Beautifully located finca with original access in the country, at about ten kilometres from Alhama de Granada. A track takes you through the woods to your own private valley, where you'll discover this well-kept property, which you wouldn't want to change much about. Power is supplied by solar panels and the refreshing water comes from your own well. Back to the basics, we say jokingly, but if that is what you are really looking for, then this is where you'll find it.

There are no direct neighbours, so you are guaranteed to have all the space and peacefulness to yourself. The house is located right in the middle of a natural park, which holds the promise of a wealth of new discoveries. There are lots of fruit trees on the land surrounding the house and the views reach to mountain so high, that its peak will be covered in snow in winter.

The property has commercial potential, for example to let as a holiday home. Living here is just a great everlasting experience that you really ought to have lived through.

Alhama de Granada is a pretty, ancient spa town located approximately 50 kilometres from Granada. It is perched precariously at the top of a ravine from where the Rio Alham carves through otherwise rolling countryside. The therapeutic, thermal springs at the Alhama´s Balneario have been channelled into baths since Roman times. There are 6,000 inhabitants in the town, and its picturesque location and thermal springs attract many visitors.

This is a large stately home in colonial style with views over the Málaga bay and the Mediterranean, as well as the Montes de Malaga and the Sierra Nevada. We can assure you that you won't find many houses like this on the Costa del Sol.

It was built in the early 1960's, and recently renovated in 2003 with tremendous effort to restore the house to its former glory while adding today's conveniences. A lot of care was taken to keep the feel of the house intact and yet to bring it fully up to date. The property has a total built area of approximately 500 square metres and sits in a plot of 2,200 square metres.

The house comprises an entrance hall of 25 square metres, a living room of 52 square metres featuring an open fire place, a fully equipped kitchen with pantry and food lift, a laundry room, a study, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 2 guest toilets, and a dressing room. Downstairs are the original staff quarters, now in use as the children's area, which could easily be converted into a separate guest apartment.

There is underfloor heating and airconditioning, while a heater with solar panels provides hot water. The property has its own private indoor parking space, and security is provided by means of a video camera at the entrance gate to the property.

Outside, in the garden, lies the private swimming pool. It is of the salt-water type, requiring less maintenance than regular sweet-water swimming pools. To reduce maintenance requirements even further, the pool is equipped with an automatic cover. Next to the pool is the pool house with covered terrace area, providing the necessary shade for pool-side relaxation or dining on hot summer days.

There are several other terraces around the house, and even a patio with a fountain. An automatic watering system keeps the garden in optimal condition, even during the summer drought. To guarantee a continuous trouble-free water supply, the property disposes of two water deposits, holding a total of 46,000 litres.

The location offers the best of two worlds: tranquil living in a stately country home, with the Mediterranean Sea and the hustle and bustle of the coast literally just minutes away. From there, the motorway offers great access to other places, such as Malaga and the international airport, Gibraltar, Sevilla, Granada, and Cordoba.

A solid, traditional village house, very suitable as a holiday home or permanent residence. From here you'll have wonderful views over the red-tiled roofs of the village of Colmenar. The centre of this typical Andalucian village is at half a minute walking distance. There is no traffic in the street in front of the house, and that makes it a very quiet spot.

The kitchen has its own little patio, always useful to store thing or to have potted herbs. There is a little terrace in front of the house, which allows you to dress up the house a little with pots and plants. There is a separate storage room, the former donkey stable, that you can use to keep your burning wood or to store all kinds of other things.

Colmenar is famous for its quality salchichones. Every butcher in the village sells his own, home-made sausages using his own secret recipe. Sausages from Colmenar are renowned far beyond the village. Their market stretches as fas as the big supermarkets down at the coast.

A great package deal comprising of a large family home and two smaller holiday rental properties, offering excellent value for money. The main house is a beautiful old village house with stunning views from the roof terrace. It comprises a living room, dining room, kitchen, four bedrooms, one bathroom, a storage room and a utility room. The basement comprises of one room with two windows and a separate entrance, and could easily be turned into a small apartment, or just an extra bedroom with en-suite bathroom. The house has an interesting layout in an L-shape over three floors.

The two other village houses would make ideal holiday rental properties, providing you with a substantial income. Both village houses are traditional, restored properties, each comprising of a living room, a kitchen, one bedroom, one bathroom and a roof terrace with views over the village. The houses are in one of those little typically Moorish street with no traffic, with parking space a bit further down the road.

The properties in this package can each be bought separately. They are priced and listed on our web site individually under reference numbers 419, 420 and 421. As you can see, if you are interested in buying the lot of three, then we can offer you a substantial discount.

These houses are in a quiet spot in the village of Sedella, at about half an hour from the coast. Sedella is a typical Moorish town, filled with examples of Mudejar architecture, with narrow and winding streets that carry the stamp of the Moorish village. Its altitude provides wonderful views over the beautiful countryside around the village, and from here one can see the Sierra Tejeda Mountains, the Mountains of Bentomiz and one clear days, the Atlas Mountains across the Mediaterranean.

A beautifully restored, traditional village house with original beamed ceilings. It comprises a living room with fire place, a kitchen, a light bedroom, a bathroom, and a roof terrace. The house is located in one of those little typically Moorish street with no traffic, and you can park you car a bit further down the road. An ideal holiday home, or a pied-a-terre in the mountains, but also a very suitable buy-to-let.

This town house can be bought as part of a package with village house 419 and village house 421 . If you are interested in buying two of them, or the whole lot, then we can offer you a substantial discount.

The house is in a quiet spot in the village of Sedella, at about half an hour from the coast. Sedella is a typical Moorish town, filled with examples of Mudejar architecture, with narrow and winding streets that carry the stamp of the Moorish village. Its altitude provides wonderful views over the beautiful countryside around the village, and from here one can see the Sierra Tejeda Mountains, the Mountains of Bentomiz and one clear days, the Atlas Mountains across the Mediaterranean.

A sensibly restored village house right in the middle of Sedella. It comprises an oblong living room, an open plan kitchen, a large bedroom, a spacious bathroom and a lovely roof terrace with views over the village. The house is located in one of those little typically Moorish street with no traffic, and you can park you car a bit further down the road. An ideal holiday home, or a pied-a-terre in the mountains, but also a very suitable buy-to-let.

This town house can be bought as part of a package with village house 421 and village house 420. If you are interested in buying two of them, or the whole lot, then we can offer you a substantial discount.

The house is in a quiet spot in the village of Sedella, at about half an hour from the coast. Sedella is a typical Moorish town, filled with examples of Mudejar architecture, with narrow and winding streets that carry the stamp of the Moorish village. Its altitude provides wonderful views over the beautiful countryside around the village, and from here one can see the Sierra Tejeda Mountains, the Mountains of Bentomiz and one clear days, the Atlas Mountains across the Mediaterranean.

On the edge of a little hamlet, at an extraordinary location, stands this finca with an interesting history. The house was once used as a church, and before that it used to be a school. Recentrly, the finca was restored to its original splendour. With eye for traditional detail, of course, but without losing sight of today's requirements. Therefor, the kitchen is well-equipped, the bathrooms are spacious and efficient, and a second living room was added to the property.

From the parking space to house is a little path that passes a watering place for sheep or goats. The cool water runs straight from the mountains and tastes wonderful. The property has a solar panel, supplying enough energy to power the lighting of the house and a tv. Energy is free here, and so is the water! The land is fenced in and has been levelled. THat would make creating a little campsite or renting out a caravan or log-house a possibility to consider. Also, the finca disposes of a separate guest accommodation for two, so you could start earning a rental income right away, if desired.

The house sits in the middle of the literally untouched nature reserve of the Sierra de la Sagra, where the mediterranean climate, the altitud and the geographic location have worked together to create an exceptional and breathtakingly beautiful landscape. The drive through this stunning reserve takes you by turns through broad-leaved and pine forest, desert drought, along fertile fields and a reservoir with sand beach. One moment you'll think you're in the province of Cádiz with its soft sloping vistas into infinity, the next that you're in the province of Málaga with its pine covered mountain ridges. That is Granada for you.

There is an interesting world waiting for you here, with a natural scenery yet to be discovered by many. Ideal as a second home or as a rental holiday home for others to enjoy. You won't find the hustle and bustle of the coast here, but seekers of peace and quiet will discover it is at their beck and call.

Email from Brian Kurtz, my Inner Circle member / Realtor out of Downriver area in Western Wayne county:

“ I am continually amazed at the excuses "investors" come up with to NOT do deals. Here's my new favorite. GREAT house that needs almost ZERO repairs. Bank drops the price down $50k below market. Deal should be a no-brainer. So what doe they come up with? "I wonder what is WRONG with this house. The numbers are SOOO good it feels like there must be something wrong we can't see. Why hasn't it sold yet if it's such a good deal?" So if the repairs are too high they say there are too much repairs, or the price is too high. If there are NO repairs, they say there is something wrong with the deal, but they don't know what, so they won't do it. Weird.”

Somebody told me long time ago that you can make money or you can make excuses – impossible to do both at the same time.

It is not uncommon for me to get at least 10-15 emails / faxes every week where real estate investors are complaining about the “trouble” they are having finding money to fund the foreclosure deals – Junkers / pretty homes.

But when I ask them where exactly they have looked so far or what they have done so far to find the money – the answer in almost 98% cases is silence. The 2% who reply back – I will tell them where to go and get the money. There is no shortage of money – hard / mortgage / private – what is always in short supply is real estate investors in Michigan who know where to go and get it.

Same thing with finding deals. Same thing with finding good contractors.

A friend of mine work as Realtor for a big name franchise real estate operation. He is in the office with another 209 realtors. He has been doing it for 14 months now. Majority of his office mates have been at it much much longer.

He has asked the owner several times to be excused from the weekly Tuesday meetings where typically 180-200 realtors show up with weekly progress reports. He told the owner that he is so depressed by their combined tales of woe and despair that it takes him almost a day to get back to track.

He on the other hand in four months of becoming the Realtor is in the Top 5 consistently – taking home anywhere from $10,000 - $15,000 per month in commissions.

But the owner wont let him go home because he wants him to come and tell these other people in the room what he is doing hoping against hope that they might also copy him.

He on the other hand is as open as he could be so he gets up ever week, dutifully and tells them exactly what he is doing. Lead sources / ads / what he is saying / what he is not saying etc. And in all due fairness – it is no big deal on “what” he is doing.

The secret to his success is that he is doing something.

The other 200 Realtors are doing absolutely nothing.

Find hard to believe?

Grownups showing up to “work” and not doing anything and having the cojones to complain next week about how hard it is to make money???

Better believe it.

I have seen it; lived it; managed it; and lived to tell the sordid story.

Majority is not interested in not doing anything. Period.

Oh sure everybody says that they want to make money.

The same way everybody writes the three goals on December 31 midnight every year – quit smoking, lose weight, make more money.

All you have to do is look around and you will understand immediately that particular strategy is not working out.

Cigarette companies are making tons of money. We are the fattest nation on the planet and we are spending $113 dollars for every $100 coming in. Credit card debt is at all time high since the time credit cards were introduced.

Clear your head out of all the garbage. Make a list of Things To Do ASAP and get all of them done. Then you have a right to complain. But not before.

By the way, Brian is not alone in this – all REO Realtors who have truck load of good listings have similar tales – they don’t understand why investors are so much interested in talking and looking but not buying anything. Good deals – REO’s / Short Sale / Motivated Sellers – all around you and me.

Question is what have you done today to find one?

Need money but don’t know where to get it?

Well as long as it is up to $25,000 and even if you credit is less than perfect and you are not sensitive to paying high interest rates…

Meaning that you are a real estate investor or want to be….

Check out www.Prosper.com. It is a pretty nifty concept. They describe themselves as the People to People Lending Network and basically this is how it works:

1. You want to get some money to do whatever – start a business, pay your credit cards off, fix your house, buy a new lawn mower; fix a house; go current on a Short Sale transaction, buy a sink from Home Depot, pay closing costs, put up an EMD – you get the idea…

2. You need up to $25,000.

3. Your credit is good or may be it is not.

4. You go to www.Prosper.com and set up a free account and post your needs. I have seen 2 real estate investors put their projects with pics of the foreclosure that they are trying to fix and hence they need money.

5. Prosper runs a credit check and grades your credit. You have indicated already on how much interest you are willing to pay. Typically loans are amortized over 3 years. They have a loan calculator on their site so you can see how much is your payment going to be.

6. So lets say you need $1000 – bunch of people come and put up whatever they feel like it loaning you – I have seen $50 to $500 – but instead of borrowing money from one person – a group of people lends money out.
7. Prosper collects the money, takes care of all documentation, and sends you the money.

8. Prsoper also invoices you every month for the loan payment. Cool thing is that they report all these payments to credit bureaus. So if you don’t pay up, you can get a credit late; but if you do it actually helps you build credit.

9. When the transaction is done, you are reviewed and your payment history with Prosper starts to build up. Kind of EBay Star system. Next time may be you can offer to pay less interest rate because you have proved your credit worthiness.

10. Prosper charges for Borrowers: - 1% closing fee: If you are a borrower and your loan is funded, you will be charged 1% of the amount borrowed or $25, whichever is greater. For example, if you take a loan for $5,000 to help pay for your wedding, you will be charged $50. The 1% is taken from your loan immediately, so in this example your loan is for $5,000 and you'd receive $4,950 in cash deposited into your bank account.

11. Prosper charges for Lenders: 0.5% annual loan servicing fee - The annual servicing fee is accrued daily, and is based on the current outstanding loan principal. This fee is accrued the same way that regular interest is accrued on the loan.

For example, on a $5,000 loan at 10% interest, the servicing fee would be $40.40 over its full 3-year length. Because the servicing fee is based on the daily principal balance (which is an amortized value), it will change on a monthly basis, and the servicing fee for a loan will vary based on the interest rate and the length of the loan.

They actually have a pretty decent Help page that you should read if getting some money interests you. It is all unsecured, without collateral and you never interact with the people who are tossing money at you. Prosper is the entity in the middle.

Very interesting and any of you do get some out of them; post a comment on this entry.

We had a pretty crazy coaching session last week - couple of my members are hitting some major homeruns doing Short Sales. Part of the reason is that they know what the heck they are doing. Part of the reason is banks are SWAMPED with foreclosures and willing to take bigger discounts that ever before.

The amusing thing is these guys are very "Unqualified" to do Short Sales - they are getting major discounts on their rookie deals. I mean how dare they collect $38,000 on their first deals. :-)

There are reasons for this….

3 years ago, it took some serious set of skills and a really banged up house to get a $50,000 discount on a Short Sale in Michigan.

Now it is so common that it is not even a big gulp to fax it in to a bank.

How things change in a matter of months.

"I have been in real estate for over 15 years. I have been involved in more short sales the past 8 months then the previous 14 years all together. Now it isn't uncommon for a seller to bring money to closing." - Chris Dowell, Realtor

Chris is a realtor in a Kansas City and he posted the above comment to my blog recently. He is not exaggerating.

I can tell you on a personal note that I never thought that I would see banks discount 40% to 50% on first mortgages. That is just incredible.

If you not listened to Rodney yet talking about his Zero to 8 deals in 60 days than you are really missing out. You can listen to the LIVE recording (it is from my coaching session) in MP3 on the Michigan Short Sale Bootcamp page.

I think that the thing that impresses me most about Rodeny is he is done what most real estate investors never bother doing:

1. Implement what he learned from me.

2. Did not wait to become "perfect".

3. Launched his Short Sale business with a complete understanding that he does not know everything but he will get better with every deal.

4. Doing some great “word of mouth” advertising. I mean you would think that with around 10,000 houses in foreclosure in Michigan – some of these people would have relatives, co-workers, friends etc. It helps to let people know what you do and could do.

5. I liked his style of actually overdoing it. He did not had to put that fence up in his first deal. His buyer was not that particular about it. But he did it anyway. And that has paid very handsomely for him. You wont know why
on this call but suffice to say that $3,000 fence turned into a very profitable goodwill for him.

I predict that the the “amount” of discounts in Michigan will only get higher. As banks pile up more inventory it will be tougher for them to justify sitting on these houses for months (11-13 months in Michigan for redemption even before they get the keys) and do nothing.

I don’t know about your property taxes but majority of suburbs in Michigan have high property taxes – going higher every year. Banks don’t pay Homstead rates but rather non-homestead at a mucho higher rate.

The number of foreclosures rises which means more “inventory” for the Loss Mitigation Departments to liquidate. The more agitated they become to sell these houses as quickly as possible.

One of the interesting thing that we keep hearing over and over again is the banks calling my members and asking what they could do to make the deal happen?

Huh!

Banks playing nice..

What is this world coming to?

Nora is doing couple of commerical Short Sale right now. She has this whole side business going on consulting on Short Sale Deals. More on that some other day. Talk about a perfect stay At Home Mother business. :-)

And the Attorney who is foreclosing for the bank called her and said – Hey we want whatever your buyer could pay. Come one and lets play ball. Call us we want to talk.

Lawyers calling investors.

This is the dawn of a new age. :- )

It is pretty exciting time to be in Michigan real estate. Kind makes me wish I was starting out in 2006 rather than 2000. Writing all those hand written letters to homeowners in foreclosure nearly broke my wrist back then.