Lex Levinrad Real Estate Investor, Speaker, Author & Mentor

On this podcast episode I talk about opportunities in today's real estate market. The current inventory situation in the real estate market is the tightest that I have ever seen (in 17 years). There is such a huge shortage of inventory and there is simply no supply. Investors are having a very hard time finding wholesale deals at wholesale prices. I discuss one strategy that we are employing which is to look at cheap rental properties that are currently rented with tenants in place. Many wholesalers send out these types of deals to their investors and the key to getting these houses is to beat your competition by locking up the contract instead of "waiting" for an appointment. You will need to know your ARV's very well in order to do this. You will also need to drive by the properties in order to feel comfortable enough to do this. You can purchase these properties with hard money (or private money) and then you can wait until the tenants lease expires. At that point you can give the tenant a notice to vacate

On this podcast episode I talk about how to create a life of financial freedom. The first step is to establish what your freedom number really is. Your freedom number is simply the amount of money that you need per month to live your current lifestyle without having to work or have a job. If you have enough money coming in from your investments to cover your overhead and all of your bills, then you have achieved financial freedom. On this podcast episode I talk about how to establish your financial freedom number, and how to put a plan in place to achieve financial freedom in 15 years (or less). The way that we achieve this is by buying rental properties and refinancing the loan into 15 year mortgages. By doing this, we know that in 15 years we will own the property free and clear with no mortgage. And we know that the rental income that the property generates will be income that goes straight into our pocket (after taxes, repairs and insurance). All we need to do is to calculate how many rental properties we

On this podcast episode I talk about creating wealth in real estate, by building wealth one house at a time. The example that I use on this podcast came from our Fixing and Flipping Coaching event this past weekend. I was reviewing potential fix and flip deals with my coaching students and we were evaluating deals together to find houses that would make good fix and flips. The specific house that I discussed with them is a $180,000 house that can be purchased for $115,000. The asking price on the house is $120,000. It is a nice house in a decent neighborhood that was a foreclosure and is being sold by Fannie Mae. The house needs flooring, kitchen, bathrooms, and interior and exterior paint. I am guessing that to fix and flip the house the repairs could be around $25,000. We use our fixing and flipping calculator which you can use by visiting this page: https://www.lexlevinrad.com/rehab-property-calculator/ For a fix and flip, the spread is a little tight and the house will only generate a profit of around $10

On this podcast episode, I interview Nathan Trunfio, who is the President of Direct Lending Partners. Direct Lending Partners is a direct lender for fix and flip and investor loans and operates in multiple States. We discuss private lending for fix and flip loans, underwriting loans and what lenders are looking for from investors. We also talk about how lending has been affected by the recent Covid 19 crisis. We also talk about growing a fast paced real estate company and how DLP has evolved and grown by over 65% per year based on the vision of the company founder Don Wenner. DLP operates a Realty Company, a Builder, a Real Estate Management company and DLP Partners which operates multiple real estate equity and debt funds. DLP is also a major multi family operator and currently manages over 10,000 doors. We talk about transitioning from single family investing to multi family investing and the pros and cons. Great podcast interview!

On this podcast episode I interview Chris Chico who is a good friend of mine, about marketing to motivated sellers. We discuss all forms of motivated seller marketing, including direct mail which is how Chris started out marketing to sellers. We discuss in depth how he markets to motivated sellers with Facebook Ads (which is his specialty). Chris has over 17 years of experience as a real estate investor. He literally created the term "virtual wholesaling" back in 2005 before it was a household term. Many people in the real estate industry refer to him as the "godfather" of Virtual Wholesaling. He pioneered the use of "ugly" postcards and 24 hour recorded messages for direct mail marketing (and mailed millions of postcards). He is an expert at teaching real estate investors how to find motivated sellers using paid social media ads especially via Facebook Ads. There is a lot of solid information in this episode. Make sure you have a pen and paper to take some notes.

On this podcast episode, I interview Trevor Mauch who is the founder and CEO of Investor Carrot. Investor Carrot is the #1 Real Estate Investor Website Platform for real estate investors and is used by thousands of real estate investors, wholesalers and flippers. I personally use Investor Carrot websites in my real estate business and have multiple cash buyer and motivated seller websites with Carrot. If you want to check out Investor Carrot visit: http://www.lexlevinrad.com/carrot On this podcast interview, I speak with Trevor about how he leveraged his background in SEO, Content Marketing and Digital Marketing to build Investor Carrot. We also talk about business building and gaining your freedom and time back, by hiring people to replicate your systems and processes. Trevor has excelled at this and that has helped make Carrot the fastest growing real estate investor website platform for both beginners and professional real estate investors. Trevor talks about why he founded Carrot, and his personal mission

On this podcast episode, I talk about the impact of corona on real estate and how this will affect real estate investors, wholesalers and flippers. The great pricing reset of 2020 or what I like to call the "Covid 19 Effect" is related to how pricing in the real estate markets has been immediately reset for wholesalers, real estate investors and lenders. Cash buyers for wholesale deals are cautious right now and are either not buying at all, or they are expecting substantial discounts to move forward on a purchase. We have put a 20% safety margin on all purchases in place to protect ourselves. Capital markets are currently discounting pricing at around 80% to 85% which means they are willing to sell $100,000 loans that they originated a month ago for $80,000 to $85,000 just to get those loans off their books. So I think that a 20% safety margin works (for now). Could pricing get worse? We think it could. Ultimately this will translate into a pricing reset in the retail markets. The reason for this is because

On this podcast episode I interview Fernando Angelucci, the Senior Managing Partner of Titan Wealth Group, about investing in self storage. Fernando has a very interesting background. He first read Rich Dad Poor Dad when he was only 16 years old and started his first real estate investing business (wholesaling) when he was just 19 years old. After graduating college with an Ag-Bio Engineering degree in 2013 he started working for a Fortune 500 Company. Fernando continued investing in single family rental properties, and by the age of 23, he was able to quit his job and focus full time on investing in real estate. At the age of 24, Fernando began investing in value add self storage facilities. He focused on buying facilities at a massive discount to market value where the facility could be purchased for very little money down (and in some cases no money down). Fernando and his company own, manage and operate self storage facilities in 7 different states. He has also wholesaled and flipped self storage faciliti

On this podcast episode I talk about being efficient with your mailing list by scheduling your mail in bulk and by using list stacking software. This is episode 5, in a multi part series about getting back to the basics of Wholesaling Real Estate. The first episode was called "Wholesaling Real Estate 101". Make sure you go back about 6 or 7 podcast episodes, and listen from the beginning to part 1 of this back to the basics series. Part 1 was called "Wholesaling Real Estate 101". Part 2 of this series is "Motivated Sellers and How Sellers Become Motivated to Sell". Part 3 of this series is "Types of Motivated Seller Lists". Part 4 is the episode before this one, where I talk about "Purchasing Motivated Seller Lists" and where to purchase these lists. On this podcast episode (part 5) I talk about being efficient with your mailing list by learning how to pay the least amount possible for your mailing list and your postcard mailings. Make sure you get the lowest possible cost per lead, and the lowest possible co

On this podcast episode I interview Jason Hartman who is the founder of the Creating Wealth Podcast which is one of the top rated podcasts in the Investing Category on iTunes. Jason has completed thousands of real estate transactions, and his company helps real estate investors find and acquire income producing properties throughout the U.S. In this interview, we talk about investing in income properties, and how to pick the most suitable and sensible markets to invest in. Jason talks about the differences between cyclical, linear and hybrid markets and what that means. He also discusses why real estate is hyper local and why choosing where to invest is so important. We talk about mortgages, debt, interest rates and inflation and why having a rental property with a mortgage that pays down over time is one of the best strategies for beating inflation. Jason explains his term "inflation induced debt destruction" to illustrate this point. We talk about the benefits of buying and holding real estate for the long

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