What Do They Have That You Don’t?

Issue #2338

• WEALTHY: 4 ways to get out of a bad real estate situation (Justin Ford)
• HEALTHY: An energy-building superfood (Dr. Ray Sahelian)
• WISE: Henry Ford on what it takes to get ahead

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

• 3 types of personal power that can help you get ahead (Brian Tracy)
• The ETR secret we’ve been keeping from you (Suzanne Richardson)
• It’s Fun to Know… about swinging through the trees like Tarzan
• Add "shibboleth" to your vocabulary

== Highly Recommended ==

Bring Paradise Into Your Living Room (And Profits Too!)

It’s too bad you couldn’t make it to our Profits in Paradise conference, but the good news is that we’ve gotten it all down on professionally-recorded DVDs. When you bring these recordings into your home, you’ll be in the company of a very special group of experts.

First, they are all at the very top of their respective fields… whether it’s real estate, internet business-building, or under-the-radar financial and investing techniques. And second, they’ve all made a lot of money using the exact strategies they are going to teach you in their presentations.

Their “secrets” are actually proven methods based on years of trial and error and testing in the real world.

Here’s just a taste of what you’ll be receiving on these DVDs…

• Howie Jacobson will reveal the secrets behind Google Ad Words - the fastest and easiest way to make money online…
• You’ll learn how to use Marko Rubel’s little-known investment approach to generate over $1 million a year …
• Buck Rizvi and Brock Felt will show you how to tap into a multi-billion dollar market to create a business you can sell for millions … or pass on to your children…
• And much MUCH more.

When you learn these secrets you’ll be well positioned to take your financial future into your own hands. 

Are you ready to see your wealth-building potential soar?

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Dear ETR: "The rental and the sales markets are providing a big challenge to our fiscal serenity."

"My ex-wife and I co-own a house just north of Tampa, FL. We purchased it 2 years ago for $260K, and have just unexpectedly lost our tenant. This leaves us in a $2,000/month hole. Both the rental and the sales markets are slow down there, with a glut of empty houses providing a big challenge to our fiscal serenity.

"We are currently working with realtors to either rent or sell the house. We owe $205K, and the comps are showing sales prices of $225K, $205K, $190K, and $175K in the past 6 months. If we found a buyer at the top of that range, we could pay the mortgage and the realtor fee, and walk away with nothing. Distressingly, that has been seeming the better option of late. We had a negative cash flow of $900/month before, and IF we could find another tenant, it would likely be higher.

"My question is the obvious one. What would you do?"

Tom B.

Leverett, MA

Dear Tom,

I’ve advocated buying only cash-flow properties using fixed rate, amortizing loans. But now that you’re in this situation, here are a few things to consider:

Option 1: Look into special-needs housing - connecting with organizations that provide furnished rooms for vets or the disabled or people in halfway houses.

As I said in my article "Creating Cash Flow Without Ownership," one of my houses is rented out to a guy who subleases on this basis. He pays me $1,450 a month. That covers my nut comfortably. Then he turns around and subleases to members of a substance abuse recovery program. He charges them $125 to $150 per week for a room, which includes utilities, Internet, and cable. If his utilities, Internet, cable, and other expenses are $650, he clears $1,500 a month.

Now I wouldn’t want to lease out the property on a room-by-room basis myself. It’s too management-intensive for me. But I could if I needed to. And if I did, I could increase my net by $1,500 or so a month. For you, this is very much worth looking into.

Option 2: Student housing - a version of the above.

Rent by the bed with "all bills paid." If there’s a school near your property that makes this possible, try to get the parents of the students to guarantee the leases and agree (in writing) to pay for any damages. Again, managing this yourself will be time-consuming - but you could end up (at least) doubling your rents.

Option 3: See if you can sell the house on terms.

You can usually get a somewhat higher price this way than if you require the buyer to come to the table with a down payment and a bank loan. Take five percent down (or even one percent or two percent if you have to), and hold a note for the rest. Now taxes and insurance are the buyer’s concern. You take the five percent monthly payments on your sale price and pay your underlying mortgage. This is called a wrap-around mortgage. You sell the property "subject to" the existing mortgage and create a mortgage for your buyer that wraps around your existing mortgage.

You’ll want a lawyer who has experience in this kind of transaction to handle it for you. It’s probably best to structure it as a land contract, where you don’t give the buyer the deed until they’ve paid off the note. You can try to make the note for one or two years, with the buyer getting third-party financing after that to pay off your mortgage.

Note: in all likelihood, your current mortgage has a "due on sale" clause. This clause typically says the bank could call the loan if they find out you sold the property. People who do this sort of thing say the bank’s not likely to call a loan if the payments are being made on it. But be aware that they could - in which case you’d have to pay all of it or forfeit the collateral property.

Option 4: Try a creative lease option.

Say you normally might be able to offer your house for $205K on a lease option. The other party pays $1,200 a month, and $200 of it goes to equity. Maybe you can offer it for $220K with a $1,250 monthly lease payment… but 100 percent goes to equity if they execute the option to buy! This is a unique offer. At the end of one year, if they execute, they have to come up with $205,000 - about what you owe. If they don’t execute, at least you’ve pulled in another $15K, reducing your negative cash flow.

Not ideal… but keep in mind that you’re trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Last, but not least, should you stay or should you go… and walk away with nothing?

I’m afraid I can’t tell you when your market is going to bottom. I’ve never had a crystal ball - only a healthy dose of financial fear and skepticism. That’s why I only buy cash-flow properties at or below market value, fixing rates for at least a few years longer than I intend to own them, using amortizing loans. If nothing else, one day… however far down the road… my tenants will eventually pay off my properties. And the chances that I’ll be forced to sell are greatly reduced.

I could wait for the right market or just hold until the loan is paid off. But I don’t know if you can or should wait. You’re losing about $24K a year, and stand to lose about $11K a year even if you get another tenant in there. And it looks like you may have negative equity right now. Try to increase income with the first two options I gave you above. Or lease-option, using Option 3. Or sell, using Option 4. Keep getting creative: Look for ways to boost your income and reduce your expenses on the property, while seeking buyers and lease optioners and being disposed to work with them on terms.

I wish you luck.

- Justin Ford

[Ed. Note: Justin Ford is the author of Main Street Millionaire, a value-focused real estate investment program. At ETR’s recent Profits in Paradise Wealth-Building Summit, 14 of the world’s experts in wealth - including real estate specialists Dave Lindahl, Marko Rubel, and Jim Fleck - divulged their biggest secrets to churning out cash. Take advantage of their proven money-making strategies with ETR’s Profits in Paradise DVD Library. Get the details here.]

Send your questions to AskETR@ETRFeedback.com. Include your full name, your hometown and state, and the ETR team may answer you in an upcoming issue.]

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"It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste."

Henry Ford 

Building Your Power Base at Work

By Brian Tracy

The more power and influence you develop on the job, the more you will be paid and the faster you will be promoted.

There are three types of power that you can develop at work, all of which can be extremely helpful to you in getting ahead.

The first type of power you can develop is expert power.

The expert in any organization is the person who has taken the time to become extremely competent in a critical area. Often, the expert in an organization is even more powerful than the senior executives, because that individual is largely irreplaceable. This is sometimes called the "critical skill" of the company, because it is vital to continued cash flow, growth, and even the survival of the business.

The second type of power is ascribed power.

This is a form of unofficial power that gravitates toward you, like iron filings toward a magnet, because you are the kind of person others like and respect and enjoy being around. In every work situation, there is a person with ascribed power. This person has an influence out of proportion to his or her job, because people come to him or her for advice, for counsel, to solve problems, and because he or she is a genuinely likable person. Ascribed power enables you to influence a greater number of people than you could without it. And it often leads to promotions and opportunities that would not have arisen in its absence.

The key to gaining ascribed power is to be pleasant with everyone. Be positive and upbeat. Be cheerful. Get a reputation for being nice. Have something positive to say to each person about each person. Never complain. Ask people questions about themselves, and be a good listener. Ascribed power can help you go far in a short period of time.

The third type of power in an organization is position power.

This is the power and authority that goes along with a particular position or title. For example, the person who is in charge of sales has the authority to make decisions with regard to the sales force. The person who is in charge of finance has the authority to make decisions with regard to how monies are allocated and accounted for. Position power is very important in any organization, and one of the jobs of a boss is to make it crystal clear to everyone exactly how much authority goes with an individual’s job title and responsibilities.

You can enhance your position power by using it gently and constructively. Instead of telling people to do things because you have the authority to do so, ask them to help you get a specific job done. The best leaders are excellent, low-pressure salespeople. Even though they have the power to insist that things be done their way, they ask people diplomatically, with tact and sensitivity, to get a particular job done by a particular time.

The more you refrain from asserting your position power, the more people will respect you and be eager to cooperate with you to help you achieve your goals.

You can develop your expert power, ascribed power, and position power by working on your people skills. You gain ascribed power by being a helpful, likable, and cooperative person to work with. You develop expert power by becoming extremely competent in one or two areas where you can make a significant contribution to the organization. And you receive position power in that, as you increase your talents, you will be given more people to influence so that you can help the company achieve greater productivity.

Now, here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, make a decision, right now, to develop "expert power" by becoming very good at your job.

Second, resolve to increase your "ascribed power" by being positive, polite, and cheerful with everyone, even when you don’t feel like it.

Third, increase your "position power" by taking the time to work closely with your staff and help them do their jobs better and easier.

[Ed. Note: Brian Tracy is one of America ’s leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. With Brian’s Ultimate Goal Achieving Package, you can discover a simple and easy-to-learn way to get everything you want out of life. Learn more here.]

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== Highly Recommended ==

Your gut started telling you something wasn’t right, didn’t it?

You did your part. You tried out some of the Internet programs, maybe even put up a website or two, but it didn’t happen as expected did it?

And yet, you KNOW a few are getting rich off the Internet by pushing a button. You see them in coffee shops with their backs to the wall, smiling at their laptops. I should know, I’m one of them…

I was about to take the rest of the week off as usual, but something compelled me to grab another coffee and write you this letter. They say writing all your frustrations down eases them. Maybe so, but I just want to be able to sleep soundly tonight… Click to continue.

ETR Insider Report: How to Get More Involved With the ETR Community

By Suzanne Richardson

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been running a secret test. (If you’re very observant, you may already know what I’m talking about.) You see, we wanted to find out what would happen with our new "addition"… without telling our readers about it.

Turns out, we’ve gotten a HUGE response. So we wanted to make sure you’re in on what we’ve been up to.

We’ve added a new way for you to get involved with the ETR community: a "comments" section on each page of our website.

This is your chance to get more of what YOU want out of ETR.

• Let us know when you agree with an article we publish…
• Give props to your favorite writer…
• Add your own two cents to a topic…
• Ask a question about a related issue…
• Share your problems…
• Even let us know when we’ve run something you couldn’t stand. (Though, of course, we’re hoping your criticism will be constructive!)

But more than that, this is your chance to enter into a conversation with other members of the ETR community. These are people who share your interests. Many of them may have valuable advice to give. And you can certainly help your fellow ETR readers by sharing your own ideas and experience.

The ETR team will be joining the conversation, too. But there’s no way the team can answer every request. That’s why we’re encouraging the participation of everyone in our like-minded community. So feel free to jump in with answers to other people’s questions - and to expand on the ideas they put forth.

The next time you have a thought or question about an article you read in ETR, click on over to our archives, pick the article you want to comment on, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and start typing away!

We can’t wait to hear what you have to say.

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Colostrum Helpful for Athletes

By Dr. Ray Sahelian, MD

We can all use a little extra help when it comes to building energy - and that goes double for athletes. One supplement that could help is bovine colostrum.

Colostrum is the early milk that a mammal produces for a few days after delivering a baby. In cows, it’s called bovine colostrum. A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine reports that bovine colostrum helped male cyclists have more energy during a bout of intense training.

Cecelia Shing, at the University of Queensland in Australia, followed 29 male distance cyclists. Her research team first took baseline measurements of the men’s performance on a 40-kilometer time trial. They then randomly assigned the cyclists to drink either a supplement containing 10 grams of bovine colostrum protein or a whey protein supplement every day for eight weeks. During week eight, the men underwent five consecutive days of high-intensity training. There were no clear differences between the two groups during normal training. However, volunteers who used bovine colostrum performed at a higher level, with fewer signs of fatigue, during tests taken after the five-day run of intense training.

There are certain foods that I would consider superfoods in that they have a high concentration of substances useful for well-being and overall health. Colostrum falls into this category. It  is rich in immunoglobulins - proteins involved in promoting the immune system and fighting germs. It has other beneficial compounds, too - such as growth factors and nucleosides - that are not found in regular milk.

You can find bovine colostrum in the dairy section of any health food store. It is also available as a supplement in capsule form.

[Ed. Note: Ray Sahelian, MD, the author of Mind Boosters, ETRhealthconcerns is internationally recognized as a moderate voice in the evaluation of natural supplements. Visit Dr. Sahelian’s website at www.RaySahelian.com, and read more of his articles about the supplements you should and shouldn’t be taking at ETR’s free natural health e-letter.]

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It’s Fun to Know: Swinging Through the Trees Like Tarzan

Tree houses and rope swings aren’t just for kids anymore. And the action isn’t confined to the backyard. Dozens of tree-top adventure parks have sprouted around the world, including the U.K., France, Bali, Thailand, and New Zealand. The parks feature rope bridges, zip lines, Tarzan-style swings, tree-top platforms, and more.

Adventurers wear safety harnesses and helmets, and are given thorough instructions before beginning their trek. The courses, which are up to 50 feet above the ground, usually take a couple of hours to complete. Check out these sites for more information: goape.co.uk, cityaventure.com, adrenalin-forest.co.nz, and ekohchang.com.

(Source: Springwise)

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== Highly Recommended ==

What If There Was A Way To Legally Beat A Traffic Ticket?

“When Attorneys Get Speeding Or Traffic Tickets, This Is What They Do… No Points, No Increased Premiums & Definitely No Stupid Driving School. These Tricks Work Like Magic.”

If you’re like me then the simple sight of a police car in your rear-view mirror is enough to send shivers down your spine, but…

When the lights start flashing…

There Goes That Safe Driver Discount… Right? Not anymore…

Click here to read more.

Word to the Wise: Shibboleth

"Shibboleth" (SHIB-uh-lith) - from the Hebrew - is a word, saying, custom, or belief identified with a group or cause.

Example (as used by Elizabeth Austin in U.S. News & World Report): "In the late ’60s, however, the loud, open use of the ‘F’ word became a true shibboleth, dividing the student radicals from the Establishment ‘pigs’ they delighted in tweaking."

Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008