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How to be a millionaire - without Regis

by BILL BULEY
Staff Writer | August 28, 2010 9:00 PM

COEUR d'ALENE - Marshall Mend has a question: "Who wants to be a millionaire - without Regis?"

He figures everyone will answer yes.

So he wants to show them how to do it. And, of course, since he's got 30 years experience in real estate, he's going to talk about buying real estate. Yes, buying right now. Not selling. Forget selling. Don't think about selling. Buy, buy, buy.

"Why would you sell when the market is terrible when everything is low. Don't sell when it's low," said the owner of Marshall Mend Realty. "Top dollar today stinks compared to what it will be five, six, seven years from now. I recommend to people, don't sell anything now. Buy now, sell later."

OK, but how do you buy without using a lot of your own money, when you already own a home or have perhaps shaky credit?

He'll explain that, too, at his class he'll be teaching in Post Falls at the North Idaho College Workforce Training and Community Education Center.

About 500 people took Mend's class on buying and managing single-family homes between 2000 and 2004. He stopped offering it in 2005 when housing prices skyrocketed and it became pretty much impossible to buy a house and rent it for enough to cover the payment and have money leftover.

But with prices falling, and inventory climbing he said the class is back and will be offered 6-9 p.m. on Sept. 29 and Oct. 20 for $19.

"This is the best market for buying," the Coeur d'Alene man said. "There is no question about it."

A key point he'll drive home is this: Buy real estate, hang on to it, and pay it off as soon as you can. All the money that comes in on your property should be used to pay down the debt, not for other investments or vacations or a car.

"You don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg. You need to grow the goose that lays the golden egg, then you start spending the eggs," he said. "But you don't spend the goose, or the geese."

Like most Realtors, Mend said this is a buyer's market.

"People don't understand that. They're not going out and buying," he said. "Most people are afraid to buy."

There are ways to buy with little or no money, which Mend will explain in the class. They range from FHA or USDA rural development loans to partnering with wealthy friends and striking a deal for a partnership on a property.

He goes by the OPM rule of thumb: Using other people's money and learning from other people's mistakes.

"It's much cheaper and more profitable to learn from other people's mistakes than to make those mistakes yourself, and that's what this class teaches, is learning from mistakes," Mend said.

In the long run, real estate is a sound investment, he said.

"If you watch the market, the market goes up, and then it comes down. But it never comes down as much as it went up," he said.

But regardless of whether the real estate market is up or down, there is money to be made, Mend said.

"It takes different techniques to work the market," he said.

Mend said what happened to stall the current housing market is that there were too many foreclosures due to people losing their jobs. That in turn flooded the market with homes.

"And what drives the market? Supply and demand. Big supply, low demand, prices go down. Big demand, low supply, prices go up."

What he'll outline in his class is easy to understand, Mend said.

"You don't have to be a financial wizard. If I'm teaching it, a high school dropout, it's not too complicated," he said, smiling. "It is simple. It is easy. Anybody can do this thing. You need some common sense. It's just plain old common sense that you use to be successful in real estate."

Information: 769-3333 or go to www.workforcetraining.nic.edu