My Real Estate Beginnings,
“MY FIRST REAL ESTATE INVESTOR’S CONVENTION” PART FIVE

Realizing that I had been educated on the various facets of Real Estate Investing, I decided to apply for a teaching position for night school at a local High School where I created & taught a course entitled, “Real Estate Investment Education”. My first Class had 25 enrollees. There were five or six students who already had bought their properties and, except for the fact, that they had no “organization” or “business plans”, they were quite successful in their respective endeavors. I focused my course on residential, “income-producing” properties. In other words, instead of “flipping”, the plan was to rent them.

I put together a package which contained an “Offer Sheet”, a “Fixup & Repair” sheet, a Landlord-Tenant Application and a few other instruction documents & inventory forms. I set up accounts at local electrical supply houses where I could purchase supplies on a thirty-day account basis. (“Time is money”) The longer an entrepreneur has to make payments, the more can be invested in future projects.

The cost of my unique package was $59.00. The purchase included a one-hour opportunity to consult with me in my capacity as their Real Estate Consultant. I agreed to give them my professional advice on whether investments were A Not very worthwhile B Fair, but I don’t recommend it or C Great! Go ahead and make an offer. (A deal which I would make, myself)

At about that same time, my local Lowry-Sponsored Educational Investment club held Its first meeting. The club was named, The “N. J. R.E.I.C., the “New Jersey Real Estate Investors’ Club”. It was held every week at a hotel in the center of New Jersey In Cranford, New Jersey.

Of course, the hotel would charge the group a fee and that would give us some leverage as far as our members who wanted to stay overnight at that hotel. As members of that club, we received discounted rates.

There was an Executive Board appointed and since I was referred to the club by the original club organizer, the Albert J. Lowry Organization, I was appointed as “Program Chairman”. The Marriott Hotel event which was held in Philadelphia, gave me a lot of opportunities to turn the original event into my very bright future.

Nationally-known Speakers would teach the subject of their expertise at a club. Meeting on a once a month basis. The Lowry Organization selected a Lowry-Affiliated speaker to appear at our local club meeting. These teachers would rotate their visits to a number of Lowry-sponsored real estate clubs throughout the Northeast and I became friends with each of these Executive Board Members.

One day, I received a phone call from a club president from a Lowry club in Buffalo, New York. He was planning to operate a Seminar with a number of Lowry Speakers for his group and other Lowry clubs in upstate New York to attend. I asked him to send me flyers to give out to the members of my New Jersey club. Of course, he agreed and this relationship really meant much in respect to my future business plan.

That’s when I realized that being so close to Atlantic City, I was in the perfect place to operate my own Seminar. But if I would shoot high, I could call it a “Convention”, rather than a seminar. This special event would be held in the “Off-Season” in New Jersey, when hotel rates were low and flight to the Northeast during the cold winter month of February would “earn” group deals which might end up costing me very little, in terms of out-of-pocket expenses.

I saw that these Speakers will have books (and tapes) to sell, since the club didn’t yet have the funds to pay for these folks’ airline and hotel expenses, I offered to set up a merchant account for the purposes of charging the club’s members for their respective purchases of the Speaker’s products. I became a go-between in this case for the club and the Speaker. This merchant account became a source of the funds which would give my account a ‘fee’ for the cost of my account and, at the same time the speaker would sell his books and tapes.

In my capacity as “Program Chairman”, as I said, I was dealing with Lowry speakers from all over the country. That relationship with these professionals would mean I could envision my very first “Real Estate Investor’s Convention”.

I held two of these events. The first one was held at Caesar’s Boardwalk Regency Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City. The timing was perfect, just as the “boom” of the hotel-casino business in that famous old “seaside” city was about to explode!

This is just another example of “timing” being everything in life!

I dealt first, with the hotel. I received a free hotel room for each ten rooms booked. Those, I saved first for my speakers and secondly, for myself and my staff. Finally, I charged each of the attendees who came from as far away as Berlin, Germany, United Kingdom and Greece as well as Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and of course,

Buffalo, New York. They would pay a discounted fee for the admission and then, the hotel was at a discounted rate and as we booked nearly 75% of all the 1200 attendees into the hotel-admission deals, I could net the overage as my profit before the actual event took place. The Speakers would fly in at the full but lower winter rates which I paid up front. But when they arrived, I would earn the “one-for-ten” hotel room at zero cost. This first event meant a NET profit of over six figures!

Stay Tuned for: My Real Estate Beginnings, “MY FIRST REAL ESTATE INVESTOR’S CONVENTION” PART SIX