3 ) NO EXPERIENCE IS NECESSARY
I have earned my livelihood over the past 20 + years as a result of probate transactions . When I first started in the business , I literally knew nothing about probate . Now , after nearly 23 years of six and sevenday work weeks of experience , you , my reader , will gain much of this knowledge throughout the lessons in this book . I interact daily with numerous probate attorneys and paralegals in California and many other states . Their information and assistance has added value to my knowledge , to become your knowledge ! I learn something new every single day — not because I don ’ t know much , but rather because there is so much information in each state ’ s Probate Code , local court rules , and so forth .
The purpose of this book is to provide you with all of the basic requisite information to succeed in probate investing , without spending the next 20 + years that I have already invested in the field . I sincerely want you to achieve financial success , as many of my previous students have . My hope is that I can assist you achieve monetary success in the near future , and possibly work together with you in future financially rewarding transactions , too !
4 ) AN ENDLESS SOURCE OF LEADS
Unfortunately , people are always dying . Thus , there will always be an endless source of probate leads . For example , let ’ s say that you wanted to work only Los Angeles County for prospects . If , for some currently inexplicable reason that probate leads or investment opportunities were to dry up in Los Angeles County , you then could switch your efforts to an adjacent county , be it Orange , San Bernardino , or possibly Riverside Counties . Again , even if one county were to become temporarily unproductive , there would be no reason that other adjacent or nearby counties would be so afflicted .
Should an entire state become less or totally unproductive ( say there were some significant changes to the probate laws ), you could move your efforts or pursuits to another nearby state . Personally , Arizona has provided me several probate investment opportunities over the past few years . The point remains that you will never get tired or bored while pursuing probate leads , as these wells will never completely run dry .
5 ) LOW COST TO RESEARCH
Throughout my book on probate , I refer to the probate laws and procedures in the state of California for the basis of the information provided herein . Since 49 of the 50 states base their laws on English Common Law ( Louisiana , based on French Law , being the only exception ), I assume that the probate codes and practices in most other states are parallel to each other . Over the years in my finance business , that has certainly been true . There are many more similarities than differences between the English Common Law states in the United States .
Chapter Four provides detailed information regarding the understanding and research of probate cases . Suffice it to say , once you understand the process , you should be able to review and extract the requisite information for each case , in 5 minutes or less . At this rate , you can easily gather 10 – 12 probate cases , your new leads , per hour . This is true whether the research is done at the court itself or online . As part of your initial probate education , you may want to do the research yourself . However , once you have mastered this skill , you will want to hire an assistant to gather this data for you . If you pay this assistant about $ 12 per hour , your cost per lead is roughly $ 1 . This is very affordable , especially since this is proprietary information that you are not sharing with anyone else . Other real estate investing niches , such as foreclosure and bankruptcies , may provide database
subscriptions at a lower price per lead , but that information is sold to 50 – 100 investors each time , and possibly more . The value of your probate data , at $ 1 per lead , can and will be proven valuable over time . Since your probate competition is minimal , your results should be very costeffective when compared to other investors who rely on this aforementioned shared information .
41