I have come to the belief that there is a completely unnecessary risk that lies within each and every mortgage that has been written in recent years. For much of my adult life I have had doubts that all of the stacks of papers which we all sign at the closing of any loan may even be accurate. In some cases, I suspect that there may even be some violations of either State or Federal laws.  The only way to find out if that is true has been to hire a very expensive attorney to complete a thorough audit of those documents and forms.  That is not even practical just purely to satisfy our doubts unless we can be assured that some significant errors WILL be found there!

We have now reached an age where it is true that most loans DO have flaws. Fortunately, we have also reached a point in time where we have a new and better option to find out the truth about the status of those loans. The very best investment of our time AND money in paying our debts to the lenders is to get a Forensic Mortgage Loan Audit. They have become so affordable that we cannot allow ourselves to be blind to the facts any longer.

Here is the system that I was prepared to have built for my own investing.  Andy and Justin have saved me a LOT of time, effort and expense with what they have created. Best of all, they have offered it to us all at an amazingly low cost for all that it can do!

Whatever you do, don’t pass up this opportunity to explode your leads on a low budget.  Click on the banner and hurry over to check out all of the extraordinary features it has.

That’s right, they are starting a teleseminar on this Thursday, February 7.  If you hurry and get in on this series, you could be the recipient of a piece of land that you could use for yourself or Sell at a HUGE PROFIT!  Ken Denkins has been buying land since 1999 at ridiculous prices such as $100 to $500 and sometimes at NO cost!  In this series he will be teaching the participants his secrets on how to do the exact same thing.  This will work in almost any area that is not a tourist trap.  Sometimes he has bought tracts of land on beachfronts or with an ocean view!  Huey Walsh has almost 40 years of success in land deals and he says he has never seen anything quite this amazing.  If you hurry, you can “get in the door and grab a seat” before they get started or all of the slots sell out.  Don’t miss out on this rare opportunity!

BE ONE OF THE FIRST IN YOUR AREA TO USE THESE LUCRATIVE TECHNIQUES…CLICK THIS LINK NOW!

We wish you and your family a Happy Holiday and a fantastic New Year.
A special holiday message is waiting for you from GoDaddy.com.
To see it please click on the link below:
https://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/holiday/winter2007.asp?isc=gdm1224

By the way, are you thinking about setting some Goals for the New Year yet?

Here is a very valuable tool in the “War on Foreclosures” that we can all use. These two ladies have assembled a 50 page report that will help people see what their rights and options are. The cost is so low that everyone should have a reference copy. Besides, they are willing to let you get paid for helping them “share the information”.

November 10, 2007 marks the 232nd birthday of the United States Marine
Corps. Please join us as we pay tribute to the brave men and women who
continue to protect and serve our country. To see the message, simply
click here:

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/holiday/usmc2007.asp?isc=gdm1113

Semper Fi,

Lou Castillo just placed another post on his blog today. It is about the Due On Sale Clause that is a part of most mortgages these days. It’s a great article and you should go read it. At this point, Lou now has 4 posts on the current front page of his blog that discuss the DOS clause, effective negotiation, Probate adventures and how much to pay for a deal. Each of these subjects is truly relavent to Investors. Not many can say it better than Lou does. You can find this page with these posts at: http://investorriches.com/blog/?p=9

Happy reading and here’s hoping that what you learn there adds to your cash flow!

After much anticipation and some technical difficulties thrown in as well, CoREI31 is up. There were quite a few submissions (which we recieved all at once.)  So thanks to all for your posts and also for your patience while we sorted through them to select.

There was a wide variety of subjects in the submissions which I believe is a good thing! Many of us enjoy a variety of information types to learn more from. There were also multiple submissions that we picked the most pertinent subjects to add. Don’t forget to “look around” at each site that you go to.  Then you will catch them all!

We hope that you enjoy reading these posts. We also hope that you will be inspired to write and submit more articles for CoREI32 next week at Mortgage Manifest.

I was impressed with all of these articles and didn’t really have much time to settle on any one of them as my favorite. This may be a good time to declare all 10  WINNERS.  So without any further delay, here are our favorite 10 submissions this time: 

Buildium Property Management Software Review  by Bruce Sutherland

7 Home Flipping Mistakes to Avoid (actually, you should avoid them all)  by Steve Faber

Don’t forget that the Carnival of Real Estate Investing is still continuing to provide some great articles to read.  Usually, every week there is a different host who picks their favorites of the submitted posts for that edition. You can always see who is hosting at the CoREI home page and you can follow the links to all of the past editions as well.

Come back to Cash Flow Treasures on the 30th of July when we will be hosting again. It should be a great event which will come after a brief Summer break.  We are looking forward to all of the submissions that will come in during that time.  It’s exciting to think what may be available for us to enjoy reading about how to improve our Investing. 

Many times during my adult years, I have been asked a question.  That is, “Which one person has had the most impact on your life or made the biggest impression on you?” 

At first, I used to think of Parents, Teachers or other adults that I had known before then.  Even family members or friends would cross my mind as influential.  As a young adult, I never quite knew who to say had made the greatest impact on my thought processes and abilities.  In recent years, I have had more purpose to look back on the things that Life has led me to.  Within those reflections, I have come to realize whom I thought of saying “Thank You” to most often for what I was taught so long ago.

You see, some things are learned and some things just come naturally to all of us.  I feel certain that I have been given a great wealth of skills, talents and abilities.  Now please do not mistake my words here.  I am in NO way trying to boast, or to “pat myself on the back” in any form.  What I am attempting to express here is this: That I have been blessed in many ways.  I understand that fact, have deeply appreciated it and am almost always overwhelmed with gratitude for being created in this manner.  It is NOT something that I share with you as “bragging rights” to impress anyone with.  The real purpose here is about the explanation as to why I feel the way that I do about this very special person whom I met as a teenager in my first year of High School.  Through the years, I have come to believe that this one person has paved many pathways for me! 

Long before that time, I became aware that I had a natural curiosity about how things worked. That also made me see that I could easily understand how to repair what ever did not work properly.  Mechanical aptitude and deductive reasoning have come very naturally to me for as long as I can remember.  I am often amazed at how many other people say that they “just don’t get it” when the answers are so obvious to me.  It is my belief that some basic creative principles relate to almost everything in Life that we do.

There are very few things that I have found too difficult to be able to fix or to do.  I started out building model cars and then moved to constructing electric slot-cars from scratch.  I began fixing my own bicycle and that eventually led to rebuilding several motorcycles and even custom painting Harleys in the early 70’s.  (If I had stuck with that, I could have made my first million years earlier!)  As an adult, I began to fix plumbing and electrical problems as a contractor.  Eventually that led to building my own first house with no more than HVAC, concrete and rough-in framing hired out.  I got to raise my family in that house during the nearly 25 years that I owned it.  Since then there have been more remodeling projects than I can count and even one Commercial storefront created where nothing but bare walls, floor and (no) ceiling existed before I started out (with photos as proof.)  I have almost always done my own repairs on everything from my bicycles, motorcycles and cars to trucks and even buses.  I first painted those model cars with brushes and spray cans.  That evolved to spray painting the bicycles, motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, oh and even houses and commercial buildings as well!   When I did  become “hooked” on Photography, it soon wasn’t enough to TAKE the pictures, I had to learn how to PRINT them as well. Not only that, I had to learn how to cut mat boards and frames also.  That led into owning and running my own photo labs, portrait studios and custom frame shops.  I have even found myself making all of the needed repairs to the photo equipment I owned and used. As you can see, I have been able to do a wide variety of things in Life so far!  There have been those people who have taught me to benefit others by stopping them from facing foreclosure.  I have done Loan Modification and Short Sale negotiations very successfully.  Although not mechanical, these issues still require some level of deductive reasoning and creative thinking at times, especially if you buy the property.  Fixing problems and finding solutions require some creative thought processes. You must look at the big picture, visualize the final desired outcome and “create” a way to reach that intended result.  It’s very much like the process when you create a work of Art like a drawing, a painting or a sculpture.  Creative thinking is always beneficial!     

So who is this person that was so influential in my life?  I used to believe it was my Dad.  Every day of my life I will be thanking my father for what he has “handed down” to me.  He was very mechanically gifted and I believe that is where I got it from. In my youth, I watched him fix the cars while I must have driven him crazy just asking him questions.  I watched him build everything from simple projects like wooden toys to complex cabinets that he made from scratch with no printed plans in hand, just by using creative thinking.  As a child, my father used to encourage me to use a pad of paper and draw pictures as a way to “sit still in Church” and be quiet while we were there.  I had already been drawing for many years when it came time to enroll in my High School classes.  My older sister said that I would certainly enjoy the Art classes which I was more than happy for the opportunity to get to try.  That is where I met this wonderful mentor that has meant so much for what was taught to me, in Art class.

Patricia Wolfe was that first Art teacher. She opened my eyes to the basics of true creativity.  I’m quite certain that she wasn’t aware of the level of impact that the words she spoke would have on my life in the years to come.  I wasn’t either at the time.  It wasn’t for many years that I became fully cognizant of  why I could so easily select complimentary color schemes or “balance” things out for a pleasing appearance and good overall effects.  It wasn’t just Art that she taught me how to create, it was so much more than just that.  You see, the basics of Art that she instilled in us apply to a lot more than merely Art.  It has everything to do with composition, balance, symmetry and asymmetry, form, shape, textures, perspectives, colors, tints, shades and hues.  Everything from the (color wheel) primary and secondary colors to opposite and complimentary colors effect so much of what we do. Most of what I have done!  We even learned about Graphics and fonts and how they can be made pleasing for us to look at or be effective at getting our attention.  There was everything from pencils and chalk to watercolors and oil paints taught to us.  We made block prints (from a potato) and tile cuttings and we learned application of silk screen techniques in those classes.  If it had to do with creating Art in any form, we covered it. Even album cover design. 

The real issue here is that we were taught the basics, the fundamentals, the very foundations of creating Art and then we knew the how and why that other building blocks should fit together more effectively.  Once you understand the fundamentals, the rest will make more sense and will fall into place with greater ease and seem much more natural.  The same principles apply to Real Estate Investing, business and Life.

That sure holds true for so much more of what I have done since then.  As an artist, my creativity has flowed with purpose because of what I learned from Mrs. Wolfe.  As a Photographer, my images were more pleasing and I have been able to teach others how the fundamentals can improve their photographs as well.  As a processor, my ability to correctly color balance prints has been drastically enhanced.  As a picture framer, my skill in selecting colors for mat boards and frames that accent an image is truly very helpful.  It has been a major factor in successful selection of colors for painting everything from the motorcycles to houses and buildings.  As a Real Estate Investor, I find myself using those basics in property deals and marketing to buyers where aesthetics apply.  You can generate a wealth of “curb appeal” value with some basic creative principles.  Some people have called me “an artist” at making landscaping look very appealing to the eye.  Much can be achieved by following some simple basics of adding the right color combinations and by leading the viewers’ eyes.  The need to stage a property to be more attractive is much easier with good Art training.  Even now that I find myself creating web pages for Internet Marketing, those same principles of Art come into play everywhere.  Pleasing colors, graphics and a balanced appearance go a long way toward getting and holding attention which means more sales.  It’s become very apparent to me with the passing of time that my life would have been much different if it were not for the influence of what I learned from my first Art teacher.  She gave me a foundation that was worth building something of value upon. She unlocked the door to my understanding of how to apply true creativity! As I hope that I have explained here, my ability to fix and repair things seems to have come natural to me and I thank God for that.  My creativity was very well mentored.

I wish I had been able to share with her every time I’ve thought “Thanks, Mrs. Wolfe.” Some treasures are priceless. That is how much I treasure what she taught to me!