Changes: Who Moved the Cheese?

© 2001 by Jon Richards

I'm not sure if I am supposed to predict changes coming in the new millennium or make suggestions for surviving the momentous year 2001. All I can tell you is that things…the business and the industry will be different, but I say that every year…and in fact, they are different every year. Not because of the arbitrary change in the calendar, but because all of our businesses have to keep up with the avalanche of new ideas and information that continue to challenge us all.

WHAT WORKS?
As a newsletter writer, I have to try to anticipate trends in the cash flow industry and guess what the new hot areas will be. Now the pressure is even greater because that magical year 2001 is coming. I can look at the past and see that for a while people made money finding notes through direct mail, then it was tele-marketing, then car paper, then mobile home paper, then working with Realtors and mortgage brokers. New trends, great ideas and effective marketing approaches do work and make a lot of money for those of us who work them, especially for the first few years. In other words we all have to be innovative ourselves and come up with the new ideas…or we have to discover the effective innovators early and copy them. As Mark Twain said, "Find out where the people are going and get there first."

Since I a poor innovator, but a good listener, I get a sense that the note business is moving back into real estate and asset acquisition through the use of notes, lease options, trades, defaulted properties, defaulted notes and other new and sophisticated approaches to making money. This business is changing and we must change with it or the avalanche will surely bury us.

I want to highlight some of these changes and then tell you what NoteWorthy is doing to help you, our subscribers, profit from them. For note brokers there are many making opportunities with cash flows. Here are some of the opportunities we can use to make our businesses work better in the next century.

1. GET IN FRONT OF DEALS
The small entrepreneur is uniquely situated to create the deals themselves and then sell them. Table funded, simultaneous closings are just the thing to help the Realtor, the seller, the buyer and-of course, you the note broker create a brokerable note. I do this all the time and encourage you to learn how to do it as well. 

I know there are legal issues surrounding simultaneous closings, but the concept remains very powerful, and at the worst you merely need to create a note between a buyer and a seller and wait for a few payments to be made before brokering the note. We will continue to follow this issue, but simultaneous closings and helping create deals is something you will need to pay attention to. 

2. GO FOR THE NICHES
This business is wonderful for finding and buying notes at obscene yields. For example, I buy Realtor commission notes and put them into my retirement account. I get a 30% yield on them. Now don't call me to buy your commission notes. You'll have to buy them yourself, but they are very lucrative. I just don't buy the balloon payment and I am very careful about the ones I do buy. If you learn to create the notes, it's an excellent example of a great niche. If you want to see your bank account grow quickly, go for a 30% yield!

3. NOTES AND REAL ESTATE
I think all of us are missing terrific opportunities if we don't use our cash flow skills to, at least, explore other profit centers. Your skills with a financial calculator make you a very dangerous negotiator when it comes to buying bargain real estate. After all, financing terms can be far more effective in getting a Real Estate bargain than negotiating a low price-and we may be the only ones who know how to manipulate cash flows. Realtors and mortgage brokers sure as hell don't!


EXPANDED WEB SITE
We have the most frequently visited web site in the cash flow industry and it is now going to support these new investment ideas with discussion groups in the areas I mentioned. If you are Internet illiterate, you simply will not be able to stay in the game unless you learn to surf the World Wide Web. My 86 year-old aunt has become adept at the Internet using Web-TV, a $250 device that almost anyone can master. So as 2001 approaches you had better learn to use the new technology. If you don't…the avalanche of new information, new ideas and technology will flow right over you.
I will moderate the Note Newsgroup on our site and we will have other experts in these other areas. Our intent is nothing less than a web site for all knowledgeable investors. 

The reason our new supplement "Interesting Investment Ideas" will work is that people in the note business are much more sophisticated than the average real estate investor who just bought Carlton Sheets course and made a down payment on his new yacht in anticipation of the riches to come.

About the Author . . . 

Jon Richards is a licensed real estate broker, long time real estate investor and an expert in finding, appraising, buying and brokering discounted notes and mortgages. He is also the President of NoteWorthy Investments, Inc, a fifteen year old California Corporation. His company buys 7 to 10 real estate notes each month and has a portfolio of several million dollars in real estate mortgages and other cash flows. 

Jon is also the author of several excellent home study books and courses, including: 

Profits in Discounted Notes

How to Start a Profitable Note Business

Calculator Power!

More Calculator Power!

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