subject: Do You Own a Virtual Short Sale Business? [print this page] Do You Own a Virtual Short Sale Business?
Have you heard the latest information that foreclosure rates are running about 32% more today than for the same period in 2008 (a whopping 42% increase in California and a 75% increase in Florida)? For the savvy short sale foreclosure investor, that should translate into many more deals and potentially more profit for your business. Is this true for your business? If not, have you given any thought as to why?
One of the main reasons that your short sale business may not be growing like the newspapers read, is because you suffer from a problem of locale. What I mean is that if you own a business that is dependent upon you and is limited to certain geography, your business might be hindered by what is going on in your area. There simply may not be enough activity in your area.
So what do you do about it?
On the one hand, you might be happy with the size of your business in your area and your direct involvement on your business. Therefore, generating more business is not paramount to your desires.
On the other hand, if you want to generate a larger cash flow, a bigger business, and hire employees, developing a virtual short sale business could be for you. A virtual business is not really an "imaginary" business; it is one that is scalable and duplicate-able to any appropriate geography. A business can become scalable when there are personnel in place to handle the various tasks that are required in your local area business, but they are just located in a different geography.
Some of the best tools that I use for my virtual business include multiple Websites, elaborate voicemail systems, elaborate mailing systems, and teams of people in my local and remote locations. Also, certain knowledge is required about your remote areas such that the remote areas, over time, seem to feel like your local areas.
The fix and flip market is still profitable today, even though we make less money than a few years ago. The key point is to understand that we have to be ever more diligent on calculating the offer. Note, formulas used to calculate offers on long-term hold real estate are not at all related to fix and flip formulas, and these deals are normally disastrous for the unsuspecting investor.
We talk much more about this in our REI mentoring program. After years of doing these calculations by hand, my partner and I have developed an online real estate software to make our lives much easier. We can now crank out offers and determine the exit strategy in seconds.
