Last night was the Rutherford County REIN (RC.REIN) meeting and we have already posted some of our notes, some have been reserved since Jonathan was the presenter and want to reward the people who were present. At the same time, where was much more information he could have presented.

REIN’s Cashflow Night – Saturday April 12th starting at 5:30pm
Cashflow is a great educational and fun game based on the book and principles of the book Rich Dad; Poor Dad. It’s a great time to meet more people and keep your mind thinking about areas you have not been involved in before.

REIN Main Meeting – Monday April 14th
We plan on getting there early for SIG and staying until it end.

• *NEW* REIN website
• *NEW* REIN members only area
• Google Apps

There are many nice areas that you should take advantage of with the *New* REIN website & Google Apps can make it where you can get a very simple and easy website up and running quickly and make you look more professional.

Here are some of the places on the REIN Website that you should take advantage of:

Open to Public:

• REIN Calendar – first place to see what is scheduled
  
• Media List – go to the main meeting with a shopping list
  
• Classifieds – viewable by the public, only members can post items

Members area:

• Reference items, like Board and Leadership contact information, Discounts, and roles one could fill
• My Info – edit your contact info & profile, add an image, and manage what emails you receive
• Message Board – there is an area for communication between subgroups, the RC.REIN group sets up carpools there.
• Survey – please fill this out to help the leadership know what you want and need

At this point the group requested some information on Google Apps.

Google Apps does some things great, and some thing acceptable for just starting out. It is great for running your email, and allowing for good collaboration and communication between people. It is easy to use and this morning we had already received the following email:

I really got a lot from your presentation at the meeting last night. … I went home from the meeting and started my website. I’ve never built websites before but was still able to come up with this: www.hardenpropertygroup.com. It’s not much, but it’s way better than nothing. I appreciate your great advice.
~ Dave Harden, Harden Property Group

If you use your website as a major communication, promotion, and data storage area, you will eventually want to move to something more powerful or more customized because you want something more then the limitations on the website side.

As far as the email, documents, sites, and other programs. Nation Investors and many other more advanced websites use them still. I am even typing up the initial notes in Google Docs.

It was a great meeting, and I enjoyed meeting new people. If you need help with a website, or just need a coach, we have a sister company focused in that, contact us.

The presentation will go through the new Real Estate Investors of Nashville (REIN) website, and Common Opportunities missed Online.

Meeting begins at 6:30pm sharp in Murfreesboro.

The new REIN website has many options one can explore and use to get the most out of a REIN membership. At the same time, Jonathan will look at mistakes people make, this part of the presentation will provide a marketers or webmasters look at your own online presence.

Why are you not taking advantage of every opportunity that on demand technologies like RSS feeds, IM, and podcasts.

Some of the sessions include:

• investing in Costa Rica
• Contractor laws
• inspections
• Environmental Issues
• the market from the view of the Mortgage Industry
• more

The main speaker time is a panel discussion from the mortgage industry; panels tend to yield a few great nuggets of information.

Meeting begins at 6:30 and ends with networking time.

If we have not meet, we look forward to seeing you. Jonathan will be there, others are questionable at this point. The main focus is auctions, a way to move a house fast.

Thanks to all who have submitted properties or filed out the property buyers list application.

In March we are looking for one property in Brentwood, two in Mufreesboro, and two in Smyrna.

The one in Brentwood will need major work and be in the 4+bedroom, 3+bath, 2,000 to 3,000 sq foot range. We could also consider one that is east of I-65 with similar qualifications.

In both Smyrna and Murfreesboro, we are mostly looking for houses that are not on major roads, needing major work, one 3 bedroom, one 4+bedroom. Good sized master bedroom is a must.

We can also do short sales, where the bank accepts less money then the balance due on the mortgage. This is normally a much longer process, however if we can help some people start the process this month that will be an added bonus.

Subject: The RE-Myth: How to Run Your Real Estate Business Like a Business

Time: 7:30-9:30 p.m. CST – Q&A from 7:30 – 8, and main presentation the rest of the time.

With Vena will be Missy McCall-Hammonds, a real estate entrepreneur “who in just 9 short years has bought and sold over 450 properties, maintains a rental portfolio of more than 300 units, and continues to purchase and renovate an average of 1 house a week.”

If you are interested you should register now. They use gotomeeting, so you will be seeing slides on a comp and phone call in to hear the audio.

::: REIN :::
SIG – Codes & Sustainable Design
The first presentation on sustainable growth and the Brentwood Town Center was interesting. Chris Ude did a good job. He did a good job using his visuals to enhance his presentation.

The main SIG speaker was very knowledgeable; the biggest point to me was that it is TN state law that if you want to subdivide any land over 5 acres it must go through a subdivision process.

Table Topic -”The Game”
This was a new table topic that involved roll playing. Basically there was a judge, a seller, and then the potential buyers (The crowd). The goal for the buyers is to present the best offer as deemed by the judge. Players took turns asking a yes/no question and then making offers.

There are two slight changes I would suggest.
1. allow anyone in the crowd, especially when the three players are thinking, can ask questions
2. have the sellers and judges do one situation each and involve more people. This allows the sellers to generate their character a little more before the game begins.
It was a very good first go for this game. I look forward to playing again because it was like a massive brainstorming session.

Announcements
I am including this section because they did something new and differant. Allison used a powerpoint and it was far better then any I had seen at REIN in a long time, maybe with a little exception of some National Speakers.

In my mind I was watching it and there was some stumbles, so here is a simple solution that could help prevent the stumbles:
- Make it into a video
Simply recording the audio, throwing the audio and slides into a simple video editor, and output.

This causes a couple things:
1. the presentation is the same every time
2. the presentation can be added to a website
3. the presentation can be send out as a podcast

AllThingsOnDemand is a great company that can teach organizations to do this and other great communication methods. They developed and maintain our website here.

Main Speaker – Bill Twyford
Many of the things here were reminders of items I had already learned, like:
- Don’t waist time with unmotivated sellers
- tell the truth
- Perception is reality
and many more.

Some of the interesting twists include:
- if you are busy, doing your job and seeing success, you don’t have time to do anything but tell the truth to sellers
- Don’t give people an option of a yes/no answer, however have them answer with a time, or a “when” they want to do something.
- When you know what you are going to say, you can focus on listening to their words, body language, and tones.
- Match the mood of the other person

Communication is one of the subjects that we value and work to improve upon.

It was a full meeting and we enjoyed talking with the many people we have become friends with over the years.

Doug acknowledged that Rutherford County is still growing, however it is slower then the recent past.

They are looking at developing a Comprehensive Plan, or long term plan, for the county that covers roughly 50 to 100 years. This is something that Doug was surprised was lacking when he took the position a couple years ago.

His biggest concerns include, but are not limited to

• Development in areas that are not ready for growth, lack of roads, and water.
• Schools – the demand is greater then the supply and there is an issue with keeping up
• Drainage – a large portion of the county is in one floodplain or another
• County finance issues

After the formal meeting several people spent time networking, brainstorming, and working through issues. It was a great meeting with twenty-three people present.

The focus is to make each section basically an independent website, however each will draw from each other. A major programming breakthrough was made about half an hour ago and now, thus now additional things are being looked at, especially on this main page.

To really test and move forward more info must be added to the database.