Nicole Purvy Classified

In episode 168 of the Better Than Success Podcast, we take our exploration of real estate investing to the next level by focusing on the game-changing role of virtual assistants (VAs). Tune in as we reveal 4 expert tips to leverage VAs effectively, from streamlining workflows to scaling operations seamlessly. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode is filled with invaluable insights to enhance your real estate ventures. Join us now to revolutionize your approach and unlock greater success in real estate investing!

We are back to bring you a highly sought after interview and some powerful Q and A’s. Today we are interviewing Levar Clark, a self taught real estate entrepreneur from Philadelphia. Levar has been in the business since 2003 and today he is sharing how he got his start as a real estate entrepreneur and what he’s learned along the way. In an ever changing industry, Levar’s insight into his community and the market has helped him build a successful career and six figure net worth. Tune in today as we talk about land banking, zoning, and community support and lay it all out on the table.

In This Episode:

• [02:42] Insight into how Levar got his start in the real estate world.
• [03:40] Success in the real estate business is not determined by the number of units you own, and here’s why.
• [08:19] Levar shares some advice for new investors based on his experience.
• [09:43] How Levar turned $41,000 into $40-50 million under management.
• [13:00] Levar uses the “homeowner’s aspect” and market fluctuations to choose which neighborhood to purchase properties in.
• [15:07] When should you buy or build condos? When should you not?
• [16:22] The pros and cons of selling a developed property or renting out a developed property.
• [21:12] The only thing you can really control in the real estate business.
• [22:41] How Levar approaches investing in commercial spaces.
• [27:55] Levar’s biggest project that he’s developed to date.
• [29:06] How Levar plans and prepares for zoning.
• [37:32] Why it’s important to seek a community’s support for your projects.
• [47:09] Levar breaks down how to determine the number of units you can get on a parcel.
• [57:49] Stop using social media to compare your projects with your competition.

Takeaways:

• Investors need to understand what their end goal is before they can understand what they’re going to do when they first start.
• If you plan to be a larger developer, you have to be active in the community and develop relationships with your local political leaders and policy makers.
• Land banking, purchasing multiple lots a few years before development begins, helped Levar get ahead of his competitors, especially in today’s high market.
• When you are ready to invest, make sure to stick to your buying criterias instead of making your decisions based on the status of the market.

Links:

Levar’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/bearrei_/

Nicole’s Freebie - www.therealestatejawn.com

Guest Bio:

Levar Clark is a self taught real estate agent that has built his net worth from $41,000 to one million dollars using market fluctuations, his intuition, and seeking his community’s needs. Over the last 12 years, Levar has gone from buying and developing single units from sheriff sales, to multi-unit properties. Today he is opening up and sharing his knowledge and advice for new investors. Tune into today’s episode for his insider knowledge!

Connect with Better Than Success

Freebie! Step-by-step instructions on how to invest in real estate in any city. Download it here: www.therealestatejawn.com

Learn more about Better Than Success Real Estate League at

Betterthansuccess.com/btsrel

Sign up to attend our Real Estate Q&A live at betterthansuccess.com/events

Get Access to our FREE Real Estate Beginners Class at

betterthansuccess.com/freecourse

www.betterthansuccess.com/realestatejournal - Need help better understanding your real estate area? Download my FREE Real Estate Journal

In this episode, join us as I sit down with Real Estate Investor Maurice Demosthene for a Q&A to answer your most pressing questions on how to start investing in real estate and how to develop bank relationships to fund your real estate rehab and acquisition. Maurice is a Haitian immigrant who quit his job and pursued real estate investing after proposing to his now-wife. He has been in the industry for 16 years now with a 30 unit portfolio in Southwest Philly and has come to a point where they can buy property whenever they want. We talk about different strategies to start investing in real estate, how he flips properties, ways to look for deals, and how to manage your own team. We also talk about the key things of success while answering your questions. Sit back, relax, and listen here for this informative Q&A with Maurice!

In This Episode:

• [06:13] Our guest, Maurice Demosthene’s introduction.
• [09:44] A wedding doesn’t have to be lavish. You can use some of the money from it to invest.
• [14:57] Which is better when you start investing in real estate, flipping or purchasing?
• [17:55] Maurice’s wholesale business.
• [23:39] The strategy for finding deals in Multiple Listing Service (mls.com).
• [36:28] How to effectively delegate tasks in your business.
• [42:26] What’s the cost like for Maurice’s largest building deal, the process, getting a lawyer, and how he got approved.
• [50:23] Developing relationships to use a bank that can fund your property rehab in acquisition.
• [51:50] Recommendations on which areas in Philadelphia to start your first project in.

Takeaways:

• Figuring out what is the best way for you to start your real estate investment.
• Strategies to build relationships and find deals that you can close.
• Onboarding the right people in your business and delegating tasks effectively can significantly help you in the long run.
• A flipping strategy can be great for you if you love the process of property rehabilitation.
• Ultimately, discovering what kind of investor you are and who you want to be in the business, will help you figure out where you need to start your real estate project.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maurice-demosthene-42a06733/ - Maurice Demosthene’s LinkedIn

https://twitter.com/RealEstateRico - Maurice Demosthene’s Twitter

http://www.mrdhouses.com/ - Maurice Demosthene’s Company Website

Guest Bio:

Maurice Demosthene came from a family of Haitian immigrants and is now a husband and father of two children. He graduated from Temple University and has been a real estate agent at Realty ONE Group Legacy since 2005. He has been invested since 2010 and has a 30 unit portfolio in Southwest Philadelphia.

Maurice’s mission is to help buyers and sellers make educated decisions about real estate. As someone who has been in the industry for 16 years, Maurice has extensive experience buying and selling real estate in the City of Philadelphia and its surrounding counties.

Connect with Better Than Success

• Learn more about Better Than Success Real Estate League at www.betterthansuccess.com/btsrel
• Sign up to attend our Real Estate Q&A live at www.betterthansuccess.com/events
• Get access to our FREE Real Estate Beginners Class at www.betterthansuccess.com/freecourse

In the episode of the 'Better Than Success Podcast", Nikki Purvy talks about the Three Things Every Entrepreneur Needs to Understand about Money. She uses her experience with working with hundreds of small businesses and startups to hone in on the three most invaluable lessons that most new businesses need to grasp to help their business flourish.

The lessons as recorded in this podcast episode are as follows:

1) Money is a tool Nothing more. Nothing less.

Money is not real. It has no real value. Its a tool. Its not a thing to love because its not lovable. Its not a thing to praise, its not even a thing to rap about in songs. Once you understand that its a tool just like a wrench or a hammer then you will make better money decisions for your business

Here are some uses for this tool.

• Use it to make time and freedom
• Use it to buy cash flows (and wealth)

2) Know the Difference between speculating and investing

In Benjamin Gram’s book “intelligent investor”, the author differentiates the difference between speculating and and investing as:

“An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and a satisfactory return. Operations not meeting these requirements are speculative.”

Investopedia differentiates as:

“Typically, high-risk trades that are almost akin to gambling fall under the umbrella of speculation, whereas lower-risk investments based on fundamentals and analysis fall into the category of investing. Investors seek to generate a satisfactory return on their capital by taking on an average or below-average amount of risk. On the other hand, speculators are seeking to make abnormally high returns from bets that can go one way or the other. It should be noted that speculation is not exactly like gambling because speculators do try to make an educated decision on the direction of the trade, but the risk inherent in the trade tends to be significantly above average.”

What I want you to gather from this is that unless you have done research and analysis about your business and industry then you are speculating. I am very much so not in the business of speculating when it comes to my livelihood or my business and I don’t suggest that you do that either. I want to point out that in the intelligent investor the author points out that anyone has the right to speculate but never comingle your speculation operations with your investment operations and never rely on your speculation money.

Even furthermore, because a lot of new business owners don’t know the difference between investing and speculating they accept investing returns for speculation activity. By the Investopedia definition ‘speculation’ can demand higher returns because it’s more risky. Some small businesses think they’re investing when they’re really speculating because they haven’t done the proper research.

Someone said to me that after listening to this podcast, I came off as well read. I don’t know how much I agree or disagree, it’s all relative but I have read a quote a few books by top business leaders and an underlying theme is that they don’t gamble. Andrew Carnegie said this in his autobiography about gambling:

“I have never bought or sold a share of stock speculatively in my life, except one small lot of Pennsylvania Railroad shares that I bought early in life for investment and for which I did not pay at the time because bankers offered to carry it for me at a low rate. Such a course should commend itself to every man in the manufacturing business and to all professional men. For the manufacturing man especially the rule would seem all important. His mind must be kept calm and free if he is to decide wisely the problems which are continually coming before him What is not, he sees, and what he sees, is not. He cannot judge of relative values or get the true perspective of things. The molehill seems to him a mountain and the mountain a molehill, and he jumps at conclusions, which he should arrive at by reason. His mind is upon the stock quotations and not upon the points that require calm thought. Speculation is a parasite feeding upon values, creating none.”

Now of course we are not talking about individual stocks but this concept can be easily transmuted to running a business because in reality it’s the same thing --- you should steer clear of starting a business that you speculated about rather than taking your time and researching and analyzing. You can get distracted by upswings and downswings and you never “judge the relative values or get the true perspective of things”

This also goes for any sub-investments you make while running your business. Should you buy that new piece of equipment?

Should you spend money on a billboard?

Should you invest in that new software promising to make your business run more efficiently?

Should you hire...

In this episode of the Better Than Success Podcast, your host Nikki Purvy reveals step-by-step her time management technique that allows her to complete more in a day than others complete in a week. We all know that time management is key to success and business development. This 9-step process is easy to follow and start with laying a solid foundation that starts with mindset. There is also a free download that will help listeners to adopt this technique.

Last week on episode 4 of the “Better than Success” Podcast we talked about the 3 Phases of work/life balance for new entrepreneurs.

We talked about the ‘Tantrum Phase’, ‘The Superman Phase’ and the ‘Work Smarter not Harder Phase’.

In the ‘Work Smarter not Harder Phase’, we learn that time is the most valuable resource. This is why it is important for us to learn to maximix our time if we must work smarter

Here I will lay out my 9 step process to maximize my time and get 75% more done in a day.

Steps 1-3 are foundational and very important.

Step 1. Develop A Time Control Mindset.

This is the most important step in this whole process. You have to develop a Time Control Mindset.

I’m going to note a couple of facts that will help you develop a Time Control Mindset

“You have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyonce”

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion" – Parkinson’s Law

“You are AlWays the boss of your time” –Nikki Purvy

Step 2. Learn to Focus.

Most people cannot focus. This is not based on empirical evidence but I would guess that 80% of people don’t now how to focus on a single task for an hours up to 40 hours let alone one that takes 1 hour.

I learned the importance of concentration from the book the THE POWER OF CONCENTRATION. Theron Q. Dumont or William Walker Atkinson. The author is noted as both men.

Here are some tasks that will help you focus

• working out without stoping to talk to your friends
• Reading
• Playing an instrument or anything that requires you to use your hands

Here are some focus killers

• TV
• Social Media
• Too much work-time banter

Step 3. Time yourself

Write out your tasks to be completed over the next day/hour/week in haphazard increments before you attack them. Time your self on each individual task. How long does it take to complete each task uninterrupted? This is very important. This concept came from the book ‘Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time’ by Jeff Sutherland. I didn’t read all of it but I did uncover the part where the author talks about learning how long t takes to do certain tasks before you lock down a project due date

The concept here is to get an accurate time frame of how long it takes to complete different tasks uninterrupted when you’re focused.

Record these times, take a mental note or whatever.

This may take a week or a month for you to get a proper account for how long it takes to complete tasks.

Steps 4-9 I have a worksheet for you to download at betterthanSuccess.com/5

Step 4. Record Your Tasks as They Come to You

Record all your tasks as they come to your head. Write down all your tasks to be completed as you go along in life. Take notes in your phone, write on scraps of paper, or take notes on your computer. You will get ideas from everywhere. Write them down anywhere but be sure that you can find them come Monday morning. And at the top of every other working day

BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING. BEFORE YOU HAVE YOUR COFFEE. Do steps 5 and 6.

Step 5. Create Your Master Task List

Make a list of all your tasks that you recorded in your various places. Take them all and put them in one place, for the week, ON the COMPUTER. This is called the master task list

Step 6. Schedule Out Your Day

Schedule out your day. Just today. Schedule out 15 min, 30 min, 1 –2 hour blocks of time to complete tasks throughout your day and start inserting them in these blocks according to priority and how long it takes you to do a task uninterrupted, because remember you timed yourself. This is called the daily schedule

Add in your coffee break and your lunch break. And your Facebook break if you need one. Schedule these out. Schedule out time to BS with your coworkers. For real, factor that in.

Step 7. Define the End of the Day

Give yourself a definitive time to end work for the day, no matter what. This is what gives you the work/life balance.

Note: As you go through your day sticking as close to your schedule as possible make note of the following:

• Remember you are only doing today so not everything from the week’s list will get in here. Its not supposed to. What this does is it allows you to race against the clock ...