Meetings & Classes - PAST TOPICS

The Chicago Real Estate Club addresses a variety of topics at our monthly meetings. In the past we have featured:

How to Realistically Take $10k-$20k and Make An Additional $20K To $40K in One Year or Less

Although it is significantly easier to make money in real estate with a large of amount of working capital or credit, that does not exclude others from investing in real estate who have just modest amounts of resources. It just means that it may take you a little longer and you may have to work a little harder and smarter to build your working capital to a strong enough base where you can fund deals with ease.

There are in fact, several ways that to take a small amount of capital (it doesn't even have to be cash or credit cards, it can be your good credit!) and focus on doing deals that will provide you a return that is within your game plan. However, when developing your game plan, it is very important to factor in your overall time frame, risk tolerance, resources and of course - your interest!

In this class, you will have the opportunity to expand your mind with a few other investors who are also looking to invest the same way you are. We will be able to go over some current deals in the marketplace to show you exactly how these types of deals work, why they don't work and what you can do to find the good ones and avoid the bad ones altogether.

SPECIAL BONUS TO ALL ATTENDEES: We will review some deals that are currently available on a subject –to and lease option basis that costs very little money to get into. A couple of these deals don’t need any cash; just good credit.

Flipping Properties for Profit

We will cover the following aspects involved in Flipping in this class:

• The different types of properties that are most commonly bought and sold in the Chicagoland markets for quick profits
•   What flipping is as defined by the industry and by the law.
• We will review the properties that are the best & worst candidates to buy/contract & sell.
• The required elements needed to successfully flip a property based on speed, ease and feasibility.
• We will review methods in which you will need to qualify your end buyer as a homeowner or as an investor end buyer.
• We will also discuss different types of properties in the different markets of Chicago and the suburbs.

Not all properties are flip candidates and knowing which ones are and are not will determine how much time you spend doing profitable deals and how much time you spend on deals that go no where.

Also remember that not every deal is a deal. We will make sure that you unquestionably understand what is a deal and what is not a deal. While we cannot go into the fine details of how a deal is analyzed because of time constraints, we will review several of the characteristics of a good deal.

Appraisal Underwriting (The Art and Science of Determining Value and Influencing Your Appraisal)

There will be times when an appraiser gives you a value on a property that you know is incorrect. Knowing how to catch this appraisal before it becomes finalized is very important if there is going to be any chance of changing the appraisal. This class will go over in very technical detail how to determine if an appraisal is properly put together and how to qualify the comps for accuracy to your benefit. Understanding how to do your own comps and making sense of them is one of the most important things you will need to learn as a self sufficient investor.  

Foreclosures Will Become the Largest Investment Opportunity in Our Market – Are Your Ready to Buy?

It takes 10-50 years to make a house a rehab candidate. It takes less than one year to create a foreclosure opportunity. With the number of highly leveraged and upward moving interest rates the volume of opportunities will increase to the highest levels ever seen in over a decade. There are several ways to participate in this niche that can be very low cost in time and money. We will review a few of the most systematic ways to be well positioned to build cash, income, equity and long term wealth.

SPECIAL BONUS TO ALL ATTENDEES: Those who attend will also be invited to take advantage of this niche market in a very unique and profitable way.

Several members of the club have gotten together to form a private investment group to work the foreclosure/short sale niche to generate a very nice and consistent profit. Half of the spots have already been taken, but there is still room for a few more investors on a first come first serve basis. We would rather have a smaller group of 20 people involved who are making a good amount of money instead of a group of 100 and no one is very satisfied. If you'd like to find out more about this exclusive opportunity then you MUST COME to this class in order to become involved.

The Truth about Short Sales: "What they are, How they work and How to Make Good Money with Them"

Foreclosures are one of the most commonly areas of investing in real estate. Short Sales is a specific niche inside of the general foreclosure market that is one of the most profitable niches a real estate investor can ever get into. A Short Sale is when a mortgage owner, most commonly a bank, decides to accept less than is what is owed on the principle loan balance & any fees that may be attached to the loan. By completing this process a mortgage or note can be discounted to a very low price and really make it worth while for you go this route. While this niche may take some time to develop it is very common to make $20,000-$40,000 on every deal.

Some of the topics we will cover include:

• The Basics of Short Sales.
• What is the Loss Mitigation Department?
• What is a Short Sale Package?
• Why Banks Do Short Sales.
• How to Partner with Someone Else to do the Short Sale.
• Frequently Asked Short Sale Questions.

Gina Clifford is a local Short Sale Niche Specialist. She has completed dozens of transactions and reaped the big rewards of working this niche. She works with investors to negotiate and coach investors on how to do short sales for themselves. Her down to earth personality makes her very approachable and easy to talk to. If you have ever had any interest, desire or even a tiny bit of curiosity about short sales, then you should come out and talk with her.

Understanding Real Estate Investing for Beginners

In this class, you will learn how to become a real estate investor and what the keys are to making it work. This class is for the beginner or returning real estate investor. The purpose of this class is to introduce you to the different aspects of real estate investing, what to learn first, what the value is of an education, and much more.

Real Estate Wholesaling for Quick Profits

The appeal of buying properties and reselling them at another point in time for profits has recruited millions of wannabe investors and millions of true investors to investment real estate every year since real estate investing became a marketed get rich quick idea. The idea of acquiring properties, reselling them for a profit and never having any cash or credit on the line with minimal or no risk is even more appealing.

This class will go over what is really involved in wholesaling properties for profits with only a $1k or less, not using any form of credit and eliminating or reducing almost every risk associated with real estate investing. There are many ways to make money in real estate with no cash and credit and this is definitely one of the most commonly used methods to make quick profits in real estate. But just because profits can be made quickly, it doesn’t mean it can be simple. Some transactions are very, very simple to complete and practically close themselves. Other transactions can be so tiresome, grueling, tedious and expensive. To be an effective wholesaler on a regular basis or even a here or there opportunist, there are several important steps that must be followed in order to legally protect oneself from misrepresenting themselves in fraudulent ways can will be very expensive to protect themselves.

This class will cover many very important steps that can never be ignored in the wholesaling process. We will cover the most common mistake most new investors make when attempting to wholesale a property. This one mistake will determine if you will make quick profits, fake profits or waste a lot of time going nowhere. There are many steps to properly wholesale a property and we will go over each and every one of them. We will review the costs associated with specific strategies involved in wholesaling for quick profits. This class will show the new and existing wholesalers how to take one thing that works against every wholesaler and is involved in every single real estate transaction and is rarely addressed until it may be too late to do anything about. This class is good for new investors because it will force new investors to review how they go about acquiring properties currently and quickly determine if they have a system that works or not.

This class is great for seasoned investors, as well, because it will also help them in their real estate investing acquisition process. It will also help them create standards in which they are presented properties for potential investment by bird dogs, wholesalers, realtors, friends and properties they find on their own. The other important benefit for active investors is the opportunity for them to create a system of providing quality investment opportunities to other real estate investors and make a quick profit. They can use this system to make money on deals they otherwise could not make money on because of the lack of cash, credit, time, energy or interest. This strategy alone could add conservatively only $10k-$20k a year to potentially over $100k for the active investor with the right connections. This class will show everyone who attends the systems and resources needed to create an additional stream of income from wholesaling properties.

SPECIAL BONUS TO ALL ATTENDEES: For those who attend this class, you will receive a detailed step-by-step guide outlining the entire wholesaling process with some of my own personal techniques and short-cut strategies to make the process more efficient and to be able to wholesale a property much quicker than the average real estate investor can.

How to Protect Yourself When Hiring a Contractor – It’s all in the Contract

Working with construction contractors large and small is a skill that must be learned in order to do well in the real estate investing business. Every property started as nothing and was built to what it is. Over time every property will deteriorate either by time or reckless use of the property. Some of the best investment opportunities are properties that need a significant amount of work while others will require a light amount of work.

Either way, a contractor will be required to come fix a problem on an emergency basis or on a planned maintenance basis. And we all know that an emergency service call will cost more than a planned call. Sometimes only a local handyman will do just fine, other times a true professional will be needed for major repairs.

Developing a system to work with every situation is important. It is important to standardize how you determine your scope of work and construction agreements. By not doing so, will leave you open to make minor “paperwork” mistakes that can cost you BIG if you are not careful. The following are things to do and consider when hiring a contractor. These are the topics we will cover in our class:

• What type of contractor to hire and where to find one
• How to interview a contractor
• How to check references
• What documentation you need from the contractor
• The difference between a “fixed price contract” and a “time and material contract”
• How to review the contractor’s work for completeness and quality
• How to make payment to a contractor and prevent over-payment
• How to protect yourself from mechanic’s liens
• How to fire your contractor if necessary.

Understanding how to work with contractors is important to everyone because even if you plan not to do any “rehabs” of any significant nature, you will always have to deal with contractors if you plan on holding investment property for the long term to capture cash flow and appreciation.

SPECIAL BONUS TO ALL ATTENDEES: Those who attend the class will receive several documents during the session about how to qualify contractors and several highly detailed contracts that should be used when working with contractors on a small project to a major project basis.

Share the Wealth: Developing Small Partnerships

As in any business, developing a quality network of people you know who can get things done will unquestionably help you make more money and reduce the number of costly errors that it takes to build a strong real estate investment business. One of the key benefits of working with other people is the knowledge, experience, resources and stamina they bring to the table. By knowing how to work with other people who have similar interests as you and being able to bring the both of your interests together, you will be able to accomplish more things in less time while reducing your overall risk exposure.

Partnerships can be very profitable when everyone’s interests are properly aligned with each other and the expectations of the group are clearly understood. In this class we will review how to structure a partnership to invest in the real estate and highlight some of the pro’s and con’s of such. There will be a large amount of information provided that will definitely help those who are exploring this avenue clearly understand it in great detail.

SPECIAL BONUS TO ALL ATTENDEES: All attendees will receive several forms that can be used as reference documents to create quality partnerships for FREE. These documents are not the cheap forms given away freely at events. These are the documents that are closely held by those who know the value of them. These forms will be provided in hard copy for class discussion and also provided in soft copy via Microsoft Word doc.

Only those who will attend the class will get the documents. These documents literally cost thousands of dollars to get from an attorney.

Multi Family Investing - How to Buy to Hold and Buy to Sell 2 - 4 Unit Properties

Whether you want to acquire a portfolio of multi-family properties or just buy to sell them, knowing how to analyze them for profitability from the very beginning is crucial

How to Analyze Properties for Positive Cash Flow- including: SFR, 2-4 Unit Multi Family, Mixed Use and 5+ Multi Family!

Regardless of whether you are considering single family homes, condos, multi-family or even small commercial properties, you absolutely must understand the fundamentals of income property investments. The most important thing you can ever learn about real estate investing is how to “DIS-QUALIFY” a potential investment.

This class will include the following:

• How to locate and analyze property with a positive cash flow
• How to finance an investment home with 100% financing
• How to understand the interest only & the Pay Option Arm
• How to identify and interview lenders and realtors
• The investment terminology
• The simple ways to analyze investment properties to determine value
• How to read the financial data presented in listings
• How to determine an investor’s rate of return
• How to calculate Gross Rent Multipliers (GRM)
• How to calculate CAP rates
• How to calculate Net Operating Income (NOI) How to calculate Debt Service Coverage Ratios (DSCR)
• The differences b/w residential & commercial lending
• How to apply different financing programs for different investment properties
• Which loan you should use with which method?
• How to achieve financial independence by leveraging existing assets.
• Learn what document or forms do I need to complete the transaction
• Where to find the types of deals that work for you.
• How to add value to your investment and more!

SPECIAL BONUES TO ALL ATTENDEES: Everyone who attends this class will receive:

• FREE Property Marketing Consultation from REI PRO Marketing Services and one month of FREE ADVERTISING for up to three (3) properties in a weekly booklet that will be marketed and distributed all over the Greater Chicagoland Area.
• REI PRO Marketing Services provides marketing solutions for the real estate investor and to those catering to the needs of the investor. They are geared towards ensuring differentiation and regular updates in target segments for all the Investors' clubs and online Investor Communities in the Chicagoland area.

Tis' the Season to Sell Your Property - NOW!

In this class we will go over dozens of tips, tricks, props and strategies to sell that property in a cost-effective, highly efficient manner that will leave as much profit in pocket as you can during this buying/selling season.

We will also go over:

• Ways to spruce up your property on the inside.
• Ways to increase your curb appeal.
• How to create a cost effective marketing program.
• Important steps to avoid when selling your property and more.

Remember this – you make money when you buy the property, you realize it when you sell it. Developing a Property-Selling System is crucial to your success in real estate. By not creating a system, it will cost you thousands of dollars to carry your properties for months on end.

Share the Wealth by Creating Small Real Estate Investing Partnerships

If you have a deal but don't have the complete financial resources to close on it, or if you do have the financial resources but don't have the time to find, manage and take advantage of profitable opportunities, then your attendance is a must.

We will discuss various ways to leverage your abilities and resources into making deals happen. Included will be:

How to create Equity Sharing Agreements and Sweat Equity Agreements by using your investment of time, energy and experience. You will learn how to create transaction-based relationships that work. By working together with others who have resources that can balance off the resources you may not have, you can achieve higher levels of success in shorter periods of time because of your ability to pool resources, ideas, contacts and experiences. Working with others can effectively take you from the sidelines and put your right in the driver’s seat.

SPECIAL BONUSES TO ATTENDEES: Everyone who attends this class will receive:

A series of legal documents that are required to complete a partnership agreement. They will be provided in the following formats: in print, on CD in MS Word format and in Adobe PDF Form to share with other in a non-editable format.

These 12 must-have legal documents contain dozens of pages of very direct, very concise information that every person must have in their personal legal library when creating a working partnership. Attorneys will commonly charge well over $1,000 to draft these documents for you.

How and Where to Find Deals in Suburban Real Estate Markets

Practical, Productive and Profitable Pre-Foreclosure Investing Strategies

Seven Ways to Make $50k - $100k in the Next Year Using Little or No Money

How to Use Fast, Hard Money to Acquire Properties

Legal Strategies for Asset Protection, Privacy and Diversification

Using Lease Options to Acquire Large Amounts of Property Very Fast, Very Cheaply

Rehabbing 101 – Qualifying You and Your Project for Feasibility and Profitability

Rehabbing 202 – Determining a Proper Scope of Work and Qualifying Your Contractor

Fifty Steps That Must Be Completed Every Time You Buy a Property

Finding Deals (Part 1) – Unquestionable Ways to Find Good Deals in Any Area, in Any Season and in Any Niche 

Finding Deals (Part 2) – 35 Types of People You Must Know That Can Get You Deals Every Day of the Year

Building Your Personal Real Estate Investing Power Team for Success and Growth

Developing Ways to Find Properties in Hot Markets That Make You Money

Negotiating in Real Estate and Making Your Contracts Fool-Proof

Developing a Profitable and Personal REI Strategy For Now and The Future