Dedicated To Your Fast Path To Success,

Dario Lorenzo

Warren Buffet Writes About The Housing Market

” Last year, I told you that “a housing recovery will probably begin within a year or so.” I was dead wrong. We have five businesses whose results are significantly influenced by housing activity. The connection is direct at Clayton Homes, which is the largest producer of homes in the country, accounting for about 7% of those constructed during 2011.

Additionally, Acme Brick, Shaw (carpet), Johns Manville (insulation) and MiTek (building products, primarily connector plates used in roofing) are all materially affected by construction activity. In aggregate, our five housing-related companies had pre-tax profits of $513 million in 2011. That’s similar to 2010 but down from $1.8 billion in 2006.

Housing will come back – you can be sure of that. Over time, the number of housing units necessarily matches the number of households (after allowing for a normal level of vacancies). For a period of years prior to 2008, however, America added more housing units than households. Inevitably, we ended up with far too many units and the bubble popped with a violence that shook the entire economy. That created still another problem for housing: Early in a recession, household formations slow, and in 2009 the decrease was dramatic.

That devastating supply/demand equation is now reversed: Every day we are creating more households than housing units. People may postpone hitching up during uncertain times, but eventually hormones take over. And while “doubling-up” may be the initial reaction of some during a recession, living with in-laws can quickly lose its allure.

At our current annual pace of 600,000 housing starts – considerably less than the number of new households being formed – buyers and renters are sopping up what’s left of the old oversupply. (This process will run its course at different rates around the country; the supply-demand situation varies widely by locale.) While this healing takes place, however, our housing-related companies sputter, employing only 43,315 people compared to 58,769 in 2006. This hugely important sector of the economy, which includes not only construction but everything that feeds off of it, remains in a depression of its own.

I believe this is the major reason a recovery in employment has so severely lagged the steady and substantial comeback we have seen in almost all other sectors of our economy. Wise monetary and fiscal policies play an important role in tempering recessions, but these tools don’t
create households nor eliminate excess housing units. Fortunately, demographics and our market
system will restore the needed balance – probably before long. When that day comes, we will again build one million or more residential units annually. I believe pundits will be surprised at how far unemployment drops once that happens. They will then re awake to what has been true since 1776: America’s best days lie ahead.”

Click to watch the video of the 2012 National Apartment Report from Marcus & Millichap (the largest broker of commercial real estate investments in the US)

Economy Builds Momentum as January Hiring Surpasses Expectations; Continuing Risks Warrant Caution.
February 3, 2012

January employment gains significantly outpaced expectations, providing further evidence that the economy is on the mend….Private employers added 257,000 workers in January with eight of 10 sectors reporting gains.

Click HERE to read the rest of the story.

I hope you and your loved ones had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s. I wish you prosperous happy 2012.

Tell me about you New Year’s resolutions… I’d like to know what they are so that I may do what I can to support you.
 
I’d share with you my New Year’s resolution but I don’t set any…I stopped doing that a long time ago once I learned the power of proper goal setting. If you want me to help you set some powerful goals let me know and I will walk you through it… Just email me at team@dariolorenzo.com.
 
I did however set a 100 day challenge!!! For the next 100 days I will work out every day no matter what’s going on in my life

I’m committed, determined and I made the pain of not finishing my 100 day challenge stronger than quitting…
You see, a few friends and I are doing this challenge together, and the loser has to pay for airfare, hotel, restaurants and all the entertainments for three…going price – $8,000-$10,000.

Now on to business…
 
I have not been spending much time at the beach…believe it or not retirement is for the birds and I’m sick of it. 

I bought another apartment building in Phoenix. This will by the 5th property I closed in 2012.

I started a small business in Cabo that has a tremendous return and unlimited growth potential…I’ve been at it for about three months and its going fantastic.

There’s another business I’ve been investigating that involves licencing a product from Vancouver to sell in Mexico. If your interested in investing and you want to learn more email me..you’ll be surprised by how little money you need to invest…
 
2012 is going to be a fantastic year if you’re investing in real estate…the market is substantially different from where is was three years ago. If you can get past your fears and you’re ready to take the plunge let me know and as always I will do what I can to help.

 
One last thing before I go…I want to congratulate Leslie!!! She is closing her first real estate purchase in Phoenix. Yes after almost three years she is finally buying her first rental property. High five!!!
 
This makes me very happy because the number of students that are buying / investing in Phoenix continues to grow…If you want to be the next one to invest in the US talk to me and let’s see what we can do to make it happen for you!
 
Here are a few articles of interest…they are a bit old but still worth reading. Enjoy!

Not 2007 by a Long Shot, But Apartment Sales White Hot
Going into the fourth quarter, multifamily sales have already bested 2010 total sales volume by more than $1 billion. The $33 billion in multifamily sales in the first three quarters are up 70% year-over-year compared to the first three quarters of 2010… Rest of story »

CRE Pricing Recovery Continues With September Rebound
Third-Quarter CoStar Sales Data Reflects Less Distress, Firmer Retail Pricing and Broadening Strength Across the Spectrum of CRE Properties. Commercial real estate prices resumed their steady if modest rise in September following a pause the previous month, helping lift the CoStar National Composite Index to a nearly 1% gain… Rest of story »

Phoenix foreclosures reach lowest level since early 2008

Foreclosure sales are taking up a smaller percentage of monthly home sales in the Phoenix area, according to a report released today by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University… Rest of story »

Stiff Competition: Find Success in a World Dominated by New Money and Public Players
The apartment transaction market remains a tale of two cities—institutional players competing heavily on core, clean assets, and smaller private local groups dominating in secondary and tertiary markets… Rest of story »

Canadians Warm to Phoenix
Canadians are on a Sun Belt shopping spree. Phoenix and other warm-weather cities that have seen real-estate prices crater are newly popular among Canadians looking for second homes or investment properties, brokers and buyers say… Rest of story »

Commercial Real Estate Withstands Weakening Economy
It seems unlikely that the U.S. will face another recession, according to a recent research brief by Hessam Nadji, managing director of research services at Marcus & Millichap. The U.S. gross domestic product grew… Rest of story »

Industrial: Q3 Strong, “S” World Bandied About
Q3 figures presented by Colliers International’s Research and Forecast Report show the industrial real estate sector in continued growth mode. With zero new space being delivered during the past quarter, combined with 1.6 million square feet absorbed and a vacancy of just above 14%… Rest of story »

Multifamily is Bright Spot in Still-Struggling Economy
The shift to renting over homeownership may not be permanent, but “Renter Nation” optimism continues to dominate amongst attendees of the 2011 Multifamily Executive Conference… Rest of story »

Super Bowl 2015: NFL Selects Arizona
When the Valley hosts the Super Bowl in 2015, it will be the game’s third visit to Arizona. But the delegation that persuaded the National Football League on Tuesday to send the game West notes the Valley has come a long way since 2008… Rest of story »

Single-Tenant Property Sales Surge To Record Numbers
With money to burn but still having a strong aversion to risk, investors have increasingly turned single-tenant properties into one of the hottest commercial real estate plays in the country… Rest of story »

A friend told me about this great charity a while back and I think it’s worthy of your
consideration as well.

They’re called Kiva — which means “unity” in Swahili.

What they do is “micro-financing”… that’s when you make small business loans to
entrepreneurs in developing countries with very low interest rates.

You may be thinking you can’t finance a small business, but you might be surprised.

Here are a few examples of who I’ve financed this past year:

1. In the Takeo province in Cambodia, there’s a family… the wife raises pigs and
grows rice making $2 a day, the husband is a recycler earning $5. They needed
a sugarcane cart — an investment of $450.

2. A Peruvian woman in the cosmetics business needed more inventory. My
donation was less than $300 here.

3. This one is interesting. A group of ladies in Mali — married women average age
of 45, who lived together in a traditional house.

What they needed was a loan to buy 250 bags of charcoal and various other
items… and what they’d do is buy them in one neighboring city and resold them
in another.

I like to jump around on the website and pick out business plans that interest me. I even
found one in the Ciudad Dario District, in Nigeria. And I promise you… I didn’t make the
donation just because she lived in a district named after me!

It doesn’t cost a lot and like to make these small contributions. To you or I in North
America, it’s about two to five day’s wages or salary. You can even make partial loans.
To these entrepreneurs, it’s a month… or even half a year’s of income.

Kiva makes sense to me. You’re making a difference in someone’s life who
actually wants to make a change in their lives… and they’re not afraid to climb the
entrepreneurial ladder to get there.

Browse a bit on the website. I think you’ll agree.

http://www.kiva.org

I have been making loans for several years now and out of the hundreds of loans I’ve
made I’ve only had two that have not paid me back…the payback rate is extremely
high because the borrower is very motivated to pay back the loan because they want to
borrow more to continue growing their business.

All the best,

Dario

P.S. Did you know you can send me an email asking me any real estate related
question or ask me for help? And best of all… it won’t cost you a dime to
Reach out, meet me and let me help you…

My cousin, Stan (you might remember him at some of my live seminars)…just ran a marathon in 3 hours and 23 minutes. That’s 12.43 kph, or 7.7 mph. It’s not bad. Not bad at all.

One reason he did so well was because I was there to pace him. I had with me a kilometer marker bracelet and a stopwatch.

A kilometer marker basically reminds you where and when you should be in the marathon in order to keep up.

It has something like this on it:

• 1 km – 0:04:44
• 3 km – 0:14:13
• 5 km – 0:23:41

And so on and so forth. At the halfway mark of 21 km, it reads 1:40:00.

So here’s what I did for Stan. I was beside him the entire marathon, making sure he was on pace. If he was coming in slow according to the bracelet, I told him to speed up. If he was going too fast, I asked him to slow down.

The bracelet was as much of a coach for Stan as I was.

And all this got me thinking about my training style. There’s an “old school” style of training out there where they practice fast-tempo intervals and track-work.

Fast-tempo intervals is where you run really, really fast for a few minutes, then slow completely down for another few minutes. Track work is more or less the same… except it’s based on distance.

Now the reason the veterans believe this style works is because you’re always pushing your own envelope. It’s supposed to build up your H2O capacity and lactic acid resistance. (Don’t worry if you have no idea what that means… I’ll tie this back into real estate in a moment.)

But there’s a catch with this old school training.

They’re ALWAYS complaining about injuries. These formal training runners… get hurt a LOT.

Me? I’ve never been injured in my seventeen years of running. One hundred percent, completely injury free

How is that?

Well, apparently, I’ve been running in a way that most professional runners are just starting to discover.

Basically, I go out and just run. If I feel good, I run more. If I feel energetic, I run faster. If I feel tired, I run less. If I feel lacking in energy, I run slower.

I let my body tell me how I should run. Now, I’m not saying I don’t run at all if I feel tired. I still do. Just not as fast and not as much.

Slow and steady wins the race.

So this is how I see rookie real estate investors (or bad ones.) They’re like the “old school” of joggers. They sprint and slow down, sprint and slow down. Every time they sprint, they get involved with way too many deals, get in over their heads. Then the injuries… or in this case, losses, begin to mount up.

Yes, I flip and I trade properties. I’m not a buy and hold guy… BUT, I am also very patient because I understand real estate cycles. I buy properties at the bottom of the cycle and wait five, six, even seven years before I cash them out.

And another thing… I didn’t start off buying hundreds of properties at time. In fact, let me tell you about my first six years as an investor.

Guess how many properties I had?

You can count them on one hand.

And then, I had a breakthrough year where I bought ten a year, then a few years later, it was a hundred a year… the growth was exponential… BUT, but but… it was from one plateau to another.

All I’m saying is. Don’t rush into this game and expect to make big bucks within the first year. And by big bucks I mean million dollar profits.

Of course, you can mentor with me and shave several years off… but it still doesn’t mean you’ll make millions in real estate right away.

Anyway… I’ve rambled on for too long in this blog post.

7 Arizona businesses make Fortune 500

In all, seven Arizona companies made Fortune magazine’s list this year, two more than last year and the state’s best-ever showing. Besides Apollo and Insight, Avnet Inc., Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., US Airways Group Inc., Republic Services Inc. and PetSmart Inc. made the list from Arizona.

The number of Fortune 500 companies in an area reflects the economic clout of a community and its desirability as a place in which to conduct business.

Read more…

Third-Quarter Job Growth & debate over President Obama’s $447-billion jobs bill

An uptick in hiring by private-sector employers in September yielded better-than-expected job growth in September. The positive results for the month, combined with upward revisions to July and August, confirm a trend of steady, though modest hiring that partially mitigates the potential for a new recession. Still, downside risks remain. The Eurozone debt crisis remains unresolved, while threats to the solvency of European banks and intransigence on Capitol Hill continue to loom as factors that may adversely affect near-term economic prospects.

Read The Story…

Way Off Base

I see some commenters reacting to the failure of major inflation to break out by insisting that inflation is defined as an increase in the monetary base — that is, the bank reserves plus currency that are what increases when the Fed “prints money”. As it happens, that’s wrong: very old dictionaries defined inflation as a rise in money and/or credit, but the modern usage is, of course, a rise in prices.

Read More…

Hello,

If you haven’t done anything over the past few weeks to get you closer to investing in real estate…

Here is your chance to do something now.

Here is a property I’m working on and I’m almost fully subscribed…I need $200,000 more to close this fund and fully subscribe this investment.

If you have been thinking about making an investment into the Phoenix real estate market but you have been hesitant because you don’t have time, you don’t know how or you’re afraid you will fail here’s your chance to invest with me.

Your money will be invested along with my money and a few other investors to buy 117 unit apartment building in South Phoenix.

This is a great deal, otherwise I would not be offering it to you!

A little over a year ago I bought with a few investors another property about 2 miles away so I’m very familiar with this area.

I usually don’t like to pressure people but YOU have a very small window to take advantage of this great opportunity so email me today to make your investment: dario@dariolorenzo.com

This offer is time sensitive because I only need $200,000 and I have to have the money in the bank to close in the next couple of weeks.

Don’t be left out yet again…act NOW!!!

>>Downloand a copy of this brochure: Flyer – West View Apartments V2

For inquiries contact:  info@cashflowforlife.ca

Following is a chart of horizontal lines with four words on each line, one in each column. On each line put the number 4 next to the word that best describes you in the line. Then put a 3 next to the word that describes you next best, a 2 by the third-best and I 1 by the word that least describes you. On each horizontal line of words you will then have one 4, one 3, one 2 and one 1. Do not put more than one of any number on any horizontal line of words.

For example, my choice for the first line of words will be as follows:

L: Likes Having Authority _4_
O: Enthusiastic _3_
G: Sensitive Feeling _1_
B: Likes Instructions _2_

L Questions:
Likes Having Authority ___
Takes Chances ___
Determined ___
Enterprising ___
Competitive ___
Problem Solver ___
Productive ___
Bold ___
Decision Maker ___
Persistent ___
Total L ___

O Questions:
Enthusiastic ___
Takes Risks ___
Visionary ___
Likes Talking
Promoter ___
Enjoys Popularity ___
Fun Loving ___
Likes Variety ___
Spontaneous ___
Inspirational ___
Total O ___

G Questions:
Sensitive Feeling ___
Loyal ___
Calm, Even Keel ___
Enjoys Routine ___
Dislikes Change ___
Gives into others ___
Avoid Confrontation ___
Sympathetic ___
Nurturing ___
Peacemaker
Total G ___

B Questions:
Likes Instructions ___
Accurate ___
Consistent ___
Predictable ___
Practical ___
Factual ___
Conscientious ___
Perfectionist ___
Detail-Oriented ___
Analytical ___
Total B ___

Scoring the Results:

When you’re completed The Five Minute Personality Test, add number for each vertical column. if the column adds up to more than 40 or less than 10 you’ve added wrong. Now add the total score for all four columns together. That total should equal 100. If it doesn’t then make sure there is only one 4, one three, one two and one 1 on each line and ad the columns again. The most you can score in any given column is 40 and the total the total for the entire test will equal 100. For example my score for each column are L37, O25, G17, B21. adding these scores together equals 100

What does all this mean???

Send me your totals by replying to this email and I will send you your results.
Dario@DarioLorenzo.com