 Special Request for Help
Like last year, NORCALREIA is once again sponsoring The
Norris Group's I Survived Real Estate event. All proceeds from the event benefit the Orange County chapter of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
There are many reasons you might be inclined to donate; from
a simple act of charity to a personal experience dealing with the effects that
breast cancer has on families. Whatever your reason, here's an opportunity to
help in this important battle.
Donations from NORCALREIA members can be made directly to
the Susan G. Komen organization through NORCALREIA's
donation web page. All donations made through this page will be credited
towards NORCALREIA's sponsorship goal.
Thank you for your help.
Next Investors Meeting:
Join us on the 3rd Thursday
July 16, 2009 with John Johnson
Counting Cards
The Smart Way to Invest in Real Estate
 Imagine yourself sitting at a blackjack table in Vegas.
You've got a king and a nine. Do you hit?
Why not?
Would your decision change if you knew that the draw card was a two?
Real card counting doesn't actually let you know exactly which card is coming next. But it does tell you the probabilities of the draw card being a good card or a bad card. If the probabilities favor the good card strongly enough, then you hit. Otherwise you stay.
The same analogy applies to real estate investing. The more information you have, the safer your decisions can be. Could we ever remove all the risk? Certainly not. Even in the contrived blackjack example above, you could still lose to a dealer with 21. But, in general, the more information you have, the better off you will be.
There's a wealth of information available to real estate investors. Some of it is useful, some a waste of time. Some of it you can get for free. Other information costs you dearly. Some is public information that's easy for anybody to find. Some information is private and will take a concerted effort to pull together. So how do we wade through all this information and pull out what we need? How do we know which cards to count and which we can safely ignore? Come to the NORCALREIA meeting on July 16th to learn some proven strategies for gathering and absorbing new information.
Here's some of what we'll cover:
- Topics (sales, foreclosures, unemployment, lending, emigration, rental rates, government intervention, etc)
- Sources (people, pay services, news outlets, websites, books, automated feeds, etc)
- Evaluation (timing, scope, bias, conjecture, etc)
- Verifying (finding original source, corroborating sources, conflicting sources)
- Integration (bigger picture, local impact, actionable)
- Information overload (filtering, absorption, structured memories)
We'll be using current news reports, websites and data streams as our examples. So we'll basically be doing a market report while we learn the strategies. At the end we'll have a practice session where those who care to will have the chance to apply what they've learned.
Just like the professional gambler watches and remembers the cards that go by in order to increase his odds, today's real estate investor needs to be watching the economy and real estate market closely. Government and economic forces are exerting pressure on the Sacramento real estate market. Understanding those forces can help you stay out of the pinch spots. Come learn some information handling skills that could help you learn how to do your own card counting.
About our speaker:
John Johnson retired from the computer industry in early 2008, after eighteen years as a software engineer. During his career he designed and wrote code for more than a dozen large scale software systems. Some of the better known projects that he's contributed to are the Word Perfect Office Suite, the Netscape Navigator web browser, and Google Earth.
While designing and implementing large scale software systems, John mastered the skills necessary to gather, interpret, and organize large volumes of data. He's now applying those same skills towards a new career in real estate.
John is an experienced teacher and lecturer. He's taught numerous classes and lectured to groups of various sizes. He brings an energy and excitement to his presentations that helps keep the audience engaged and learning.
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