HERE ARE A FEW OF MY SECRET WEAPONS:

If you are a professional of any flavor:  Physician, Dentist, Attorney, CPA, etc., you don’t have time to mess around with a non-professional lender team.  The best Professional Mortgage Lender in Utah is Josh Mettle.  Okay, he’s also my son and investment partner, so I might have a bias  but it’s still true!  

Don’t take my word for it.  Here’s what one real live professional has to say:

 

Let me introduce you to our great landscapers: Colby and Ian Dyksman with Straightline Property Maintenance, Inc.  Who knew they were so cool that they even have a Facebook page!  (I just found it.)

One of our tenants who rents a big house just commented yesterday that we have the best contractors she’s ever seen.  She described them as “pleasant, eager to please, refreshing and nice people.”  I would add capable, responsible, good looking 😉 and they take a great deal of pride in their work.

Colby and Ian have been keeping our properties looking beautiful all year round for about eight years.  I’m proud to recommend them! 

 

 I just read Robert Kiyosaki’s new book “UNFAIR Advantage The Power of Financial Education”, and it might be his best book yet!

Robert really drills down to demonstrate the unfair advantage of knowledge about investments, taxes, debt, risk and compensation.  He pushes the reader into the mind-set and investment logic of the wealthy.  Plus he detailed why it’s so important to invest for cash flow over capital gain.  Here’s a quote:

“If a person has no financial education, they cannot process information.  They do not know the difference between an asset or a liability, capital gains or cash flow, fundamental investing or technical investing, why the rich pay less in taxes, or why debt makes some people rich and most people poor.  They do not know a good investment from a bad investment, or good advice from bad advice.”

Amen!  I plan to read this book at least two or three more times in the hope that I can get as much of Robert to rub off on me as possible.  I can’t wait for the audio-book!    Click Here to Check it Out!

ODORXIT:  You cannot possibly be a property renovator or a landlord without this product!  OdorXit is one of my best secret weapons.  Three years ago we bought a house that had mold all over the walls inside and stunk to high heaven.  2200 sq.ft. of yuck and kha-kha.  We gutted it on a Saturday morning and filled a big dumpster.  Then we placed two fast release OdorXitCLO2 chlorine dioxide gas packets in the house with fans and closed the doors for two days.  When we came back the mold was dead.  I wanted to make sure it was dead, dead, dead, so I left slow release capsules in the house while we renovated, then I hid even more slow release capsules in the house before we rented it out to a lovely family.  BOOYA!

Several times over the past few years I’ve had tenants call and tell me they are dieing from mold in their apartments and the world was coming to an end.  OdorXit baby!  [Of course, we always check for water leaks, bath fan inoperational, or any other sources of moisture and handle that too.  But sometimes it’s just a unit that is shut up in the winter with no air movement.]

We’ve purchased and rehabbed several other older homes over the past few years, and OdorXit has gotten rid of the old smell.  It’s fabulous for sweetening basements.  OdorXit products also get rid of cat smells, cigarette smells, etc.   Click here to check it out!

 

QUICKBOOKS:  Take a big step to professionalism every chance you get!  Here’s one to take as early in your real estate investing career as possible:  My daughter-in-law and I took classes at the Community College together to learn QuickBooks several years ago.  The class was time consuming and offered TMI (too much info) which made it irritating and complicated.  I would rather have cleaned toilets with a toothbrush!  Luckily, my daughter-in-law liked it.  But you don’t have to go through all that.  A fellow real estate investor and his CPA put together a simple and inexpensive QuickBooks video tutorial which they sell online.   Click here to check it out!

 

BEST APARTMENT INVESTMENT COURSE:  Recently, when my son and I spoke at the Salt Lake Real Estate Investor’s Association meeting, one of the investors said he would love to find a class to teach him how to invest in income property.  I’ve studied everything under the sun, moon and stars about real estate for years.  Most courses teach the what and the why but not the how.  Or they’ll teach all the complicated (to me fascinating, but I’m a geek) terminology, or how to plot metes and bounds on a grid, wonderfully applicable stuff, etc. 

But how do you actually go about investing in rental property?  How do you find it?  How do you figure out if it’s a good deal?  How do you make an offer?  How and when do you inspect the property?  Where do you find the money?  Well, here’s the best course I’ve found that will give you all the steps you need and nothing you don’t.  This will teach you guerilla investing by Peter Harris, a real live apartment investor who walks the walk:   Click here to check it out!