Before You Start…
While holding monthly meetings and giving presentations to the attending audience, one of the more common questions we receive is: “How do I start?”That is a great question!
When we started, we jumped right in. We purchased 15 distressed condominiums, each 2 bedroom/1 bath, in Miami, Florida. The units were controlled by a private investor who held the note on the individual units. Every unit stopped paying their mortgage and was living rent free. The existing owner was burned out and wanted to quit being a landlord. He asked for $30K for the note. We bought the note at a substantial discount and closed the deal.
That was the easy part!
Talk about being over our heads. We had no idea how to proceed. Suddenly, we had to learn the following:
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So before you get your feet wet with your first deal, make sure you have the following items setup and running.
Starting Your Investment Strategy
- Before you Start Looking for Deals:
- Make sure EVERYTHING IS IN WRITING. Need I say more? This is the beginning of your business plan that can be show to investors, bankers, partners, private money lenders, etc.
- Go to a Real Estate Investor Associations, REIA meetings to Network:
- Our REIA Club: Miami Real Estate Investor Association MREIA
- Additional Florida Clubs - Don’t just to one meeting a month. Go three times a week to different clubs and venues. Tonight we are going to a Google Developer’s meeting.
- http://www.creonline.com/fl.html - This is a link that lists all the real estate investment clubs in the United States.
- Open a Florida Corporation
- For Florida go to http://www.sunbiz.org to open your own corporation.
- Create Articles of Incorporation:
- Identify corporate Officers: President, Treasurer, Secretary, etc.
- Need to declare number of outstanding shares and price per share.
- Buy/Sell Agreement or Share Ownership Agreement.
- Want the ability to move shares when boards of directors change.
- Make sure you have a Shotgun Clause or clause in agreement.
- Dictates that if you are in a partnership and the partners want to get rid of you, you have to be bought out.
- Company Seal – This is old school but some attorneys still use them.
- Meeting Book – Corporate meeting notebook.
- TAX ID # or EIN # - Uncle Sam wants their share.
- Print up Your Business Cards – Got to let everyone know what you are all about.
- Get creative – Don’t make your business card boring. Make people remember you through your card.
- Business Bank Account
- Documents Needed to Open an Account
- Drivers License with Photo
- Articles of Incorporation
- Certificate of Status
- EIN #
- Signatures of Corporate Officers
- Order Checks
- Order Credit and Debit Cards
- Make sure all the documents you order have the proper information. No delays due to typing mistakes.
- Bank Stamp for Deposits - Cashing one of our $40K checks was delayed due to an improper bank stamp. We didn’t have one!
- Documents Needed to Open an Account
- Build Your Team
- Real Estate Accountant – Someone who understands real estate investing.
- Real Estate Attorney
- Paul B. Woods – Florida Land Trusts
- Bruce Jacobs - Attorney at Law
- Business Plan – You wouldn’t go into the woods without a map or a GPS. Your business plan is your map or GPS.
- Eduardo Paz – Straglobus, Inc.
- Attend Conventions – Network big time and get ideas.
- Develop A System – Streamline your processes, save time, make money.
- Outsource your weaknesses and work on your strengths.
- I hate paper work and accounting. I get someone else to do these processes for me.
- Outsource your weaknesses and work on your strengths.
Next Step - Finding the Deal
Related Links, Blog Postings, Presentations or Articles:
| Written by +Bob Burns. | |
 | Building Our Foundation. +Real Estate Investor about.me/RobertKBurns Telephone #: 305-586-5280 email: sec8@planocho.com |
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