About Bill & Kim Cook
To help you better see what it takes to become a successful real estate investor, “About Us” is broken into three sections.
Frankly, who Kim and I are is not very important.But the lessons you can learn from our timeline are extremely important!
The lessons: Don’t expect to become an expert real estate investor overnight. Fact is, it will take you 10,000 hours of getting face to face with sellers and making written offers before you master creative deal structuring. So if you’re looking for instant gratification and quick, big-time riches that require little time and a token effort, stop here and move onto something else – like buying lottery tickets – because real estate investing is a waste of your time.
Remember this: Real estate investing is simple, but it’s not easy!
About Bill & Kim
Bill and Kim are a husband-and-wife real estate investing team. Bill creatively constructed his first deal in 1990 in Shreveport, Louisiana. He and Kim have been teaching other investors to do the same since 1997. They became full-time real estate investors in 1998.
Their core belief is that real estate investing is not about buying, selling, or renting houses. It’s about helping people solve their real estate problems!
Their investment portfolio consists of single-family rental homes, mobile homes, and a small mobile home park. In addition, they own notes, options, stocks, precious metals, and crypto currency.
With more than 32-years of face-to-face dealmaking experience, Bill is one of the most imaginative advanced creative deal structurers in the country. Whether you need to know how to creatively construct, or creatively fund, or creatively hold, or creatively sell a property, Bill is the person many experienced real estate investors call for help.
When it comes to advanced creative deal structuring, Bill’s focus is on Structure Stacking. With Structure Stacking, multiple creative deal structuring tools are used to make a single real estate investing transaction succeed. By using Structure Stacking, an investor can make impossible deals possible. Structure Stacking allows you to leave your competition, such that it is, in the dust.
In addition, Bill is one of a handful of real estate investors who has the know-how, skill, and experience to work with Pure Options. Less than 1% of the real estate investing world has ever heard of a Pure Option, even though it’s one of the most effective deal structuring tools in the business. For over 20 years, Bill has used Pure Options to generate cash flow, profit and to protect his and Kim’s assets.
Bill and Kim built their business square on the back of knocking on homeowners’ doors. Why? Because it’s the fastest, cheapest and most effective way to get face-to-face with homeowners and make written offers. For over 50 years, since 1972, Bill has made his living knocking on homeowners’ doors and being invited in.
In 2022, Jackie Lange handed the reins of CashFlowDepot.com to Bill and Kim. This site is home to all of Jack Miller’s teaching material. Content wise, for real estate investors and creative deal structuring, there’s no other website on earth that can match it!
For 14 years, Bill and Kim founded and ran North Georgia REIA in Cartersville, Georgia. With more than 2,400 members, it was one of the largest and most successful real estate investing groups in the country.
For 13 years, Bill wrote a weekly syndicated real estate investing newspaper column.
Bill is quick to point out that he and Kim are standing on the shoulders of creative dealmaking giants. Jack Miller, Peter Fortunato, and Dyches Boddiford have been their primary real estate investing teachers since the 1990s. Add to this mix John Schaub and David Tilney. Most of what they know they learned from these incredible creative deal structurers!
To learn more about Bill and Kim, to see other courses they teach, to see their many videos about advance creative deal structuring, and to watch interviews with some of the best, most experienced real estate investors in the country, please visit BillandKimCook.com.
You are welcome to call Bill with your deal-structuring questions. His phone number is 770-815-8727.
Website: BillandKimCook.com
Facebook Page: Bill and Kim Cook
YouTube Channel: Bill and Kim Cook
Our Timeline
Why is our timeline important to you? It’s important to see we all learn how to invest in real estate in bits and pieces, over a long period of time. There’s no such thing as an “experienced” investor who has been investing for less than five years. Likewise, there’s no single real estate investing course that will teach you everything there is to know about real estate investing.
Picture a cake with many, many layers. Every time you meet with a seller, another layer of a cake is added. With every written offer you make, your cake grows taller. With each deal you do, higher still. With each real estate investing seminar you attend, the number of layers increase. Then one day, you realize with utter surprise, your cake is 100 stories tall!
Another reason this timeline is important is because it lays bare the fact that most of us, every time we attempt something new, come face to face with fear. The ones who succeed are the ones who learn to manage this fear and keep marching forward toward their dreams.
Look at our timeline, realize it took Kim and me more than 10 years to become competent at creative deal structuring.
Is your goal to become a successful real estate investor? Then be willing to pay the price and be willing to accept this one fact: There are no shortcuts to success!
Our real estate investing timeline begins in 1990:
1990: Bill negotiated his very first creatively constructed deal. He sold his grandmother’s house in Shreveport, Louisiana by offering owner financing with staggered monthly payments and a three-year balloon. This first deal scared the heck out of Bill.
1996: Bill and Kim made the decision to buy 10 single-family-rental homes over the next 20 years to help them be able to live comfortably during their retirement years. The idea of owning and managing rental homes scared the heck out of them.
1997: After making lots of written offers and flipping several houses, they bought their first single-family-rental home. Buying their first rental property scared the heck out of them.
1997: Because their friends kept asking them “how to” real estate investing questions, they formed the Cherokee County Subgroup for Georgia REIA. They didn’t know the answers to most of the questions they were asked. However, they would investigate and get back to the questioners with the answers. By answering questions, Bill and Kim’s knowledge level rapidly increased. Helping others to be real estate investors scared the heck out of….well, you get the idea…each knew thing we attempted scared the heck out of us!
1997: Bill began teaching others how to knock on seller’s doors and make written offers.
January 1, 1998: Bill quit his J-O-B and became a full-time real estate investor. To make sure they could afford to put food on the table, Kim kept her job at her dad’s pawn shop and beauty shop.
1998: They discovered three incredible real estate investing teachers: Jack Miller, Pete Fortunato and Dyches Boddiford. From that day to this, they attend most every class these men teach. (Note: Jack Miller passed in 2009.)
1998: Did their first Subject-to Deal.
1998: Bought their first property at a foreclosure auction.
1998: Did their first Structure Stacking Deal.
1998: Bill set up his first S Corporation
1999: Did their first 121 Deal.
1999: Bought their first Owner-Carry Deal.
1999: Got their first Private-Money Loan.
1999: Did their first Master Lease Deal
1999: Bill used a T-bar for the first time
1999: Bill set up his first LLC
1999: Bill set up his first Land Trust
1999: Bill set up his first Personal Property Trust
2000: After buying and moving to a 34-acre property in 1999, Bill and Kim spent all of 2000 turning the property into a beautiful horse ranch.
2001: Did their first Lease/Option Deal.
2001: Did their first Master Lease with Purchase Option Deal.
2001: Got their first Right-of-First-Refusal Option.
2001: Bought and were assigned their first institutional promissory note.
2001: Did their first Cash-for-Keys Deal.
2001: Kim did her first Short Sale. This was before the term “short sales” existed. By 2007, she became one of the most successful short sellers in the country. At one point, Kim went 6 years without losing a short sale!
2002: Kim quit her J-O-B and became a full-time real estate investor.
2002: Bill and Kim founded North Georgia REIA in Cartersville, Georgia. Over time, their REIA grew to 2,400 members.
2002: Began publishing The Equity. This real estate investing newsletter grew into a 28-page monthly real estate investing newspaper. It was subscribed to by investors nationwide.
2002: Bill did his first Pure Option Deal.
2002: For the first time, helped an owner modify her institutional mortgage.
2002: Did their first Wrap Mortgage Deal.
2003: Bill began writing a weekly real estate investing newspaper column for the Daily Tribune in Cartersville, Georgia. Over the next 13 years, his column was syndicated to a number of other newspapers.
2003: Made their first Hard Money Loan.
2003: Used a Performance Note for the first time.
2003: Used an Equity Sharing Note for the first time.
2003: Did their first cross collateralization mortgage.
2003: Bill made his first Teeter-totter Offer
2004: Bill and Kim began teaching door knocking and creative deal structuring classes nationwide.
2004: For the first time, Bill used an interesting technique to sell his flip properties for cash. He foreclosed on himself and sold the properties at the foreclosure auction.
2004: Walked a mortgage for the first time.
2004: Bill combined the T-bar and Teeter-totter Offer into one document.
2005: For the first time, they sold a house for well below market and in return got a Buy Back Option.
2005: Used a Performance Lease for the first time.
2006: Bill began fighting his property taxes and winning! Through 2021, he’s appealed his property taxes 152 times and won 129 times. This is an 85% winning percentage. Who says you can’t fight city hall and win?
2006: Bill and Kim brought Terrah Whitlock on board to be office manager.
2006: Began using Security Deeds and Mortgages to secure their options.
2007: Did their first Deed for Note Deal.
2007: For the first time used a note as collateral for a loan they needed.
2008: Did their first Lonnie Deal.
2008: Did their first Second Bite of the Apple Deal.
2008: For the first time sold a property by giving owner financing.
2009: Bought their first mobile home park.
2010: For the first time used an option as collateral for a loan they needed.
2012: Bill, along with Dyches Boddiford and Pete Fortunato, taught What Box? for the first time.
2013: Bill and Kim, along with Dyches Boddiford, Dorsie Boddiford and Pete Fortunato, launched the first of eight yearly Captains of the Deal real estate investor cruises.
2015: In December, they closed North Georgia REIA. Bill also ended his weekly syndicated real estate investing newspaper column.
2015: Did their first Dorsie Deal.
2016: Sold their 5th wheel and bought a motorhome.
2016: Bill and Kim, because they wanted to travel extensively in their motorhome, decided to sell a large portion of their single-family rental homes. In 2016 & 2017, they sold 28 of their 35 investment properties. One of these homes was sold for cash, the rest were sold with owner financing. In other words, with the 27 properties they sold and carried back the note, Bill and Kim went from receiving monthly rent checks to receiving monthly mortgage checks.
2017: Converted their HSA account to self-direct.
2017: They began wintering in Largo, Florida to spend lots of time with Pete Fortunato.
2018: Sold their horse ranch and moved into their motorhome full time and began traveling around the country nonstop.
2019: Along with Derek and Tracy Dombeck, they formed RV REIA. It meets in June of each year.
2020: After eight fun-filled years, Captains of the Deal, hosted by Bill, Kim, Dyches Boddiford, Dorsie Boddiford and Pete Fortunato, sailed for the last time.
2020: Bill Cook and Vena Jones-Cox began teaching Ultimate Creative Deal Structuring Workshop. It’s the best intermediate creative deal structuring course in the country.
2021: Used a Paper Holding Trust for the first time.
2021: Began using ACH for the first time.
2021: Set up their first Solo 401Ks with Roth Component.
2021: Bill appealed his property taxes to Bartow County Superior Court and requested (and got) a jury trial. Going back 25 years, no one remembers a taxpayer doing this in Bartow County before. Bill won one appeal and lost two. He’s been successfully fighting his property taxes since 2006!
2022: Bill and Kim decided to move back to Bartow County, Georgia for the next few years. Their goal is to do five 121 Deals by 2030.
2022: Because Landlords have sold their single-family rental properties in record numbers, which has lead to a HUGE shortage of single-family rentals, Bill and Kim decided to add 10 to 20 more investment properties to their rental portfolio.
2022: One of the creative financing structures Bill and Kim will employ to reach their 2022 goal of acquiring 10 to 20 more investment properties, is to trade their 27 secured Promissory Notes they received in 2016 & 2017 into new rental property. In other words, in 2016 & 2017, Bill and Kim moved from houses to paper. In 2022, they will begin moving from paper back into houses.
2022: Bill decided to make 1,000 written offers, mostly from door knocking, between June 1, 2022 and August 31, 2022. The goal is to acquire 10 to 20 more investment properties this year.
2022: Bill began teaching his two-day, Power of Pure Options seminar. It’s a one-of-a-kind creative deal structuring seminar, and the only course like it in the country.
2022: Bill began teaching a one-day seminar about how to fight your property taxes and win. He has been successfully fighting his property taxes since 2006. Through 2021, Bill has fought his property taxes 152 times and has won 129 times. This is an 85% winning percentage!
2022: Bill and Kim formed Ski REIA. It meets at the end of March each year in Park City, Utah.
2022: Bill and Kim formed Scuba REIA. It meets at different diving locations each September.
Conclusion
From our timeline, the main lesson to take away is that in 1990 we knew NOTHING about real estate investing. Our cake wasn’t even one layer high. Every new step we took terrified us. Still, we kept moving forward!
Being scared isn’t a dream killer as long as it doesn’t paralyze you, as long as it doesn’t prevent you from taking action.
Look closely at our timeline. Notice that year by year Kim and I learned new creative deal structuring techniques. Each year we added more tools to our creative deal structuring toolbox.
Real estate investing in general, and creative deal structuring in particular, has its own language. Like any language, to learn it requires time, practice, and emersion.
We receive many calls from investors who are stuck in a rut because they can’t find any deals. Asking two questions, just two questions, allows us to cut right to the heart of their problem:
Question #1: How many written offers have you made to sellers in the past 30 days?
Question #2: How many written offers have you made to sellers in the past 12 months?
At least 99% of the time, their answers to these two questions are zero or a number very, very close to zero.
Want to succeed at real estate investing? You must regularly go out and find people to help and problems to solve. Combine this with making a lot of written offers! Real estate investing is a very simple business, but it’s not easy. Never confuse “simple” and “easy.” Never confuse “busy work” with “effective work.”
For us, the two most important numbers we track is the number of written offers we’ve made this month, and the number of written offers we’ve made this year. If either of these two numbers is low, quite simply, we’re failing.
One more thing, surround yourself with positive, like-minded people. There will be many who will tell you the thing you’re attempting is impossible. They are 100% wrong! Nothing is impossible. Everything is doable. What they mean to say is YOUR goal is IMPOSSIBLE for THEM. Stay away from naysayers!
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I found three teachers who were instrumental in helping me develop a very positive outlook on life. They were Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn and Wayne Dyre. Find teachers who help you to see the best side of life.
We wish you God’s speed. You’re always welcome to give me a call. My number is 770-815-8727. Now go out and meet with some sellers and begin the conversation with Pete Fortunato’s famous question: “Why do you want to sell such a nice house like this?”
Love,
Bill and Kim Cook
