Bill Gatten
Bill Gatten is a one of the few true ""in-the-trenches"" creative financing teachers who actually practice what they preach. A highly successful real estate investor and much sought-after national speaker, Bill's most recent book (of many on the subject) is the very comprehensive, humorous and irreverent: ""Making it BIG in Creative Real Estate and Keeping it...This Time,"" a 500 page compendium of all aspects of seller-carry, no-down, no-credit-needed, no-payment creative real estate financing, featuring the dynamic ""Equity Holding Land Trust(tm) System"" -- the PACTrust (tm) and NEHTrust(tm). Educated at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, Bill's 45 years of work experience are in sales training, real estate investing and institutional banking (former co-owner and founder, Westlake Bancorp; and the former president and CEO of Gatten Financial Services, Inc. and Markay Equipment Leasing, Inc., Thousand Oaks, Ca..
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Your Plan of Action
Have You Any Idea What It is That You Truly Want at This Point in Your Life?Have you ever honestly sat down with pen in hand and pondered that question? Is it wealth that you want? Is it income? Is it financial security, fame or respect? Or could it be that all you really want is “show them” – i.e., retribution for someone’s telling you you’d never make it (you’re too dumb, too uneducated, too slow, too ugly, to fat, too skinny, too poor, too old?And of the “wants” and “wishes” you harbor, how many of them are desires, and…
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To Be Rich, Simply Stop Doing What Poor Folks Do
I don’t mean to sound maudlin or too “new-agey” here; but the one bit of magic that I have managed to glean from my more than half-century-plus on this wobbly little planet of ours (OK four-fifths, then), is that WE as individuals are absolutely in-charge. We are not only in charge of our own destinies, but also in charge of the very clockwork that is the Universe itself. Although most of us live our lives wholly oblivious to that fact, we are none-the-less in absolute control of our health, our fates, our bank accounts, and our aspirations, and those of…
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The Motivated Seller and the NARS Pactrust
For whatever it may be worth, here’s what I do, and what I recommend that other Investors do. Although some may not be interested in acquiring “holders (property to be owned for a longer period of time).” I see holding as an opportunity to earn potentially larger profits in the future, versus picking up the quick-flip money now; though this is not by any means, to discourage the latter when doing so is possible.First of all, agree to have the current owner place the property in a title-holding trust in his/her own names for a few years. The trust will…
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The Limited Liability Company…The Time is Now
The pros and cons of forming limited liability entities such as Limited Partnerships, Family Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Companies is a much discussed topic these days. It is this latter device, the much misunderstood “LLC,” which is the newest, though less notorious, least used, and arguably the most straightforward and valuable of them all.Limited Liability Company (LLC): A membership business entity that provides the protection of a corporation, but which is more like a partnership arrangement in many ways. LLC “members (versus ‘share-holders’ or ‘partners’)” participate in the day-to-day management of the company without incurring personal liability. All taxing…
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Getting Started
“I’ve done what you suggested, but I just can’t seem to convince myself to push the rock over the cliff!” This allusion refers to one’s being in a quandary as to whether to jump off a cliff into the river below in order to escape rapidly approaching bands of drunk Indians intent on mayhem. My suggestion for situations like this is to pause and reflect for a moment, then tie one end of a rope around your waist and the other around a giant rock. You can then forget about the quandary and focus all your attention on pushing the…
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Diary of an Equity Holding Trust Transaction
March 13, 2000: Received a call from my “I Buy Houses, Full Price, All Cash or Terms” sign. The caller, Mr. Brown, has house worth $150,000 with a $154,000 loan on it. He says he’s seeking someone to take over his payments. I asked how much work needed to be done. He says maybe $10,000. I said I’d get some comps and call him in a day or so.March 15: Comp value is maybe $155K after fix-up (definitely no equity). I called and arranged to meet with Brown to see the place (nice: broken windows, rats, sagging porch cover, dry…
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Choosing An Attorney
A caution to always seek out the advice of a competent attorney before “trying this at home” is always good advice, but I find it difficult to proffer truly good (nonlegal) advice on the subject of seeking the right attorney with regard to the PACTrust or land trusts in general. In fact, I find myself “jest a tad ‘twixt a rock and a hard place” here (as it were), mostly because…they jest ain’t hardly none a’tall around these parts (as they say on Jerry Springer). Although I certainly do not advocate proceeding in any real estate related transaction without the…
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Bad Credit, No Cash — End Of The World? No Way!
Can you buy real estate and get wealthy despite having ‘No,’ ‘Marginal’ or even ‘Bad,’ Credit? How about compounding the problem by having no cash either? The answer is a resounding “Yes”: but only if you have lots of other stuff: drive, determination, sincerity, maturity some modicum of sales ability and a burning desire to achieve.If you are missing any of these qualities, you chances of success are minimized proportionately with each missing element.Without disrespect to those who have sacrificed, scrimped, and saved to maintain perfect credit, I’d like to say that I couldn’t express the degree of respect I…
