There are many myths out there when it comes to making money in business and real estate as well as how you need to operate your business to be successful. I’m sure most of you have been told or at least have heard that it is a “dog eat dog world”. Or maybe that in order for you to win, someone has to lose. My personal favorite is that the climb to the top is on the backs of others less fortunate.
While all of the above may be Wall Street’s attitude towards successful investing, there are more enlightened ways. The truth is that we are all agents of change and with a little thought towards others we can successfully invest in this world while creating all win and no lose opportunities. In fact I believe that we can change the face of this world and wrestle control from the evils of corporate and Wall Street greed that have placed our financial system in peril and hurt millions of people around this world.
In practice this is called socially responsible investing and it is simple to understand. Don’t invest in something in which someone stands lose when you profit. Also think about the impact of your investment on our environment. Not only can we all profit and create meaningful change with these two simple rules, we can create more profitable transactions than the “dog eat dog world” Wall Street would have us believe.
Urban Detroit Wholesalers is a great example of how you can actually be more profitable by creating “no lose” transactions. We buy houses from banks for cash quickly so they can lend money that money again and get a bad asset off their books.
We rehab our houses using a local nonprofit, Motor City Blight Busters. They hire formerly incarcerated individuals and teach them new skills and provide employment so the revolving door in our corrections system is significantly reduced. The profit from the rehab goes back to the nonprofit and is investing in communities that don’t necessarily make sense for an investor to invest in. Many of the materials from the rehab projects are recycled and reused on later projects, reducing the cost of future rehabs for us and our investors while reducing the need for new resources from our planet.
Through another nonprofit we work with, National Faith Home Buyers, we then provide the high quality housing we just rehabbed to disadvantaged economic classes who are trying to break the cycle of poverty. This means less money paid out from social welfare programs and less taxes out of all of our pockets. The city of Detroit and Wayne County benefit by having a house put back on the tax roll. And finally the investor (you) and Urban Detroit Wholesalers profits from the sale or rental of the newly rehabbed house.
There are many different companies who subscribe to the above principals and even right now socially responsible investing is a trillion dollar industry. After watching corporate and Wall Street greed destroy millions of retirements and jobs, it is up to us to break the cycle and start helping ourselves and others. We can vote with our money and the way we invest. We must start doing this NOW because I doubt that greedy Wall Street, which has a choke hold on our government, will see fit to change it. It is up to us.
Make Your Life Uncomfortable,
Jeremy Burgess
Detroit Real Estate Finally Gets the Spot Light!
Urban Detroit Wholesalers on CNN tonight at 8:00pm EST!
Detroit has received quite a bit of positive media attention of late as a city with bargain properties and a city worth investing in. This is a bright sunny light, finally and well deserved, for the city of Detroit and I am basking the warm glow of acceptance. Not that I needed it or wanted it but it is distinctly human to validated and proved correct.
Detroit is finally getting its due as a major city in this country attracting serious investors. I have believed for over 3 years that Detroit is THE city in American to invest in. The fundamentals just make sense.
Here are the links for the recent newspaper articles:
Detroit Free Press 3.1.09
Detroit Free Press 3.4.09
Detroit News 3.5.09
The Seattle Times 3.9.09
Detroit News 3.13.09
Urban Detroit Wholesalers is also going to be on CNN! We were interview last week as experts in Detroit investment properties. It will be on tonight at 8:00 PM EST.
May we live in exciting times and we do. You have a choice to see despair or see opportunity. I see the greatest opportunity to buy real estate in ALL of our lives. Years from now we will be telling our grandkids about how we made our fortune on Detroit real estate back in the "credit crisis".
Carpe House…. Seize the house!
Jeremy Burgess
The Detroit Market Expert
Urban Detroit Wholesalers
Renegade Detroit Investors
Detroit Investment Secrets
Detroit Hard Money Secrets
Detroit Cash Flow Analysis
Urban Detroit Online
Sheriff Evans of Wayne County Michigan announced to Michigan that he was halting all mortgage foreclosure sales. His reasoning is that it is impossible for his office to tell which of the mortgages were protected under the Troubled Asset Relief Program allowing homeowners adequate time to work out loan modifications.
I would like to bring to everyone’s attention that Sheriff Evans is running for Major in the City of Detroit so I think this is a publicity stunt. I also wonder if he has considered the financial impact of his decision on the community. I know most people get a warm and fuzzy thinking about homeowners staying in their home and saving their house but I’m not one of them.
I have a significant amount of experience with short sales and loan modifications and it has been my experience that most people are not capable of making any considerable payments towards their mortgage. Most people have had something catastrophic happen that stopped them from being able to pay their mortgage. There is no loan modification program in the world that fixes a lost job, divorce, or death in the family. Often their debt to income ratio is so poor that a foreclosure now is better than a loan modification that ends up in foreclosure in the near future.
What real value is there in prolonging the inevitable and forcing more losses on lenders already in dire straits (yes I know it was their own fault and I won’t get in to that now)? Especially sense these lender/bank losses are being subsidized by the Federal government via the bail out. The only value I see is that it makes the politicians look like they really care. This is a publicity stunt with your tax dollars so you can feel like your government is working on the problem.
If the Moratorium on foreclosures continues for any great length of time, it will actually create larger problems than we already have. The banks are all ready overwhelmed with foreclosed properties and can barely keep up. One of the main factors in the recent drop in property values is the enormous supply for houses and the lack of demand (people can’t get loans) for them. This naturally forces values to drop.
If we stop foreclosing on houses and we know that most of the loan modifications will be unsuccessful resulting in more foreclosures; we in essence dammed a river. When the moratorium is over, we will have a flood of foreclosures further wiping out property values and creating even more problems.
My question to you is would you rather have a little bit of rain for a few years or do you want some sunny days followed by a devastating flood that destroys your home? This seems like a rhetorical question and I find few people thinking about the long term consequences. Short term profit and thinking is the major contributing factor to the mess we are currently in. And here we are, about to repeat our mistakes.
These are the people many of us are trusting with our retirement. If that is you, I would think again.
Make Your Life Uncomfortable,
Jeremy Burgess
The Detroit Market Expert
Detroit Real Estate - Wholesale Deals - Main site
Detroit Real Estate Blog - Detroit Investment Information
Detroit Investment Properties Free Report - Free Detroit Investment Information
Cash Flow and Property Analysis Spreadsheet - Property Evaluator
Secrets to Hard Money Lending in Detroit - Free Report for Lenders
Yesterday we inaugurated the first Black American as President of the United States. Considering that 60 years ago Obama would have to drink out of a different water fountain than me, I find this historic event inspiring and it gives me hope for the future of America. Regardless of your political beliefs, President Obama’s inauguration speech calling for a new era of change was an eye opener. While I’m far from the world’s biggest Obama supporter (I’m a Ron Paul supporter), I found much of the President’s speech exciting and motivating at this particular juncture in our history.
As Americans we have one foot in the industrial age and one in the information age and neither foot knows what the other is doing! It seems at times that America is confused about what must be done moving forward.
“That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood.”
While I agree that we are in a crisis, I believe that we have been in a financial crisis for a long time. The crisis I’m blogging about is the personal retirement crisis. Our parents and grandparents have prepared us for the world with tools that are no longer useful and practical. Without over simplifying the issue, we were raised to go to college and get a good job with benefits. While it is obvious to most now that a college education and a job just won’t cut it, we are still confused as a nation and people.
“But our time of standing pat, or protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions- that time has surely past. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.”
The time of the defined benefit plan and employer sponsored retirement is OVER. The writing was on the wall in 1963 when the Studebaker automobile company terminated its employee pension program. Since then ERISA was passed in 1974 to enforce and regulate to some degree employee pension programs. As Americans we have seen this fail as well with ENRON, Adelphia Communications, World Com, TYCO, and Quest to mention just a few! The loss to defined benefit and defined contributions plans, YOUR RETIREMENT, was in the BILLIONS! Of course that pales in comparison to the Trillions lost in the recent mortgage crisis. This was real money from your retirement funds.
Now is the time to remake your retirement plan and take control over your future. While the switch from having someone else manage your retirement to you managing it can be a challenge, it is not as difficult as you think. If you don’t already have one, you need to start or convert your retirement into a Self Directed Roth IRA. I recommend Equity Trust Company because of their customer service and how easy they make every transaction for the new and seasoned investor. With a Self Directed Roth IRA you can invest your money in anything you want and all of your future gains and profit are tax free!
This does mean that you will have to analyze that stock, real estate deal, IPO offering, bonds, businesses, CDS and other investment opportunities but isn’t that the entire point? The evidence has shown that when your retirement is left up to the government or corporations, you lose.
What it means to be a Renegade Detroit Investor is personal responsibility for our investments and an aversion to mainstream thoughts and antiquated advice from so called financial advisers.
“What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them…. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”
This is the Renegade Detroit Investors battle cry! You can whine and complain all you want but that is like trying to swim upstream. You cannot fight the change. The change is already here… and what are you going to do about it? Are you going to lie down and let corporate America swindle your retirement or submit to bigger government taxes in the allusion that social security will cover your needs?
“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves….”
You have a responsibility to yourself, your country, and ultimately to your children and grandchildren to embrace the change and prepare future generations to be financially independent of government and corporations.
“This is the price and the promise of citizenship.”
Make your life uncomfortable,
Jeremy Burgess
The Detroit Market Expert
Metro-Detroit Real Estate Business Group
Metro-Detroit Real Estate Blog
Detroit Real Estate
Detroit Cash Flow Properties - Free Report
For the last year and half it seems to me like this nation and its people have been walking on egg shells, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Looking and searching for boogie men and finding fault in everything till our very thoughts and actions are poising us, our economy and our nation.
How many bad thoughts should we have and more importantly, how long can we afford to expect terrible things to happen?
I’m not trying to be Pollyanna here about the situation our country is in or the challenges that the City of Detroit is facing. What I’m suggesting is that instead of focusing on pointing out faults and finding the cracks in every plan by punching holes in a leaking dam; we need to learn to ignore and quiet this nagging specter of fear that has us looking for monsters under the bed.
Anyone can find fault and tear down ideas, plans, projects, and dreams. Much more difficult to do is find ways to build solutions that work. Now is the time to start building rather than tearing down. President Barrack Obama spoke about the “gathering clouds and raging storms” on America’s horizon and the need to find solutions and make hard choices. I agree completely and I blogged at great length at my real estate investment club, Renegade Detroit Investors
Questions we should be asking ourselves are how can we find solutions to the issues we are facing? Urban Detroit Wholesalers focuses only on Detroit investment properties and we work closing with a local nonprofit, Motor City Blight Busters. While we are not blind to what is happening in Detroit and the nation, because we asked the right questions and focused on the solutions one small step at a time we have carved out a very profitable niche while rebuilding and stabilizing communities.
Urban Detroit Wholesalers:
· added over 100 jobs to the local economy
· rehabbed over 90 houses increasing property values
· provided quality rentals in areas that they were desperately needed
· retrained a dozen men and women in new trades via Blight Busters
· created dozens of homeowners via lease options and land contractors
· improved the lives of 20 seniors by providing housing projects via Blight Busters
· added over a million dollars of equity and thousands of dollars of cash flow to our investors
Everything that we have been able to accomplish is due solely to focusing on finding solutions and building positive communities. We decided long ago to ignore the specter of fear that would have you believe that there are no solutions and that in order for you to profit someone must lose. We created win-win solutions with banks, communities, nonprofit agencies, investors, and all of the trades men and women we employ while still creating a sound profit for us and our investors.
Go out and find ways to build your community, your job, your church, your relationships, and anywhere else you face challenges. Focus on solving one small challenge at a time. Imagine what this country would be like if thousands of men and women were building solutions and adding value to communities they live and invest in.
Now is time to build and be the solution one challenge at a time. We have enough of the other.
Make your life uncomfortable,
Jeremy Burgess
The Detroit Market Expert
WholesaleMi.com>
RenegadeDetroit.com
DetroitInvestmentSecrets.com
DetroitHardMoneySecrets.com
DetroitCashFlowAnalysis.com
UrbanDetroitOnline.com
I am an enlightened entrepreneur who lives for real estate investing. I see real estate investing as the best way to build lasting wealth and an early reliable retirement plan.
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