It's easy to fix up your properties if you have unlimited cash. However, you need to keep your repairs to a Related Information: "Flipping Properties Course" minimum to stay profitable. You also need to keep your properties in good shape to attract tenants or buyers. There are the basic improvements, such as carpet and paint, but these can still costs thousands of dollars. The following are some inexpensive ways to improve your properties with very little cash.

#1) New Electrical Switch Plates

This is such a minor, yet overlooked improvement. Most rental owners and rehabbers paint a unit and leave the old, ugly switch plates. Even worse, some even paint over them.

New switch plates cost about 50 cents each. You can replace the entire house with new switch plates for about $20. For the foyer, living room and other obvious areas, spring for nice brass plates. They run about $5 each - not much for added class.

#2) New or Improved Doors

Another overlooked, yet cheap replacement item is doors. If you have ugly brown doors, replace them with nice white doors (you can paint them, but unless you have a spray gun it will take you three coats by hand).

The basic hollow-core door is about $20. It comes pre-primed and pre-hung. For about $10 more, you can buy stylish six-panel doors. If you are doing a rehab, the extra $10 per door is well worth-it. For rentals, consider at least changing the downstairs doors.

#3) New Door Handles

In addition to changing doors, consider changing the handles. An old door handle (especially with crusted paint on it) looks drab. For about $10, you can replace them with new brass finished handles. Replace the guest bathroom and bedroom door handles with the fancy "S" handles (about $20 each).

#4) Paint/Replace Trim

If the entire interior of the house does not need a paint job, consider painting the trim. New, modern custom homes typically come with beige or off-white walls and bright-white trim. Use a semi-gloss bright white on all the trim in your houses.

If the floor trim is worn, cracked or just plain ugly, replace it! Home Depot carries a new foam trim that is pre-painted in several finishes and costs less than 50 cents per linear foot. Create a great first impression by adding crown molding in the entry way and living room.

#5) New Front Door

You only get one chance to make a first impression. A cheap front door makes a house look cheap. An old front door makes a house look old. If you have nice heavy door, paint it a bold color using a high-gloss paint. If your front door is old, consider replacing it with a new, stylish door. For about $125, you can buy a very nice door.

#6) Tile Foyer Entry

After the front door, your next first impression is the foyer area. Most rental property foyers are graced with linoleum floors. Consider a nice 12" Mexican tile. An 8' x 8' area should cost about $100 in materials.

#7) New Shower Curtains

It amazes me that many landlords and sellers show properties with either no shower curtain or any ugly old shower curtain in the bathroom. Don't be cheap - drop $40 and buy a nice new rod and fancy curtain.

#8) Paint Kitchen Cabinets

Replacing kitchen cabinets is expensive, but painting them is cheap. If you have old 1970's style wooden cabinets in a lovely dark brown shade, paint them. Use a semi-gloss white and finish them with colorful plastic knobs. No need to paint the inside of them (unless you own a spray gun), since you are only trying to make an impression.

Americans spend 99% of their time in the kitchen (when they are not watching TV). A fancy modern faucet looks great in the kitchen. They can run as much as $150, but not to worry - most retailers (Home Depot, Home Base, etc) often run clearance sales on overstocked and discontinued models. I have found nice Delta and Price Pfister faucets for about $60 on sale.

#9) Add Window Shutters

If you have ugly aluminum framed windows, consider adding wooden shutters outside. They come pre-primed at most hardware retailers and are easy to install. Paint them an offset color from the outside of the house - (e.g., if the house is dark, paint the shutters white. If the house is light, paint them green, blue, etc.).

#10) Add a Nice Mailbox

Everyone on the block has the same black mailbox. Stand out. Be bold. For about $35 you can buy a nice colorful mailbox. For about $60 more, you can buy a nice wooden post for it. People notice these things....and they like them!

How I Accidentally Got Started On Airbnb

At the time, I was working a 50+ hour a week job and was renting an apartment with a roommate who gave me notice that he was moving out. I had heard of Airbnb and had done some research on them.

With that I started thinking…

I could either go find a roommate, or, I could try out this Airbnb thing. So I listed the spare room in the apartment I was renting on Airbnb and in a few days I started getting some bookings.

From listing this one little room on Airbnb, I made enough money to pay my entire rent and eventually all my utilities. I was able to pocket the money from my "job".

How cool is that!

About a month later, I decided to see how much money I could make with Airbnb. With that, I started to look for my next property.

I went down the street, found a place just a few blocks away, and found a one bedroom apartment. I spoke with the owner, told her what I wanted to do, and to my surprise, she said yes.

After listing that room, I began partnering with property owners.

From there, I figured out a system to automate my entire business so I only needed to work a few hours a week to manage everything.

During my first year I made over $300K "collecting properties" on Airbnb in which I figured out and developed a system to build a multi-property portfolio on Airbnb.

What Is Airbnb Real Estate Investing?

Airbnb is a service allowing anyone to host paying guests in a spare room or an entire property for a nightly rate just like a hotel, regardless of who owns the property.

✔ Airbnb handles the payments, IDs, calendar, listings, etc. for a very small fee.

✔ You don't have to screen people or find guests.

✔ Airbnb pays you directly.

✔ Airbnb has protections for you and your home

✔ No experience or technical skills needed

✔ Anyone can do this. Young, old, retired. Doesn't matter.

✔ Getting started is a lot easier than you think.

✔ You can do this in your spare time even if you're working 50+ hours a week.

✔ Get the best reward from the lowest risk

Most people are under the impression that they need to own property to list on Airbnb. This couldn't be further from the truth. When I got started, I had bad credit, very little cash, and using other people's properties to list on Airbnb - I was building a business without having to own the real estate.

I'd say that's a win-win. Wouldn't you agree?

Building An Airbnb Empire

As I began adding properties, I discovered some great perks to having an Airbnb business, and also developed a proven system to automate everything. This system has not only allowed me to maximize my profits, but has allowed me to be as hands off as possible allowing me time to have the freedom to travel anywhere.

As I began adding properties and growing my Airbnb business, I've discovered:

✔ A proven way to locate owners who will let you list on Airbnb.

✔ How to find the most profitable properties that will have you owning the most in the shortest amount of time.

✔ How to get owners to gladly let you use their properties and why would they don't want to do this themselves.

✔ How to handle restrictive leases with no subletting clauses.

My friends became curious about what it is I do. So I explained my Airbnb business and how I began collecting properties and listing them on Airbnb. Needless to say, they were intrigued and wanted to learn more. As I began teaching them what I knew, I had then said to myself, "Brian, you need to start writing this stuff down so other's can be sucessfull too."

Best thing of all that came out of the interactions with my friends - is that I've developed a system to automate the entire business so that someone like you and me can run it from anywhere in the world with a smart phone, tablet or laptop that is connected to the internet.

You don't need a lot of money to get started. You'll be surprised at how little to no money you'll need. Hope you get a chance to join my REIClub training webinar where I will teach you how to get up and running with your first property on a shoestring budget.

Today I want to talk to you about a topic not many people are too familiar with - Tax Foreclosures and a little known niche in the real estate industry called "Overages."

There are over 3,000 Tax Foreclosures completed on every, single business day across the United States. That's about 750,000 Tax Foreclosures every YEAR.

When a property is in foreclosure, it's usually there for one of two different reasons:

The homeowner is not paying their mortgage and the mortgage company is foreclosing to possess the house.
If the homeowner does not pay their property taxes, there can be a Tax Foreclosure by the local county and if that property goes to Tax Foreclosure auction, there is often a bidder who buys the property for more than what was owed in property taxes.

Let me explain #2 for you a little deeper - say you owe $15,000 in property taxes on your house and your property goes into Tax Foreclosure. The county will put the property up for sale at an auction. Say the property sells for $100,000 and from that, the county takes their $15,000 they were owed for property tax. So what happens to the remaining $85,000 that the clerk of court has in their bank account?

WHERE DO THE OVERAGES GO?

The homeowner has to make a claim to the county clerk and the court usually reviews these claims and awards the homeowner his money. This is an ideal world scenario, but in the real world, the homeowner may not know he has money coming to him and these funds eventually become the county's money.

The county government HAS NO OBLIGATION to notify or tell the former homeowner.

J.P. Morgan says these Tax Foreclosure sales generate nearly 13.6 million dollars in overages, or equity, every single day. It's unbelievable! They do NOT tell the former owner this equity is due to them because if it's not collected, the government gets to keep that money after a fixed amount of time.

WHY IT MATTERS

The reason why you should care is because you can get paid a finder's fee of 30-40% of whatever the overage is for connecting people to their unclaimed money.

My good friend, Bob Diamond, is an expert in this niche of overages and helps homeowners get the money that's due to them. He just recently told me that they currently have 2.2 million dollars in overages under contract in his office and they will receive fees of approximately 30% of that 2.2 million.

He tipped me to this little known “Tax Overages Niches” and I am sharing it with you all.

4 STEP SUCCESS IN OVERAGES

There are a few things you will need to be successful in the overages business. Here are the four simple steps you will need to follow:

Find out who is owed the money and who to get a targeted list. Because Bob is an attorney, he knows exactly how to acquire the list needed to find these former homeowners.
You need to be able to locate the former owner using a skip tracing strategy and once you find them, you will need their cooperation to go get the money.
An agreement between you and the former homeowner needs to exist so they know they can work with you, trust you, and pay you your finder's fee.
Secure your fee - get the check from the county and collect your fee from it (usually about 30-40%)

Overages can range anywhere from $5,000 to $100,000. Bob told me the other day that the largest overage he's seen since doing this is 1.3 million dollars. That's incredible, right?

WHO CAN DO THIS?

The overages market is a great place for a real estate newbie to begin their career. These finder's fees add up to a very nice income for anyone putting a full-time effort. Start with tax sale overages, and then work your way up to more complicated funds like mortgage foreclosure overages and unclaimed estates. By the time you've got a few tax cases under your belt, you'll feel like an old pro.

This is also a great way for someone who doesn't want to buy and sell houses anymore to stay in the real estate market without getting their hands too dirty.

LEARN THIS SIMPLE SYSTEM

Bob refers to this as the "Robin Hood System" and if you think about, this name totally makes sense. There is a significant amount of money in it for YOU as an insider who would be finding this money for people from the federal government.

There's truly no catch - it's a unique, niche opportunity that virtually ANYONE can do.

This can help you take your business to the next level - these "overages" are a phenomenal way to make new money. You are helping people regain money to rebuild their lives, while making a nice profit for yourself.

Josh

Time is a Choice

"Time is highly elastic. We cannot make more time, but time will stretch to accommodate what you choose to put into it. The key to time management is to treat our priorities as the equivalent of a broken water heater." - Laura Vanderkam (author and speaker)

When I ask people if they have an extra 8 hours a week to scale their business, I almost always hear the answer, "No." But, if you have an unplanned interruption to your week--such as a broken water heater and all the hiring, coordinating, buying, and work needed to attend to such a problem--you would find the 8 hours. If you can make time to tend to an emergency, why can't you make time to build your dreams?

You might say "I don't have time to clean out my garage." But if I offered you $100,000 to clean out your garage, you'd make time for it pretty quickly!

It's not that you don't have the time, it's that you're not motivated properly. You haven't made the chore a priority.

Instead of saying "I don't have TIME to do X, Y, or Z," we should change our language to "I don't do X, Y, or Z because it's not a priority." When we shift the language we use, we can better understand our behaviors and reprioritize our lives.

Time is a choice. You're smart. You can certainly figure out how to fill your time the right way, so let's make every moment of this year count!

To Your Success,

Lee Arnold