Real Estate Investing Coaching - Brian Gibbons

Ohio - Attorney general's office sues six foreclosure rescue companies

                           

Attorney general's office sues six foreclosure rescue companies 6 foreclosure rescue companies accused of not helping borrowers Thursday, August 09, 2007 Sheryl Harris Plain Dealer Columnist Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann took aim Wednesday at foreclosure rescue companies that siphon money from people who are in danger of losing their homes. Dann's office sued six companies - two of them based in foreclosure-ridden Cuyahoga County - that solicited money from consumers with promises they could save their homes from foreclosure. Dann said the companies didn't contact lenders or do much else to prevent the homes from being sold, even though they accepted advance payment, ranging from $450 to $10,000. "This may be the 'last chance' money these people have," Dann said. The lawsuits, filed in courts across the state, accused the companies of violating the Consumer Sales Practices Act, but also took the new tack of insisting practitioners of foreclosure rescue must comply with the Debt Adjuster Act, which requires them to have insurance, limit consulting fees, undergo annual audits and keep separate trust accounts for clients. "I believe it's important to take all the arrows in our quiver to attack a business as sleazy as this one," Dann said. Ohio and Cuyahoga County, in particular, are ripe markets for foreclosure rescue companies. Both have frequently topped lists of the most foreclos- ure-ridden places in the country, and Cuyahoga County's foreclosure rates run triple the national average, giving it the dubious distinction of being, as County Treasurer Jim Rokakis often notes, "first and worst." On Wednesday, the attorney general sued: Cary Lavensky, doing business as Home Restoration Services, located in Cleveland. Richard Pinnix, dba Pinnix Business Services, of Shaker Heights. United Foreclosure Managers LLC of Youngstown. American Housing Authority Inc. of Newport Beach, Calif., and a related company, American Housing Financial Inc. of Phoenix. F.A.S., dba Foreclosure Assistance Solutions and Mortgage Second Chance, of Clearwater, Fla. Foreclosure Solutions of Cincinnati. Lavensky said he has been out of the foreclosure rescue business for a year. He said he could recall only one instance in which he had a dispute with a homeowner and, in that case, the family interfered with a planned sale of the home and then demanded a refund. He said he is certain his company complied with Ohio law. "I assure you, all our paperwork was drawn up by an attorney," he said. "This is the first I'm hearing of any of this." Pinnix said that while the attorney general is right in saying he didn't have insurance or separate accounts for clients, "I have saved a lot of people's homes through refinancing and hard-money lending . . . I work 17 hours a day to help my clients. At the end of the day, the truth will come out." Officials of United Foreclosure did not return a phone message left at the company. The suits seek restitution for consumers, fines and an order barring the companies from doing further business until they comply with applicable state laws. To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: sherylharris@plaind.com, 216-999-4409 © 2007 The Plain Dealer                   © 2007 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.

Pros and Cons of Doing It Yourself

                                       

Posted by: admin, in General                                

Everybody has to start somewhere; usually with not enough money.  In real estate, that means that you have to do a lot of the work that you’d rather hire others to do, but you simply can’t afford it.  When I started buying houses the right way, I was already a Broker, so listed and sold my properties myself.  I also cleaned, repaired, and painted them with the help of my wife and kids.  My technique was to run open house ads on houses I was working on, then let buyers or renters complete the work as sweat equity for the down payment, or in lieu of a rental deposit.

As soon as I had enough spare cash to be able to afford it, I started paying others to do the things that I didn’t want to do.  That was easy.  It was much harder for me to pay good money out for work I really enjoyed doing.  If it was so much fun, why did I quit?  Because it was low paying work.  I swiftly discovered that the highest paid work in real estate is to find good deals that can either be bought or sold.  Everything else pays less.  So, despite the fact that I didn’t mind doing some of the work, the only time I did it myself was when I couldn’t find anybody else who would or could do it.

There’s real merit in starting out as a do-it-yourselfer if only to familiarize yourself with what each job entails, and the approximate time it takes to do it.  It also gives you a chance to find out the best place to buy materials, and what they should cost.  The insights thus gleaned stand you in good stead when you start putting jobs out for bid, or when somebody tries to overcharge you for time and materials; but once you serve your sentence doing it all yourself, you do yourself a disservice continuing to do it when you don’t have to.

It boils down to simple mathematics: Let’s suppose that, by spending 120 hours per month finding good deals, you are able to turn at least one up each month that has the potential to net $30,000 in profit.  On the other hand, if you spent the same amount of time working on a house, you could save $250 per day getting a house ready for sale.  At the end of a 30 day month, or you would have saved $7500 dollars in costs, but have missed out being able to realize a $30,000 profit.

Admittedly, when you first start out, you don’t have the money to contract out the jobs that must be done, but once you do, you should internalize that every time you find yourself with a tool or a steering wheel in your hand, you’re probably losing money.  Conversely, every time you find yourself talking to an owner about renting or buying his house, you’re probably making money.

Is there any reason why this doesn’t make sense where you live?  Let me know.

Betting Against the Mob: Profit in Stocks and the Housing Market

                                       

Posted by: admin, in General                                

On February 27th the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 4.5% of its value in a single day.  On March 1st, it lost another 200 points within ten minutes of its opening.  I had a lot of money in the stock market, but I didn’t lose;  I made money because of this swing in prices.  I had placed “stop loss orders” on my stocks when I bought them several years ago, and fortuitously, it just happened that I had moved them up on the day just before the market dropped and was stopped out of the market automatically when it left its peak.  When I got a FAX from my Broker telling me I had been “stopped out of the market”, I told him to buy back the same stocks that had been sold.  He got me back in the day the Dow dropped another 200 points.  There are some lessons that we can glean from this. 1. I don’t think the single family house market ever lost that much value that fast in all history.

2. When anybody anywhere can trade in stocks on their computer on exchanges that are open 24 hours a day, it’s easy for the market to move very rapidly without warning.

3. Anytime you gamble money on the stock market, you should hedge your bet either by setting stop-loss limits with your Broker, selling short, or buying a “put” so that you will be protected from a sharp move downward.

4. When there is a sharp sell off of the entire market as happened in February with no apparent reason for it, take advantage of the general panic and buy in on the cheap.  I bought in the first day the markets opened after 9/11 and was stopped out in 2002 after it had recovered.  In the process, I made a lot of money.

5. The market almost always corrects within a reasonable time, and it can be good business to bet against the mob.

6. If you have spare cash lying around and can’t find good bargains in real estate, there might be opportunities in the stock market to make a short term profit while keeping your funds liquid.

This market drop was precipitated by unknown factors in the China market.  Because stocks are traded globally, that situation affected investors all over the world.  India can take away our software industry.  China can capture the market for low cost goods.  Third world Arab countries can crack the whip over us because of our dependence upon foreign oil.  Europe can come up with the Euro to compete with the dollar.  Foreign companies can buy up trophy retail, commercial, industrial, and woodland properties.  We’ve got a monopoly.

Nobody in any of these markets can compete with us in the used house market.  Nobody in America can become an entrepreneur buying, fixing, selling, trading, and financing houses simply by going to college because no self-respecting entrepreneur in the house business would be willing to work for the low wages earned by professors, nor would they tolerate the controls that the educational bureaucracy and teachers’ union would try to impose.  So, we’ve got our business all to ourselves.  We can continue to use our skills to earn our profits without any concern for what foreign competition may be doing in other areas.

What other business can offer so much to so many with so little money or education invested?  I dare you to name just one.

The king of real estate's cashing out

 

Tom Barrack is selling most of his U.S. portfolio. Maybe you should be nervous too.
October 24, 2005: 7:56 AM EDT
By Shawn Tully, Fortune Senior Writer

NEW YORK (Fortune) - Tom Barrack, arguably the world's greatest real estate investor, is methodically selling off his U.S. real estate holdings as prices drive the market to nosebleed levels.

He likens the current real estate market to a game of polo.

"I feel totally safe playing polo on a field full of pros," says the bronzed 58-year old. "But when amateurs are all over the field, someone can get killed. They have more guts than brains. They charge after every ball and don't know when to hold back."

It's the same with U.S. real estate right now. "There's too much money chasing too few good deals, with too much debt and too few brains." The amateurs are going to get trampled, he explains, taking seasoned horsemen, who should get off the turf, down with them.

Says Barrack: "That's why I'm getting out."

Investors take heed. Barrack may be an amateur at polo, but when it comes to judging markets, he's the ultimate pro.

Arguably the best real estate investor on the planet, he runs a $25 billion portfolio of trophy assets, from the Raffles hotel chain in Asia to the Aga Khan's former resort in Sardinia to Resorts International, the largest private gaming company in the U.S.

Barrack's Colony Capital, one of the largest private equity firms devoted solely to real estate, has racked up returns of 21 percent annually since 1990, handing investors, chiefly pension funds and college endowments, 17 percent after all fees.

Barrack bought the Fukuoka Dome, Japan's Yankee Stadium, in part because he calculated that the titanium in the retractable roof was worth as much as the purchase price.

His strategy is to buy classy but neglected properties anywhere in the world where prices are low. Then, he'll pour in capital to fix them up, and resell in them in five years of so with their pedigrees fully restored. Says his friend Donald Trump: "Tom has an amazing vision of the future, an ability to see what's going to happen that no one else can match."

Right now, Barrack's view of the U.S. market couldn't be clearer: It's a great time to sell, and a terrible time to buy.

In fact, he sees signs of the tech bubble mentality in real estate. Too much capital is chasing real estate, he explains, with hedge funds, private equity groups, and rich investors all bidding on the same properties. "They've driven prices to the point where the yields on high-quality properties are like the returns on bonds, around 5 percent or 6 percent," says Barrack. "That's too low."

And he sees the bubble deflating soon. Barrack thinks the catalyst will be a trend few others are talking about, a steep rise in the price of building materials and labor. "Construction costs have spiked 20 percent in the past nine months," he says. The reasons: Shortages of labor and materials like lumber because of the building boom, and increases in the price of oil, needed to produce everything from plastic piping to insulation to shingles.

The slump will show up first in speculative hot spots like Miami and Las Vegas, he says, where condo developers are preselling their projects for what looks like big profits. When they actually build the units over the next year or two, he predicts, they will end up spending more then the units are now selling for.

At that point, says Barrack, the developers will try to raise prices. "But most of these buyers are speculators," he says. "They will either sue the developers to get the original price or take their deposits back and walk away." The developers will then put the units back on the market, and the glut of vacant condos will drive prices down. "It's the busted deals caused by construction costs that will cause the turn in the market," he says.

So Barrack is buying just one type of property in the U.S.: Casinos. And in contrast to most gaming titans, he's doing it on the cheap.

Colony paid just $280 million for the 3000 room Las Vegas Hilton in 2003, one-tenth of what Steve Wynn paid to build his new casino, which has roughly the same number of rooms.

The reason Barrack likes casinos is that he's licensed to operate casinos in all the major markets, while most other private equity firms and other financial players don't have licenses. Hence, they're locked out of the market, and can't bid against Barrack. For Barrack, casinos are a safe, exclusive preserve, far from the frenzied melee that's makes every other part of U.S. real estate such a dangerous place to play.

For now, Barrack is getting off the field. But when the din subsides, and the amateurs depart, look for Barrack to ride back in, mallet cocked, ready to play again.

Now Is The Perfect Real Estate Market, Says HomeVestors CEO

July 3, 2007

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by Blanche Evans

HomeVestors of America Inc. CEO John P. Hayes has had enough of the popular press knocking the housing market. In the most recent USA Today, an article entitled, "Many Investors Feel Like Running Away from Homes", by Matt Krantz, suggests that by 2002, many investors were tired of the low returns from the tanking stock market -- and barraged financial advisors to sell their stocks and help them get into investment real estate properties. Now the tables have turned, says Krantz and investors want to get out of investment properties and back into stocks. Curiously, Krantz begins with two investors who made out quite well with real estate. Anticipating that real estate was going to turn, one investor sold his properties and put his money into equities. He is so well he's living off the dividends and interest and traveling around the world, but the principal came from real estate. Another investor turned a home that had appreciated three-fold in ten years into a rental property but found she didn't like being a landlord. She's had to put $56,000 back into the property and now wants to sell and move into stocks when "prices firm up." She whined to Krantz she didn't think it was worth "the headache." Did this investor not realize that properties have to be maintained and updated to continue to produce top rents? And, is there anyone out there who wouldn't be happy to take on a few renter complaints for a $340,000 profit? Cry me a river. There's a difference in being an investor and an opportunist, just as there's a difference between the professional and the dilettante. As Krantz continues, he never mentions that there are many reasons why someone would invest in real estate besides asset appreciation. Explains Dr. Hayes in a letter to USA Today's editor, "USA TODAY's analysis did not account for income from rents, depreciation tax benefits, tax-free access to accumulated equity and the underlying stability of the value. Real estate doesn't lose 50 percent of its value in a few hours or days. Investors have the ability to substantially magnify returns by using leverage." He says home price comparisons are misleading because the prices don't include the equity gained over time. "When investors consider long-term benefits in their analysis," says Dr. Hayes, "real estate has the potential to blow the market away in terms of cash-on-cash returns. It is important for the American consumer to understand the pros and cons of investing both in the stock market and in real estate." There are a few other problems with the story: Krantz quotes financial advisors, but no sources in professional real estate. That's not exactly fair and balanced when you consider that financial advisors make their money selling equities and insurance, not houses. Krantz's subjects are mostly flippers not investors. The people who bought in Florida hoping to make a killing are "miserable." Not surprisingly, their financial advisor is telling them "not to make it worse." It's being overextended that takes away liquidity and flexibility, as much as the market. Their own greed bit them in the backside, as much as the market. After all, didn't they buy those properties with the intention of sticking someone else with a higher price tag? Professional real estate investors, none of which were quoted in Krantz's article, also change their strategy to suit the market. There are some markets where flipping houses is a great way to make money, and other markets where holding, renting and selling years later are a better way to make money. Most professional real estate investors know that money is made over the long term, not by flipping, just as equities investors know that daytrading isn't as profitable as buying wisely and holding. Stocks and homes can both be solid investments, but expecting them to perform the same way is foolhardy. Homes are highly individual and must be appraised individually, have large transaction costs, depreciating materials that require maintenance, and are subject to local economies to establish values. One share of stock is the same as another and all shares are highly liquid. Homes are low risk, while stocks are high risk. In other words, comparing real estate with stocks is like comparing apples and oranges. "At my company, HomeVestors, we know hundreds of investors who are doing anything but running from real estate," says Dr. Hayes. "They are buying because they understand this is the perfect market." So what makes the perfect real estate market to an investor? "Supply is greater than demand. It's a buyer's market, and in this market there are more opportunities to buy properties at lower prices," reasons Dr. Hayes. "As investors, this is the market we wait for! At HomeVestors, we specialize in buying good properties at discount prices, even though some of the homes may be ugly. We can turn those properties into desirable homes, giving people a safe, clean, comfortable and convenient place to live."

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Copyright ©  2007 Realty Times.  All Rights Reserved.

With an award winning staff of writers providing up to the minute real estate news and advice, thousands of REALTORS^® in North America reporting daily market conditions, and a nationally broadcast television news program, Realty Times is the one-stop shop for real estate information. That's why over 10,000 real estate professionals have turned to us for their publicity needs.

The Four D's of Financial Success

The Four D's of Financial Success
By: Brian Tracy

Start From Nothing and Become Financially Independent
More than eighty percent of self-made millionaires in America began with nothing or in many cases, less than nothing. I can certainly relate to that because when I was growing up and right into my early 30s, I never had any extra money with which to start a fortune. It seemed to me that there was always enough, if not more than enough bills, to absorb every penny I earned. I was always in debt.

Be Ready for Your Opportunity
And even if a great business opportunity did come along, I wouldn't have been able to do anything with it. As I began studying financial success and self-made millionaires, I noticed that almost everyone around me was in pretty much the same boat. The idea of becoming really wealthy was a distant dream with very little possibility of coming true. You may be in the same situation, with more bills than money or assets.

Look at the Numbers
The statistics are a little scary. Of 100 people who reach retirement age, according to insurance industry statistics, only one will be wealthy. Four out of the hundred will be financially independent; fifteen will have some savings put aside. And the other 80 will be dependent on pensions, still working or broke - this after a lifetime of well-paid work in the most affluent society in human history. Now why does this happen?

Why People Retire Poor
There are two main reasons why people retire poor. First, they never decide to retire rich. They wish and hope and pray, but they never make a firm, unequivocal decision that they're going to do it. Second, even if they do decide to retire rich, they procrastinate until it's too late. They always have some good reason for putting it off.

Start With Desire and Decision
If you sincerely want to beat the odds, to achieve financial independence and retire wealthy, there are four critical steps that you must take, all starting with the letter D.

The first step is desire. You must want it badly enough to make an unshakable commitment and to be willing to make sacrifices. The second D is decision. You must make a decision right now to do whatever is necessary, to be willing to pay any price, go any distance, to achieve your goal.

Practice Determination and Discipline
The third D is determination, which is to keep at it until you succeed in spite of all the problems and obstacles you will experience. And the fourth D is discipline - the discipline to master yourself to develop the habits necessary for achieving financial independence.

Those are the four Ds. Desire, Decision, Determination and Discipline. And you can measure how successful you're going to be in the future by measuring how well you're doing in each of those on a scale of one to ten.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, make a decision, right now, that you are going to be financially independent, no matter what obstacles you face in the short term. Then write it down, make a plan and start to work on it every single day.

Second, resolve in advance that you will persist in the face of every setback or obstacle you face. You will never give up. You will keep on moving forward until you finally achieve your goal.

What Housing Bubble?

                                       

Posted by: admin, in Selling Houses                                

For years, as house equities skyrocketed in most parts of America, the media reported this as the great housing bubble; which more or less placed it into the same category of the tulip bubble of the 1600s in Holland.   It never occurred to them that nobody really needed to buy a tulip, which was a purely discretionary purchase, but that the vast majority of Americans have to buy a home. 

At some point, lenders’ underwriters began to institute “seasoning” requirements at the same time as condominium developers began to restrict sales to only those who would own and occupy their units.  The result was that some speculators began to lose money on pre-construction condominium contracts that they couldn’t flip, and couldn’t close on.

The media heralded this as the end of the line for housing as they chortled over bursting of the great housing bubble.  They overlooked a few housing facts along the way:

(1)  Only a tiny portion of the housing stock was owned by speculators; which include builders, fixer-uppers, and those who bought and sold houses as a business.

(2) Some home owner/occupants who had no real reason for selling other than to make a profit may have offered their residences at speculatively prices, but, unless they got the money they wanted, they simply refused to sell.

(3)  Although housing sales have slowed in most areas, causing a glut of houses being offered on the market, they are still selling.

(4)  Slow sales reduced brokerage commissions and builder’s profits; some of whom had to dump their inventory at discount, but this hardly made a ripple in average market prices.

(5)  As a matter of fact, year over year from August 2005 through August 2006, housing prices ROSE about 1.6%.  Reduction from historically high appreciation rates was interpreted to mean that housing was crashing. 

(6)  Most people buy houses to live in, not to speculate with; so, in areas where population is increasing along with incomes, the median priced housing market has remained strong.

(7)  Most of the slowest sales and highest price discounting has been in the luxury condominium and home markets, and in the vacation and second home markets.  These are comparatively thin markets compared to the great bulk of housing.

You may take exception to my view of things, but ask yourself, if there’s a housing panic such as would be caused by a bubble bursting; where are all the bargains?  Where are the forced lender liquidations? Where are all the houses that can be snapped up at foreclosures for fractions of their loan balances?  Where are all the home owners and builders willing to sell at discount to true market values?

The moral of this story is that, as much as the media would like to lump all housing together under banner headlines, nobody lives in a national, regional, Statewide, Countywide, or ever citywide market; they live in neighborhoods, and it is in these that houses are bought and sold.  So, before you become petrified at the thought of your house equities being wiped out by the bursting housing bubble, check out your area and verify it is actually happening.  Nuff said.

The First Hurdle in Real Estate Investing

 Date: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 @ 08:00 AM EST
Topic: Managing       

I am not a real estate guru or a seasoned investor, but I just want to maybe help one person out there who is just waiting for their first perfect property to start their investing career. I, like so many others, ordered Carlton Sheets' course looking to make millions and make it quick. But, like so many others, I read it and studied it and then put in in the closet to collect dust because I just couldn't find the right property to start. That was two years ago and until two months ago I was in the same situation in life I was when I ordered it. What stopped me two years ago, FEAR, and FEAR alone. I still don't know if I was afraid to fail or afraid to succeed. It wasn't until two months ago that I came to realize that I was in the situation in life because of me and me alone. Unless you're lucky, noone is going to take you by the hand and do your first deal for you and give you the profits just to prove to you that this stuff works. Believe me, I am not harping on anyone who hasn't found their first deal because I sat idle expecting something to happen without changing myself or my outlook on life. I think I have been clinicly insane for the past two years because the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results." I cannot emphasize this enough. YOU CAN DO IT!

Once I had made up my mind that I was going to face my fears and dive in the pool, I found that everything came alot easier than I expected. I bought my first rehab with my brother-in-law last month and I am closing on another one (myself) at the end of November. Best part about it, I haven't paid one dime for any of it because I met with a commercial banker that was so moved by my persistance to make this dream a reality that not only did he consider me a good risk, he is getting back into REI himself.

Granted, I have not sold the rehab for a profit yet but even if I don't make a dime off of this first one, all of the work was well worth the weight that has been lifted off my shoulders. I have read so many articles, forums, and success stories that would make your head spin, and I could hold up my end of a REI conversation with an experiened invester up until it was time to discuss our past deals. I have limited investing history but I could have gone the next ten years reading and studing and becoming knowledgeable about all aspects of REI but I believe you need to focus on one aspect to start and go out and DO IT. I will have years and years to incorporate "subject to", short sales, lease options, and every other concept, but I didn't need to be a master at everything to buy a rehab. I can't guarantee I will become extremely wealthy anytime soon, but now I am taking the calculated risks to find out. Like I said at the beginning of the story, if I can help just one person jump that first hurdle, then writing this story was well worth it. For the young guys out there, I am 23 years old. People will listen to you and believe in you but you have to believe in yourself first!

Best of Luck
Nick

When Bad News is Good News

 

When you look at the CASHFLOW Quadrant below, there is much more than meets the eye.

Scarcity Mentality - Kill it FAST!

                                                            

Having It All by   Dr. Wayne Dyer                          It is a simple procedure to calculate the number of seeds in an apple. But who among us can ever say how many apples are in a seed? No one—and the reason is that the answer is infinite. Endless! That is what the abundance principle is all about: endlessness. It seems a paradox, because we as human forms seem to begin and end at a specified time, and so endlessness is not a part of our experience in form. But it is difficult to imagine that the universe has any boundaries, or that it simply ends someplace. If it does, what's at the end, and what's on the other side of what's at the end? And so I suggest there is no end to the universe, and there is no end to what you can have for yourself when this principle is part of your life. A large part of who we are as human beings is formless. This part—thought—is without boundaries. And I conclude from this that we are therefore endless as well. Consequently, abundance, with its absence of limits and boundaries, is the very watchword of the universe. It applies to us as much as it does to everything else in the One song. We should be conscious of abundance and prosperity and not make scarcity the cornerstone of our lives. If we have a scarcity mentality, it means that we believe in scarcity, that we evaluate our life in terms of its lacks. If we dwell on scarcity we are putting energy into what we do not have, and this continues to be our experience of life. The theme of so many people's life story is "I simply do not have enough," or "How can I believe in abundance when my children don't have all of the clothes that they need?" or "I would be a lot happier if I had..." People believe they live a life of lack because they are unlucky, instead of recognizing that their belief system is rooted in scarcity thinking. Yet as long as they live with a scarcity mentality, that is what they will attract to their lives. Everything that it would take to eliminate scarcity in this life situation is already here in the world where we live and breathe every single day. Where else could it be? The truth is that there is enough to go around, there is an endless universe for us to work in, and we are a part of that endless universe. Once we truly know this, we will see it working for us in thousands of ways. Everyone that I have ever met who moved from a life of scarcity into a life of abundance has discovered how to believe and live this principle. I mean every single person, including myself. But how do we get rid of a scarcity mentality? The first step toward discarding a scarcity mentality involves giving thanks for everything that you are and everything that you have. That's right—give thanks, but not in some meaningless charade. Truly appreciate the miracle that you are... the fact that you are alive; that you have eyes, ears, feet; and that you are here right now in this marvelous dream. Make an effort to begin focusing on what you have, rather than on what you are missing. Nothing is missing. How could anything be missing in a perfect universe? When you begin to focus on being thankful for all that you have—the water you drink, the sun that warms you, the air you breathe, and everything that is a gift from God, you will be using your thoughts (your entire essence) to dwell on abundance and your humanity. Keep in mind that you are one cell in a body of humanity, and that cell requires harmony within in order to cooperate with the adjacent cells. As you do this, your energy will shift to the miracle of your being here. While you are focused on the miracle that you are and all that surrounds you, you cannot be focused on what you are not, and what seems missing from your world. As you practice being thankful, expand the list of things that you are thankful for. Friends and family. Clothes and food. Any money that you have. All of your possessions, every single thing that has come into your life for you to use while you are here. I mean every single thing. The pencil, the fork, the chair, everything. Begin to focus on how thankful you are to have these things in your life now, when you need them. Think of them as yours to use temporarily before sending them back into circulation. Once you train yourself to begin the process of being thankful for everyone and everything that comes your way, as well as being appreciative of your very humanity, you are on your way toward eliminating a scarcity mentality. Continued on the next page: What You Focus Your Thoughts on Expands

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About The         Author

        Dr. Wayne Dyer is the author of numerous best sellers including "Real Magic." Dr. Dyer has a doctorate in counseling psychology, and is a renown national speaker and lecturer. This article was excerpted and         reprinted with permission from "You'll See It When You Believe It" by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, 19890 published by William Morrow & Company, Inc., 105 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. 10016. Dr. Dyer can be reached by writing to: Dr. Wayne Dyer, 1905 N. Ocean Blvd., #17-C,         Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33305 USA