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Learn More About Land at Sea!!!
This article is being posted sigline free.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/re.../19cruise.html February 19, 2006 Venturing Out on the Deep Blue Sea to Learn More About Land By VIVIAN MARINO THE annual cruises that Larry and Susan Cerrito take offer a myriad of on-board activities, from rock climbing and miniature golf to art auctions and high-stakes bingo. But the Cerritos, who are from Gilbertsville, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb, board the ship with their own itinerary. They fill their days with seminars, workshops and question-and-answer sessions, all about a subject that seems utterly unlikely on a cruise: buying and selling real estate. Instead of tossing back Bahama Mamas while observing hairy-chest contests or ice-carving demonstrations poolside with the other passengers, they are ensconced in conference rooms, hearing about Section 1031 exchanges, landlord techniques and residential rehabbing. "We don't go to take in the sights; it's more for the networking and the education we gain," said Mrs. Cerrito, 56, a retired real estate appraiser who became a full-time real estate investor last year. She and Mr. Cerrito, a 59-year-old former electrical engineer, are building a portfolio of residential properties, and they say they are always looking for new tips and strategies. The Cerritos, in fact, have been on all nine real estate cruises sponsored by the National Real Estate Investors Association, an organization in Covington, Ky., that provides services to investment clubs like the Philadelphia group to which the Cerittos belong, called Diversified Real Estate Investor Group, or DIG. Its most recent seven- day excursion, on Carnival Cruise Lines' Carnival Glory, set sail last weekend from Port Canaveral, Fla., with planned stops in Key West, Belize and Cozumel. The association is neither the first nor the only group to organize cruises with real estate themes. Similar trips are offered by Portside Investments of Reston, Va.; MrLandlord.com, a site for rental-property owners run by the investor and speaker Jeffrey E. Taylor; Louis Brown, another professional investor and speaker; and WOW! Real Estate Cruise Seminars, which feature the investor and speaker Walter Sanford. (Many of the more general investment cruises, like those run by Louis Rukeyser, sometimes include real estate investing in their curriculums as well, organizers say.) While these cruises have been around for awhile, their popularity — they usually sell out — seems to reflect the growing interest in real estate investing, especially in light of the housing boom and the stock market's volatility. "We get all types of investors; not all are members of an investment club," said Donald Beck, the cruise coordinator for the National Real Estate Investors Association, who says the breakdown of participants is evenly split between novices and veterans. But, "they're all trying to not work a 9-to-5 job," he added. "With the knowledge they get from the cruise, they might be able to make enough money so they can take future leisure cruises." The oddity of having groups of people who are passionate about real estate converging miles from terra firma is not lost on Mr. Beck or the other cruise organizers. Mr. Taylor, a pioneer in the real estate cruise concept, sees the advantages, though, of holding his seminars at sea. "A lot of mom-and-pop real estate investors have the tendencies to be workaholic types and don't take many vacations," he said. "So many people use this as an opportunity to get away without the usual distractions and to exchange ideas." That certainly has been the goal of Mark Pantak, a 48-year-old investor from Houston who has gone on six cruises with the real estate investors' association, including the one last week. "When you work as hard as I do," he said, "you need to get away where there are no phones, no stress, no deadlines." For many others, there is also the camaraderie of being around like- minded people. As Mrs. Cerrito put it, "It's nice to talk to people who don't think we're nuts." And, of course, there are the occasional business deals forged on board. The Cerritos, for example, say they met their future business partners in a condominium-conversion project in Wildwood Crest, N.J., while on a cruise two years ago. Twelve rental apartments were converted into one- and two-bedroom condos selling for $190,000 to $270,000, they said. Their partners, Paul and Margie Boutcher, who are also from the Philadelphia area, handled the construction portion, while the Cerritos arranged for the financing and took on the management duties. "We actually met him at the bar," Mr. Cerrito said of his first encounter with Mr. Boutcher, a building contractor. "He wasn't looking for a partner at the time," Mrs. Cerrito added, "but then his original partner didn't want to do the deal." "He came to us a couple months later," Mr. Cerrito said. While David and Barbara Doyle of Jacksonville, Fla., did not find a development partner, they did learn of available property, which they eventually acquired, through contacts made on a recent cruise organized by Mr. Taylor. "We were able to do a lot of networking there," said Mr. Doyle, 56, a former bubble-gum-vending-machine supplier and now a full-time real estate investor. The couple's last cruise with the MrLandlord.com crew was on Dec. 11 to 18, to Aruba from San Juan on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. It was the 16th real estate cruise organized by Mr. Taylor. This year's cruise, to the Caribbean from Fort Lauderdale, on the Holland America Line, is scheduled for Dec. 9 to 16. Most real estate cruises are arranged so that the participants, who number from 150 to 500, can share their meals and free time. They rotate their dining-room seating in order to meet as many other seminar participants and speakers as possible. The speakers include real estate professionals, from brokers and lawyers to successful investors and the occasional real estate "guru." The formats for most of the seminars are similar. The formal sessions take place only while the ship is at sea — three to four days is standard — and each session typically runs around 90 minutes, with short breaks in between and longer breaks for meals. "We don't take attendance, but most people will attend all the sessions, so that they get their money's worth," Mr. Beck said. "A lot of people do not come home with tans." It's not uncommon, too, for impromptu gatherings to spring up among the attendees in the evening hours, in individual cabins and lounges or even during on-shore excursions. Informal access to the guest speakers outside the scheduled seminar hours is fairly liberal, as well. Mr. Sanford, who has been a guest speaker on the WOW Real Estate Cruise Seminars for the last eight years, says he often receives requests for private consultations — "which I'm more than happy to do" — sometimes even while he's relaxing by the pool with his wife, Lisa, and their young daughters, Abigail and Meredith. He and other speakers will often sell products and services during the cruises, from books to boot camps, though they and the organizers insist that the speakers' wares are not promoted aggressively. "I think all of us are really sensitive to those who spend all the education time selling," Mr. Sanford said. "I myself spoke about my system for less than five minutes on the first day and never mentioned it again." The seminars at sea can provide benefits beyond kinship and investing lessons. Passengers may qualify for group discounts from regular cabin rates, with prices typically less than $5,000 a couple. On Carnival, for example, the savings are as much as $100 a person, according to Cherie Weinstein, vice president of group sales and administration. Seminar organizers, though, say the cruises aren't big moneymakers. Whatever savings are derived from bulk booking are used to offset marketing costs, said Mr. Brown, whose next cruise, to Alaska on Royal Caribbean's Radiance of the Seas, is scheduled for Aug. 10 to 19, with prices starting at $1,880 a person. "It's a loss leader for us; our profits come from land-based events," he said. Mr. Taylor agreed. "We want to make the price as close to what they would pay had they not signed up for the conference," he said, noting that prices last December started at around $1,000 a person, which included the cost of the cabin and meals, as well as the seminars. Participants may be able to deduct part of the cost of some cruises on their income tax returns, as they do for conventions and seminars held on land, though there are many restrictions imposed by the Internal Revenue Service. "Your full-time occupation should relate to real estate" to qualify for such a deduction, said Larry M. Elkin, president of the Palisades Hudson Financial Group in Scarsdale, N.Y. "The mere fact that you own a rental home probably doesn't rise to the level of a trade or business." According to I.R.S. Publication 463, each taxpayer can deduct up to $2,000 of investment cruise expenses in a calendar year, but only if the cruise seminar relates directly to his or her trade or business. Deductions are available only for cruise ships that visit United States ports and sail under an American flag. Those who think they may qualify for a deduction may want to consult a tax professional beforehand. For Elaine Kostecki, 37, a nurse from Milwaukee, and her husband, John, 39, a deduction was nice, but what they retained from their seven real estate cruises was knowledge relevant to their real estate investment business. "I picked up some good landlording tips," she said. "I learned a lot about tenant screening, and about collecting more than one month's security deposit as a means to protect you. I learned new strategies for finding property, and how to do creative deals." Indeed, Mr. Beck agreed, many participants at least "go home with a concept." "They might not understand it 100 percent, but at least they learn the concept," he said. Occasionally, too, they may go home with even more than that. "I know of at least two couples who came as singles," he added, "and now, I believe, they're married." |
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Learn More About Land at Sea!!!
Steinbrenner:
Posted your article to 'Business at Sea' thread where it was right on target. Aloha |
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Learn More About Land at Sea!!!
It was, "Mark", the illegal theft of copyright material, something that
neither you or Steinbrenner respect. -- DG in Cherry Hill, NJ "Mark O. Polo" wrote in message ... Steinbrenner: Posted your article to 'Business at Sea' thread where it was right on target. Aloha |
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