Show me any piece of real estate and I will show you ways to make it pay off bigger and better. I don't care if it's a swamp - if there is land, there is huge potential for filling your pockets with Benjamins.
I have been investing in real estate for 44 years, and if there is one thing I have learned it is how to pump maximum profits even from what appears to be a dry well. And you can do the same. All you need is to think - and look - outside the box, under the box and, yes, even inside, under the flaps.
Let me show you what I mean.
About 30 years ago a fellow bought a 6 unit apartment building for $84,000 (remember, this was 30 years ago!). Four years later a local airport built a new runway that had low-flying planes passing directly over the building. The noise was too much for the tenants and they left, one by one. Unable to get new tenants, he put the place up for sale. But for the same reason he could not get tenants, neither could he find a buyer.
Cutting his losses, he begrudgingly accepted my all-cash offer of $38,500. He must have thought I was a lunatic. It wasn't long, however, before he was kicking himself - hard!
I immediately brought in contractors to set up all 6 units with all the "bells and whistles" (no pun intended) to make each apartment a dream home - for the hearing impaired. Instead of doorbells, it was door lights. Get the picture? Within a few months I had 6 great, permanent tenants (where else could they get such a place suited to their disability?) And once it was full tenancy, I resold the property for nearly three times what I paid for it, upgrades and all.
And in Wilmington, MA, one of my students ran across a lot where the house had burned, was condemned and torn down. And it was on Silver Lake. A beautiful spot. Unfortunately, the lot was substandard according to the local authorities - it was too small a piece to build on. So, the owner was stuck with it.
I advised my student to offer $45,000 or so for the lot. He managed to get it under contract for $48,000. Bear in mind, at that time any buildable lot on the lake was worth at least $70,000. But this lot supposedly was not buildable. But the local authorities were wrong.
Since there had been a house on the lot previously, Massachussetts law allowed for "grand-fathering" as long as any new building was built in exactly the same spot and size as the old. Since the old foundation was still visible, it would be easy for a builder to build a beautiful new home with a view of the lake.
On the very same day my student "bought" the property for $48,000 without putting up a dime of his own (his own buyer's money was used in a double escrow), he also SOLD it to a local building contractor for $64,500 with the buyer paying all closing costs. My student pocketed a neat $16,500 for one days work. Not bad. That was a profit that would never have been made if not for taking a closer look, doing a little research and, of course, having me as a coach. Feel free to check out the Hall of Record documents from Lowell County Courthouse to see for yourself.
So, how can you profit from your own piece of this granite planet?
If you have a nice barn, could it be renovated and leased out as a studio, workshop of even rental home? If you have acreage with a lot of trees, could you responsibly harvest some trees on a regular basis for lumber, or even cordwood? Even a small plot located near an urban area could be divided into "community gardens" where urbanites could raise some of their own crops - for a fee.
For every piece of property on this planet, there is a way to pump cash out of it. Look around. Think, Ask yourself how this or that could be used. Do you have an area for camp sites? And what about that old abandoned car dealership - plenty of parking, naturally, along with a large building space that could easily be converted into small boutiques and shops. A mini-mall.
A friend of mine once bought an abandoned parking garage and turned it into a multi-level club. Built-in parking, plenty of flat floor space for dancing...I think he named it "Flat Street". Another friend bought a bunch of storage units, then rented them out to people starting their own businesses - an upholsterer, auto detailer, woodworker...He had turned cheap $40/month storage units into expensive $400/month business incubators.
Start small if you need to. But if you already have real estate, start now. If you do not have property, go get some - I can teach you how. I have taught thousands of others. You could start by checking out my real estate investing course. It doesn't hurt to look. And who knows - maybe that "white elephant" property in your community can be turned into a money machine for you.
Meanwhile - the title of this post mentions "your biggest asset". Let me be clear - your house is not your biggest asset. It wasn’t until I learned how to deal with the thing living between my ears that I really had success. Your brain - THAT is your biggest asset!
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