Lex Levinrad Real Estate Investor, Speaker, Author & Mentor

BUYING BANK OWNED PROPERTIES On today's podcast episode I talk about buying bank owned properties. This is an important episode because pre-foreclosures and foreclosure auctions are sky rocketing in 2024, and many of these foreclosures that we are seeing now will ultimately end up as bank owned properties. It is important for you to understand how the foreclosure process works in your State so that you can better understand how many of these foreclosures will become bank owned properties and the timeline of how that happens. Typically, when you have not made your mortgage payment for 120 days, the bank can sue you and initiate foreclosure proceedings. But there is a substantial backlog of people who have not made their mortgage payments who are still not in foreclosure because the bank has not pursued a foreclosure filing yet. No one knows how many of these properties exist but an inside source that I have at one of the largest lenders tells me that it is a very substantial number. So anticipate many more for

On today's podcast episode, I talk about buying houses subject to the existing mortgage. This investment strategy is also known as "assuming the mortgage" or buying "subject to".  As prices have pulled back around 15% from the peak, many sellers are realizing that they will not be able to get their Zillow estimate if they sell their house. There are a lot of people who purchased houses 3 years ago when interest rates were as low as 2.5% or 3% (on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage). Today the rate is 6.5% which is more than double what the rate was just 3 years ago. This has created an opportunity with many motivated seller leads where sellers are calling us and trying to sell their house. As an example, let's look at one of the leads that called my office recently. This was a young couple who had purchased their house for $225,000 a few years ago. They had put down $25,000 and their original loan balance was $200,000. Their interest rate was 3%. The interest component on their 30 year mortgage was a monthly payme

On today's podcast episode, I talk about fixing and flipping houses and understanding how fixing and flipping houses works.  When you want to fix and flip a house, before you get started it is important to understand who you are selling the house to. I always teach my students to look at a fix and flip in reverse - meaning understand who you are selling the house to first.  Your biggest pool of buyers are going to be first time FHA buyers. Those first time home buyers are buying a home with just 3.5% down. The demographic of a first time home buyer is a couple looking to move from an apartment to a house. The average age for an FHA buyer according to FHA is 31 or 32 years old.  The next thing you need to look at is affordability. A lot of beginners mess this up because they figure if they are going to be fixing and flipping then they may as well go for a higher priced house with bigger profit potential to make as much money as possible. I don't advise that you do this, because as you go up in price point ther

On today's podcast I talk about how to get started investing in real estate. I read an article today online which was called "5 Ways To Get Started Investing in Real Estate". This article had some really bad advice for new investors. So I thought I would record this podcast episode on that topic of how to get started investing in real estate. The Article That I Read Recommended These 5 Things. 1. Buy REIT's (I don't recommend that) 2. Online Real Estate Investing Platforms (I don't recommend that either) 3. Buying rental properties (I recommend that you learn how to buy rentals) 4. Consider learning how to flip houses (I recommend that you learn how to flip houses) 5. Rent out a room (recommended if you are on a budget and need to come up with more money to invest) As far as getting started investing in real estate, I only agree with two of the above strategies. Learning how to flip houses and buying rental properties. If you are thinking about getting into real estate investing, then you have probably consid

New investors are drawn to wholesaling. Wholesaling is the one area of real estate where most new investors gravitate to. You can start wholesaling without having and cash or credit and it appeals to people who need to make more money and it also appeals to people who don't have money.  So it appears to be very easy. The concept of wholesaling is very straightforward. You make an offer to buy a property, get an executed contract, and then assign the contract to another investor. That investor is the one who is going to close on the house, fix and flip it or turn it into a rental or Airbnb.  But wholesaling is not for everyone and it's not the only place to start out as a new real estate investor. For example, when my student Andy came into my real estate training program, he was adamant that he wanted to learn how to wholesale. When I asked him why he wanted to learn how to wholesale his answer was so that he could "quit his job and flip houses for a living". But he had a good corporate job with a Fortune 500

On today's podcast episode I talk about why you should buy rental properties. I explain why investing in real estate (specifically rentals) is such a great investment compared to other investments like stocks, bonds and mutual funds. The first thing you need to understand about investing in real estate is the five main benefits which are: 1. Appreciation 2. Cash Flow 3. Amortization 3. Tax Deductions 4. Depreciation APPRECIATION  HUD has been keeping track of single family house prices since 1964. The typical house in 1985 was worth $85,000. Today it is $420,000. That is 5 times the initial price!  To put that into perspective, imagine buying a house today at $420,000 and having it be worth 2.1 million dollars in 40 years (if you got one of those new 40 year mortgages).  That's an example of long term appreciation in real estate. Do you know what the price of the Median Single Family Home in the U.S was in 1975? A New Single Family Home was just $39,000! That's appreciation. In 1963 it was just $18,000. But w

On today's podcast I talk about the opportunity in buying foreclosures and bank owned homes.  In order to understand why this opportunity is presenting itself, it is first important to understand what got us into this situation. The answer is record low interest rates, and the fastest and quickest rate cuts in U.S History as a result of the epidemic of March 2020. Interest rates were quickly lowered and effectively kept at zero for almost two years. Keeping interest rates that low for that long had many uninted consequences. The fact that the government was handing out EIDL Loans and PPP Loans and sending checks to everyone just added more fuel to the fire. There was too much cash floating around, and not enough goods available. The net effect is that these interest rate cuts fueled inflation. Prices of every day items, groceries, real estate and rent all increased substantially.  The economy was over stimulated to the point that we had rampant inflation. This inflation presented itself in higher real estate

On today’s podcast episode I talk about understanding what a wholesale deal is.  Would you be able to recognize a wholesale deal from a house for sale? They are not the same.   Regardless of whether you want to wholesale real estate, fix and flip houses or buy rental properties you need to be able to understand what a wholesale deal is, and why someone would sell their house at a discount. If you have limiting beliefs or excuses of why you cannot own a rental property, then I will share with you a mind exercise that I sometimes use with my students that will help you overcome limited belief mindsets (like not having enough money to buy a rental property).  Here is the exercise Imagine your own mother inherited a million dollars and she wants you to buy single family rental properties for her. So you don't have to worry about having the money to buy rentals because she has the money. And you don't need to worry about having credit since you are paying cash (with her money). So now all you need to do is go out

On today's podcast episode I talk about the Buy, Repair, Rent and Refinance Method (BRRR).  On the last podcast episode, we talked about buying rental properties and the wealth creation effect of buying and holding rental properties for the long term.  Today, we are talking about how to employ the Buy, Repair, Rent and Refinance Method, how it works, and how it enables you to buy real estate with no money down (or with almost no money down).  I use as a case study on this podcast episode, my student Dale who recently purchased a rental property for $94,000. I loaned him $80,000 to purchase the property which was a private lender loan (using my own funds). This is definitely one of the advantages of being a coaching student.  At the Airbnb Boot Camp this past weekend, we covered the Buy, Repair, Rent and Refinance Strategy in detail and we showed our students how to effectively use the BRRR Strategy. We will be covering this again in a few weeks at the Buying Rentals and Building Wealth Boot Camp so make sure

On today's podcast episode, I talk about buying your first rental property. Buying a rental is a lot easier than you think, and you should consider doing it as soon as possible because buying rentals is the path to wealth and financial freedom. What prevents many new real estate investors from buying their first rental is limiting beliefs or obstacles that they believe that they have that prevent them from buying a rental property. This podcast episode will hopefully clear that up for you.  Another issue I see with rental properties is that some beginners think that buying a rental will create enormous amounts of cash flow for them. When they realize that they are only making a few hundred dollars a month and they are faced with maintenance, repairs, tenant headaches and evictions they get depondent and they quit and sell their property. I see this all of the time. And the reason that this happens is because they don't understand the long term wealth building that buying rental properties and holding those re

On today's podcast I talk about creating a life of financial freedom.  I think this is a very approriate time for me to be talking about this becauase last week I returned from a two month trip to the Bahamas where I was living on my catamaran.  I was interviewed by my students Fred and Andy on Sunday night on an IG Live that they were hosting, and one of their main questions on that interview revolved around how to create financial freedom, and what it means to build your life by design and to have a freedom lifestyle.   But their real question was "How do you manage to be off the grid in the Bahamas for two months and still have your real estate business run so efficiently? So I thought I would talk about this concept of financial freedom on today's podcast episode.  Building a life by design means having intent in how you want to live your life, and then creating that life and that lifestlye by purposely planning for it. Learning how to invest in real estate and building a real estate business that buys an

On today's podcast episode, I talk about the current state of the real estate market and where I think the market is heading.  One of the questions I get asked the most is "what do you think of the market right now" or "do you think the real estate market will crash. This podcast episode answers those questions.  Disclaimer: I cannot predict what will happen. No one can. There are too many unknown variables like war, interest rates, the Fed, the dollar, stock and bond markets, etc. However what I can tell you is my opinion on what I see and how I interpret it. That is what this episode is about.  Prices have moved exponentially higher. I was looking today at houses that were worth $150,000 in 2000 that are now on the MLS at $300,000. In many markets, prices have doubled in two years. So be very careful of listening to the "Case Shiller Home Price Index" and other data that is put out by mainstream companies because a lot of this data is skewed because it's an "average" or "median" of the entire country. Diffe

On today's Podcast, I interview my friend Brandon Bateman about Pay Per Click (PPC) and SEO For motivated sellers. I first met Brandon at my Collective Genius mastermind when I was introduced to him by a mutual friend. Brandon is running the PPC and SEO campaigns for some of the biggest real estate investors in the country (including many of my friends in my mastermind). Since we spoke about motivated seller marketing on the last podcast episode on this show, I thought it would be a great time to ask Brandon to come on to the podcast so that he could share some of his PPC and SEO Wisdom with all of my listeners. This episode is packed with a lot of information related to marketing to motivated sellers. We talk about Google Ads (PPC), Facebook Ads, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), website design and many other concepts related to motivated seller marketing. Brandon is an expert in PPC and SEO, so get out your notepad and make sure you take some good notes from this podcast episode! OUR REAL ESTATE TRAINING PR

On today's podcast episode I talk about marketing to motivated sellers. The main difference between new real estate investors, and expert real estate investors is the willingness to spend money on marketing. And this really boils down to understanding marketing costs and how marketing to motivated sellers really works. The first thing that you need to understand is cost per lead. If I mail out 10,000 postcards at a cost of 42 cents per postcard then my mail campaign cost me $4,200. If I get a response rate of 1/4 of 1 percent then that would work out to be 10,000 x 0.0025 which is 25 leads (sellers). If I spent $4,200 to generate those 25 seller leads, then my cost per lead is $4,200 divided by 25 which works out to be $168 per lead. So with that marketing campaign my cost per lead is $168. If after speaking to those 25 sellers, only 10 are truly motivated to sell and I decide to go on 10 seller appointments then the cost per seller appointment is $4,200 divided by 10 which is $420 per appointment. If I can c

On this podcast episode I talk about one of the most frequent questions I am asked lately, which is: "Is the real estate market going to crash"? While I don't think it's going to be like 2008 (although there is a very small chance it could be), the more likely outcome is a pullback in prices that will entice buyers back to the table. The main difference between 2008 and now, is that the reason that we got into the financial crisis back then was because banks had made very bad loans to borrowers that should not have been getting approved for mortgages. There were No Income/No Job Loans (Ninja Loans), and No Income/No Assets (Nina Loans). Literally anyone with a pulse could get approved for a mortgage and "stated income" and "no doc" loans were very common. Many of these loans were adjustable rate mortgages which reset at a higher Interest rate and some of them were even negative amortization loans. We all know how that ended with the 2008 financial crisis (very badly). I suggest you watch the movie "The Big Sh

On this podcast episode I talk about creative finance methods that are working in today's market and how you can employ these methods to make you a better real estate investor. The biggest issue in today's market is that there is a gap between seller's expectations and what they think their house is worth, relative to what a cash investor is willing to pay. The reason for this is because prices went up so much for so long that sellers became accustomed to getting close to market value (or close to the Zillow estimate). When there is a gap between what a seller is willing to accept and what the cash investor is willing to pay, then often turning to creative financing methods will help bridge that gap. One strategy that helps sellers get closer to retail is the Novations Strategy which we spoke about with our guest Eric Brewer on a previous podcast episode. This works well if the seller wants a price that is close to retail, and will not come down to the price you are willing to pay for a cash offer. Another st

On this podcast episode, I interview my student Andy Saintilus and we talk about his success as a real estate investor, and how and why he transitioned from long term rentals to short term rentals. Andy is just 33 years old. He attended his first real estate training event with me around 5 or 6 years ago. Shortly after that, he signed up for my one on one coaching program. Over the past 5 years, Andy has purchased 10 rental properties in Miami using the Buy, Repair, Rent and Refinance strategy (BRRR). I loaned him the money on all 10 properties - which is one of the benefits of my coaching program. In the past few years, he has transitioned his long term Section 8 rentals into short term vacation rentals that are listed on Airbnb. He now has all 10 properties in Miami listed as short term rentals on Airbnb. Andy now generates over $50,000 a month in income from Airbnb. He has also increased his net worth by almost 2 million dollars. And he is only 33 years old! In November, Andy quit his corporate job for goo

On today's podcast episode, I talk about the opportunity that will be created as a result of the ending of the foreclosure moratorium. The Foreclosure Moratorium ended in September 2021, however the CDC recommended that banks not pursue homeowners in foreclosure until the end of the 2021. Most banks waited until the end of last year. Many States require a 120 day "grace period" before the bank can sue or foreclosure on an individual that is not paying their mortgage. That expired at the end of April 2022. So we are now going to see many homeowners who have not been paying their mortgages start receiving notices of default (NOD) or Lis Pendens (foreclosure lawsuit). The net result is that many of these homeowners will have to face some hard realities. They will have to either sell their home or lose it to foreclosure. These homeowners who have not been paying their mortgage (some since March of 2000) are going to have only 3 choices which are: 1. Have the bank agree to a loan modification 2. Sell their home be

On today's podcast I talk about understanding financial freedom, the velocity of money and how these concepts are both related to your mindset about money. If you could buy a rental property today for $100,000, that was rented to a tenant that paid you $1,000 per month in rent, and your cost to maintain that property was $1,000 per month would you buy it? Unfortunately, for most new investors, the answer would be no. Would you feel like you were not getting a return on your money if the property was just breaking even? Most people would feel that way. And that is because they don't understand the velocity of money. Let's look what would happen with that same property if you had a 15 year fixed rate mortgage. In just 15 years, the property would be paid off, and you would own it free and clear (with no mortgage). 15 years later, not only would the value of the property double to $200,000, but the rents would double as well (from $1,000 to $2,000). And if you owned that property free and clear most of that $2,0