Opportunity Everywhere for The Savvy Property Scout

If you're new to property scouting, here's a great introduction:
Property Scouting Introduction-- Prospecting for Profits
It's really thorough. If you're a property scout like I am, or want to be one, feel free to check it out. There's no charge at all to download and read. Every commercial real estate property scout I know is really excited by what's been happening in the economy.

There's opportunity galore right now. Seriously.

I wouldn't say it if it weren't true. My high net worth investors I partners with feel the same way.

So check it out now. It's below...

Property Scouting: The Power of Belief & Persistence

One of the things that kinda baffles my associates is how I can work weeks or months researching a deal without compensation.

They are amazed at how I can stay so optimistic and so excited about finding what some would call “a needle in a haystack”.

Sure they are also amazed at my lifestyle, or the fact that I don’t “work” for a living. But they always come back to the question “How do you do it?”

I’ll tell you why. It’s the money.

Property Scouting is about one thing: Doing the basics everyday. Do that, and while there’s never any guarantees, the simple laws of averages puts success heavily in your favor.

And that’s the trick. Most people aren’t willing to do the basics everyday. They want a shortcut. They want the “get rich quick”.

They aren’t willing to get good at any one thing. They want to dabble. They don’t want to exert any real effort.

And I know why.

Because most people aren’t willing to risk failing. Most people aren’t willing to risk looking bad in front of their friends and colleagues. Most people don’t believe in themselves.

I know, because I used to be the same way. I was the kind of person that would analyze things to death. I was always looking for “the catch”. Why it would never work.

Guess what? I always found “the catch”. I always found a reason it wouldn’t work.

And you want to know what? Finding “the catch” never made me a dime.

I have always been a big thinker. Some would say a dreamer. But I always had my feet on the ground. What I discovered is I never allowed myself permission to fail. Which means I never tried anything. And that means I never really succeeded much either.

So that’s how I became good at Property Scouting. I did the basics. I believed. I made it ok for myself to occasionally fail so that I could find the one deal that would make me rich.

It wasn’t hard or difficult, but I had to believe in myself to at least take the first step.

If you’re looking for a leg up, I hope I have been helpful today. I hope what I have said made a difference.

A lot of times people ask me if there’s a lot of competition being a Property Scout. No, there isn’t. Actually almost none at all. Why? Because amazingly, most people aren’t willing to do what it takes when it comes to making the big money.

If you’d like to learn how, check out: http://propertyscoutcash.com

Property Scouting Online

One of the best things about being a property scout is that you don’t have to “burn fossil fuels”.

Meaning you can easily do it from home using your computer and the Internet.

For instance, I recently came a across a great deal on http://costar.com. (Biggest database but not neccessarily the best for property scouting). Last month I found a property with a lot of potential on http://loopnet.com that I am currently following up on.

There’s really no magic to the process. I signed up for a subscription with them and then they send me deals which meet my criteria. Criteria which happens to be my investor’s criteria.

Sure, my investor could have done it himself, but finding the deal is only part of the challenge. Prescreening the deal is the other part.

I usually contact the listing broker and start an ongoing dialogue about the property. Sometimes it pans out and I take the next step. Most times though, it doesn’t pan out for one reason or another.

Regardless of what happens, here’s the big benefit:

When I contact the broker, I always try to establish an on going professional relationship. I want to be put on his list of people to call when he has a “pocket listing”. Meaning a deal so good, it never gets posted.

That’s where the action is. That’s my secret.

The thing that gives me confidence and encouragement is knowing my investor is serious about acquiring property which meets their criteria.

So using my computer and phone I have relationships with brokers all around the country.

So for about a $100 a month (by the way, I use http://skype.com for all my telephone calls and it costs me about $5 a month), I have an almost endless supply of deals I am evaluating, whether they are form the databases or from the brokers.

You don’t need to be a genius to figure this stuff out, you just to be consistent and follow through. Just a little bit of effort goes a long way.

If you’d like to know more about property scouting, these are the guys to learn from: http://propertyscoutcash.com. They aren’t paying me to say it, I just know it’s true.

The BIG difference between Property Scouting and Birddogging

One question I get is what’s the difference between being a property scout and a real estate “bird dog”.

Well, to get to the core of it, I don’t know too many successful real estate bird dogs.

Bird dogs come across properties for sale one of two ways:

1) Either the deal lands in their lap and they know it’s a good deal…

2) Or they are sending anything and everything over to the investor that even remotely looks like a good deal. They hope if they throw enough spaghetti against the wall, some of it will stick.

Actually, it’s a very opportunistic way of doing business, which doesn’t make much of a difference financially. Most who try, quickly lose interest.

By contrast, a Professional Property Scout is more strategic. He or she uses a real system and knowledge & information to locate properties.

First he or she knows they are working with a real, active investor who is intent on acquiring properties right now.

He or she arms themselves with the specific acquisition criteria of the particular investor. (This is critical.) He knows the right questions to ask.

Then he or she knows how and where to find and discriminate between the good deals and the great real estate deals that are out there. In other words, successful investors are usually only looking for GREAT deals. And again, you have to know the investor’s criteria to be able to hit the mark.

Then the property scout know how to systematically collect the information which will be used to evaluate the property. Again, he or she knows the right questions to ask and in the right order as well.

And finally, they know how to present the information to the investor such that the investor is willing to seriously look at acquiring the property.

The secret is to work backwards.

“What’s that?” you say?

Yes, you must work backwards starting with what it takes for the investor to acquire a property. Obviously, it takes money and the investor has to have the wherewithal. That’s a given and you should also be seriously discriminating between investors who are serious and those who aren’t.

In other words, it’s NOT just about the property, it’s ALSO about the investor.



PS: If you're interested, there's only training program I know that teaches people how to be a true Professional Property Scout. It's http://propertyscoutcash.com/. I don't make anything from it, I just think if you're serious about the opportunity, it would be worthwhile to at least check it out. It's run by real investors who are serious about acquiring commercial property.

Ta da! My First Entry... What is Property Scouting

In my travels, people, especially investors, are pretty intrigued when I tell them I am a Commercial Real Estate Property Scout.

"What's that?" they ask.

Here's the answer:

A Property Scout is a person who finds properties for real estate investors to acquire.

Depending on how you structure the deal, a person can make a fairly substantial amount of money. It's great for the investor because they don't have to spend the time trying to find the deals themselves. Amazingly, they would prefer doing the wheeling and dealing like structuring the deal and negotiating the financing. And obviously, they like to add value to the property and then re-sell it. It's a win/win scenario for everyone involved.

It's the type of profession that can be very lucrative, if you are good at being organized and doing research.

You may be wondering how does one become a Professional Property Scout.

Obviously, you could learn on your own, by the school of hard knocks. But there's a group of investors which actually train people exactly how to do property scouting and they'll show you their exact criteria for property acquisition if you want to work with them. Their focus though is specifically on commercial real estate, not residential, because that's where the biggest payoff is.

Here's the link: http://propertyscoutcash.com

I have done business with them for the past several years and they are quality people.