Sep. 1, 2006 Edition

HomeVestors Welcomes New Vendors

New ways to help you grab -- and keep -- their attention As a value-added service to our franchise system, HomeVestors believes it’s important to align with companies that provide a benefit to our franchisees, saving time and money in day-to-day business activities. HomeVestors' Preferred Vendors support HVA through their programs and contributions. Utilizing the services of Preferred Vendors benefits your business and helps strengthen the HVA vendor program. HomeVestors has recently partnered with two new vendors: RPM Graphics Inc. Promote your business everywhere you go! “We just got the van and it is awesome! We are already getting phone calls.” -- Robert J. Sturrock, Riverhouse Investments, Milwaukee, WI, commenting about his new wrapped van that promotes the HomeVestors brand. RPM Graphics Inc. specializes in one of the fastest-growing forms of advertising in the country: vehicle wraps. When averaged over the life of the wrap, there is virtually no form of advertising that can give you this kind of return for less than a few bucks a day. A vehicle wrap consists of a large digitally printed and laminated cast vinyl piece that is applied directly onto your vehicle. Wraps usually last three to five years on the vehicle, and are removable. Your vehicle wrap will create a mobile billboard that tells people, “HEY, This is what we DO.” RPM Graphics extends a preferred relationship and volume discount in both printing and design for HomeVestors franchisees. Visit their Web site at www.rollingpromotion.com. If you would like to place an order to get a vehicle wrapped, or you need more information, here's how to proceed: Call 1.800.957.7875 to talk with a wrap expert or e-mail info@rollingpromotion.com. Make sure to let them know you are member of the  HomeVestors franchise network. Your individual advertising consultant will answer your questions and help to identify your advertising goals and the best way to achieve those goals with vehicle wraps. A customized quote will be created for each individual client. Upon acceptance of the quote a credit card will be needed to place a deposit on the project. A designer will then contact you regarding your design layout. If a layout has already been approved by HomeVestors corporate for the same make of vehicle, and you like that layout, there will only be a small set up fee to customize the graphic for your location. This can potentially save your hundreds of dollars. Upon final art approval by you and HVA corporate, RPM will coordinate printing, shipping, and installation. You will then be off and running with your own rolling promotion. PureAyre® Odors can be a major problem when trying to prepare a house for sale. A smelly home usually means a lower sales price or a prolonged selling cycle. But the use of ineffective and dangerous ozonators or chemical masking agents cannot solve most odor problems, and modern homebuyers know when a seller is trying to cover up a problem. PureAyre® has developed a powerful yet safe product that will eliminate all odors associated with modern living, will work fast, and does not require special equipment and safety precautions. For these reasons, Clean Earth, Inc. developed the PureAyre line of powerful and safe odor elimination products. Formulated in their Seattle manufacturing plant and based on proprietary NZ™ biotechnology, PureAyre naturally and powerfully eliminates all odors found in homes today including pet and human odors, cigarette smoke, burnt food, glues, paints, even gasoline, diesel and other petroleum odors. Get rid of pet odors, bathroom odors, cat box, cigar smoke, and all food odors including garlic and fish. Clean Earth, Inc. is offering HomeVestors franchisees a 20% discount on all orders plus “free shipping” anywhere in the U.S. for case orders. PureAyre can be sprayed, fogged, injected onto and into the air, furniture, carpets, and foam furniture products. PureAyre can even be added to water in mop buckets to clean and deodorize as you wash walls, carpets, etc. There is no need to wear personal protective equipment because PureAyre has a Food Grade safety rating. PureAyre cannot harm pets--not even sensitive birds. Clean Earth, Inc. has developed an encyclopedic knowledge of how to eliminate all the odors you may find in a modern home or office. Utilizing the powerful technology in PureAyre products, Clean Earth has converted hotel smoking rooms into non-smoking rooms in four hours so that the room could be rented that same day! Fishy smells emanating from the old freezer in the garage? Gone! Cigar smoke saturating the den? Problem gone! Cat box and cat urine? Handled! If you have questions call 1-877-787-3297 or contact PureAyre via its Web site, www.pureayre.com. Please identify yourself as a HomeVestors franchisee.

Buddies, Business And A Housing Boom

Spotlight: TRED Properties By Jacy Cochran Jeff Burrell, Rich Drake and Jim Youngblood (l-r) accept an award from Ken Channell. They've known one another their whole lives. They grew up together. They went to kindergarten together. They played football and baseball together. They went into business together. And they have all become millionaires together. That's the story of Jim Youngblood, Jeff Burrell and Rich Drake in a nutshell. And today they owe their collective comfortable futures to HomeVestors of America, Inc. But things could have gone very differently for these Houston residents. The three longtime friends started off in college at Sam Houston State University. Then Drake left to join the Navy, Youngblood transferred to Texas A&M, and Burrell stayed put to finish school. There was a good chance the trio would never team up again. That all changed when Youngblood started investing in Houston real estate on his own in 1995. He needed money to buy houses, so he contacted Drake, who was stationed in Seattle and borrowed $25,000. Two months later, Youngblood paid back the loan with an additional $6,000 in interest. Drake was soon asking how he did it. In no time, Drake was buying houses in Seattle and by the time he got out of the Navy, the two friends had gone into business together in Houston. Their real estate success thrived as long as they had money to buy houses. So they contacted Burrell, who was working for an insurance company in Houston, and asked to borrow some money. The business continued to do well, and the twosome then became a threesome in a company they named Texas Real Estate Developments. "We were driving around and writing addresses down for boarded-up houses the old-fashioned way," Youngblood said. "The hard way," Drake added. But that's not how they operate today. Things drastically changed when Drake went to a fraternity party and ran into Brownie Lott, a franchisee for HomeVestors and the son-in-law of HomeVestors' late founder, Ken D'Angelo. "The next business day, Richard and I were on our way to Dallas to talk to Ken and discuss buying a franchise," Youngblood said. HomeVestors offered them the biggest thing they needed -- money -- to buy houses in big volume. "We would have signed up that day, but we had to wait 10 days by law before we could sign our Franchise Agreement." It was well worth the wait, considering the impact that HomeVestors had on their business and on the entire Houston market. "The first year that we bought houses on our own, we bought seven houses," Youngblood said. "The first year we joined HomeVestors, we bought 75 houses." In 1997 they became the first HomeVestors franchise in the Houston market, TRED Properties, and were named Rookie of the Year for the entire franchise network. Buying, rehabbing and selling houses was only the beginning. Since 2000, TRED Properties has accumulated over 300 rental properties and become a partial owner of two other HomeVestors franchises in Beaumont and San Antonio. They've worked hard to get to their level of success. "People just don't realize that there's a lot of background and homework that goes into our business," Drake said. "There's risk every time. It's not just buying and selling houses. They don't think of all of the little things that running a business entails." HomeVestors, however, provides a blueprint to follow. "Being with HomeVestors gives you the vehicle and information you need to be a successful investor in buying and selling properties," Youngblood said. "We plan on being with HomeVestors a long time." Just not in the office as much. Now, at 39, all three men are beginning to contemplate the easy life. With a solid franchise system in place, they are restructuring the home office where they currently employ 15 people so that one of the three owners can always be off at any given time. And they're enjoying the fruits of their labor and the greater brand awareness that 14 HomeVestors franchise locations have brought to the Houston area. "It's very exciting, because today there isn't one person in Houston that doesn't recognize UG or We Buy Ugly Houses," Youngblood said. "As far as buying houses, we have a lot more competition than we did  ten years ago. We've helped increase our competition because everybody wants to do what we're doing. But HomeVestors still buys more houses than anybody else." . . . Jacy Cochran is an account executive for BizCom Associates, which provides public relations for HomeVestors of America.

Success In A Jiffy

Former Jiffy Lube franchisee joins HVA franchise network By Monica Feid David Macchia If David Macchia's track record is any indication, his new career is going to burn rubber. Macchia went from 300 employees and 300,000 customers a year to just six employees and six customers in the last four months. And he calls the change "way more enjoyable." That's how Macchia describes the difference between owning 18 Jiffy Lube franchises in five states and owning one HomeVestors franchise in his hometown of Westminster, MA, near Boston. "The sheer stress level of keeping that many customers happy is tough," Macchia said of his 20-year career with Jiffy Lube. After starting as a technician at age 18, Macchia was a franchisee by 21. He quickly learned the ropes of the business, bought out his franchise partners after a few years and grew a multi-unit operation with Jiffy Lube throughout Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont. His quick lube business was, excuse the pun, a well-oiled machine. So, in November of 2005, when a buyer made the right offer, Macchia sold his locations and entertained dreams of early retirement with his wife and two daughters. The easy life lasted all of two months. After some traveling, Macchia found himself at home, staring at the walls, looking for something to do. That's when his hobby of buying, rehabbing and selling distressed houses turned into a second introduction to franchising. Over the years during Macchia's many travels to Jiffy Lube's international headquarters in Houston, he saw some interesting "We Buy Ugly Houses" billboards. He found the same slogan staring at him on trips to Florida. When he discovered that it was the branding campaign behind the HomeVestors franchise, he inquired about opening a location for Worchester County. But the franchise concept had not yet expanded that far northeast. Fate intervened when HomeVestors, now with a franchise network of more than 250 locations in the U.S., decided to begin selling franchises in Massachusetts around the same time Macchia was growing bored with his so-called retirement. By May, Macchia was a full-fledged HomeVestors franchisee. When asked about his new career, he said, "It's so much more rewarding." And for a man who is financially free to do anything he wants, that was a prerequisite. "I don't have to work," Macchia said. "So for this to work for me, I told my wife, I had to enjoy it." What's the best part of his business? "At Jiffy Lube an average customer would spend $50," he said. He had 300,000 of them to please and a growing list of competitors trying to get in the way. At HomeVestors, the average house in his market is $300,000, and he's the only franchise in the industry offering his services. "All of your focus is on one sizeable investment," Macchia said. "And you could earn five figures, maybe six off of that one investment." He said it's much easier to put his energy, his passion, and his time into that kind of business. Both jobs can be dirty. And rehabbing a house can take a lot longer than changing a car's oil. But the beautiful results in the neighborhood are worth the effort. Macchia has already purchased seven houses since joining HomeVestors, turning his hobby into a real business -- a business he enjoys. . . . Monica Feid of BizCom Associates handles public relations services for HomeVestors and its franchisees.