Dec
17

“Probate and Snow Shovels!”

Because we received a bunch of snow over the weekend and it’s now all icy, I turned on a weather report last night. Looks like much of the nation is experiencing the same conditions.

Seems like we all need to be prepared for some nasty weather….maybe even through Christmas.

I hope not as I know many of you (and us) have plans that will be interrupted if this nasty weather continues.

Somebody forgot this is sunny Orygun!

And yes I know that’s not the way you spell it but it helps those folks who think it’s “OreeeGone!”

I’ve gotten a couple of questions over the past few days asking about the opportunities in Probate and how the economy is affecting Probate investors.

Now I know some of you are new subscribers of mine and may not have heard my take on Probate before so I will quickly go over couple of things.

First of all, I’ll tell you I did my first Probate transaction in 1996.

That means in a few days, I’ll be in my 13th year of Probate Real Estate.

Now I’m not trying to brag or anything but rather just give you some perspective to let you know I’m not new to this game.

While I don’t claim to be the most experienced investor in Probate, I think it’s safe to say I’m ONE of the most experienced.

During these 13 years, I’ve found there are really about three reasons that make Probate so attractive.

The first is low, low prices…my experience has been you can get properties from 10% to 30% below market value. I have heard other teachers claim even greater discounts than these but that’s not been my experience. 30% is the best I have ever done.

Secondly, you have a huge inventory of homes………Probate is huge…….for the past 12 years the number of homes in Probate has been far bigger than foreclosures. However, with the dramatic increase in foreclosures in the last year, that may or may not be true any longer.

But it doesn’t really matter, does it? They are both gigantic numbers and far bigger that you can handle in your area. I once talked to a county official where I live and she estimated there was 7,000-10,000 open Probate files at all times in this metro area.

Since ten deals per year would make you a very, very good living, you can see your prospects are almost unending.

And the final reason Probate is so attractive the sellers are super motivated. They don’t want the homes they have inherited, they want the money from the sale of the homes they have inherited.

Have you ever thumbed through a book about real estate investing? I’ll bet within the first 25 pages there will be a statement that’ll say something like this.

“In order to be a successful RE investor, you need to consistently find motivated sellers.”

Motivated sellers is the key.

Now, I can speak from experience. When I inherited my folk’s home in 1996, I was an EXTREMELY motivated seller.

The house was 250 miles away and making trips back and forth was taking up a lot of my time.

If someone would have approached me about selling at a discount, I’d have bought the coffee.

I was very motivated. But nobody did and it took me seven long months, two real estate agents and about 20 boring trips to get my folks place sold.

And here’s the interesting part. To finally sell it, I had to substantially drop the price from what the agents claimed it was worth.

So I think you can see the opportunities in Probate are endless and are really not subject to economic conditions.

As long as you still have people dying in your town, you’ll have prospects.

Like some proof that’s about as fresh as you can get?

Here’s a note I got from John in South Carolina just last week,

“Hi Ron, I really want to thank you for your course and making it available so cheap. I went down to one of those seminar previews and I almost bit. They wanted a lot of money but I decided to go home and do some research on the internet and I bought your course instead. I just closed my first deal and I made almost $14,000. Please tell anyone who is wondering if you can still do deals, you can. I’m proof. I’ve got two more deals I am working on. I’m going to buy your dvd’s with some of the money I made. Thank very much for making your books so affordable. Merry Christmas to you and Sharon.”

So you see, there are folks buying probate properties as you read this.

http://BuyProbateProperty.com

Also, check out one other thing John said. He almost bought someone else’s material.

From his standpoint, thankfully he did not.

He saved himself a lot of money.

You see, when I set out to write my book, I made the decision to make sure it had everything in it but would be as short and to the point as possible…I didn’t want to include a lot of fluff just so I could charge a lot more money.

I think that has something to do with why my book “31 Days to Profits in Probate Real Estate” is consistently ranked the number one book on Probate.

It has everything you need to know and it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

Need some more info?

http://BuyProbateProperty.com

Also, in the last two years I’ve seen lot’s of new “gurus” coming out with courses, seminars and coaching on Probate investing and they all cost way more than my materials.

Don’t’ be fooled. It’s all about the marketing. They’ll make outrageous claims about their “unique program” and will make “guarantees” they can’t back up.

Bottom line: we all do basically the same four steps.

So save some money. Buy yourself an extra snow shovel. Looks like we all are going to need it.

Oh by the way, I meant to remind you. I’ve entered the 21st century in internet marketing and now have a blog. I post all of my emails there so you can review them anytime you like. Here’s the site…take a look and leave a comment if you like. I think it looks pretty neat.

Everybody has their won blog, right? Now I’m going to work on this texting thingy!

http://BuyProbateProperty.com/blog

Happy Holidays!

“It is Natural to Feel Good!”

Be Happy, Take Chances, Live Life Fully!

Ron Mead, The Probate Guy
503.746.5837

To receive a copy of “Probate Real Estate;
The Untapped Market” from Ron, please
visit http://BuyProbateProperty.com