S.E.C. Real Estate Observer

In many “problem solving” meetings conducted by real estate brokers and salesmen, a property will be presented and inevitably someone will say, “What’s it worth?”
Insofar as the writer is concerned, this is a meaningless question. Price, value and worth have to be connected to a person. The same property will have a different value and [...]

The Society of Exchange Counselors has a long, illustrious history as leaders in creative real estate, exchanging and counseling spanning 42 years. Throughout that history, S.E.C. members have always considered themselves as family and lived the “Work Hard, Play Hard” philosophy that is the hallmark of successful people everywhere.
Two founding S.E.C. members perhaps personify this [...]

“I’ve done a lot of things, been in a lot of businesses, I’ve lived on the edge. I’m completely self-educated and not a Democrat. I didn’t vote for Clinton. If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
Jim Keller, Newport Beach, California, 1994.
Jim Keller was born in Reno, Nevada in the depths of the Great Depression. His [...]

The S.E.C. Education Foundation, a non-profit 501 C-3 affiliate of the Society of Exchange Counselors, awarded grants to three major university real estate programs in 2003 as part of the Society’s “University Outreach Program.”
Indiana University, Wichita State University and the University of Nevada Las Vegas were each recipients of grants awarded to their respective real [...]

The S.E.C. Education Foundation announces:
“Development and Syndication: Big Money Brokerage”
The two- day workshop that will change your life!
Presented by Chet Allen, S.E.C., CCIM, EMS
Chet Allen, S.E.C., CCIM, EMS, is a Builder, Developer, and Contractor. Chet has an Economics Degree from Stanford University, is the President of Greyhawk, Inc.; winner of the CCIM Campbell Award, “Best [...]

The S.E.C. Education Foundation continues to sponsor successful education programs throughout the nation.
S.E.C. Instructors Mark Johnson and Phil Corso taught their “Broker Estate Building” program to a sold out audience in Wichita, Kansas in October. Presented by the Wichita Board of Realtors and CCIM Chapter, in association with Wichita State University Center for Real Estate, [...]

“Character means doing the right thing when nobody’s watching…”
One of the clichés one hears often among baseball fans is that “Baseball is Life”… a reflection of the values to which most of us subscribe and a metaphor reflecting some simple principles that, if followed, will help those who understand to carry forward the life lessons [...]

The classic formula for the successful land developer is to estimate your land cost, development cost, marketing cost, closing cost, holding cost, profit estimate and retail sales prices on the development. After this has been done, you can work this formula backwards to determine the maximum land cost you can afford to pay for the [...]

Ed Berlinski, S.E.C., CCIM, is actively engaged in commercial and general real estate brokerage in his home community of Rochester, N.Y. He is also a private real estate financier who provides funds to assist in closing a transaction or solving a short-term need for cash.
Ed visited with the publisher of the S.E.C. Real Estate Observer [...]

I was thinking recently about the old formulas and how some of them are timeless. In reviewing the formulas, I realized that our G5 team (G5 Enterprises, Inc.) has been acquiring properties for the past few years based on someone else using the “Un-built Building” formula. Here is the formula.
Un-built Building
If a building lot won’t [...]