I’m here in Las Vegas, Nevada, getting ready to start our Path to Profits workshop on Thursday. While it’s only Monday, I’m not spending the entire time by the pool with a mojito or Mai Tai in my hand. I’m working here teaching real estate investor training.

We (Bob, Jayme, Roland, Lorena, Jason, and myself) the Real Estate Profit Coach Team, took the time to spend a few days prior to the event to find some deals to put in our own real estate portfolio for Panera Properties, Inc (our private real estate company). Not only did we show up early, we invited a few of our Inner Circle, 1:1 Mentoring students to show up and spend three days working in the trenches with us. David Meier, Ray and Rosemary Miller, Bill and Sandra Graves, Jeremy Streeter (See Below), Ron and Jackee Benson, Brent Tyler, and Ilene Durbin. We chose these students for the most part as these students were players that were doing deals in their market and they could commit to being at the entire event for the whole week.

Bob, Jason, Lorena and myself met for breakfast before meeting with the students to outline what we were going to do and how to best split the group up to benefit our time wisely but to also ensure that each student received something positive from there time spent here, besides of course being a part in deals. We decided that we would identify their weaknesses and place them with one of us three coaches.

After breakfast, we had all the students meet with us at the Tank pool and Bob took the time to yell above the speakers and music to talk with each student. Jason came up with idea of making it a competition between the three of us. We all liked that idea and decided that the winning team would have dinner paid for by the two loosing teams. We decided that originated deals would be the quantifying point factor. The team with the most originated deals would win. I was lucky enough to draw Brent Tyler, Jackee Benson, and Jeremy Streeter for my teammates.

Brent was a local Las Vegas realtor, so we headed to his nearest office to start our search for deals. Upon arriving and getting our computers up and running, I posted several Craigslist ads to identify wholesalers, private money, and potential lease option buyers. After getting those posted, I had Brent join several MeetUp.com. We laughed to find that Lorena had just joined the majority of them right before Lorena did. After getting him to join the MeetUps, I took some time to review the Craigslist ads and found two private money lenders along with a realtor advertising that she had two lease option clients with around $5K for a down payment and that they were willing to pay above market rent and pay full retail price.

After hitting the Craigslist ads, I put the team to work calling hard money lenders, local real estate clubs, and a list of private investors that were lending in Las Vegas looking for REO’s and defaulted paper. After doing this, I had Brent pull a list of REO’s that were on the market for over 120 days at $200K or less. I then had him pull a list of short sales that were listed at 90 days or greater at $150K or less in sales price to identify potential subject to’s. I then did a mail merge in outlook and blasted 453 emails out to the listing agents identifying us as potential buyers with an offer if the property did not have an offer already. We immediately got responses back and my phone started to ring off the hook. All in all, I received 70 responses by the end of the day.

We wrapped up the day by doing a quick recap and review in Bob’s suite with the students. After discussing the day at hand, the five of us (with Ann Cox) enjoyed a Nathan’s hot dog and a glass or Orthogonal wine from Bob’s private label. It was a good day!