Based on a recommendation from a colleague, I’ve begun reading the book Unlimited Riches: Making Your Fortune in Real Estate Investing by Robert Shemin.  It’s a highly technical book, chock full of examples, stories and personal experience.  While I haven’t finished the book yet, I already know that this is one for the must-read pile.

Right on pages 8 and 9 (he doesn’t waste any time!), Shemin outlines the five advantages of investing in real estate.  I won’t go into any detail here on each of these advantages, and I’m only going to list the four I agree with, but even this brief synopsis might propel you to pick up the book (especially if you want to know which advantage I left out):

1. Real estate increases your net worth.
2. Real estate generates income from holding properties.
3. With real estate, you can pay less than what the property is worth.
4. Real estate offers tax advantages.

But the real reason I’ve focused on this list is a particularly good nugget of gold I uncovered while reading advantage # 2 above.

Think about this.

If you own a rental property with a $1,000 monthly payment, and your rental income is $1,200 a month, you’re putting $200 in your pocket every month. Your tenant is paying off your mortgage AND putting cash in your pocket at the same time.

This concept of making a one-time investment (i.e., the down payment) and then benefitting over and over again is called residual income.

Shemin writes, “Residual income creates happiness (RICH) is the concept in which you, your family, and your estate (after you die) will benefit from residual income because the rent keeps coming in.”

Residual Income Creates Happiness. RICH.  I love it! But what really excites me about this concept is that we’ve been teaching it through our Carolina Income For Life program without hammering this idea repeatedly.

If you’d like to start growing your residual income, we’ve written an e-book that is over 100 pages of valuable how-to information to do just that. And it’s free - all you have to do is ask for a copy.

Residual Income Creates Happiness.  Are you with the program?

Stop the presses!

Well, no. Take that back. Keep running the presses - especially if we’re going to see more coverage similar to what John Wasik at Bloomberg wrote this week about real estate:

Economic savants focused on the U.S. housing bust tend to neglect one overriding fact: Some of the market is doing fine.

And that was only the first line!  Later, he recounts what we’ve been saying for awhile now:

As more than one economist has quipped in disgust in recent years, there really is no national real-estate market in the U.S. The tech-savvy Seattle area is a quantum leap from decaying Detroit. And mature Cleveland is light years away from the young, job-producing Salt Lake City corridor.

…and Myrtle Beach real estate is… well, like nowhere else. Come check us out!

The National Association of Realtors’ index of pending sales for existing homes took a huge jump in April to 88.2, up from a March reading of 83.0.  The jump was a happy surprise for Wall Street analysts, who expected the index to stay right at 83.

The index is based on the average level of sales activity in 2001 - where the index would be 100.

Here in the South (including the Myrtle Beach real estate market), the index posted a solid 4.6% gain, not quite as high as California (8.3%) but definitely better than the Northeast (-1.9%).

NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun noted that pending sales contracts have ticked up in areas with the largest price declines such as Detroit and Las Vegas. “Bargain hunters have entered the market en masse,” he said.

Isn’t this what we’ve been telling you for awhile?  NOW is the right time to buy - before everyone else picks up on the good news!

Hard Rock Park, the first full-size theme park to open in the United States in a decade (and where else but Myrtle Beach?) announced a number of ways to get ticket discounts, including:

Family discounts:

• One-day tickets for families of four or more are $40 each.
• Two-day tickets are $50
• Seven-day tickets are $65

The Ch..Ch..Check it out! Guarantee
This must be a first in theme park guarantees. Check out Hard Rock Park for half an hour. Don’t like it? Return to Guest Services within 30 minutes and get your money back!

Locals Only:
Through the end of June, residents of North and South Carolina can buy one-day tickets for $39 with proof of residency.

Advance online tickets (at least two days prior) are now available for purchase online for $45.

All Hail Freedom!
Hard Rock Park salutes our active and retired military with $40 tickets.

Let’s Do It Again! And Again!
Season Passes are available for $150 each.

“Build a better mousetrap, and nature will build a better mouse” the old saying goes.

Back in the good old days of Identity Theft — (you know, 2007…?)  — the “evil-doers” were after your bank account, credit cards, checks, anything from which they could extract fast cash.

Today, your cash and cards are chump change to high-tech and highly savvy thieves.  Now they’re going after your single largest asset: your home.  And knowing how they do it is the first step toward keeping it from happening to you.

Step 1: Your average ne’er-do-well picks out a target house, and begins to gather personal information about the owner. (This, by the way, is incredibly easy. Pick out any piece of Myrtle Beach real estate, and in five minutes I can tell you who owns it, for how long, for how much, all details about the mortgage.  And I don’t have to get up from my computer to do it.)

Step 2: Your new “friend” now knows your name and address. It’s only a matter of a few hours online to obtain more personal information, and generate a fraudulent driver’s license and/or other ID.

Step 3: With your address and identification, they then transfer the deed to your home into their own name. (Most of the time, this can be done without you ever finding out about it.)  And, by filing the new deed with the county, they now officially “own” your house!

Step 4: Now that they own the home, the variations here are limited only by their imagination. Most often, though, we see the quick & easy flip: selling the home at just pennies on the dollar to an out-of-town investor (who doesn’t feel the need to visit and inspect the property personally). What makes your home so attractive is that the sales price is of secondary importance to the thief.  He can “afford” to let the house go for a price that is way below value.. after all, every dollar above zero is profit!

In my next blog post, I’ll include a list of ways you can avoid becoming a victim of Identity Theft 2.0.