But what if you just can’t find your owner (or their phone number)?

What if you called every neighbor and every relative you could find and no one could help you?

What should you do then?

Should you simply mail your missing owners letters and wait and pray for a reply?

Or is there a “better way”?

Yes, there is. The search for elusive owners isn’t as hard as you think.

Here are some ways to use the web to find owners in default (and even their phone numbers).

You will learn what most professional property buyers don’t know - how to find people who don’t want to be found.

Here are my Favorite FREE “People Search” Engines:

Finding Owners (or Relatives):

 http://www.intelius.com

http://www.zabasearch.com/

http://www.123people.com/

http://www.searchbug.com/peoplefinder/

http://www.skipease.com/

Finding Neighbors:

http://www.411.com/reverse_address

http://www.whitepages.com/reverse_address

http://www.skipease.com/reverse_lookup.html

http://www.searchbug.com/tools/reverse-address-search.aspx

Tax Assessor & County Recorder Data:  www.Netronline.com 

Don’t forget you can quickly and easily do a “small title search” (AKA: Grantee-Grantor index) online and find many informative documents in relation to your missing owner. If you have never done this, do read my past articles “Your Fastest Way to Find What is Owed” and “What’s in a Title Search.” Maybe the house was recently sold to a friend or relative? Maybe your owner owns other properties? You never know until you check public records.

Now here are some of my favorite FEE BASED “People Search” engines:

www.Bestpeoplesearch.com

An investigative service dedicated to searching for and locating people in the U.S. and Canada. They help hundreds of law officers, repossession companies, insurance agents, research labs, collection agencies, attorneys, and individuals (such as property buyers) find the people and information they need.

www.Docusearch.com 

Performs a variety of investigative searches, both online and through proven investigative techniques, to obtain information on people and companies, as well as a full array of other search subjects. Their clients include attorneys, private investigators, insurance companies, government agencies and private citizens (such as property buyers).

www.USSearch.com

Provides location and verification services to both consumers and enterprise clients, including identity verification, individual location, criminal record checks, employment and education verifications, professional reference checks, credit and motor vehicle record checks, drug screening, and pre-employment verification services.

These sites will also be very helpful in your searches:

Corporation Search: http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/

Inmate Searches: http://www.inmatesplus.com/, http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/LocateInmate.jsp

Bankruptcy Searches: https://pacer.login.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl?court_id=00idx

Last but not least, Ask Around! Ask the postman, neighbors and relatives if they know the whereabouts of your missing owner. Ask if your owner had any friends in the neighborhood. Then find their phone numbers and ask if they can help you find your missing owner. Somewhere, someone WILL help you find your missing owner. Just keep asking!

Happy hunting, Alexis

Group Coaching with Alexis: Crunching the Numbers and Doing the Right Math.

Do you want to buy great deals, but worry about paying the wrong price? Have you offered too much for a deal and had trouble finding money partners? Have you offered too little for a house and had trouble getting the seller to say “yes”? Would you like to know what the “sweet spot” is when writing offers, so you make money, your investors make money and your sellers say YES to your deals? If so, then you must join Alexis for her next live, group coaching call and interactive strategy session. Sign up today!

FREE! New Investor Webinar: Make Big Profits Now!
Do you wonder how you can make big money hunting, flipping and investing in foreclosures, even when you have no cash of your own to start? Join Alexis during our next FREE webinar, and learn time-tested, honest, ethical wholesale investing techniques to hunt, flip and invest in foreclosures, making big profits each time. After only 90 minutes you will know how to buy foreclosures without using any of your own money or credit and other insider tips and tricks of a 25-year real estate investor veteran. You will end the night knowing what skills you can use now to start closing great deals in your area now! Hurry, reserve your space today!

Call 800.310.7730 x2 for more information on all webinars.

If so, then you must join Alexis for her next live, interactive group strategy session, Wednesday, October 5, 2011, 6:00pm (Pacific). Sign up today!

Several factors weighed in my decision to go this route. While I changed my focus from single family to multi-family, I still enjoy finding great single-family deals and rehabbing them. I never stopped doing this, I just do it on a much more limited basis than when I had 5 projects going at a time. I also want to stress that far from becoming a “landlord,” I have become a businessman who delegates the function of landlord to professionals who work for my projects.

I deal with high functioning professionals and affluent investors who tend to be creative, enthusiastic, and incredibly energizing to work with. It is truly a dream job, that has proven to be very predictable as well as profitable, and a true beacon of hope over the couple of years when most of the business world was in desperate straights.

I have made a lot of money in my lifetime patiently nurturing businesses over a three to ten year period and this success made multi-family investing very attractive to me as the most typical strategy for multi-family is to buy, stabilize and sell over a three to ten year horizon. Imagine what happens when a motivated and disciplined owner embarks on a 5-year plan of simply watching expenses and gradually increasing rents after buying a project in an emerging market using basic tried and true business principles.

NOI and Cap Rate

Before you get started investing in multi-family, you must first understand how to best value these projects. The value of most any commercial property is determined by the projects income, also know as NOI (Net Operating Income) when it is measured by it’s Cap Rate (the percentage return on purchase).  

For instance, a 50-unit apartment complex that produces an NOI of $100,000 per year that is sold at a 10 Cap will trade at $1,000,000 ($100,000/10%). Stated differently, the buyer of this complex was willing to pay $1,000,000 for an asset which would provide him with $100,000 of operating income per year. If this buyer had no debt on the property and the property needed no capital improvements his net return would be 10% on his $1,000,000 investment.

One of the beauties of this business is that these numbers are relatively easy to verify and gain agreement upon so pricing properties is not that big of a mystery. Now that this buyer has gained control of this building it is his goal to increase its value. There are two basic ways that this happens:

One: The buyer (now owner) improves the NOI of the property through a combination of increasing revenues and/or reducing expenses (more on that in a bit).

Two: The Cap Rate in the market for that type of asset goes down or “compresses” due to improved business climate and/or infrastructure investment by local government.

The Magic

Let’s assume that when this complex was purchased the average monthly rent per unit was $400 and monthly expenses were $233, this includes all maintenance and general repair as well as fully funded, on site, property management. Also, for the sake of easy calculations let’s assume that the complex always enjoys 100% occupancy.

In this initial scenario, each unit would produce $167 of NOI per month or, approximately, $2,000 per year for 50 units or $100,000. If you divide that by 10% (the Cap Rate) you can see how the buyer arrived at a $1,000,000 purchase price.

Now let’s assume over the next 5 years that the owner is able to increase rents a modest 4% per year (this would be modest in most emerging markets, and very aggressive in a bad market) while keeping the growth of expenses at 2% per year so that beginning in year six the average rent is $480 per month against monthly expenses of $256. At these new levels of rent and expense the monthly NOI per unit equals $224 or $2,688 per year. When multiplied by 50 units the NOI for this project is now $134,400. By applying the purchase cap rate to this new NOI this project is now worth $1,340,000. That is an average gain in equity of $68,000 per year on top of the annual cash flow generated by the operation of the project.

Most people would consider an investment that worked out like this to be a glowing success, but this scenario is very conservative…why is that???? It is conservative because we have not taken into consideration the possibility of the Cap Rate going down from your purchase to sale

Cap Rate Compression = Home Run

If we take the year six NOI from the example above and apply a new Cap Rate of 8% (versus 10% when we bought it) based on renovation in the area and new businesses moving into the sub market, the owner will now have an asset worth $1,675,000. That is $675,000 of equity gained in 5 years from doing a very basic job of managing the project. The truth is that most projects have several other streams of income on top of rents that only serve to make these numbers look gaudier.

Attention professional investors! Join me during our special, live professional investor webinar, Wednesday, October 19, 6 p.m. (Pacific), and learn how to earn huge profits investing in apartment foreclosures. During this 90-minute, live webinar I will discuss my innovative approach to finding, funding and closing apartment foreclosure properties, and building your income property cash-cow business with the help of outside investors. You don’t want to miss this. Register today!

True Story

The first project I bought about 3.5 years ago has averaged 7% rental increases per year, compounded, and the expenses have actually dropped from $2,200 per unit per year to $1,900, and although I have yet to sell the project (I plan to keep it for quite a while) I just turned down an offer of $2,100,000 for the project which I bought for $1,435,000 in mid 2007.

If we carry the initial scenario out for 15 years instead of 5, the buyer would have an asset worth $2,022,600 at a 10 Cap and $2,528,250 at an 8 Cap, a gain of $1million to $1.5Million.

When I first had this explained to me I didn’t believe it.

I spent the next 6 months educating myself and proving to myself that these kind of results were actually achievable and that deals like these were actually done, and I have spent the last 3 years enjoying the reality that is the Magic of Cap Rate, NOI, and Disciplined ownership

It is All About Networking

In our hands-on lab classes, we talk a lot about the teams that we need to set up around us and how to leverage those teams to multiply our ability to find deals, accumulate capital, and accelerate the time that it takes to stabilize an asset. I can’t stress enough how the high level of interest that currently exists for multi-family investing will aid your ability to put together an effective team. And, while none of this is easy, it is made much easier right now due to the high level of interest and notoriety that multi-family investing currently enjoys. Once you are armed with the proper knowledge and have put together all the pieces of your team you are literally just one quality deal from significantly changing your life.

Surround yourself with positive people and do something every day to improve your knowledge base and your confidence level. Remember, the definition of luck is “intense preparation bumping into opportunity.” We can’t always control our opportunities, but we can do something every day to be more prepared.

From a practical perspective, what I enjoy the most is the fact that apartment buildings are simply small businesses. They have all of the things any other business has, namely customers, vendors, employees and owners, and if you take care of each of these stakeholders you will have a successful business.

All of my adult life I have run businesses and I have found that most of the real gains that are to be made when management changes revolve around things that really don’t cost anything. What new management/ownership usually brings to a business is enthusiasm for and appreciation of all that surrounds the business. Customers usually see an improvement in service, vendors tend to work harder to please the new management, and the new management is keen to get off on the right foot with their vendors. Employees that remain in place are generally grateful to be there and are now working off of a blank slate. So for a little while, the property should enjoy a fresh shot of enthusiasm and make some significant inroads because of it.

During this “honeymoon” period the new owners must identify and repair any systems that are counterproductive or ineffective. They must “prove” to their employees, vendors, and customers that the bad systems will be reversed and the good systems will be made better.

The most important work to be done is in making sure that “win-win” relationships are created and adhered to in all of the key relationships for the project. What I have seen more than anything else is property letting the customers win while the property loses. The property continually puts up with slow and non-paying customers, who cause trouble, and chase away the types of residents that an owner would really like to have. These people need to be spoken to respectfully but firmly regarding the requirements of the lease and the consequences of not abiding by them.

 Honestly, in at least half of the cases that is all it takes, and in the other half one or two well documented evictions sends a very clear message and gets all of the quality residents rooting for you as they had spent the recent months having to put up with the rotten residents’ shenanigans and are just as glad as you are to see them go.

For the most part, if your lease is well written you hold all of the cards and most of the issues that create tension are very rarely not simple matters of fact. Either you have paid the rent or you haven’t…this is the 5th time I have had to speak to you regarding your guests being loud at 2am as they are leaving your place…you have a dog living in your unit that isn’t listed on the lease etc. In these cases the lease outlines what the consequences of non-compliance are and the more matter of fact you can be with that the better. I don’t know how many times I have squelched an argument by simply saying “what does the lease say about this.” We then take out the lease that the resident has signed and we have our answer.

You can bet that only 1 in 4 residents has ever been treated with respect and dignity by their landlord and you can use this fact to your advantage, but if you fall into the trap of arguing and “getting even” you lose the high ground and a great deal of your momentum in improving your property.

Nothing improves the NOI of a property more than high occupancy and low turnover and in most cases improvement in these areas have nothing to do with any kind of monetary outlay. These examples illustrate how the proper mindset makes all of the difference in how your property is perceived and how that can improve your bottom line without you needing to invest a penny.

So, arm yourself with these principles and be prepared for success. Now IS the time to invest in apartment foreclosures.

Happy Investing To You All!

Coach Michal

Don’t miss this one-time only, exclusive event. Make Huge Profits Investing in Foreclosure Apartments, November 14-15, 2011, 8:30am – 5:00pm, at the ForeclosureS.com training facility. National foreclosure and apartment industry expert, investor, instructor and Coach Michal Ballard, will spend two intensive days with 18 investors in ForeclosureS.com lab facilities sharing his step by step plan on finding, funding and closing Apartment Foreclosure properties, and building your income property cash-cow business with the help of outside investors. Seats are filling up fast! Call 800-310-7730 x2 for Details.

It is becoming common in our practice to see that after the gavel falls, and the trustee’s deed is recorded, the borrower suddenly wakes up and files for bankruptcy to halt the unlawful detainer action—or files a wrongful foreclosure lawsuit, or both. These are known as “foreclosure defense” cases, and usually the borrower names the lender, the mortgage broker, the trustee, the loan servicer, the appraiser, the new owner and anyone that touched the transaction.

Sometimes, the wrongful foreclosure lawsuit seeks to undo the foreclosure sale based on a technicality—such as the substitution of trustee or that Mortgage Electronic Registration System (MERS) as nominee did not have standing to foreclose. In the last month, two California appellate cases came down striking down plaintiff-borrower lawsuits alleging that MERS did not have the power to foreclose—finding that the borrower had consented to MERS in the Deed of Trust and that MERS did indeed have the power to conduct the trustee’s sale. [Calvo v. HSBC, et al., Sept. 13, 2011 and Robinson v. Countrywide, et al., September 12, 2011.]

Readers have no doubt read the news accounts of “robosigning” by lenders. Robosigning is not a problem in California for non-judicial foreclosures. What is the problem is the “power of sale” from the Trustee’s Deed. It is basically the MERS problem we have written about previously. When the borrower signs the loan documents, they sign a Promissory Note and the Deed of Trust. (California is a Deed of Trust state, not a mortgage state.) The power to foreclose comes from the Deed of Trust a Trustee is designated in that document with the power of sale. When the borrower stops paying, the lender notifies the Trustee to sell the property by a Trustee’s Sale (of foreclosure sale as it is more commonly known).

In the case of a sold loan, the lender should assign the Deed of Trust when they sell the note. However, with sloppy paperwork or high volumes, there can be a lot of delay to recording the assignment of the Deed of Trust. The assignment also means there is a new Trustee who now has the power of sale. This is usually designated by a Substitution of Trustee.

Plaintiffs’ lawyers are now trying to capitalize on the “robosigning” frenzy by challenging whether or not the lender had the power of sale at the time of the foreclosure sale. However, in order to set aside the trustee’s sale by quiet title and declaratory relief, the borrower must tender. What is tender? A tender is an offer of performance made with the intent to extinguish the obligation. (Civ. Code, § 1485.) A tender must be one of full performance (Civ. Code, § 1486) and must be unconditional to be valid. The tender rule, traditionally applied to trustors, is based upon the equitable maxim that a court of equity will not order a useless act performed. “A valid and viable tender of payment of the indebtedness owing is essential to an action to cancel a voidable sale under a deed of trust.” (Karlsen v. American Savings & Loan (1971) 15 Cal.App.3d 112 at p. 117.) Debtors and borrowers filing these wrongful foreclosure lawsuit never comply with California Civil Code Section 1500 to effect tender, which states: “An obligation for the payment of money is extinguished by a due offer of payment, if the amount is immediately deposited in the name of the creditor, with some bank or savings and loan association within this state, of good repute, and notice thereof is given to the creditor.”

While many courts will generously grant a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO), without likelihood of success on the merits, courts will not grant a preliminary injunction, which means that while the bidder/new owner can be held up for a short amount of time, ultimately the law is on their side in the California state courts.

Julia publishes commentary on issues such as trust deed investing, lien priority, judgment collection and receiverships and more on her California Real Estate and Lending Law blog: www.dirtblawg.com.

Julia M. Wei is an attorney with The Law Office of Peter N. Brewer. The firm serves the legal needs of investors, homeowners, real estate and mortgage brokers and agents, property managers, loan servicers, title companies, developers, other real estate professionals and their clients. You can contact the firm at: 2501 Park Blvd., 2nd Floor, Palo Alto, CA 94306, Ph: 650/327-2900, Fax: 650/327-5959, or on the Web at: www.brewerfirm.com.

Group Coaching with Alexis: Crunching the Numbers and Doing the Right Math
Do you want to buy great deals, but worry about paying the wrong price? Have you offered too much for a deal and had trouble finding money partners? Have you offered too little for a house and had trouble getting the seller to say “yes”? Would you like to know what the “sweet spot” is when writing offers, so you make money, your investors make money and your sellers say YES to your deals? If so, then you must join Alexis for her next live, group coaching call and interactive strategy session. Sign up today!

FREE! New Investor Webinar: Make Big Profits Now!
Do you wonder how you can make big money hunting, flipping and investing in foreclosures, even when you have no cash of your own to start? Join Alexis during our next FREE webinar, and learn time-tested, honest, ethical wholesale investing techniques to hunt, flip and invest in foreclosures, making big profits each time. After only 90 minutes you will know how to buy foreclosures without using any of your own money or credit and other insider tips and tricks of a 25-year real estate investor veteran. You will end the night knowing what skills you can use now to start closing great deals in your area now! Hurry, reserve your space today!

Attention professional investors!
Join Coach Michal Ballard, national foreclosure and apartment industry expert, investor and instructor during our special, live professional investor webinar, Wednesday, October 19, 6 p.m. (Pacific), and learn how to earn huge profits investing in apartment foreclosures. During this 90-minute, live webinar he will discuss his innovative approach to finding, funding and closing apartment foreclosure properties, and building your income property cash-cow business with the help of outside investors. You don’t want to miss this. Register today!

Call 800.310.7730 x2 for more information on all webinars.

Join Coach Michal Ballard, national foreclosure and apartment industry expert, investor and instructor during our special, live professional investor webinar, Wednesday, October 19, 6 p.m. (Pacific), and learn how to earn huge profits investing in apartment foreclosures.  During this 90-minute, live webinar he will discuss his innovative approach to finding, funding and closing apartment foreclosure properties, and building your income property cash-cow business with the help of outside investors.  You don’t want to miss this. Register today!

I went to visit a home last weekend with a seller who hadn’t lived there in some time. He was trying to short sale it with the bank but the bank wasn’t responding to the offer so we were discussing some alternative strategies. There are some places right now in the country where lenders are NOT foreclosing. They don’t want the properties back, because the foreclosure costs can sometimes outweigh the value of the property.

He seems to be in that type of “limbo” phase.

When I arrived at the home he toured me around the home and had shared he had not lived there in almost 2 years, but he had kept the utilities on and lawn mowed (unusual for most sellers who just want to walk away) – he also had it modestly furnished. I asked him why and he explained he didn’t want the bank to think it was abandoned. So I noticed he had the power on and he had a stove and fridge in the place.

Here is where it created a story to share:

I opened the fridge and noticed the power was not in it but there was a pizza box and a large bottle of Mountain Dew. I should say the power to the fridge was on because there was a light that went on, but the fridge was not cold. I decided to do the unthinkable – OPEN THE PIZZA box. I found GREEN/YELLOW petrified pizza. The funny thing was it was so old it really didn’t smell bad anymore. I am still wondering exactly what type of pizza it was originally. I started to laugh and asked if I could take a picture for my blog. The seller thought that I was quite crazy I am sure, but I found it the funniest thing that happened in my day.

Learn to laugh at the small things in life that can keep you going. This business does have some weird things that happen, learn to enjoy them.

Wendy Patton is the nation’s leading author and trainer in 
lease options, rent-to-owns and subject-to deals. For more information on Wendy Patton visit her website at www.WendyPatton.com.

Group Coaching with Alexis: Crunching the Numbers and Doing the Right Math
Do you want to buy great deals, but worry about paying the wrong price? Have you offered too much for a deal and had trouble finding money partners? Have you offered too little for a house and had trouble getting the seller to say “yes”? Would you like to know what the “sweet spot” is when writing offers, so you make money, your investors make money and your sellers say YES to your deals? If so, then you must join Alexis for her next live, group coaching call and interactive strategy session. Sign up today!

FREE! New Investor Webinar: Make Big Profits Now!
Do you wonder how you can make big money hunting, flipping and investing in foreclosures, even when you have no cash of your own to start? Join Alexis during our next FREE webinar, and learn time-tested, honest, ethical wholesale investing techniques to hunt, flip and invest in foreclosures, making big profits each time. After only 90 minutes you will know how to buy foreclosures without using any of your own money or credit and other insider tips and tricks of a 25-year real estate investor veteran. You will end the night knowing what skills you can use now to start closing great deals in your area now! Hurry, reserve your space today!

Attention professional investors!
Join Coach Michal Ballard, national foreclosure and apartment industry expert, investor and instructor during our special, live professional investor webinar, Wednesday, October 19, 6 p.m. (Pacific), and learn how to earn huge profits investing in apartment foreclosures. During this 90-minute, live webinar he will discuss his innovative approach to finding, funding and closing apartment foreclosure properties, and building your income property cash-cow business with the help of outside investors. You don’t want to miss this. Register today!

Call 800.310.7730 x2 for more information on all webinars.

Here’s what she has been blogging about recently:

Apartments Explode
SEPTEMBER 23, 2011
This in from John Burns Real Estate Consulting… “We believe the apartment business is set to explode, with steadily rising rents and occupancy that will justify new construction.” He sites three main reasons for his optimistic outlook: Pent up Demand, Modest Job Growth and Government Policy.

1.Pent-Up Demand: We recently calculated 3.4 million units of pent-up household demand, which is the aftermath of the recent recession and lackluster recovery. The largest segment of this demand is young adults, who have either moved back in with their parents or taken on roommates. We expect this demand to materialize over the next few years, with most of the demand entering the apartment market because of the inability to qualify for a home and uncertainty over their employment situation. Read more…

Pending Home Sales: the West Leads
SEPTEMBER 20, 2011
Yesterday I shared updates on the California housing market, and why it is still very much the Golden State. Recently national pending home sales were released, showing new contract signings well above year-ago levels, and the west leading the nation with the highest level of sales contract activity.

According to Realtor.org national pending home sales slipped 1.3% month over month, but is 14.4% above a year ago. The west is the shining star regionally…

Here is the update by region:

West: Up 3.6% month over month; up 20.6% year over year
Midwest: down 0.8% month over month; Up 18.8% year over year
Northeast: down 2% month over month; Up 9.7% year over year
South: down 4.8% month over month; Up 9.5% year over year

Read more…

Group Coaching with Alexis: Crunching the Numbers and Doing the Right Math
Do you want to buy great deals, but worry about paying the wrong price? Have you offered too much for a deal and had trouble finding money partners? Have you offered too little for a house and had trouble getting the seller to say “yes”? Would you like to know what the “sweet spot” is when writing offers, so you make money, your investors make money and your sellers say YES to your deals? If so, then you must join Alexis for her next live, group coaching call and interactive strategy session. Sign up today!

FREE! New Investor Webinar: Make Big Profits Now!
Do you wonder how you can make big money hunting, flipping and investing in foreclosures, even when you have no cash of your own to start? Join Alexis during our next FREE webinar, and learn time-tested, honest, ethical wholesale investing techniques to hunt, flip and invest in foreclosures, making big profits each time. After only 90 minutes you will know how to buy foreclosures without using any of your own money or credit and other insider tips and tricks of a 25-year real estate investor veteran. You will end the night knowing what skills you can use now to start closing great deals in your area now! Hurry, reserve your space today!

Attention professional investors!
Join Coach Michal Ballard, national foreclosure and apartment industry expert, investor and instructor during our special, live professional investor webinar, Wednesday, October 19, 6 p.m. (Pacific), and learn how to earn huge profits investing in apartment foreclosures. During this 90-minute, live webinar he will discuss his innovative approach to finding, funding and closing apartment foreclosure properties, and building your income property cash-cow business with the help of outside investors. You don’t want to miss this. Register today!

Call 800.310.7730 x2 for more information on all webinars.

This is even more confusing because we have some conflicting guidance from the IRS.

First, of all, let’s look at the two types of LLC that you may have. It could be member-managed or it could be manager-managed. Initially, most CPAs took the position that if an LLC was member-managed, then it would be treated more like a general partnership. In that case, every member would pay self-employment tax. If it was manager-managed, it would be treated like a limited partner. The manager would pay self-employment tax and the member would not.

But wait, what if the member also happened to be a manager? At that point, the rules started to get blurred. The manager payment was clearly a ‘guaranteed payment’ and reported separately on the Form K-1, so that it was subject to self-employment tax. But there isn’t clear guidance on how to treat the income that flows to the member. Is it subject to self-employment or not? Good question.

In one case, the Tax Court agreed with the IRS’s position that a member’s income in a manager-managed LLC was considered passive. Or rather, in this case the member’s loss was considered passive and thus not able to be used to offset other income.

Yet, the IRS has given us some proposed regulations that indicate regardless of the type of LLC (member or manager-managed), if the member is spending more than 500 hours per year in the business, then it’s active. And that means self-employment tax.

So don’t assume anything when it comes to LLCs and self-employment tax. This is definitely something to strategize with your CPA.

Stay informed! At US TaxAid, we’re always looking to bring you the most current tax information out there, and to break it down into language everyone can understand. If you know anyone else who might benefit from the information resources you’ll find here, tell them to come and check us out. Remember, membership on our www.USTaxAid.com website is FREE.

Group Coaching with Alexis: Crunching the Numbers and Doing the Right Math
Do you want to buy great deals, but worry about paying the wrong price? Have you offered too much for a deal and had trouble finding money partners? Have you offered too little for a house and had trouble getting the seller to say “yes”? Would you like to know what the “sweet spot” is when writing offers, so you make money, your investors make money and your sellers say YES to your deals? If so, then you must join Alexis for her next live, group coaching call and interactive strategy session. Sign up today!

FREE! New Investor Webinar: Make Big Profits Now!
Do you wonder how you can make big money hunting, flipping and investing in foreclosures, even when you have no cash of your own to start? Join Alexis during our next FREE webinar, and learn time-tested, honest, ethical wholesale investing techniques to hunt, flip and invest in foreclosures, making big profits each time. After only 90 minutes you will know how to buy foreclosures without using any of your own money or credit and other insider tips and tricks of a 25-year real estate investor veteran. You will end the night knowing what skills you can use now to start closing great deals in your area now! Hurry, reserve your space today!

Attention professional investors!
Join Coach Michal Ballard, national foreclosure and apartment industry expert, investor and instructor during our special, live professional investor webinar, Wednesday, October 19, 6 p.m. (Pacific), and learn how to earn huge profits investing in apartment foreclosures. During this 90-minute, live webinar he will discuss his innovative approach to finding, funding and closing apartment foreclosure properties, and building your income property cash-cow business with the help of outside investors. You don’t want to miss this. Register today!

Call 800.310.7730 x2 for more information on all webinars.

Why Your Self-Image is a Key Part of Your Personality

Your self-image is the way you see yourself and think about yourself. It is often called your “inner mirror.” You look into this mirror in every situation to see how you should perform on the outside. You always behave on the outside in a manner consistent with the picture you have of yourself on the inside.

How Do You See Yourself
For example, if you see yourself, as calm, confident and competent in any aspect of selling, when you are engaged in that activity, you will feel calm, confident and competent. You will be positive and happy. You will perform well and get excellent results. If, for any reason, it doesn’t go well at that time, you will throw it off and dismiss it as a temporary situation. Your self-image is clear. In your mind’s eye you see yourself as good and capable in that area, and nothing can interfere with your mental picture.

Change Your Self-Image
The most rapid improvements in sales results come from changing your self-image. The moment that you see yourself differently, you behave differently as well. And because you are behaving differently, you get different results.

My Own Story
Some years ago, when I was selling club memberships from office to office, I would end my presentation by giving the prospect a booklet outlining the membership benefits and encourage him to “think about it.” My self-image was such that I could not bring myself to ask the prospect to make a buying decision. All day long, I would go from office to office giving my presentation and leaving a little book with descriptions to read. And as you might imagine, I was not making any sales. When I called people back after they had time to think about it, they would invariably say that they were not interested.

The Turning Point
I was getting desperate. I was living from hand to mouth at the time. Although I was seeing lots of prospects, I was making very few sales. Then I had a revelation which changed my career at the time. I realized that it was my fear of asking for the order that was causing all my problems. It was not my prospects. It was me. I needed to change my self-image and thereby change my behavior if I wanted results to improve.

Make A Decision
The very next morning, I made the decision that I would not call back on a prospect. The size of the purchase was small and, when I had completed my presentation, the prospect would know everything that he needed to know to make a decision. There was no benefit or advantage of leaving material behind or giving the prospect several days to think about it. At my very first call, and I still remember it, when I had finished my presentation, the prospect said, “Let me think it over.” I smiled and told him that I did not make call backs because I was too busy, and then I said, “You know everything you need to know to make a decision right now. Why don’t you just take it?” I remember him shrugging his shoulders and saying, “OK. I’ll take it. How would you like to be paid?”

Double Your Earnings
I walked out of that office on a cloud. That very day I tripled my sales. That week, I sold more than anyone else in the company. By the end of the month, they had made me the sales manager with 42 people under me. I went from making one or two sales per week to making ten or fifteen sales per week. I went from worrying about money to a large salary with an override on the activities of all my salespeople. My sales life took off and, with few exceptions, it never stopped. And the turning point was that conscious choice to modify my self-image and make it more consistent with the results I wanted rather than the results that I was getting.

Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, begin to see yourself the way you want to be. See yourself as strong, confident, competent and professional in every way. The person you see is the person you will be.

Second, identify an area of selling where your own ideas about yourself and the situation are holding you back. You always perform on the outside the way you see yourself on the inside.

Brian Tracy is Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, a company specializing in the training and development of individuals and organizations. His goal is to help you achieve your personal and business goals faster and easier than you ever imagined.http://www.briantracy.com.

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