I have finished going through the Essentials Course Of The Renatus Program. There are many things that I have learned from it and I’m excited about moving into the AIT courses, which I will be starting this week. Below are a few of the things that I have learned.
Real Estate Essentials
This class deals with identifying who you should have on your team before you start to invest in properties. It also teaches you how to effectively recruit these people. You’re going to need a CPA to help you do your taxes and get your legal structures put together. You’ll need an attorney who will review all the paperwork of your deals. If you plan to have multiple properties you’ll want to hire a property manager who will take care of the properties for you. Of course you’re also going to need many other people on your team as well, but those are some of the more important ones.
Creative Acquisitions
In this class I learned a ton of great information about how to acquire a property even if you don’t have a lot of cash or even credit. There are so many different options available. You could do a lease option which provides you the ability to control a property without actually owning it. You will have the option to buy the property at a predetermined price at some point in the future. It’s important to note that you don’t have the obligation to buy it, but you have the right. This is great if you aren’t sure if you really want to own the property, but you’d like to make money on it. If it turns out well for you, you still have the option to buy it later. One of the most important things to keep in mind is why the seller is selling. If you can figure out what their challenge is, you stand a better chance of coming up with a solution that works for both you and the seller.
Tax and Legal 1 & 2
Some of the topics in these two classes blew my mind. It’s amazing how much tax your regular W-2 employee pays throughout his life. As a small business owner you have so many tax advantages. You’re able to write off all your business expenses and then create entities that will further help you save on taxes. Mark Kohler, the instructor, goes through the different entities such as S-corp, sole proprietorship, IRA, 401k etc. There are a bunch of them and this is why you’re going to want a CPA doing your taxes and setting up your entities for you. Yes you’ll have to pay them, but they will save you so much money in taxes.
Deal of the Decade
This was the last class that I watched in the Essentials course and it was one of the most eye-opening for me. Chris Albin is the instructor of this class and he really does show you how to find properties that are for sale that no one else knows about. Realtors, other investors, banks, no one knows about these. It involves looking up probate and eviction court cases. He goes through a lot of different cases and goes step by step through the whole process. When you think about going to Zillow or Trulia or Craigslist or even a realtor, all those properties are out there for everyone to see, so the chances are that the best deals have already been taken. If you’re able to find the deals before anyone else however, then you stand a better chance of more profits.
Credit Management
I have very good credit myself, but I still thought this was a very eye-opening class. A lot of times credit reports have errors on them. This course is all about understanding how the errors can get there and what you can do to fix them. Also you can learn how to prevent errors from getting there in the first place. It’s important to note that this isn’t about fixing bad credit, but rather managing the credit that you have. That means you’ll learn about what to do to keep your credit score high. If you have legitimate bad credit then you can learn how to fix that in a different class.
So I know that was only a review of 6 of the 9 classes in the Essentials, but I didn’t want this post to get overly long. I just reviewed the most important points to me. If anyone is serious about getting into real estate investing, or taking it to the next level, please contact me and I will gladly get you started. I am excited myself that I will soon be able to start purchasing my own Real Estate Properties.
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