Getting into the Real Estate Game with the “Hansen Model”

Last week I talked about the 10% method for building the capital you need to get into what is today’s top investment opportunity—real estate. The only issue with the 10% method is that it will take some time to pull enough from your paycheck to have the seed money for your first real estate investment. So how can you take advantage of the great opportunities out there right now?

Simple. You have other people put the money in for you.

The best “super leverage” method I’ve seen is what I call the “Hansen model” after a particularly ingenious investor by the name of Dell Loy Hansen. You can read about Dell and his method in detail starting on page 184 of my book How to Ignite Your Passion for Living, but I’ll give you the gist of it here.

To start, you need a few people looking to invest in a safe, reliable project that will give them a regular and consistent return. Get them to collectively fund a down payment of 20% or more on the property you want to purchase and promise a reasonable return–say a 10% APR, an amount that is presently 500% higher than the best CD can offer. If you can put in some of your own money as well, it makes the investors feel much more secure as you’re backing your confidence in the investment’s potential by also putting your money at risk.

Then when you flip that house or rent those office spaces, get the best return possible and get the money back to your investors with a higher than expected rate of return. When they see that you not only lived up to but exceeded their return expectations, you will have created a enthusiastic group of investors for future projects as well as getting wonderful word of mouth that could bring even more money flocking to you.

There are plenty of people out there right now who have cash to invest but don’t want to bank on the unpredictable stock market and aren’t getting anywhere with the meager CD returns. So start working on cultivating those investor relationships and get access to the “leverage” you need to gain financial freedom sooner than you thought possible.