Lex Levinrad Real Estate Investor, Speaker, Author & Mentor

On this podcast episode I talk about purchasing motivated seller lists and where and how to purchase these lists or get access to them. The smartest real estate investors know that if you are marketing to motivated sellers then knowing how to get the best lists is extremely important. Motivated seller lists are broken down into many different categories. You can purchase many different types of lists including foreclosure lists, absentee owner lists, probate lists, inheritance lists etc. Some of these lists can be located for free on the county or city website. Some cities and counties make locating this information more difficult than others. List brokers are able to provide some of these lists for a fee. Some of the hardest to obtain lists require you to physically go down to the court house. Those are the best lists since the least amount of investors actually bother to do that. The worst lists are the ones that are the easiest to purchase. The best lists are the ones that your competitors don't know about

On this podcast episode I interview Dan Schwartz who is the founder of InvestorFuse. InvestorFuse is a very powerful tool for real estate investors that functions as both a CRM and an automated follow up system for leads. InvestorFuse integrates very well with Carrot (real estate websites) and Call Rail (call tracking for phone numbers). If you use the Carrot integration, any lead that is created online via a web form on your cash buyer or motivated seller website becomes a lead inside your InvestorFuse account. If you use the Call Rail integration, any lead that is created from an incoming phone call or text message, becomes a motivated seller or cash buyer lead inside your InvestorFuse account. This makes it really easy to follow up on all calls and messages including missed calls. It also makes it easy to take notes of all conversations and to add links and file attachments from conversations with motivated sellers and cash buyers. Considering that it can take 3 to 6 months to close a real estate lead, it

On this podcast episode I talk about the different types of motivated seller lists. On the previous episode we spoke about the types of situations that would cause someone to be motivated to sell. On this episode I talk about those motivated sellers and the types of motivated seller lists that they could be listed on based on their specific situation. Types of Motivated Seller Lists Probate and Pre-Probate Inheritance Lists Foreclosure and Pre-Foreclosure 30, 60,90 Day Late Notice of Default Tax Delinquent Lists Absentee Homeowners Out of State Owners Free and Clear Homes Homes with High Equity Divorce Lists Vacant Houses For Sale By Owner Code Violation Lists Fire Incidence Reports Water Shut Offs Expired MLS Listings Evictions Financial Distress Lists If you are brand new to real estate and want to learn more about how to wholesale real estate and flip houses then please register for the free wholesaling real estate training at this link below: FREE WHOLESALING TRAINING https://www.lexlevinrad.com/webinar F

On this podcast episode I talk about motivated sellers and how sellers become motivated to sell. The key thing to understand is that NOT all sellers are motivated. In fact, most sellers are not motivated at all. My mentor Ben told me: "Buy houses from people that HAVE to sell, not from people that WANT to sell". A motivated seller needs to sell their property and they need to sell now. They HAVE TO SELL and do not have the luxury of time on their side. Sellers may be motivated to sell because of property damage, financial hardship, or life circumstances. Damage to their property, divorce, a death or disability, foreclosure, job loss, relocation and many other reasons could cause a seller to be in a financial situation where they suddenly find themselves needing to sell their house fast. When they are in this situation if you are marketing to them via direct mail, cold call, Facebook Ads, Google, Text marketing etc. then you have a better chance of buying their house at a discount than from a seller that is no

On this podcast episode, I decided that being that it's a new year, and a new decade, it would be great to do something new. I have a brand new Wholesaling Real Estate Course Outline, which I have been working on for awhile, and I thought it would be a good idea to use each section of this outline as a podcast episode. Essentially I will be walking you through all of the components of wholesaling real estate from start to finish. We will start with Acquisitions (buying houses) and I will cover all of the topics related to buying houses and acquiring houses including (in order) Why motivated sellers are motivated to sell Buying houses from motivated sellers Types of motivated seller lists Where to purchase motivated seller lists Utilizing your list efficiently Skip tracing your list Marketing to Motivated Sellers Buying houses on online auction sites Buying houses from retail real estate sites Buying houses from Government Entities Buying houses from Banks Buying houses at the County Auction Buying houses from

On this podcast episode I talk about how to get started investing in real estate. I see so many people that want to learn how to get started investing in real estate, but don't know what to do to get started. I find that it helps if you can break down your ultimate goal (financial freedom) in order to create a process of workable steps that can help you achieve your vision of where you want to be in the future. On this episode we speak about the financial freedom number of $10,000 per month in passive income. I have found many of my students mentioning this number of $10,000 as the amount of money that they would need per month in order to live comfortably without having a job. That is why we call it the financial freedom number. It's the amount of money you need per month to be free of a boss and a job and to be able to live your life on your terms. That is the ultimate goal. If you can achieve that goal then you will be free. I discuss how you can easily achieve this goal by putting together a 15 year plan

On this podcast episode I talk about how to create wealth by investing in real estate. Every day, I speak to new students that want to learn how to create a life of financial freedom. This podcast episode addresses how to create wealth by explaining that in order to have financial freedom, you first need to create wealth. And the surest way to create wealth is by buying rental properties. On this episode, I talk about a house that I recently purchased which is being refinanced this week. Here are the details on this house: My purchase price was 102k Rehab cost was 15k currently rented for $1,300 per month Current appraisal value 160k When I purchased this house a few months ago, I borrowed 90k from a lender and put down the other $12,000. I then spent $15,000 of my own money to remodel the property. After the renovations were complete I rented the property for $1,300 per month. Now that the property is stabilized I want to put long term financing in place. I like 15 year mortgages since they pay down in half

On this podcast episode I talk about wholesale real estate versus retail real estate. This podcast episode topic is an important concept to understand. This episode topic came about based on a question by one of our listeners. There question was "why pay 10% interest if you can get a 4% mortgage? That's a great questions and I thought it would make a good topic for a podcast episode. I called it Wholesale Real Estate Versus Retail Real Estate because this is really the essence of you understanding why as cash investors we need to use private lenders. If you are buying wholesale real estate then you are paying all cash and you cannot use a regular mortgage. The reason you cannot use a regular mortgage are because either the seller will only accept all cash or a mortgage company would not offer a mortgage (for example on a damaged property). Situations where you would have to make an all cash offer include: BANKS Banks do not accept mortgages when they are liquidating properties so any offer on an REO, Short Sa

On this podcast episode, I interview Jason Nickel who is the founder of Lead Sherpa. Lead Sherpa is a text marketing platform for real estate investors, that lets you send text messages directly to motivated sellers. The first step to text marketing is to purchase a motivated seller list (for example an absentee list). The next step is to skip trace this list which can be done with any skip tracking service or directly inside your Lead Sherpa account. Once you have your list skip traced and you have all of the mobile numbers, then you can start marketing to potential sellers by sending text message to them. This is a very unique way of reaching motivated sellers. There is a lot of buzz in the real estate investing world around new marketing platforms like text marketing. On this podcast Jason discusses text marketing in general and particularly using Lead Sherpa. We also discuss the legality of text marketing (to sellers only) and why text marketing is legal and compliant. We discuss lead acquisition costs, c

RENTAL PROPERTY INVESTING FOR BEGINNERS Do you want to get into rental property investing because of the positive cash flow? Many new real estate investors are first attracted to the idea of investing in rental properties because of the passive income and cash flow benefits. But when you actually buy your first rental property, you are more likely to break even or make only a few hundred dollars a month in positive cash flow on your rental properties. When you realize that you have to pay for maintenance and repairs, and that not all tenants pay their rent on time, you can easily find your positive cash flow turning into break even (or even negative cash flow). This is very common, and unfortunately it is also the main reason why new investors get out of rental properties. If you are going to invest in rentals, then you need to understand the bigger picture of why you are buying rental properties and this bigger picture needs to be more than just your currently monthly cash flow. Keep in mind that I am not su

WHOLESALING REAL ESTATE 101 On this podcast episode I talk about wholesaling real estate, what wholesaling is, and the four basic steps of wholesaling. The Four Steps Are: *Finding a House That Would Be A Good Flip *Making An Offer To Buy That House *Getting The House Under Contract *Selling That House For A Profit To An Investor I discuss a lot of meat and potatoes stuff about wholesaling on this episode. I use an example of finding a house For Sale by Owner on Zillow, making an offer to purchase the house, and flipping the house to a cash investor. Using the example, I walk you through the inspection period and why that is important and how to use the inspection period to cancel your contract or ask for a price reduction. I talk to you about assignments of contract versus double closing and when you should use which strategy. We also cover cash buyers, building your cash buyers's list and why you should get your real estate license. I talk about why finding a house is the most difficult of the 4 steps above

Are you new to real estate investing? Do You Know How To Recognize A Wholesale Real Estate Deal? If you do, then you should be willing to act (very quickly) when you see it. The first step for new real estate investors is to make sure that you know how to tell a good wholesale real estate deal from a bad one. Too many beginners don't the difference. Knowing the difference between a wholesale real estate deal and a dud is the basics of this business. You should learn what a wholesale real estate deal is for your market if you don't already know it. In this video I talk about the concept of "you eat what you kill" and having the "killer instinct". I learned both of these from my mentor. At the Wholesaling Real Estate Boot Camp, I use an analogy of a lion walking in the jungle that hasn't eaten in two weeks. If that lion were to see a deer, it wouldn't think about whether or not it should eat that deer. It would just eat it. As an investor you need to be like that lion. If you see a good wholesale real estate de

On this podcast episode, I interview John Martinez who is the founder and CEO of Midwest Rev. John created the "Online REI Sales Academy" to help new and seasoned real estate investors learn how to get better at negotiating with motivated sellers. If you want to learn what to say when you talk to sellers, what scripts to use, and how to convert and close more motivated seller leads then you should check out his training program. It's called the Online REI Sales Academy. Here is a link for you to learn more: https://www.lexlevinrad.com/midwestrev/ If you are starting to scale up your real estate business then this podcast episode is especially important for you to listen to. If you want your real estate business to thrive, you will need to be constantly marketing to motivated sellers. As your business grows, and as you make more money, you should be allocating more and more capital towards your marketing efforts. When you market to more motivated sellers then you will get more seller leads. And more seller lea

On this podcast episode, I talk about the key components that you need in order to get started fixing and flipping houses. THESE KEY COMPONENTS ARE: *Finding A House To Fix & Flip *Estimating After Repair Value *Estimating Repairs & Materials *Calculating Your Profit Margin *Finding a Private or Hard Money Lender *Having a Contractor To Fix The House On this podcast episode, I dig deeper into some of these topics and show you why the most important basic foundation for fixing and flipping is to understand what the house will sell for (After Repair Value). The other key component is what it will cost to repair the house (labor and materials). If you know the answer to the After Repair Value, and you know the Repair Estimate, then it is relatively easy for you to plug those two variables into a calculator and figure out your potential profit on the fix and flip. Here is a free tool that I created for my students to use to estimate the profit margin on fix and flips: https://www.lexlevinrad.com/rehab-pro

On this podcast episode I talk about how to buy houses with no money down. This strategy works really well when there is not enough equity in the deal for you to make a cash offer to buy the house. You will find that many of your competitors and wholesalers will walk away from these deals because they don't know how to structure them. This will give you a competitive edge if you do! The biggest benefit of this strategy is that you can buy as many houses as you want since you are not coming out of pocket on the purchase of the house (other than closing costs). This strategy allows you to buy a lot of real estate in a short amount of time and is how I got started investing in real estate. My first three houses were purchased by assuming the existing mortgages and most of the houses that I purchased between 2003 and 2006 were hurricane damaged houses that were purchased by assuming the existing mortgage. On this episode, I talk about specific details on how to assume a mortgage, assumptions of mortgages, due on

On this podcast episode, I interview David Lecko who is the founder of Deal Machine. Deal Machine is an incredible app for real estate investors that can help you take your driving for dollars game to another level. You can download the app by visiting http://www.lexlevinrad.net/dealmachine One you install the app on your smart phone, you can start driving for dollars. What's amazing about this app is that you don't need to have a yellow pad next to you scribbling down addresses of vacant properties to look up later. When you drive for dollars, you are looking for vacant, boarded up houses. Tell tale signs are blue tarps on the roof, lawns that are overgrown or mailboxes that are stuffed full. It is not difficult to tell when a property is neglected. Properties can be neglected because someone recently passed away, or they could be vacant because an absentee out of state landlord is having difficulty managing a property. There are many reasons why a property could be vacant, but the most obvious sign of distr

On today's podcast episode I talk about an example of a property which was based on a video that I uploaded to my YouTube channel yesterday called "Buy, Rent, Repair and Refinance". You can see that video here: https://youtu.be/KfLPeO6U52E I received quite a few questions from students of mine (and from new investors that are not yet students) asking me to elaborate on this and explain the numbers and how it works in more detail. So I created this podcast episode especially for those of you looking for a greater understanding of how this works and a more detailed explanation of the numbers. In this example my student Mark purchased the house for $116,000 and I gave him a loan of $106,000. His down payment was $10,000 and I loaned him the rest of the money. Now Mark wants to fix and flip this house. But I want to show you an even easier strategy than fixing and flipping which is way less risky. It's called the BRRR Strategy (which stands for Buy, Repair, Rent and Refinance). This strategy is overlooked by almo

On today's podcast episode I talk about buying rental properties. I talk about cash flow, appreciation, and the tax benefits of buying rental properties - especially if you have a steady job and have a lot of taxes being withheld from your paycheck. I also cover the "myth" of investing in rental properties where beginners think they are going to sit back and collect the cash flow. In reality, many times in the first few years of a rental property there isn't that much cash flow. The trick is to buy the property below market and to capture equity. If you do that then you increase your net worth the day you buy the property. Even if your cash flow is only moderately positive when you buy, it will be much more positive when you refinance. This only makes sense if you gain equity when you buy. That means you should be buying wholesale deals at wholesale prices. Over time you will be able to raise rents, and your equity will increase as well. If you are smart, you will put a 15 year mortgage on that property and o

On this podcast episode I talk about how to change your mindset, and why mindset is so important for you to be able to achieve your goals of financial freedom. First you have to believe that you can. And that starts with mindset. I can take every single real estate system, tool and method that I know, and I can teach them all to you. But without you understanding that everything starts with your mindset it will be a waste of time and you will learn nothing. The reason is because you will let doubt, fear and negative thoughts creep into your mind and stop you. The key to breaking out to another level is to understand that it all starts with your mindset. This is why I start every one of my real estate boot camps with mindset and we talk about books like "Think and Grow Rich", Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "Laws of Success". Mindset really is everything. If you want to succeed in life and achieve everything that you want (including happiness) then you need to start out with working on your mindset. Here is the link to

On this podcast episode I talk about how it is possible to have a $100,000 month wholesaling and flipping houses. I break down what you would need to do in order to make $100,000 wholesaling. I want you to see that once you understand the concept of buying houses from motivated sellers and selling those houses for a profit - how much you make is really up to you! It could be a $100,000 month or a $100,000 week or a $100,000 year. Whatever your mind can conceive and BELIEVE it can achieve. So start with working on how you think. Because that is what is holding you back. If you have never had a six figure year or a six figure month then you will need to change how you think in order to get there. I cover some really good stuff in this podcast episode. It's all mindset and learning how to push yourself out of your comfort zone. At the end of the day once you do that, you realize that it's just a numbers game. How many houses you wholesale and flip is dependent on the system and the software and the people that y