Bill Tan

I dedicate the last blog post of each month to real estate and this month's real estate post will feature the interview I had with Bill Tan. Bill is a real estate investment expert with 25 years of experience. Bill is the president of the San Diego Creative Investors Association and Asian REIA. Bill spoke at my FIBI (For Investors By Investors) Pasadena meeting and I wanted to share here, some of the valuable information Bill shared at that meeting. 

Bill prides himself on being a transaction engineer (Transactioneer) using techniques and strategies to put together deals that others wouldn't see as an opportunity. When he was younger Bill took a no-money-down class and he was able to find and acquire properties easily. What that class didn't teach him was their techniques resulted in negative cash flow and he didn't learn to be a property manager. He quickly found out that his tenants knew the game better than he did. When he sold those properties he used a lease option where people could lease until they were able to purchase. His failing early and hard forced him to get creative on how to sell. 

I shared with Bill that I remember when I took some serious losses and then finally one day I decided I'm not going to walk away from real estate but that I'd bear down and stay, learn, and work on the industry I love. Bill says he doesn't like to lose, so what drove him was winning in real estate and he developed a passion for it along the way. 

Bill explained that an option in real estate is simply a contract by which a land owner gives the future buyer the right to buy their land at a fixed price at a specified time. The buyer may choose not to buy if the value decreases, which is called a unilateral agreement because the decision to buy or not buy is completely up to the buyer. This allows for anyone to control future profits and ownership. 

One of the main ways people use options, especially if they don't have a lot of money, is in the buying of real estate. Many real estate contracts have options in them in the form of a contingency clause. You have the option to pursue it or walk away from the deal. People use options to fix and flip, and in conjunction with a lease where you rent a property today and you can acquire it today or tomorrow and you can lease it for a long period of time with the option to buy it in the future. 

One of the best parts about an option is you can put money down on a property today and you the buyer and the seller can share the future appreciation value. 

Bill Tan can be reached at 760.634.0492 and his email is [email protected] and he has a Powerpoint handout available he will share with you via email.