Free Short Sale Ebook!

Simply add your email address in the form just to the right, and the ebook is yours, along with some other really cool stuff! You’re going to learn an incredible amount of info, and exactly what steps you need to take to begin, AND be successful with short sales. Get your ebook now – it’s free! Subscribe just to the right where it says “Claim Your Free Ebook”

We’re Better, Badder, and more Awesomer than before! (is that a word?)

Top Foreclosure Training has undegone some massive positive changes in the last few months!

We’ve entirely re-created our short sale home study course to reflect the changes in today’s foreclosure investing markets.

Our member’s area has been completely revamped and has countless tools available for members inside; short sale training videos, audios, documents, training replays, you name it, it’s there.

Our intent is to provide world class short sale training so you can make the most out of your investing career. Foreclosures are at an all time high, and things aren’t getting better anytime soon, have you noticed

We have excellent training programs available for both beginners, and advanced investors who want to be successful with foreclosure investing. We can provide negotiation services, funding for your deals (transactional funding), one on one coaching, EVERYTHING you could possibly need to be successful!

If you haven’t yet, get our FREE short sale e-book series for the best foreclosure training available and learn what REALLY works!

The regional markets that had received the highest historical appreciation rates during 2003 to 2006 also had some of the largest price adjustments over the past 24 months.

States that had these incredible high real estate returns, like California and Florida, have also seen the highest incidents of foreclosures. Everywhere you turn news reports share the dismal news on highest foreclosure rates in over a decade and an apparent bubble bursting effect.

Real estate, like any form of investment, has cyclical patterns that are dependent upon supply and demand. Good real estate market cycles attract developers and speculative buyers. Optimism kicks in and both buyers and developers exuberance results in over building and buying, resulting in excess “for sale” inventory.

Simple economics indicate that supply must be equal to or less than consumer demand otherwise prices will fall to attract more buyers. Qualified buyers hear local news reports indicating that prices are falling and many wait to see a bottom before executing a purchase, therefore exacerbating the situation further.

Market Bottom

A market turnaround can only occur when the excess inventory is consumed by: 1.Institutions (banks, lenders) that can weather a market correction. 2. Property is bought by financially qualified buyers. 3. Current property owners are financially capable of holding property for a longer period of time.

There is a silver lining to our current real estate cycle. 2008 will mark the bottom of the real estate cycle in the vast majority of all U.S. regional markets. One of the best indicators to demonstrate a bottoming is the recent news reports of high foreclosures by lending institutions. A foreclosure is always the last result for any property owner.

Foreclosures are a sure sign that property owners have hit bottom, so much so that they find it necessary to give up the property. This is not to say that a new booming market cycle begins. But it is an excellent indication that it cannot get any worse, thus a bottoming.

Locating Market Bottoms

New markets are already starting to emerge that produce optimal results for investors and homeowners alike. However, not every region moves at the same pace. This is when it is important for any property buyer to investigate their regional buying are to find out whether it has already bottomed.

The only way to accomplish this is through understanding the regional real estate forecast in your area. Experienced investors know the importance of measuring market trends and are rarely caught with undesirable properties during a market decline. Unfortunately most average investors and homeowners are completely unaware of how to do this.

There really is no reason for this to happen since many resources now exist to help you measure market trends. It is far simpler and less expensive to know a regional market trend since the advent of computers and the internet.

Managing Real Estate Trends

Investors realize faster returns under any market condition so long as they can learn to manage and calculate the timelines that produce equity and cash flow gains.

The rewards from sound real estate investing are tremendous. Real property has been and will continue to be the single most significant source for creating individual wealth in the United States. Perhaps one of the most important reasons for these results is that most people make their real estate wealth while sleeping.

Property holders see incremental returns in value over time with little or no effort. This is what is referred to as appreciation in your asset. Almost every investor knows that this is the most compelling reason to invest in purchasing real property.

What is amazing is that the majority of homeowners fail to calculate their expected returns from appreciation before executing a contract to buy a specific property. Instead, time and time again, buyers purchase with an expectation of both short term and long term appreciation without any sound technical or economical guidance.

This in itself is not catastrophic since we all know that given enough of time the property almost always appreciates over the long run. But during an economical real estate slow down many regions may receive years of negligible appreciation and possibly even declines in values.

Would it not be wonderful to take the extra time to project how much time the appreciation will take and the amount of money you plan to make on every property?

Even when putting a bet on a table in Las Vegas we all have expectations of how much return we are expecting if we win. Or even a better example is any state lotto. Each store posts how much the current “pot” of earnings which is expected to be distributed to the winner. Sure there is no guarantee that you will be the winner, but at least you know what to expect to win.

Now lets apply this to purchasing a property. Many of you have already bought your first property. Did you have an exact number for appreciation over the first five years of ownership? Estimating your appreciable real estate returns over the short and long-term does not need to be a cumbersome or difficult task. In fact once you are armed with a few tools it can be as simple as calculating your lotto returns.

Taking the time to understand the dynamics of current economic conditions and applying the results before making an offer to purchase a property can and will yield you greater financial returns. All forms of financial investing (stocks, bonds, time-deposits) include a component of estimating the expected gain over time.

Measuring your expected returns can and should be a fundamental part for anyone interested in real estate. There is no reason for anyone to be caught with unwanted property during a market slow down.

In our business, we have the best of all worlds, since our risk is minimized by the type of transactions we do. The main thing to remember, is pricing the houses competitively will increase your chances of success.

If you’re serious about success with short sales, grab a copy of our awesome free e-book and get the RIGHT kind of foreclosure training

You’ve seen it on the evening news:
“Terrible Investor dupes homeowner out of everything by tricking them into signing away their title!”

Now, we know you wouldn’t do this on purpose, but many investors are doing it all over the country, every day. Most of them don’t even realize they’re doing it, they’ve just been taught by someone who doesn’t care (or know themselves!).

Are you using a Land Trust? Are you recording a deed? Guess what; If you answer yes, you are most likely falling into that very dangerous trap! You need to take action and learn the proper methods immediately!

Using a Land Trust can be fine, provided you use it correctly, which most people don’t. You should wait until you’re ready to close before assigning Beneficial Interest, and if you think the homeowner won’t be available, you should have specific wording in your agreement that states even though you are doing the assignment of Beneficial Interest, it SHALL NOT be executed until the time that you specify. That assignment form should also be held in an escrow account or at your closers office.

If you record any type of deed, or assign beneficial interest, you’ve just crossed a line that can get you into LOADS of trouble. You have taken away any possibilty of that homeowner being able to pursue any other means to solve their foreclosure problem.

If their house then goes to foreclosure, and they decide that you had anything to do with it, or that you didn’t do enough to help them during the situation, all they need to do is go share your transaction with an attorney and guess what; You’d better be ready to lose some sleep. That attorney is going to do his/her best to chew you up. Best case, you’ll spend alot of money on your own attorney and lose alot of sleep. Not to mention get plenty of new grey hair.

If you sign up your deals correctly, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Whenever someone says “get the deed”, RUN. Run the other way as fast as you can, because they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Our students know exactly how to sign up deals. As a matter of fact, we teach them MANY different ways to sign up deals, so everyone will have a method that works.

If you want to know what our students know, and how to have true success in the short sale arena, Learn about buying foreclosed homes.

Please don’t be the investor on your local nightly news! Learn the RIGHT way.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Here’s your Friday question and answer(s) of the week!

Have a safe and happy 4th!

Enjoy!

David Corbaley

If you thought the subprime mess was bad, wait until you see what’s coming!

The subprime wave was just a ripple compared to the wave of defaults that are just around the corner.

Are you positioned correctly to take advantage of this? If you have the ability to do loan modifications and short sales, you’re positioned to help a lot of people and make a lot of money in the process.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Wow, huh!

Talk to you soon.

Marty Schulting
TFT/ALM Co-Founder

For 2009, David Corbaley and I will pick a topic every Friday and talk about it for 15-20 minutes. We’ll record the conversation and upload it for you. Please feel free to add a comment or two (upper right of this page) if you choose.

For today’s topic, we’re discussing Land Trusts, the pros and cons of them, and how they can be correctly used with real estate transactions (and flips!). Find out how you can save THOUSANDS of dollars per transaction and have countless more available buyers by correctly using Land Trusts. David uses Revocable Living Trusts in Washington, and he discusses how and why he uses these on this audio.

Again, we will be doing this weekly, so look back here next Friday for the next conversation with Marty and David. (we promise to have better audio quality next week).

Oh, if you’re not on our mailing list, you can get signed up by going to www.shortsaletruth.com and giving us your name and e-mail address.

To your success!

Marty Schulting and David Corbaley
Top Foreclosure Training
Accelerated Loan Mods
Co-Founders and Coaches
www.TopForeclosureTraining.com
www.AcceleratedLoanMods.com

Hello again!!!

One of the things that seems to challenge people is that initial conversation with the homeowner. I have started recording my conversations with homeowners so I can provide them to you, so you can hear exactly what I say, and how I handle objections or questions.

There are two recordings below. Please listen to them in order to best understand the situation and to get the most from the recordings.

Enjoy!

Audio #1. Listen to this one first. I explain the situation.

The actual Conversation

I’ll upload more for you as the conversations happen.

To your success!!!

Marty Schulting
Top Foreclosure Training
Accelerated Loan Mods
Co-Founder and Coach

This is awesome! On December 24, 2008, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released the “Mortgagee Letter 2008-43″. What does this mean to you, the real estate investor? Well, to summarize:

1. Change in NET to lender. First, let’s cover the “bad” part. Well, it’s sort of bad, but if you play this right, it’s going to be irrelevent to you. The original NET of 82% has changed. The new NET is 88% if sold within 30 days, 86% percent if sold within 60 days, and 84% if sold after 60 days. Why does this not REALLY matter? See #2.

2. Removal of 63% or greater property appraisal versus debt. This will help everybody! The old FHA guidelines called for the appraisal to come in at or above 63% of the loan balance plus past due interest and late fees not including attorney fees. This guideline has been removed, which opens up FHA short sales for those areas that have seen huge depreciation as well as those properties that require massive repairs!

3. Property (by exception) no longer needs to be owner occupied. What this means is that FHA will still allow a short sale, even if the property in not owner occupied. The details are in section B (Mortgagor Qualifications) in the mortgagee letter. It will be interesting to see how the lenders interpret this section over time.

4. Increased amount to Junior Liens. FHA now allows up to $2500 to Junior liens ($1000 of this comes from the Seller Incentive).

5. Up to $1000 in seller incentives. FHA will allow the homeowner to receive up to $1000 at closing as an incentive for participating in the short sale program. However, the NET to the lender must still be at or above the 88%, 86%, or 84% as discussed above.

6. Lender MUST e-mail or fax the appraisal if requested. Ever wonder if the loss mitigator is lying to you about what the appraisal came in at? Guess what, if the homeowner or the real estate agent request a copy of the appraisal, the lender MUST disclose it! Wow, this takes ALL the guesswork out of the numbers required to pay for the property. Cool, huh!

7. The discount comes off the as-is value, not the full retail. Ever wonder what number drives your discount? This isn’t necessarily a change in the guidelines, but the mortgagee letter clearly states that the lender is to take their discount off the as-is value, not the full retail value!

Holy smoke, do you see why this is so cool!?!?!? All the guesswork for your FHA deal is now gone! From now forward, you know:

- What the appraisal came in at (lender required to send you a copy of the appraisal)
- What your number is that you must pay for the property
- That the appraisal can come in at ANY number (old 63% guesswork is gone)
- You can even get vacant FHA deals done

If you haven’t done an FHA deal ever, it’s time you got one!

To your success!

Marty Schulting
Top Foreclosure Training

So, here I am in Minnesota. I left Raleigh a few days ago, and it was 70 degrees. We land in Minnesota to snow and some serious cold! Tonight it will get down to 9 degrees BELOW ZERO! Can somebody tell me again why I’m here?

So my pregnant wife and two kids went to bed at 9pm. I headed off to Caribou Coffee to work on…

LOAN MODIFICATION TRAINING for Monday!

Wow, for those of you who have signed up, get ready for an AWESOME 2009! You’re going to see on Monday that not only are Loan Mods the biggest thing to hit real estate in over a century, but we have put together a system that will compensate you in many ways! Yes, you can get compensated for MORE than just referring a loan mod to the attorney group.

You’re going to see exactly HOW to submit a loan mod.

You’re also going to see why Loan mods are legal for EVERY profession.

Legal for Agents
Legal for Loan officers
Legal for Investors
Legal in Florida
Legal in California

Folks, this is so huge, I can’t even begin to tell you!

David and I have spent MONTHS putting this system together for you, and on Monday you will see what I’m talking about.

I have NEVER been so excited about anyting in real estate. In fact, I haven’t been this excited since I flew the F-15C for the very first time.

Get ready to be blown away!

See you on Monday night’s training!

Oh, and please send your questions to: Questions@TopForeclosureTraining.com. I’ll be sure to compile the list and get everything answered for you so you can kick off 2009 in the right way.

Take care everybody! Have a great holiday season!

Marty Schulting
TFT Co-Founder and Coach
Accelerated Loan Mods Co-Founder