively for the last 15yrs is the power of your mindset or attitude/belief’s.   As many of you know we believe that there is always opportunity to make money and have success in flipping houses.  This is especially true if you have the right mindset or attitude.

We have watched many first time flippers have tremendous fairly consistent success over and over again.  At the same time we have watched others have some success followed by obstacles & problems & others may never really realize much in the way of success.

Those who have experienced mostly positive experiences in real estate investing also have a positive, grounded & realistic mindset.  A positive mindset is not the end all be all, however it is an important characteristic  that serves investors well.   In addition to the positive mindset, those successful investors also plan, study, educate themselves & work well with others.

We can teach “several people” the same theories, strategies & lessons.  These “several people” can all come from various social econonmic backgrounds, they can have various financial resources available to them, they can be investing in drastically different parts of the country & they can have varying degrees of understanding real estate flipping.  Over time the one thing that will really separate the successful flipper is the  characteristic of a positive mindset.

Would you like help flipping & working on a positive mindset?  Reach out to us today……

Real Estate investing has a tendency to attract a lot of people for the perception of quick easy cash.  Anything is possible.  Your very first deal may be a version of quick easy cash, however most likely if you choose to participate for a prolonged &  consistent period of time consistent regular habits are what will serve you best.  There is always a new twist or angle out there & many of these will work once or twice in the beginning.  May we suggest instead of chasing & relying or waiting on the next latest & greatest trick, focus on building a solid grounded foundation.  Learn the basics, learn the old tried & true methods.  A solid foundation serves any & everyone over the long haul.  Your foundation is what you can always fallback on, its where you start from.  You will find more peace and success with a solid foundation.  We wish all you peace & success in your real estate flipping & investing endeavors.

The consistently hardest part of real estate flipping is the scheduling & managing of the rehab.  This is the area that even successful & experienced flippers struggle with.  An extensive rehab flip has numerous parts & players.  Being able to predict, prepare & plan a successful flip schedule involves attention to detail, experience & a bit of “luck” dosen’t hurt.  We have found that extensive rehab flips can be completed on time.  When you complete your flips on time you will find many benefits:

1st you save money

2nd your subs, suppliers & others you work w/ notice “you have your sh*t together”

3rd you’ll find time to enjoy life

if your not using a “gantt chart”

Learning takes time.  There are different ways to learn.  Most often we learn either by doing it ourselves &/or watching someone else.  Over the years of meeting & working with other real estate investors some successful & some not so much one thing has become very clear:  the most successful had someone else ‘help”, “show”,  “teach” &/or “mentor” them at some point.

If you are looking to get into the world of the real estate investing & flipping, you do not have to go out and learn by the school of hard knocks.  There are plenty of people & resources out there willing to help you.  Is today the day you reach and ask for some help?

http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/bank_notes/2014/08/former-u-s-marine-sees-big-bucks-in-north-carolina.html?page=all

Neighborhoods can be hot or cold, they can be on the way up or the way down.  When you are ahead of the curve you can realize large gains with little competition.  When you are late to the party you most likely will have to work a lot harder & most likely will have to be on your A-game in order to realize a profit…

here is a quote from the article below demonstrating how fast things can change

“Sergi has been investing in Trinidad since 2009 and the price of his flips has doubled from $200K to the mid-$500,000s in just those four years”

http://dc.curbed.com/archives/2013/11/how-will-redbrick-bring-people-to-trinidad-its-in-the-details.php

It happened again today, we met with another enthusiastic investor.  This investor was so excited about finally having found a property to flip.  They were already spending their projected profit & the rehab had not started yet.  We sat down & started working together scheduling all the different task required of their rehab project.  After less than five minutes all the excitement of our client was gone & in it’s place was impatience & frustration.  Welcome to the sobering reality of real estate investing.

Many of our clients tell us the same thing over & over again “flipping houses…looks like so much more fun on TV”.  The “reality” of real estate investing, specifically “flipping houses” is there is a tremendous amount of planning that goes into getting from start to finish.  Many new & experienced real estate investors fail to plan.  Here is a secret about real estate investors:  just because they buy & sell houses does not mean they do it well.

Planning out your rehab is one of the most important aspects of investing.  Many so called “guru’s” try to sell you on how they have learned this or that new secret to flipping houses success.  Most of what they are saying is overblown hype.  You want to know how to achieve consistent, predictable results…..PLAN….Plan every aspect of the project.

For more details on how to create your plan for your flip…..email us globalflipper@gmail.com.

american-flipper.com welcomes anyone, anywhere in the world who wants to learn how to invest in American real estate.

We look forward to helping you.