There are a few twists in the story as you get deeper in the book that you probably won't expect, and certainly there are lessons that will open your eyes to opportunity the main stream media doesn't ever talk about.

So...with that said, enjoy reading this early release of the Introduction Chapter (just below the comments) to the new book CASH IN.  Scroll down and enjoy...

About 50 minutes ago I pulled through the passenger pick-up lane at Denver International Airport and Nick and Ben, who had been standing on the curb for less than 5 minutes jumped in and we headed toward the city.

I’ll give you the inside scoop on exactly who they are and what they were doing in Denver in just a minute, but first, I need to start our story at the corner of Dichter Court and Hoyt Drive in Thornton, CO.

Nick was riding shotgun in my late model supercharged Jaguar XJR and Ben was in the back seat. We had just turned northbound onto Hoyt as I reached across the cab of the car…

“I flipped that house with one of my local private money lenders.” I said pointing to the corner.

“I bought it for about $80,000, put about $18,000 into the repairs and sold it for $145,000 in around 90 days.”

My arm swung the other direction and I continued.

I flipped that one to a local landlord and made a quick $8 grand.

I rehabbed that one over there and made around $29,000.

I sold this one on the left wholesale to another rehabber for a quick $6,000 profit.

We had just driven down the first block of my strategically mapped tour and I had already squarely established my expertise in the market.

On that first block, I had clearly demonstrated my ability to find good deals and I had proved that I knew how to cash in on real estate and make a profit.

That was my plan.

My plan was to earn their confidence and win their backing.

My plan was working.

It was February 2008.

The financial and real estate markets were collapsing.

Real estate investors, financial investors, banks and the general public were doing just about everything they could to run for the hills and stop what most people saw as an economic free fall.

I had a different plan.

As prices were dropping, banks were failing and investors were trying to get out of real estate, I wanted to go “all in”, more and bigger than I ever had before.

That’s were Nick came into the picture.

Nick was the fund manager that started and ran a $175,000,000 (yep, 175 million dollar) real estate fund on the east coast that partnered with experienced and proven real estate operators by providing all the capital.

In return for access to his capital (the money), the real estate operators he worked with split a portion of the profits with his fund.

This was the first time Nick and I had ever met face to face.

At the time, he was exclusively investing his fund as the money guy backing several retail, hotel and commercial investment properties.

But, for reasons that will be made clear later, he had a sense that there was a big opportunity to participate in and back a real estate operator with experience in a residential real estate.

That’s why we were meeting.

About 2 months earlier, a friend of mine, also in real estate, had attended a Christmas party.

It turned out that my friend was sitting next to and talking with Mike, an experienced commercial real estate developer. My friend was an experienced residential broker.

Over dinner and drinks, the conversation turned to the economy, Wall Street and real estate; and that’s when Mike said, “There has to be a way to cash in on all the turmoil in residential real estate right now.”

That single comment started a landslide.

My buddy replied, “I know just the guy you need to meet.”

A week and a half later the three of us were sitting for lunch at a table at The Cherry Tomato in Cherry Creek here in Denver.

Our lunch TOPIC: How to CASH IN on the housing market crash.

Over lunch, I shared what I was already doing.

I shared my approach to real estate, the strategies I was using, how I was finding and getting deals already and what I believed some of the bigger opportunities were.

Mike shared his desire to take advantage of it.

As an astute financial guy and commercial developer, he could smell it, but he didn’t know how to get in the middle of the opportunity because he had never invested in residential real estate.

I had.

And I knew exactly what we needed to do.

We needed to bring our skills together.

Because of his commercial background, Mike had access to an inside track on money that I didn’t have.

And, I understood how to source deals, run the right type of evaluations, select the right properties, run rehab crews and turn profits in residential real estate.

If we put the right structure together, we could blend his access to capital and my experience as a residential real estate investor. Together, we could cash in bigger than either of us might be able to do alone.

At least that was the conclusion we walked away with after our first lunch.

We were right.

Fast-forward several months and the money guys, Nick and Ben were sitting in my jag; driving around Denver and sizing up their opportunity as a direct result of the work Mike and I put in after our first meeting.

I’ll share everything with you.

But before I go any further, I want to cut the story short right here, at least for right now.

We did a lot of things really, really right but we certainly did a few things wrong too.

We launched our fund and started buying.

We scaled to the point we were buying as many as 22 houses a month.

Life and business could not have been better.

Life and business were so good in fact; that I got comfortable.

And that, my friends, comfort, might very well be the single cause of what I am convinced to this day was my $30 Million dollar mistake.

I was cashing in.

We were cashing in.

Everything was working.

And I believe that blinded me.

I was so focused on the here and now and so focused on the plan that I had put in motion (that was working really well), that I didn’t see a smarter, easier, more profitable approach.

That’s what this book is about.

I won’t make the same mistakes again.

I don’t want you to make these mistakes either.

I’ve put things in place in my real estate business that will allow me to fully capitalize on the next housing market crash.

I’m doing the things now that I didn’t even know to do last time.

There’s nothing secret about it.

There’s nothing special about it.

There’s no reason you can’t do it too.

Truth is, I’ve just been through it, have gained experience and I’m writing this book to share my lessons.

I’m writing it as much for me as I am for you. I want my kids, my grandkids and my great-grandkids to be able to tap into the lessons I’ve learned and apply them (if they choose to) at some point in the future.

I want them to see that when two or more groups of people with a similar goal find a way to work together (in this case, my business as the Real Estate Operator and Nick's fund as the Capital Partner), great things can happen for everyone.

I want them to realize, no matter which side of the fence they sit on in the future (the active operator or the passive capital), forces combined often lead to bigger, better results than trying to do and learn it all alone.

Real estate markets go up and down in cycles, so whether you’re reading this shortly after it’s first released, or at some time in the future, the strategies and lessons you’ll learn can be applied.

These lessons are evergreen.

Let’s go CASH IN.

In order for you to take full advantage of the next housing market crash, I think it’s important that we start by looking back at history.

If we don’t, I’m afraid you may not fully grasp exactly how you can personally cash in when the next big opportunity stares you in the face. And, if I miss that, I’ll have failed my goal in writing this book.

In transparency, I missed it during the last crash.

Yes, I took advantage of the last crash and made both my capital partners and myself a lot of money. As you’ll see, I certainly could have done better, with much less effort.

One of my failures at the time was that I didn’t understand how truly beneficial it would have been to dive in and study the history of the two most recent housing market crashes as a guide to plan my path forward.

History is an amazing thing.

I imagine that if my father had still been living, he would have helped me see the bigger opportunity. With him gone, I had to figure it out on my own.

This chapter is going to start setting the tone, introduce topics and ideas and open doors that we will explore and explain throughout the rest of this book.

I won’t fully unpack everything we discuss in each chapter immediately, but each chapter will build on the last. And, by the end of this book, you’ll not only have the foundation, but also a full framework that you can build on going forward.

Ok, let’s get started.

I was having lunch at 240 Union Restaurant in Lakewood, CO in late 2007 shortly after the housing market was in an obvious free fall...[ TO BE CONTINUED ]