In this interview with Michael Zuber, a buy and hold investor who is based in San Francisco, but focused in the Fresno and Madera areas of California, we gain some great insight into the mindset of an experienced landlord. Michael shares his 10 years of experience and covers topics including the importance of having a strong, supportive partnership with your spouse/partner, why you should buy green houses, 1031 exchanges, and much more.

You can also find out more about Michael at his website, Wealthbuildingpro.

Edit: I was informed by Jeff Brown of some info that both Michael and I missed in our discussion about 1031 exchange. He was kind enough to provide the following info for us to share:

Delayed exchange rules in part:

Once you close escrow on property you’re relinquishing, the following rules apply as it relates to time periods. All time clocks begin at closing of the relinquished property escrow. (The relinquished property is the one you’re tradin’ out of.)

1 – Must ‘identify’ property(s) to be acquired, often called ‘uplegs’, within 45 days. Your intermediary will have the proper forms, etc.
2 – Must close property within 180 days. IRS counts holidays, weekends as days.

WARNING: If you close your ‘relinquished’ property such that April 15th, tax filing day, comes before your 180 days are up — you MUST close on 4/15 or sooner. There’s an out though, so don’t have the heart attack I almost did almost 20 years ago when I personally ran into this. It’s solved by simply filing a timely extension. Once you’ve filed your on time extension, you may go ahead and close after 4/15, but on or before the original 180th day as originally planned.

Got any thoughts or questions? Please leave them below.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2011 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Interview with California Investor & Landlord: Michael Zuber

For the second edition of our real estate investor video interview series, we with an interview with Rob Gillespie aka Rob the House Guy. Rob has been investing for 15 years in Ohio and brings a unique perspective with his philosophy on how to become a success in this business.

Rob can also be found on Twitter @RobtheHouseGuy

Please leave any feedback about the interview or questions for Rob below.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2011 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

BiggerPockets Interview with Investor Rob Gillespie

We kick off our real estate investor video interview series (thank you Skype!) with an interview with James Vermillion of K&V LLC. James is a rehabber based in Kentucky who is in the process of working on his 2nd and 3rd deals. While he is very early in his career, as you can tell from the interview, he has some serious pearls of wisdom to share. Watch and learn!

Please leave any feedback about the interview or questions for James below.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2011 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

BiggerPockets Interview with Investor James Vermillion

We conducted a non-scientific poll this week via Facebook to determine how investors felt about the speakers at their local real estate club meetings marketing to them, and the results are pretty clear.

We asked, “Should real estate investor clubs allow speakers to market their products during meetings?”

At the time of writing this article, we’ve had a total of 50 respondents. 42 people (84%) answered no while 8 (16%) indicated yes.

We also collected actual feedback from investors on the topic through our forums; here are some highlights.

NOPE! I stop going to some clubs because 65% of the meeting is promoting new programs etc. – Mike Jakobczak

No. I’ve been to a few meetings here and the first thing you see when you enter are the tables with the upsells. Can’t even get to the meeting room without getting hit on. I don’t go anymore. Just because of that. – Kenneth Smith

No. I think that the guru pitch gives the meetings a “made for newbies” feel… I would love to hear a talk given by a local expert on pertinent subject matter. But I can’t stand the sales pitches. I stopped going because of them. – Ryan Pyle

No, I quit going to one that the speakers always had something to sell. – Charles Perkins

my answer is also a Big Fat NO! I can’t stand gurus or what they stand for (which is take money from unsuspecting people looking for pipe dreams that can not be delivered without actual work and effort!)

People must understand that the main speaker should somehow be compensated for giving up their time making a valuable presentation and one of the ways to do that is to offer some sort of class or seminar at a fee. So long as the class is reasonably priced and the information valid and beneficial, I see no problem with that. – Will Barnard

What do you think? Be sure to vote and leave your feedback in the comments below or on the forum thread above.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2011 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Investors Reject Speakers Marketing at Real Estate Club Meetings

Nobody said it would be easy, and it hasn’t been. I remember having conversations with some of my friends in the early days of BiggerPockets, and there was a lot of doubt about creating an online company to serve the real estate investing niche. There were already several established players in the REI online space, and I was just another investor struggling to succeed . . .

Why would anyone come to my site?

 
Millions upon millions of visitors later, I still ask myself the same question – not due to a lack of confidence in our site, but because I believe that once I stop asking, I’ll forget the reason that I created BiggerPockets in the first place.

People come to BP because it fills a need. I believe that what has set us apart from the rest of the “players” in the real estate investing space is the focus on improving the bottom line of our users as opposed to filling our pockets at any cost. We have always put our users first, and doing so has allowed us to build a reputation that is second to none in the investing sphere.

BiggerPockets has become a diverse community of active investors, real estate professionals, service providers and those people who want to become investors; we’re now reaching close to a quarter of a million unique visitors each month. We help them by providing a means of connecting and networking, a place for learning, analyzing and making deals, marketing, and keeping up with the latest news and real estate advice available. While we’re accomplishing all of these things, I believe that we can reach so many more people who could truly benefit from our site, and we can ultimately change not only how real estate investors get things done, but can change attitudes about investors as well.

And, we can and will do so much more!

By the way . . . one man can make a difference

What most people don’t know about BiggerPockets is that this is essentially a one man operation. While we’ve got some incredible volunteers who help out with tasks like moderating our community, I’m the cog at the center of the machine. I’m the customer service guy, the marketing and advertising guy, the sales guy, the PR guy, the lead gen guy, the seo guy, the product guy, the editor, the community administrator, the social media maestro, and everything else. I’ve had to learn by doing; and in doing I’ve made countless mistakes. Those mistakes, I believe, have made me stronger and a better CEO.

They have also given me the opportunity to examine not only how I run my business, but also what my strengths and weaknesses are — I know what I know and what I don’t know. The beauty of knowing these things is that you can then work to find people to step in and be strong where you are weak.

This is the challenge that all entrepreneurs must face, and certainly anyone in the real estate business, but sometimes figuring these things out isn’t as easy as it may seem.

The Path Forward

Over the past few months I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the future of BiggerPockets and I’ve worked very hard to map a path forward. I’ve also been working to put the pieces into place that will allow us to succeed in accomplishing the grand vision that I’ve created.

I’ve thought a lot about how much I should share with you about the path I’ve taken to get us here and the journey forward; I believe that it is important for our users to have an understanding of my motivations, our challenges, our goals, and some of the inner workings of this place – not only because it it may be interesting, but because I believe that you can relate to the trials and tribulation of the past, as well as the challenges and successes that I will encounter in the future. I’m planning on using this column to share all of that with you.

I hope that by opening up to you, that you’ll see that I can’t do this alone. BP has reached the tipping point, and I need your help. I need your support. I need your enthusiasm.

If BiggerPockets has at all impacted you – your life, your business, your friendships, your bottom line – I hope that you’ll join me in my mission to bring this place to the next level.

Are you on board?

Photo: Grant Montgomery

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2011 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Changing the Real Estate Investing Industry One Person at a Time

Every once in a while, I hear about people I wish I personally knew.

Here are two.

What did they do?

They BASE jumped off the LDS Church Office Building in Salt Lake City.

Sinners.

Dear Little Brother,

At some point in your management career you will have an employee where you realize that it is probably time they moved on and did something else.

And because you are human will likely use some kind of justification to keep that person around just a little longer to see if you can make them successful.

The good news is there is a simple signal you can watch for to see if this is happening:

If you start moving furniture around, be careful.

Should you find yourself moving the furniture around (literally or figuratively) to accomodate an employee that is less than stellar, chances are you are violating the logic of the Fifth Rule of Management: Don’t Rearrange The Furniture.

I once worked at a small startup where the young managers had someone working as an administrative helper who just happened to be satanic cult member.

She was the usual superstar: showed up late, did poor work and was starting to become the punch line to the jokes we would tell at lunch.

One day she even showed up in a headband tied up like she had just graduated the initiation ceremony for a Compton street gang or was headed on tour with Kid Rock later in the afternoon.

Photo Credit

And in my experience, when someone shows up to a semi-normal office environment looking like they are going out with Kid Rock after previously being suspected of participating in satanic worship, people start talking.

They say things like:

When do you think “management” will get rid of her?

Or:

No way do I want [that person] sitting by me – have them sit on the opposite end of the office so I don’t have to deal with her.

Or:

Do you think maybe we can talk her into quitting, joining a biker gang and riding off into the sunset?

And after listening to everyone I worked with ask questions like that for a while, one day it happened.

“Management” decided to move the furniture.

And it was glorious.

Before the furniture moving started, I didn’t realize that it was actually possible to stack filing cabinets, fake ficus trees and cubicle walls in such a way that you could completely physically isolate someone from the rest of the team.

But it turns out it is — kind of.

“Management” moved desks, filing cabinets, trees and ficus trees so that while we were all aware that she was there, we couldn’t actually see her.

And it worked!

For about a week or so.

Everyone went about their work in that small office environment, and our bandana-wearing friend did her thing in complete obscurity.

But a problem remained.

Even after all of the furniture moving was done, the same problems still existed.

And a week later, one early morning when she came into work, “management” decided that it was finally time to have the it just isn’t working out conversation with her.

And after she was gone?

We had to move the furniture right back where it was before the furniture-moving-managment-experiment started.

And that is how the fifth rule of management was born:

Don’t Rearrange The Furniture.

Anytime you find yourself with an employee who isn’t doing a nice job at whatever-it-is-that-their-job-is, chances are they won’t be good at something else if you try to change their job.

Or more bluntly: if they are lousy at one job, chances are you as a manager changing their job isn’t suddenly going to make them a superstar.

So should you someday find yourself thinking that moving the furniture around is a good idea …

Save everyone some grief.

Tell them “it just isn’t working out”.

Love,
Justin

Related:

The First Rule of Management: Be There
The Second Rule of Management: Fire Fast
The Third Rule of Management: Never Shoot The Horse You Are Riding
The Fourth Rule of Management: No One Calls In Sick On Wednesdays

Recently, I had a chance to sit down with two local sales legends, Chris Conrey and Dave Cooke. They rock a podcast they named “Don’t Sell Me Bro” and they let me sit down and grill them with all of the questions you always wanted to know about sales guys but were afraid to ask.

Just a few questions I fire away at these two pros:

1. How important is it to be able to read a balance sheet if you are a sales guy?
2. How much of a base salary do you need if you are a sales guy?
3. How many weekly reports should you fill out if you are in sales?
4. Does anyone really use salesforce?
5. Is it possible to have too many leads if you are a sales guy?
6. Is it possible to have too many leads for your sales guy if you are a sales manager?
7. Is it possible to have too many leads for your sales force if you are a company owner?
8. Do you want a VP of Sales or a VP of Marketing

The entire session was split into multiple episodes, so if you liked part 1, be sure to tune in for part 2 — where it gets really good.

There are a few things in life that I happen to be pretty good at.

And being a guy is one of them.

So when I ran across this, I couldn’t help but think to myself …

Awesome.

Have you heard about “Man Cans” yet?

‘Bout time someone injected some testosterone into the candle market and who better to pull it off than a 13 year old?

Man Cans: Ten Things I Like About Man Cans

1. When your wife tells you to light a candle, now you can surprise her with some great smells.  No more suffering through the smell of bad flowers, vanilla or pumpkins.  Well, at least it will work once.
2. You can now give candles out for birthday gifts to your dood friends and not lose your man card at the same time.
3. One of the scents you can order is … bacon.
4. You can mix up the smells. For example, I just ordered “opening day special” and plan to sit by a TV somewhere and smell leather, fresh cut grass and big league chew.  All in the comfort of my own man cave.
5. It makes candles less wimpy.
6. There isn’t a multi-level-marketing scheme in place to sell these at poker parties.
7. The founder of the company is probably still too young to know what some of the best smells in life are as a man.  Which means he has quite a bit of room to discover new popular scents. Translation: product diversification is coming.
8. The founder can write off the scent discovery of these popular smells as a business expense.
9. It is a green company.  Green is cool.
10. The logo is horrible.  Heck, the guy at horrible logos couldn’t have done a better job.  Horrible logos are cool no matter where you get ‘em.

Man Cans: How ‘Bout These Smells?

If you have gotten this far and you happen to be a guy, chances are you are already thinking to yourself:

Man, I wish that kid would make a candle that smells like ________________.

Me?

I would like to put in my formal request that Man Cans makes a candle that smells like a new pair of Air Jordans when you take them out of the box.

Any of you other doods out there think of a scent request you would like to see?

Dear Little Brother,

Now that you are in charge of a group of people, I will let you in on a little secret that you may have not noticed before you were put in charge:

Rarely does anyone ever call in sick on Wednesday.

Fridays?

All the time.

Mondays?

Yep — Almost as bad as Fridays.

But almost never on a Wednesday.

So whenever flu season rolls around (or the hiccups or whatever), just remember – you are going to need to plan your work goals around some of your people just being out sick on any given Friday.

Or Monday.

I have always noticed that somehow Wednesdays seem to be good for getting stuff done that requires people … actually being at work.

Love,
Justin

Related:
The First Rule of Management: Be There
The Second Rule of Management: Fire Fast
The Third Rule of Management: Never Shoot The Horse You Are Riding