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Dear Family and Friends, (by Kevin)
April has arrived and we are finally experiencing spring here in Virginia. Daffodils, Tulips, Redbuds, Dogwoods, 60 and 70 degree days, and of course, in downtown DC the world famous Cherry Blossom Festival. Mary Jane and I both love the spring in Virginia. Last week we drove out to our mobile home park through Shenandoah National Park and the Shenandoah Valley, what a wonderful drive that is.
Some good friends of ours, Jack and his wife Lyn, invited Mary Jane and I out to the Riverside Dinner Theater in Fredericksburg where we saw Forever Plaid. What a great show this is. The four young men in this show harmonize together absolutely beautifully. We liked it so much that we went back with our adult children in celebration of our most recent wedding anniversary. Our adult children all thoroughly enjoyed it too. So if you live near Fredericksburg, get out and enjoy this show before May 4th when the show ends.
Our businesses are all picking up so that is good news. I am helping more people invest their money with real estate investors we know and helping them earn better returns than they can get most other places. We are both refocusing on multi-family properties as well as single family homes.
We are excited about going to Colorado next week and spending a couple of days with Mary Jane's mom and dad and some of her siblings.
This month's quote: "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do,"
"If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on." Steve Jobs
Steve was a wise man with incredible vision. If you are doing something you love to earn a living it will rarely feel like a job.
Kevin and Mary Jane
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(By Kevin)
Anatomy of a Deal:
We recently sold an empty manufactured home from one of our parks to an investor who will fix it up and then turn it into a rental. This is a three bedroom two bath home that needs a total interior rehab but the structure is good. I figure it can be totally done for about $15,000 including the price of the home itself. Especially since they are doing the work themselves.
The investors should clear at least $200 a month on this home once it is rented or $2,400 per year. The cash on cash return for the investors is 16%, ($2,400 / $15,000 = 16%). So I have to ask, how does that compare to the returns you are getting from you bank or IRA?
The investors get a project with a nice return, we get a previously non-paying home into paying status, and someone will end up with a nice place to live. That is a win-win-win!
We have turn-key deals that don't require full-rehabs where we do all the work including managing the rental that, depending on the options you select, should produce similar returns. All of these homes would be in one of our parks or one of our partner's parks.
If interested in learning more please give us a call. We can even show you how to do this out of your IRA.
Having experts in your corner is very important:
Given changes in the laws and the wide variety of products to build and protect wealth that are available to us, it is near impossible to stay current with all the available options, let alone the things we need to do. Enter the trusted expert advisers.
Mary Jane and I have a couple of expert advisers, not real estate related although they understand the business, who have become very good friends to us over the years. We were going through our annual review last week when they started asking us questions about where we stood on some essential items that are useful for all our readers to think about, see the list below:
- From time to time you should review your estate documents and verify that the wishes expressed therein are consistent with your current wishes. For instance years ago when we still had children in school we designated them to receive larger portions of the estate. Now that they are older we have made changes to those designations.
- You and your spouse or partner need to have durable powers of attorney in place so you can make decisions for each other if one becomes incapacitated or is just out of pocket.
- We should all have a health care power of attorney in place with someone we trust for the same reason mentioned above. This can be especially important for your grown children so you can direct health care if needed and also so you can get information about their health and care.
- Accompanying item 3 is the need for a living will, i.e. what are your desires should you become incapacitated and on life support, etc.
Our advisors have been absolutely wonderful to work with. I have never had any question that their top concern was what is best for us and our current situation. I have never felt pressure to buy anything and we have been working with them for almost 10 years now. In fact, one time we were just checking in with each other and I shared with them a plan I had and they told me not to proceed. That one piece of advice saved me more than $30,000.
If you want to work with the best people I have ever worked with for these types of services send us an email to the address at the bottom of the newsletter and we will make introductions.
We don't receive any compensation for this referral, we just believe in these guys and what they have to offer!
A New Definition of Success by: John C. Maxwell (I love John Maxwell, this is great advice!)
In 1986, when I was 39 years old, I began to notice a terrible trend among my colleagues, college buddies and friends: divorce. This was happening in a variety of marriages - from the shaky to the apparently strong. Margaret and I didn't think our relationship was in any kind of danger, but then again, we knew that many of our friends had thought their relationships were indestructible too. At the same time, my career was really taking off. And while I was enjoying the new challenges, I knew that I didn't want to lose my family in the process. That prompted me to make one of my key life decisions: rewriting my definition of success. Instead of acclaim or advancement or achievement, I decided that for me,
Success means having those closest to me love and respect me the most.
This made success for me possible only if I included my wife and children in the journey. From that moment on, my success depended on putting my family first. If you want to truly succeed in this life, you need to ask yourself a question: Is your pursuit of success drawing you closer to - or farther from - the most important people in your life? If you want to redefine success the way I did, here are some ways to put your decision into practice: CLICK HERE to read more!
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Industry News
(by Kevin)
Mortgages down 47%:
We heard from our attorney that specializes in the Dodd-Frank law, that approved mortgages for single family homes are down 47% from where they were last year. This is believed to be due to the new penalties and associated risk found contained in the new Dodd-Frank law.
A Sizzling Emerging Market:
GloveSt.com reports that Exxon's new campus, schedule to open in 2015 will employ more than 10,000 workers. Think emerging market? I don't know if it's too late to benefit from this news, however, it is the perfect example of an emerging market.
You see the new 385-acre campus, located south of Houston in the The Woodlands will include 20 office buildings. This project is driving development in nearly every sector of commercial real estate. Jobs mean workers and workers need housing.
To read more about this click here.
By 2050 Houston is expected to exceed 14.4 million residents, a 143% increase. Fueling that growth is the second best jobs creation market in the country. Moody's is predicting that more than 400,000 jobs will be added by 2016 with 70,000 of these in 2014.
Investor Sentiment Index Trending at 10-Year High
Exclusive results from the NREI/Marcus & Millichap Investor Sentiment Survey indicate that a majority of investors expect both core fundamentals and property values to continue to rise in the coming year. That positive outlook is fueling a desire to further expand real estate holdings. To read the full article click here.
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Projects and Opportunities
- 8% - 20%+ ROI: We are continuing to locate used mobile homes, set them up in one of our Manufacture Housing Communities, and sell/rent them. If you have between $15,000 and $20,000 you want working harder for you then this could be the right opportunity for you.
We will do all the work and manage the home for you totally turn key or you can place one of your homes in our community and manage it yourself. We are very flexible with these opportunities.
We only do 3 of these per month so let us know your interest as soon as possible so we can more fully explain the process and get your name on the list.
Did you know that you can invest in real estate from your IRA or other retirement account? You can also use your stock portfolio to invest without ever selling your stock? (Think leverage, leverage, leverage!). These investment secrets aren't well known but they are perfectly legal. Contact us and/or click on this Investment Secret link to learn more.
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Laughs and Interesting Stuff
(Kevin and Mary Jane)
- If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea...does that mean that one out of five enjoys it?
- Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?
- If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
- Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a race car is not called a racist?
- If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?
- If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, then doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?
- If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?
- Do Lipton Tea employees take 'coffee breaks?'
- Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?
- Why do banks charge a insufficient funds fee when they know we are already broke?
- Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?
- Whose cruel idea was it to put an "s" in the word "lisp"?
- Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?
- How do those dead bugs get into the enclosed light fixture?
- And my favorite: If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
The statistics on sanity say that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're OK..? (then it's you!)
Jack Daniels Fishing Story
I went fishing this morning but after a short time I ran out of worms. Then I saw a cottonmouth snake with a frog in his mouth.
Since frogs make really good bass bait and knowing the snake couldn't bite me with the frog in his mouth I grabbed that snake right behind the head, took the frog, and put it into my bait bucket.
Now the dilemma was how to release the snake without getting bit.
So, I grabbed my bottle of Jack Daniels and poured a little whiskey into its mouth.
His eyes rolled back, he went limp. I released him into the lake without incident and carried on fishing using the frog.
A little later, I felt a nudge on my foot. It was that same snake, with two more frogs.
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Keep On Smiling!
(so people will wonder what your up to AND its contagious)
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We are always willing to share information with you so please feel free to contact us
Driscoll Enterprises Inc. 332 West Lee Hwy., Suite 200, Warrenton, VA 20186
703-398-1188 or 800-887-0001 info@DriscollEnterprisesInc.com |
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