Donald Trump wrote a book called “How to think like a billionaire’, which is by far the worst piece of crap ever written on Investing.  A far better book is The Art of the Deal which you can buy for under a buck! [Warning: None of the Donald’s books are on humility. They’re on creating a larger than life image and full of self-promotion and bragging. But then he’s not known for being modest.]

Anyway, I digress. The main focus of this post is this article, 7 ways to join the billion-dollar club. It essentially focused on businesses, but I realized with applies just as well to Real Estate Investors.

Here’s the gist of it:

1. Create and sustain a breakthrough value proposition.
Only buy value. Don’t go for those speculative deals and risky investments. Like buying in San Diego after everyone and their mother has gotten into investing there. Buy in places were the locals are still skeptical.

2. Exploit a high-growth market.
Find out which places are set to explode in terms of population and job growth.

3. Focus relentlessly on cash flow.
Hell yeah! Don’t buy property which doesn’t cashflow even after you put 20% down. That’s speculation. You’re not buying the value, but the hope that’ll it continue to appreciate and some other fool with take it off your hands.

4. Leverage big-brother alliances.
Find people like you and band together to get better pricing with builders and property managers. Even if you don’t always get better pricing, you usually get better service.

5. Pack your board with industry experts.
Always read up on the experts like WSJ.com and John Burns. Listen to the “gurus” but don’t follow them blindly. They always have something to gain so they’re advice is always biased.

6. Use marquee customers to build credibility.
Once you’ve done a few deals with partners, use them to promote your credibility. This is particularly useful when you want to raise money for a new project.[In my previous post I mentioned that buying foreclosures requires a lot of cash. This is where your credibility comes in handy].

7. Build an inside-outside leadership team.
You’ll need great people to handle the inside business[lawyers and CPAs] and the outside business[agents and property managers].

There you now know how to create a billion-dollar empire!

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