Investing in the USA

[CanucKiwi]

I'm doing a free webinar for you.

Disapointed to see even canadians cant get loans, was hoping to swing off that to buy , (myself canadian born, kiwi bred). So what area you recommend to invest in, and whose a good property manger and real estate agent to start getting some ground work done before flying over!

(If you can't be bothered reading, go here to skip everything else below!)
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/790647192

There's been so much interest in this (way more than I expected) that I've been asked by Beryl Colley in Wellington to do a live webinar this Wednesday night at 7pm NZ time 30 September 2009. (It will be 2am for us here! ugh!)

It was originally just going to be a "set the record straight on all the hype and half-truths and answer people's questions" but I don't believe in just pointing out the problems and not offering a solution (that's called "complaining" after all)... so we've decided that we're going to talk about our entire process on how to set up successful cashflow positive rentals safely. It won't be full of "pretty" slides (we're not being paid for this) but we will show you everything we do in full detail. I personally think the US is WAY safer than NZ right now for rental property investors who know what they're doing, and WAAAAY more dangerous than NZ for investors who DON'T know what they're doing... and I'll talk about why that is too.

I managed to rope my business partner Matt into it as well. He's the guy who started a lot of what we're doing now, and together with our whole team we've fine-tuned it. So you've got both of us, and we're going to see if we can bring in any other team members if we can trick them into staying up until about 3am.

I promise there's no hype, no sales agenda... we're not selling any sort of information product or seminars or whatever. There won't be any big pitch or push for you to spend any money, so don't worry it just being another "sales seminar". We're not charging anything nor are we getting paid to do this in any way -- I'm just sick of hearing about all the baloney that's being fed into the market right now, and Beryl asked me to be the voice of reason and show real PROOF that there's a way to make safe SPENDABLE money, rather than talk in theoretical terms and hyperbole about what you "can" do in theory, but probably can't do in real life... at least not safely or often enough to make it worthwhile... or how to make theoretical equity gains (which is not "cashflow forever").

If you want to hear about everything we're doing, and ask questions live, you can sign up here:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/790647192

If Matt and I can stay up from 2am - 3am to tell you the plain truth about the US market and tell you for free how to replicate our cashflow property successes, then you can afford to show up at 7pm on Wednesday.

I hate to sound like a "hype salesman" but this is simply the truth -- the webinar software package that we're using does have a limit on the number of people who can receive the broadcast, and the "seats" are being filled up fast after the webinar was announced in an email from Beryl last week. I'm not handling the responses, so I don't know exactly where we're up to, but tonight on our catch-up Beryl said she was really surprised at the response so far. (not sure if it was "one of the biggest webinars" or "THE biggest webinar" she's ever had... like I said, there's more interest in this than I expected.) The US is a hot topic among property investors these days, it seems.

Now here's the pitch... for 3 easy payments of $29.95 I'll throw in a Slap-Chop and a ShamWow! haha! j/k!

I'll be gone for the next day or two, as I'm showing another very prominent Auckland-based investor around on a personal tour of our investments and systems in the USA leading right up to the webinar. I will try to check my emails intermittently, but please don't count on a timely reply as our schedule for the next 48+ hours is very structured and busy.

[CanucKiwi]

Thanks everyone who was on the webinar! We had a much higher turn out than expected... and that's despite some of the technical trouble that some people reported with the software on their computers and not being able to hear us.

I hope you got some good value out of the first webinar (out of what we expect will be 3), although it was more of an overview and look at the considerations you need to factor into your plans. It's truly impossible to cover every possible aspect and get into the very finest of details in only 1.5 hours, so we will be looking in greater detail at the risks (and how to reduce them or avoid them entirely), operational and management aspects over the next two webinars.

We did get some great questions sent in from attendees, and we will be replying to those as well online. Some of the questions are also relevant to the discussion we will have in the upcoming webinars, so we'll answer briefly online and in greater detail on the call.

I do apologize again that we (Matt, Steve and I) were totally shattered and possibly incomprehensible at some points. Simply due to the timing of everything, we had literally just finished our 48-hour whirlwind tour with Kieran and Willie through our areas of the US and Canada. It was also 2:00am - 3:30am here for Matt, Steve and I, so we were really burning the candle at both ends (and maybe even in the middle too, somehow!).

As I said on the call, in response to the massive attention that US investing is getting lately, we are putting "timeliness before fanciness" and getting this information out there without necessarily glossing up our slides with extra graphics, or rehearsing and polishing our presentation in advance. (The worst thing that can happen is for more "Mum & Pop" investors to unwittingly put their life savings in peril based on incomplete or misleading information without understanding the real risks... while we take our time getting some impressive photos together!)

Once we have the webinar recording posted online and your questions answered, I'll post here again with the address for you to link through to those.

[Michener]

Hi CanucKiwi,

Thoroughly enjoyed your webinar, and my thanks for the info you shared online. I know you are stressing that at this point in time you are offering information only, though I think we're all expecting that you have something to offer which you'll make clear fairly soon (if it isn't already pretty clear).

The property that you used as an example last night - was that a property you purchased directly from an agent for the asking price? I bring it up because I used Google Maps to view the property via StreetView, and a link appeared that led to an advert where the property in question was offered for sale (dated 16 Sept 2009), for the same price you mentioned last night. Quite amazing that there are properties in the US you can buy at asking price that are still significantly cashflow positive.

Is your main strategy to look for properties like this, or would you concentrate more on sourcing properties via mortgagee auction or other means at bargain prices?

Look forward to the next webinar.

Cheers,

Mich

[CanucKiwi]

(Apologies in advance - very interrupted while writing this, and no time to re-edit it... sorry if I repeat myself or am not clear.)

Hi Michener,

Glad you enjoyed the webinar!

We're preparing for the next one at the moment. While we (separately) have both done some public speaking to investor's groups, Matt and I are not professional presenters or high pressure sales pitch men, so thank you for looking past our less-than-perfect delivery to see the value of the content. As I said at the beginning of the first webinar, it's all relatively impromptu to just get the info out there, rather than to dazzle people with surface decorations on top of hypothetical information.

In retrospect, after having run the first webinar, of course there are things that I think "I really wish I'd remembered to mention this and that"... and... "I wish I'd worded that a little differently so it would be clearer" but of course we did go 37 minutes over-time as it was (thank you to everyone for sticking with us!) and at 2am - 3:30am there's not so much energy left in the mental & physical reserve batteries, particularly after the 48 hours we'd just had. We are taking the list of "I wish we had..." ideas and rolling as much of it as we can fit into the content of the next two webinars, given that we only have a short space of time between them to prepare. Keep in mind that we're also running our day-to-day investments and businesses at the same time.

As for what we're offering... (now, admittedly, this will sound absolutely crazy and/or B/S to anyone who has come to expect that everyone in the world is selling something with a formulaic, predictable, NLP-laden hardball sales pitch at the end of every webinar or seminar) we haven't exactly put together any sort of "offer" for NZ investors per-se at the moment. We HAVE been working with and providing turnkey properties to Canadian investors, so perhaps we can translate that over to NZ and sort out a way to work with NZ investors. We are speaking with some specific people in NZ about that, but there's nothing set in stone as of this very minute. I hope that we can open the door here, because as you mentioned, the opportunities are very good, even when the prices are near market value. So no, we aren't pitching anything right now, just as I said. We don't want to disappoint, so we may start pitching soon if that's what people want... do you need a kitchen food slicer by chance?

Here's what it's all about...

There are a lot of sources in the market selling hyped up information... information which, with a little research, can be found for free or very cheap. We don't sell information, we produce cashflow results. You can't go to the grocery store and say at the checkout "I don't have any money to pay you, but I can give you some really great information". I suppose you could try it and see what sort of response you get.

[Remember, though, that while information may be free, experience can only be earned, bought or donated. As Brad Sugars says, "the most expensive advice you can get is free advice from a poor person".]

Instead of information, we have a results system that works in the real-life-world (not hypothetically) to generate cashflow positive properties that are easy to tenant and easy to manage. We don't need to hide any downsides or talk in hypothetical terms because we have real-life results to show. We can talk about not just the Good, but also the Bad and Ugly without worrying that the Bad and Ugly will scare off potential investors. I think a lot of hypothetical info is a bit thin on the Bad and Ugly, that's all.

The Good is, of course, what we see in the bank account every month when the rents come in.

The Bad (risk) is avoided and/or mitigated by our systems and management.

The Ugly... well... while not nearly the worst of the worst, our houses are probably not going to be featured on the cover of Home & Garden Magazine any time soon, but investors who'll never see the places don't care, as long as the money keeps coming in.

Our economic interest in doing these webinars is simply this:

If we tell people for free about our system and the actual cashflow outcomes and we get a good level of interest from NZ investors, we may look at investing in the infrastructure to make our deals and teams available to NZ investors the way we have with Canadians. Until we know that it's a worthwhile venture, we aren't going to rush into anything in a big way as far as NZ is concerned. (A lesson I learned in my lifesaving-courses a long time ago that also applies to business is to always determine the depth of the water before you dive in head-first. It can save your neck!)

So here's the upshot of the whole thing. We're happy to give away our information for free. Then, once you know exactly what we do and how we do it, if you want the benefits of our systems and experience to generate REAL cashflow results, we are available to working together to develop a massive cashflow stream for you. First, we want to prove to you what we have going for us, and also prove that we're not out to make ourselves wealthy without directly making others wealthy at the same time. That is, if there's enough interest in it for us to go down that road. (Who knows... maybe information *is* a better seller than real results, because only 5-10% of people ever do anything with what they learn about building wealth. I'll personally take "results" over "info about results" any day.)

As for your questions about the property sheet numbers in the webinar -- those are examples of the types of Turnkey properties that we have made available to Canadian investors. The "Purchase Price" is the price they would be available for from us if we were to sell them... not our acquisition price. (Sorry if I was unclear about that in the webinar. As I said, it was impromptu not rehearsed, and with a little more sleep I would have perhaps been a little sharper.) This is why "Renovation Cost" is $0.00. EVERY property I've seen in the US has needed varying amounts of work, most often a LOT of work. Even a pristine house (which I have never seen, and would be rarer than hens teeth) will need to pass all the certifications and inspections regardless. For these, we've already paid for, project-managed and completed all the renos, passed all codes, done all the various government inspections (there are several hoops to jump through), achieved all Certificate of Occupancies, etc and that's all included in the price that was shown. Initially we were looking to sell them, but based on the net yields we're deciding if we will let them go to investors or keep them. If it will help Kiwis get up and running in the USA, then we can once again make them available to NZ investors. For now, they're paying us very well just sitting there.

Purely for comparison sake.... if we were offering those properties as "non-turnkey", the Purchase Price would have been lower, there would have been a Reno Cost Estimate specified for each of them (below the price), and there would have been estimated Rents (rather than actual) and an estimated Net Yield at the end (rather than "Actual" as specified). Matt used to offer those sort of deals to Canadian investors, but they are less popular as it's far more management intensive than the "cashflow positive from day 1" type turnkey investment. Most investors these days will jump 10 feet in the air to get an already-cashflowing 20% net yield anyway, so why put in all the work and go through the negative cashflow period to try to save a little at the end? Top investors use investments to fund their lifestyle... not the other way around. They just want passive income in their bank account at the end of the day, so that's how we put together our properties. (It's sort of the equivalent of offering a box of ready-to-eat breakfast cereal, or selling the raw grains to someone who thinks they can make the cereal cheaper themselves. Most people will just eat the cereal and get on with their day, while a few (for some reason) want to spend their whole day making breakfast. In the end, the breakfast result is the same, but the work required was exponentially more for those who feel the need to "DIY" the whole process that someone else is already doing more economically anyway.)

Here's a real-life example of what happens when you DIY something and you really you shouldn't. Another Canadian picked up a "raw" property in March (not bought from us, but they are in our investing community) and it's still vacant because they insist on doing the necessary renos personally themselves (?!?!) while living 2 hours away and across the border. We can clearly see that DIY just doesn't work for them (it's too much to manage). They only see the illusion of savings by doing it all themselves. They were talking about throwing the house back on the market at one point just to get rid of it as-is. They insist on not using our already-tried-and-tested systems, and they're getting burned by something that's a lot more work and trouble than they ever imagined. On the other hand, Steve King emailed Matt and I yesterday because he's already secured an approved tenant for a house we haven't even purchased or renovated yet. Forget tenanting them before the paint has dried like I said on the webinar... we're now tenanting them before we even OWN them! Our systems provide a list of highly-screened and approved tenants lined up for our properties. Over dinner two nights ago, Kieran had an "aha moment" when he identified exactly what our secret tenating weapon is... we will talk about in the next webinar for sure.

The difference in result from Turnkey vs. DIY systems is that we're getting huge cashflow piling up in the bank every month from a number of properties while the DIY investor I just mentioned is getting tax bills on a vacant rental. It's all a matter of systems and experience.

In the second webinar, we are going to talk about how to replicate what we've got going.

As for buying properties... we have network connections that provide property deals to us. I haven't had to write an offer on an investment property in over two years. The deals flow to us now, rather than us having to look for them. Steve's in charge of the supply of deals. His newest saying is "we pay cash and close in 2 weeks" and motivated sellers seem to appreciate that. It's not a matter of price vs. terms with us... we get our price and our terms... they get their closing date and that's all they care about in most cases. We're not really calling on properties from lawn signs or other agents' listings... those sorts of properties are picked over a hundred times before we see them.

[ben9465]

Just a bit of feedback on the webinar I found it very longwinded and covered a lot of general facts about property investing while not really supplying much info about USA. Basically it seems you want us to believe your "systems" are the only way to go. If your desire is to buy do up properties , renovate them, rent them out and sell for a profit to NZers just say so, rather than lead us to believe that your just trying to help us out, i have better things to do than listen to long winded sales pitches.

[CanucKiwi]

Hey Ben,

Thanks for your feedback. I do realize that it was a bit general and long winded on the first webinar.

The general nature of the info in the first webinar was because we have to consider that we're talking to a mixed group of attendees who may or may not have achieved a certain level of investment experience. So, we thought it would be appropriate to start out laying a common foundation and build up from there. (For some people, this may also have been the first time they're hearing anything about investing in the US.)

The long-windedness may also come from the fact that we were barely conscious at the time, given it was 2am - 3:30am after 48 hours of running around at a frantic pace with Kieran and Willie. I apologize for that. (not being sarcastic... I know it can be boring for more experienced investors to sit through the basics all over again.) We will try to be aware of that on the next two webinars, for sure.

Originally it was going to be one webinar, but we realized it would just be too much for one, so we split it up. Our plan for the webinars then looked like this:

1st - lay the foundation; cover risks and basic info
2nd - talk about the specific systems we have set up, how & why they work
3rd - talk about additional factors; grants, investor networking groups, legal structures, tax implications, etc

Here's the thing - if you want a proven system rather than expensive hypotheticals, we're giving away the blueprints for free. If you want to check out and use our blueprint but DON'T want to work with us, that's 100% OK by us. We won't be vindictive or competitive or defensive about it.

I'm serious in saying that, because we make our money through our property investing results (for ourselves and our current CDN clients)... NOT from selling "top secret information about how to make money on property". (Besides, it's pretty common knowledge that people who sell information on how to do something almost as a rule make FAR more money selling information than from doing whatever it is that they're selling the information on.)

Sure, our systems aren't the only way to make money, but they are a very safe and proven way to get lifetime cashflow. If it adds value to people's lives but they don't want to work with us, then hey... where's the harm?

We don't "have" to make any money on these webinars because we're not investing anything other than our time. That's exactly why we're just testing the level of interest before we spend money on establishing systems for NZ investors to join us. No interest? No cost.

Our costs are $0 to run the webinars. Matt already has the webinar account to work with our other Canadian investors, and Matt is a former executive at Carlson Wagonlit Travel before he was made redundant and moved into property investing, so he knows people at the Hilton who realize that the market value of a conference room from 2AM - 4AM is $0, so they let us use it for free. This keeps us from disturbing our families while they sleep.

Now, if people understand our blueprint and DO want to work with us, we can talk about that with them. We are simply testing the water, as I said. It might not be economical if we only have 2-3 people who want 1 property each to go ahead now and organize a bus tour or whatever, so we're not going to put carts before horses. If we show people our model and there IS interest in working with us, we'll pursue it appropriately. If not, we've had a few coffees and late nights, and maybe kept some Kiwis safer through giving them info they may not have been aware of.

Would we like to work with 100+ NZ investors and set them up with insane cashflow properties? Of course! We're not going to shove it down people's throats though, or use underhanded, unethical mind-control NLP tricks to do it. The world of "wealth gurus" is overrun with that sort of behaviour, and I think we can all spot it a million miles away. If you ask us, we think it's TOTALLY unethical to try to get people to invest by activating subconscious emotional triggers to get people hyped up about what SHOULD be a sober, rational, and fully informed investment decision.

Personally, we think it insults the intelligence of the audience to pitch things to them using emotional "buy" triggers. We're not gurus, and don't want to be. Our futures don't hinge on closing X number of sales, because there will be food on our tables regardless, due to our regular investing activities.

No good accountant or professional investment advisor would advise their clients to invest in something by getting them all hyped up about it while hiding the potential risks and playing up the exaggerated benefits. They have professional standards of conduct that would see them lose their license pretty quickly for that. Unfortunately, there's no license needed to become a wealth-guru pitch-man type character.

In keeping with that level of professional ethics, we're laying out our investment blueprint, similar to how any licensed investment advisor would take their client through an investment prospectus and discuss the benefits and risks in depth, and let them decide with a clear head if it's something they want to look further into investing in. If so, that's just the start of the process... we'll talk from there and answer all specific questions, rather than telling people to whip out their credit cards on the spot. We'll even take people on a tour, just like we did for Kieran and Willie. I have offered the same to other investors who are not "famous" like Kieran (you can confirm with Beryl if you wish) so we're not playing favorites... but good business intelligence says we don't go booking any tours or whatever in advance of confirming interest first. A bus tour type thing may also not work for everyone either, so we also still have to work out how NZ investors will need us to work with them. We honestly haven't sussed that out yet.

Do we have a financial interest in bringing more investors onboard? Yes... of course. It would ramp up our business volume and profits in a number of ways (more investments, better discounts, more negotiating power, etc), and generally bring more and bigger opportunities to the table for everyone. In kind, your average licensed investment advisor also has a financial interest in selling you an investment (a commission or a flat fee)... but they, as licensed professionals, owe you a duty of care to make sure that the investment fits. While we may not require a license, that doesn't preclude us from voluntarily holding ourselves to the same standard as a matter of ethical and sustainable business practice, just because so many others don't.

Sorry if I said the same thing a dozen different ways. All I ask is that you don't lump us in with the high-pressure-info-selling-stage-guru types with "sell or starve" sales agendas without knowing us.

If you still think our integrity is questionable and we're only after your dosh as quickly as we can get our hands on it, you should definitely run the other way, just as you should whenever you get that feeling from anyone. If you check out the rest of our model and want to work with us, or talk with those who already do/have, I promise you'll find that's totally not the case. Sure, we're excited and passionate about real estate and getting great returns... I think we all are... but our next meal doesn't hang on hawking properties to all and sundry, so we're not approaching it that way. If we were, we probably would have focused on "the deals" first to hook people in (sell first, then explain & handle objections), rather than the systems that make them tick, and the opportunities if you're interested (explain first, then invite further discussion).

If it's no longer of interest, that's fine, but I do hope you'll join us for at least the second webinar. You still won't find us pitching though.

[Michener]

Personally, I'm interested in investing in the USA and am looking forward to hearing how we can work together, CanucKiwi. There are numerous others interested too; hence we are looking forward to your next webinar, and also to fleshing out the details on how we can work together.

Keep those webinars coming.

Cheers,

Michener

[CanucKiwi]

Thanks, Michener... it's good to hear that people are getting something out of it.

[CanucKiwi]

Webinar recording posted!

For those who missed it or want to review it, the recording of the first webinar is posted here:

http://www.michaelanger.com/webinars/

Again, it's not a fancy web page or anything. I just had to come up with something quickly given our time-lines and the amount of work that Matt and I have on at the moment.

As we go along, I plan to add to that page; posting answers to the most common questions we're getting, posting future webinar recordings, etc. For now, though, we just needed to get the recording posted before the second webinar so that people who may have missed it can catch up.