Hundreds Of Thousands of New Jobs To Be Added in Atlanta and the State of Georgia in the IT Health sector according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

In an article titled “City will sell itself as health IT capital”

Changes that will need to take place with health care records and how medical professionals access them. Hospitals, clinics and doctors will need to upgrade their IT systems. This will create massive amounts of jobs in and around the Atlanta Metro Area.

An REO is a property that was foreclosed on by a lender and that the successful bidder of the mortgage foreclosure auction was the lender.  Said another way, the lender now owns the property that they had lent money on.

These lenders have these REOs on their books and they need to get rid of them in order to maintain cash levels in the bank acceptable to the Federal Government.  These cash requirements are being changed by the Feds in the hopes that banks will become more stabilized.  Often you will see REO houses for sale by Fanny Mae or Freddy Mac.  That’s because these 2 entities which are owned by the Feds have guaranteed these loans and they paid off the lender and now they own them.. REOs They have been around since loans have been made.

To buy REOs you can go to www.getreoproperties.com and simply search the areas that you want to buy in.  You may have heard of “tapes” of houses being sold by lenders and various companies and individuals.  A big word of caution; If you’re not getting deeds and title insurance at closing, then don’t buy.  There are a lot of companies and individuals that are hawking these tapes on the internet and you could end up losing your money.

The first question to ask anyone selling tapes of properties or even an individual house is this: “How do you control the property?”  This answer, if answered honestly, should let you know if you want to move forward.  Control can be one of the following:

• they own it
• they have it under contract

If they own it, there should be a deed to prove it and you’ll want to know who is on the deed.  If they have it under contract or have an option to purchase, they should be able to show you the documentation.

Some sellers wont want you to know what their making and if this becomes their issue for not wanting to prove they have control just tell them, “I don’t care if you’re making $100,000 on this deal, I only care if I can make money.”  And you know what?  That’s all you should care about. There is money to be made in REOs, just don’t give down payments to sellers that you don’t know. Always go through an attorney or a title company.

A passive investor is not active in the day to day real estate business.  I used to think I was a passive investor with over 200 homes, only to have someone point out that I was really in business.  And there is a big difference from being a passive investor, being in a business and running a business.

I was a bit surprised that for 30+ years I was running a business and it couldn’t run without me.  Heck, I was really just an employee that worked tirelessly everyday to acquire more houses.

Things are different now.  I still buy houses but I hire a manager to handle all the tenants.  That’s the beautiful thing about real estate as you can basically hire someone to do every aspect of the business.

• Someone to find opportunities
• Someone to fix the house
• Someone to management
• Someone to sell it

The greatest aspect of real estate is that everything is negotiable.  When you surround yourself with the right talent you can truly reap in the rewards of passive real estate investment.  I know of no other investment that has so many moving parts and there are so many ways to make money.  It’s no wonder that more and more people are getting involved, especially with their IRAs and 401Ks.

The government allows you to invest these retirement plans in real estate but you cannot manage it nor should you do the work on the houses.  When you consider that 91% of the wealth created in the United States is from real estate then you want to know the people that can make this happen for you.

Have you noticed how any houses are for sale lately? It’s true, there are more houses on the market now than last year at this time.  This is good news for investors that have cash and the courage to take action, while the opportunity’s available.

So, why would you buy an old house?  I don’t care how it looks or where it is, why would anyone in their right mind buy a house that was built before 1978?

Our constantly regulating government has created new laws about houses built before 1978 because these houses could have lead-based paint.  For your information; lead-based paint is harmful to your health and lead was a primary ingredient in paint up until 1978.  If you buy or sell a house that was built before this time, all kinds of disclosures must be made and a pamphlet  on lead-based paint must be given to prospective buyers or tenants.  Now, if you have peeling paint in a house or on the exterior of a house built before 1978, you must hire a licensed lead-base paint removal contractor to do the work if it exceeds approximately 10 square feet.  Good luck with that!  Most of the homes in the North East have this problem and it’s much bigger than what meets the eye.  Let me explain in more detail, as I have more experience than I care to tell you about in this area.

We live in a litigious society, where blood sucking vampires (attorneys)  look for reasons to sue people because this is what keeps them alive.  They must get more and more blood to increase their business.  They literally seek out alleged victims and run newspaper ads in the areas that are most likely to have greater exposure to lead-base paint.  These areas are the inner cities of our North East states in the lower income areas.  The reason lead-base paint lawsuits are concentrated in these areas is because lower income tenants have a tendency to leave their children on the floor, they don’t supervise them as much, and often these young babies or children will eat peeling paint – AND lead-base paint is sweet so they like it.  Now, I hope I didn’t generalize too much, but this is my experience.  And guess what?  These kids become adults and when they see an ad in the paper that gee, maybe I ate lead paint, or they’ve been diagnosed in the past, then they hire the contingent fee based attorney and sue every landlord and property manager of any house they ever lived in or visited!

Think I’m kidding?  I got sued 7 times in the last 12 months for houses I owned at one time or another over 16 years ago.  And the last lawsuit stated they think the “alleged victim” visited my house between 1994-1995.  Now, if that isn’t a crock of BS I don’t know what is.  I’ve had to respond to all this nonsense and so you know, my insurance did not cover lead-base paint.  And I assume now – you can’t get lead-base paint insurance.

So, why would anyone want to buy a home built before 1978?  You can buy beautiful houses in beautiful neighborhoods that are only a few years old at bargain basement prices in great areas.  Even if the house looks pretty and has been completely rehabbed but was built before 1978 – think again.  The bargain you think you are getting could be the road to perdition.

Think about your ultimate dream house, but most importantly, visualize and try and sense what the landscape looks like, the sky and your surroundings outside.  What would you be wearing and what would your hobbies and entertainment be like?

I bet everyone that reads this pictured a sunny day, pretty flowers growing with warm temperatures.  Anybody think of gray skies or snow on the ground?  Of course not.

So doesn’t it make sense that people want to live in these types of areas?  You bet it does, and they especially want to live in areas where jobs are being created, not lost, where taxes of all kinds are lower.

If this is true, which I believe it is, why would anyone want to buy investment houses in the RUST BELT?  It makes absolutely no sense to buy in dying areas where the local governments are broke and continue to raise taxes, water rates and other fees they can come up with.  These areas are doomed on the long term radar map for houses rebounding in value.

Most retirees prefer to live in a warm climate and ultimately move there if they can afford to.  College graduates are leaving the nest too.  Once they realize the sun comes out more than 30 days a year outside of Rochester, NY – they leave.  They never forget the vacation when Mom and Dad took them down to Florida over a holiday break.  And jobs?  C’mon.  Large employers are leaving the heavily taxed states in the North East and operating their businesses in lower tax states with warmer climates.

When you come down to it, there is a better quality of life in warmer climates.  You can be more active at all times of the year and in general, it is more cheerful than gloomy, wintery weather of the North East.  That being said, why would you want to buy investment houses in these areas?

With advancements in technology and networking, you can buy a house anywhere in the country and find rehabbers and property managers.  There is no question this is the best real estate buying opportunity of a life time.  Virtually, every market is down, so buy in the markets that will have future growth, where real estate taxes and insurance are low, and that is not in the path of hurricanes or freezing winters.

Don’t get blindsided by your own greed or rates of returns in cheap houses in areas of the country that are losing population.