Flipping Southeast Wisconsin

Happy Thanksgiving!!

2010-11-24T13:06:00.000-08:00

Hello all! I hope everyone is getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow! For the past couple weeks, our family has been telling each other what we are thankful for in our lives. It's pretty funny what the girls come up with but it's a great exercise! Anyhoo, I just wanted to check in and give an update....

Tonight I have an appointment with a local broker about hanging my license with him. I spoke with him last week and gave him a quick "snapshot" of what I wanted. He seems pretty open so we'll see what he has to say tonight. I'm sure it will be quick because of the holiday tomorrow!

Next week I have a meeting with Brian, which I'm looking forward to. I told him I'm feeling a sense of "analysis paralysis"-Yuck! It's strange... I thought it would be easy changing markets but, boy howdy, was I wrong.

I found a few houses that may be good leads. One seems like a great deal but it's been on the market for 50 days? Hmmm... I did my market analysis and will be going to look at it on Friday, I hope. It's hit or miss these days on when I get the LB numbers.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have a property locked up in a couple of weeks for a winter project! I'll keep ya posted!

Again, I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

Finding a lot of "TOM"'s

2010-11-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

The property I wrote about in my last blog, with the collapsed wall, is a "TOM" (temporarily off the market). I was just about to send my offer out last Monday and thought, "hmmm, I should see if it's still active?!". It wasn't... it was expired. I called the listing agent and she told me the house is TOM. There are a few others I've had interest in and then found out they were off the market too. I have been told that the listing agents are still taking offers but holding them until the bank is ready to move on them again. I'll be honest, I'm a little frustrated BUT I know it's just a matter of time before I hit something! I guess I'm just inpatient. It's been a while since I've done anything and I want some action, baby!

I've got a list of properties I'm going to look at this week, probably Thursday. More than 1/2 are vacant short sales that have been on the market a while. I have not looked at how close they are to auction but I need to get some offers out there!

I'm thinking I need to start my yellow letter campaign again but the thought simply overwhelmes me. Not sure why? I did it in the past and found a few properties? I don't know, not right now but maybe soon.

Pretty exciting stuff, huh?!?! Hope you all have a marvelous week!!

Quick update...

2010-10-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

Good afternoon, all! Is everyone getting ready for the big Halloween weekend!?! My kids have been waiting patiently all week for the weekend. My oldest is going to be Hanna Montana (we have the wig!), my second daughter is going to be Spider Man (last year she was super man... she's into the super heros) and my youngest is going to be a fireman. They're so damn cute!

I have been plugging away over here looking for my first kick ass rehab. A property came on the market yesterday that looks awesome but not getting my hopes up too high. One of the basement walls has collapsed so we're having one of Brian's contractors give us an idea of the cost. The pictures show the rest of the house in excellent shape. I'm hoping to have an offer in by Monday if it's not a complete tear down. There are a couple other properties I'm watching too but nothing I've seen to "cherry pick" yet. Hopefully this will be my first rehab!! I'll keep y'all posted next week

For anyone who reads this blog on a quasi-regular basis, you know I set an "end date" for myself of next August. I'm still focusing on achieving that goal but, the reality is, I may not make it and I may have to adjust my dates. We will see what the year brings but I'm really working my tail off looking for my first Milwaukee deal. My hope is that having a mentor to guide me through the rehab process will subtract years off my learning curve.

In the meantime, I am going get some tips from the one and only Shae Bynes on how to leave my 9-5 with her "Financial Freedom GPS" roadmap! I can't wait to go through it, especially on how to get your spouse on board with budgeting. See, my husband thinks we have a money tree in the backyard... it died long, long ago : ) Click below on the link and you too can get Shae's roadmap!!

http://www.goodfaithinvesting.com/2010/10/27/financial-freedom-gps-is-here/

That is it for today! Hope you all have a great weekend!!

Breaking up is hard to do...

2010-10-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

It's been, ummm, an interesting week here in southeast WI. Where should I start??!!? I'll start from the beginning but I'll try to condense the story. You all know I've been talking about our rental property and the lack of potential buyers? I thought it might be a good idea to list the property with a local agent in hopes to get more potential buyers through the home. I also thought he would have more insight into property values/rentals/sales in the town. In other words give sound advice on getting the property sold, and fast! This is where the problem started. Last Friday I called my agent and told her my plans. She wasn't happy, of course, and I can't blame her. However, because of all the business we've done together I truely thought it would slide by. WRONG! See, I was thinking of hanging my license with her broker so I could still use her to make my offers. Because of this she went to her broker to see if it was 'OK' for me to list with another broker. Well, in a nutshell, I got an email saying they did not want me hanging my license with them anymore and they wanted the HUD keys back (she actually left a VM about the keys). I will no longer be getting mls access either.

Hmmmm, I didn't think this out very thoroughly, did I? I can honestly say that I didn't think things would go in this direction... seriously! I guess you can call me naive!? I have purchased 98% of the properties through my agent and sold most of them through her also. It kind of makes me a little angry! Before I get blasted that they had every reason to be mad, I can absolutely see their point of view too! Even after all the problems I caused myself, I'm not sure I would have changed anything. I still think it is a smarter move to work with a local realtor?! Anyhoo, apparently my realtor didn't want to work with me as much as I thought she wanted to. I think too highly of myself! : ) Just kidding! I don't know, I made her pretty good money fairly easily so I thought she would fight to keep me around. Whatever... what's done is done. This will probably work out better for me in the long run since I will be focusing more of my time in Milwaukee.

So all this happened Monday and Tuesday. Today I get a call from my husband that AmeriGas declined me as a new client (we're switching our personal residence LP co's) b/c my credit score was too low. WHAT!?!?! Yep, it has somehow slipped to UNDER 500 (btw, I was in the low 700's last time I checked). I know my business line of credit has been pulling my credit score down but I didn't realize it was that much?!?! I need to get a copy and take a look.

So yeah, I just want to huddle in a corner and cry! It's been a really bad week for me and I'm only 1/2 way through it! Sometimes I just want to give up and throw in the towel just like everyone else.... but NOPE I have to keep pluggin' away with my head held high (even with a 400 something credit score - WTF?). Urrgghh.

Later gators!

Starting Over...

2010-10-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

At least it feels that way. I'm taking about 10 steps back, re-evaluating and coming back bigger and stronger people!!! This past Monday I sat down with Brian and we talked about my goals and what I need to do to accomplish them. More specifically we talked about where I can start, today, to accomplish them. First thing I did was get our spending habits down on paper (or what I think are our spending habits). This is something I have been putting off for a loooong time, I mean years! I am also going through the same steps looking for properties to make offers on. I must say, however, that this foreclosure freeze and the potential title cloud problems make me a little nervous. It doesn't seem to phase Brian at this point so I'm moving forward with finding my first kick ass rehab!

The next "to do" is to contact the REO brokers in my new area. Ummm, I've been avoiding this too. Next week I will be gathering data and calling brokers to see if they will meet me for a coffee or something. This is something that makes me very nervous but don't know why?! They are regular people, right? : ) At any rate, this is something I'll just need to plough through and get it done even though it makes me uncomfortable.

HUD still doesn't seem to have their stuff together so not submitting any offers.

I am just going to sign off with this... To any current and future private lenders: I may be a little slow in using your money right now but will be killin' it in the near future. Be patient, please!!!

Have a good night!

And it's done, I have a coach!

2010-10-07T11:38:00.000-07:00

Yaahhhoooo! I am meeting Brian Monday to sign up for his coaching program. I'm sure you were all introduced to Brian when you read through the launch of the AskTheFlipVIP's! He is an active member and I feel very lucky to be able to work with him one one one. I also think the AskTheFlipVIP's is an incredible offering and anyone interested in getting help in any area of REI should take a look! If I had it to do over again I would have asked for some type of mentoring earlier on. Even though I have come a long way and have done pretty good for myself, I wonder how much further I would have been if I had a mentor? I do not dwell on this, however. Things happen for a reason and I feel that now is the time in my career where a mentor will really kick things into high gear. I'm really, really psyched!!!!!!

We're almost done with our updates to the rental... My realtor is taking someone through tomorrow. I'm very interested/nervous in hearing the comments. The reason I am nervous is b/c they may say more improvements should have been made. I wanted to keep the cost down to keep the price down. We can always do more if necessary...

Still haven't heard anything on the A-Hole house. This will be the last time I post an update unless something actually happens : )

Apparently HUD is making some changes. I guess they are transitioning over to a new company (whatever that means?). I know they have a new website (www.hudhomestore.com), though and it doesn't look like all the properties are moved from the old website to the new website. This should be fun! One thing I did notice on the new website is all the "New Listing"'s have a countdown of 28 days. Does that mean the house is available to o/o's for 28 days instead of 10 days?? That would totally suck! There is also a new column called "Listing Period" with titles "Exclusive" and "Lottery". It looks like "Exclusive" means the property is only available to o/o, non-profits and government agencies. Then "Lottery" means the property is only available to non-profits and government agencies - what? After that it might go to all bidders? Jeez, I hope this new process doesn't make investors wait a month, or more, to bid on a property!! There is one that just came out today, possibly a cherry pick, in my new area and I can't bid on it for 28 days. Maybe?! I have to try to find the new rules!

Back to work I go....

Learning new market/coaching

2010-10-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday! I'm happy it's Friday but I'm on call this weekend so I need to be prepared to come into work at all times. I'm cursed when it comes to call. Can you guess the last time anyone in our department was called in for an emergency while on call? You guessed it... that last time I was on call (which was about 2 months ago). Luckily we do not get called in very often but when we do it seems that I'm the person.

Anyhoo, I've spent all week learning my new market. I've been on the mls about 3 hours every day and feel like I'm really making progress. There is one property in particular that I am going to call about. It is not a cherry pick but still a potential deal, I think. I'll keep ya posted. I have also been bidding on a HUD in my current market. We are about $10k apart so it will still take some time I will watch and wait.

Earlier this week I connected with Brian about him coaching me. I told him a little about myself/what I wanted out of a coach and then he told me about his coaching program. It sounds great and, in my opinion, exactly what I need/want!! He sent me an application to fill out and now I'm just waiting to see if I am a fit for his program. He doesn't take everyone who applies so there may be a chance of this not working out. I'll keep ya posted here too!

Updates on current properties:

A-Hole House: Not much. Back in July I said I would fund the rehab and we were going to split the profits 50/50. Since then nothing has really happened and my financial situation has shifted a bit b/c of the rental. I feel pretty bad about this so I sent an email on Tuesday letting the broker/his asst/my realtor know what is going on. In the email I also suggested the broker take all the profits upon selling and the only money I want is my EMD as well as the money I have put into the property up to now. Of course I will still help with anything they need! That was Tuesday, today is Friday, and I still have not heard anything from them. Hilarious! I don't know if he's mad, happy, impartial, has questions?!?!

Rental: New roof is complete. Carpet is installed. Paint will be finished next week. Landscaping will hopefully be finished next week. New screen door, screens, outlet plates should be done next week as well. When all is done I am going to have one of the local realtors come take a look and see what they say. We'll either sell quickly or rent.

I think that's all my updates for now. Off to go research more properties.........

Roots and Fruits

2010-09-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

Todays post is going to be about my 'take aways' from Bob's bootcamp last week. First let me say that it was awesome. Each and every day I picked up a new tip or trick to apply in my market. Throughout the bootcamp Bob would pick someone's city and go through the mls to determine the opportunity market. It was great to watch him siphon through all the information! One example Bob used was Milwaukee (which was great for me!!). In all of about 30 minutes Bob was able to, pretty confidently, determine an area he would be buying/selling right now. It was really cool to watch. Actually, just the other night I was involved in a conference call with Bob and Mark to record Bob going through Milwaukee's mls and determining an opportunity market. Every time I watch him go through the process I learn something else so I highly recommend you watch when posted. In fact I will post here if allowed.

Okay, the main 'take away' for me was to focus on my roots and not my fruits. I know many of you already do this but, for me, I have been focusing on the end prize - that elusive deal! For now I really need to focus on learning my new market. I already have confidence in my current market and will be watching that as well. I also want to focus more on my health and family. All that weight I lost a few months ago (which wasn't a ton but...) I have gained back. Crap! I just feel so "all over the place" and unfocused at times which leads me into my second 'take away'....

Well, not so much a 'take away' but a commitment to ask Brian Meidam to coach me through this next stage of my REI career. I am going to be calling him this afternoon so I will update later. As I stated above, I feel as though I am not as focused as I should be if I want my end date to be next August. I need to get my act together.

Some other 'take aways' were realizing that everyone in this field has their ups and downs and no matter how long you do this, you still can make mistakes. That was really good for me to hear. I feel like I make some type of mistake on every transaction! Of course, I learn from that mistake but sometimes I put too much pressure on myself to make things "perfect".

Outside of learning how to determine a new opportunity market, the above 'take aways' were the most important to me. Of course, I met some really awsome people along the way from all over the country. Some were newbies but most were experienced investors and all had great information to share!!

My flight took off from Las Vegas at 1am Sunday morning so we were able to spend Saturday night on the town in Vegas. It was a great ending to a great bootcamp!! I would highly recommend attending one of Bob's seminars. He actually has one coming up in November but do not know the dates. If interested, please let me know.

Okay, I'm off to call my new coach (hopefully!)...

Heading to Utah!!

2010-09-15T06:48:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone.... today I'm flying off to Utah for my very first real estate seminar. As I said in a previous post, I signed up for Bob's KISS Flipping seminar and am TOTALLY looking forward to it. I'm hoping to learn skills/tips to consistantly find deals and take my RE business to the next level! Woo HOO!

Updates:
I pre-signed for the "auction house" closing last night. The buyers are closing today so all should be good. I think we will walk away with about $6.5k on this one which is pretty good, certainly no slam dunk, but decent nonetheless. With the KISS Flip training under my belt I'm hoping to locate properties with a MUCH higher profit margain. If I can close 5 deals/yr with a $20k - $30k profit margain vs. 10 - 15 deals with $5k - 15k profit margain my life would be a lot less stressful. I also want to investigate other ways to make monthly income. My 'end date' is fast approaching and I can honestly say that I am no where near where I need to be as far as situating my living expenses! Focus, focus, focus!

We never had any interest in our rental property so we are now in the process of putting on a new roof, fixing some siding, putting in some new windows, painting the inside/outside, new carpet and then doing some minor landscaping. I'm still not sure we'll be able to sell it so I'm thinking we're going to have to put a renter in. After we get the renter in I'll probably put back on the market because it seems rentals are easier to sell with a renter in place?! At any rate, when we the work is complete on the property I think I am going to ask the RE agents in the town where this property is located their thoughts on price and selling vs. renting. I'm not really sure how I am going to approach my current agent about this but I think it would be in the best interest of selling the property quickly to go with a local agent!

Another 2 weeks has gone by and only 1 thing has been done on the "A Hole house". 2 Weeks! I am really getting stressed about their lack of concern. I have told them time and time again that I would be happy to help get things done, organize/schedule work to be done, etc. and they always tell me they have it under control. URGH!

The bank ended up accepting our price of $45k on the property we were negotiating last week. However, after going over the numbers again, taking a look at the property/work needed we decided the numbers were just too tight and we didn't accept their acceptance. Maybe of we could get it for $20k? Ha, ha. I'll keep watching it, you just never know!!!

I think that's all the updates I have for now. It doesn't look like I am going to make Steph's 30 day challenge AGAIN! We'll see...

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week/weekend. I know I will!!!!!!

Property Inspection Report

2010-09-03T11:43:00.000-07:00

Hello blogosphere! How is everyone doing on this rather chilly September afternoon?? I am doing peachy. I am on the verge of a long weekend and one of my co-workers took my call for the weekend! Yippy (as my 4 year old would say)!!

Okay, how did the inspection go on our new HUD property?! Not good : (
It ends up the foundation (it is a slab) is deteriorating and the cost to repair would be too great. According to my contractor it is basically a tear down. CRAP! This would have been a VERY nice payday. Oh well... on to the next.

Another property I've been watching came down $10k this week for a LP of $54.9k. We resubmitted our offer of $42k and they countered at $53.9k. WOO HOO they came down a whole $1k!! Nowe we're getting somewhere. Urgh. I countered at $45k, which is my best and final, and I have not heard anything yet. Quite frankly I'm pretty sure they will reject. I would be shocked if they accepted but I suppose stranger things have happened? Seems like the banks are really sticking to their guns around here. I know it's a numbers game but all the REO offers I've made get rejected on the 2nd counter. BUT, I keep submitting just to annoy them : )

I committed to having a property under contract by the end of August for Steph's 30 day challenge and I failed. I was damn close but failed nonetheless. I read her blog today and it seems to me that I get a "do over" heehee. I will have AT LEAST one property under contract by the end of September (and for personal reasons will be shooting very hard for 2 under contract).

For the past 2 months I have been trying to determine my target market according to Bob's KISS Flipping program and have failed at that too. I keep going round and round on the mls, researching different counties, trying to find trends and I am just not seeing anything. I'm sure they're THERE right in front of my eyeballs but I'm not connecting the dots, ya know? It's very frustrating for me! I'm going to re-listen to that module and hope something else pops out to me. I feel like I am on the verge of something big and WANT to take that leap! The bootcamp is in 2 weeks and I can't wait! Although I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about the travel part....

Gotta run. Everyone have a great holiday weekend!!

I've had an off week

2010-08-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's been an off week for sure. My focus level has been waaaaay down. I am attributing most of this to reading Stephen King's novel "Under the Dome". Has anyone read the 1,074 pages of sheer craziness? I am on page 885... almost done. I need down time to relax and unwind (I love reading fiction) but when I get into a good book it's really, really hard for me to put it down.

With that said I have still been making consistent offers this week and one was accepted late yesterday afternoon. It is a HUD property that needs a bit of work - shocker, I know. I'm having my guy inspect it on Wednesday, I hope, so once all checks out I'll be happy! It was listed at $98k and we got it for $53k. It needs a partial new roof (over back side of house), one room gutted, a new water heater and repaired plumbing. Exterior, carpet, windows, kitchen are all in good shape. In fact, the kitchen looks like it was rehabbed pretty recently. I'll update after inspection. We'll call this the "lake house" since it sits down the street from a lake! I'm clever, right?!

The "auction house" is still set to close September 15th or sooner. Nothing new to report there.

My rental property has absolutely no interested parties whatsoever. Unfortunately for me, the sold prices in the area have dropped considerably since last year. Many, many more foreclosures... Sooo, I'm not sure which direction to take? Here are my thoughts, 1.) Drop the price another $10k and see if it sells in a couple weeks? I would lose money with this scenario. 2.) Put in some money to spruce up the exterior, carpet/paint, "pretty up" the inside and re-list for a break even price - IF it would sell. 3.) Put in some money to "pretty up" the joint, lease/option the property and take it from there. I think I will actually go in that order. Once the tenants move out next week I will list for $79k for 2 weeks. If no offers I will put in some money and list for a higher price with option to have seller L/O property? Urrrghh... I don't know? Something along those lines?

The "A-Hole" house almost had another buyer. Not sure what happened to him since no one tells me anything? I called the brokers "gatekeeper" (as Bob Norton would call her) and left her a msg basically saying I was concerned about selling the property, if there was anything I could do to help, didn't want there to be lack of communication, etc.... and I never got a return call/VM. Nice. The following day I DID get an email from her with a siding estimate attached asking what I thought. What I think?!?! I think I thought this was taken care of 2 MONTHS ago. As a reminder, 2 months ago the broker (co-owner) wanted a meeting to discuss the direction of the house. He wanted me to gather estimates for work that needed to be done so we could discuss. I did as asked and when I laid out my estimates he said he had "people" that would do it cheaper and he would take care of it. Fast forward 2 months and she's STILL gathering estimates?!?!? NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!! So we're having another meeting Wednesday to sort things out. Let's just all hope and pray that we get it sold soon for all our sakes!!!!!!!

These past couple weeks I have also put in some other REO offers that are 120+ DOM with terrible counters. On the 2nd counter they almost always reject. Frustrating. However, there was a property that came back on the market after 4 months of being in pending status. It looks decent but has burst pipes from winter. I put in an offer and they countered $10k lower... finally a decent counter. We're still pretty far off but I'm going to take a look this weekend.

What else? Oh... I re-signed up for Bob's KISS Flipping seminar next month in Utah. Looking forward to it! I'm really hoping I will find what I'm looking for... don't ask me what that is because I'm not really sure : )

'K all... I'll update next week after the inspection!! Have a great weekend everyone!!

The ink has dried!

2010-08-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

The closing on the "water house" went smoothly last week while I was on vacation. I don't think anything beats making money while on vacation, right? I would like to do more of that : )

We also closed on the "auction house" last week to purchase. As a reminder I used a private lender to fund this deal. Yesterday we got a signed contract from one of my buyers to purchase this house. The closing date is set for September 15th but he would like to close sooner if possible. I guess it depends on his lender. This guy is pretty solid so if I have to wait until the 15th, that is not a problem. Again, this is not a slam dunk but it's still a decent payday for no work!

The "A-hole" house is being rehabbed - well - more like spruced up. It is being painted, hardwoods refinished, basement waterproofed, new carpet, etc. It's still not back on the market though. If I do not lose money on this deal it will be a miracle. Miracle. That's all I will say here...

The "rental house" is on the market with only 2 showings, which are tonight. Urgh. If I have to rent the place out again I will, or do a lease option, but I do not want to rent or LO if possible. Throughout this past year when I had problems at the house/concerns with my tenants I completely lost focus on submitting offers/keeping up with listings. In other words I either focused completely on my rental or completely on flipping houses. This is one of the major reasons I want to sell! It is not in my makeup to be a landlord (as I have stated a kagillion times in the past) but it is also because of my lack of focus on what is more important to me. We shall see what happens in the next month or two. I must say that I am really curious to hear the comments from the prospective buyers. Hopefully it will give me some insights on what I should do to the place to get it to sell.

I put in 2 very solid non-HUD offers late last week. One came back with a counter that was $500 under list price (which is $65.5k). WTF? My offer was $42k, no contingencies, $4k EMD and 2 wk close. The property has been on the market for 3 months and I'm not really sure why it hasn't sold yet? My counter back was $47k and $5k EMD. That is my highest and best so we'll see what they say? **UPDATE** I just got an email saying they rejected my offer. Wha wha wha... That really bums me out. I thought I had a good shot at this one!! It seems to me that having a cash offer/quick close doesn't mean diddly squat to the banks, at least here in my neck of the woods.

I still haven't heard back from the other offer. Last month I submitted an offer on the house and they flat out rejected the offer. Hrmph. This time I took out the inspection clause and upped the EMD. Again, haven't heard anything...

We also put in a bit on a HUD property that came back on the market. Haven't received my counter yet. There is another property (Fannie Mae) that is priced perfectly (unless the inside is all tore up) but it's only open to o/o's right now. I think I will be able to submit an offer next week if it's not gone?

I need to get another property under contract by the end of the month!! This is why I'm trying to make my offers as strong as they can possibly be!

I need to get going so everyone have a wonderful week!

Feeling like I'm in a good place

2010-08-03T13:38:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!! How is everyones week so far? My week is great and will get better starting tomorrow when I leave work at noon for a super long weekend! We are going to may parents cottage again to hang with the family (parents/brothers/aunts/uncles/cousins/in laws/etc). My Aunt is in from Portland, OR (my moms twin sister) for a month which she does every year and her daughter is also in with her 3 kids. We saw my cousin and her kids 2 years ago so we don't see them very often. At any rate I'm excited to get over there and visit with everyone. I LOVE summer!!!!!!!!! It makes me sad that we are in August already. AUGUST! I read Steph's post about committing to something by the end of the month. I am committing to getting another house under contract. I need to head on over and post that on her blog. There are a lot of other things I want to do but that is priority right now!

What's going on with my properties? Tomorrow I am closing on the "auction house" where I'm using a private lender. That all worked out very nicely on my end and I think it was pretty painless on her end too! Nice! Do you know what's even nicer?!? I may have a buyer! Last week I sent out an email to my buyers list and 1 guy said he wanted to look at it. He went out Saturday, called me that afternoon saying he was interested but it needed work (really?!). Honestly I did not think he was interested enought to submit a contract so my husband and I made plans to pre-hab the property and put up for sale in 10 days (which we will still do if this guy does not send over the contract). We got just about everything priced and people set up to do the work over the weekend. This morning I get an email from the potential buyer:

Investor:
I took a second look today and have to run some numbers - still have some interest... when do you close? The stuff that I think needs to be done will take some time to get done and lined up so I need to see if it's feasible or not... Let me know when you have a chance.

My response:
I close tomorrow but will need to know by tomorrow morning whether you want to purchase (sorry!). I have lined up some people to start working on it and want them to start asap. If you want it though I'll sell it to you. IMO, it's a great deal.

Investor:
We have interest in the property and are willing to write an offer (not sure if you still have Michelle doing those for you or not?) If so, let me know - haven't heard back from my lender yet, but probably could close in a month. If you accept, I would like to get in there ASAP to start doing improvements/work... let me know if that'll be an issue as well.

I will not bore you with the rest but I told him I needed my full asking price and he asked about what offer to purchase contract to use, etc. So, I guess I should know tomorrow morning. Part of me wants him to buy it and part of me wants to do the pre-hab. Of course I would make more money (hopefully) with a pre-hab but getting just under $7k for doing nothing is nice too!

What else? Tomorrow I am pre-signing for the "water house" close. The actual closing is Thursday unless the attny delays it. He is a pain in the butt. A nice pain in the butt but a pain nontheless. This has already been delayed several times so I just want it CLOSED!!!!!!

My agent asked me today where I wanted to re-list the A-Hole house. I'm going to set aside my comments on this until a future date.

I found out a couple weeks ago (not sure I mentioned it here) that my renters are moving at the end of the month. Crap. My husband and I decided to sell the property if we can. I overpaid for the property as it has a lot of problems that I did not take into account for re-sale. This totally sucks. We shall see what happens but this house is a thorn in my side. First and foremost I HATE being a landlord. Some people are great at it but not me. Our renters were fantastic but this side of the real estate game is something that puts a pit in my stomach. I'll have to figure out another way to make income. I'll keep you posted!

This post is getting very long so I'm going to end it by saying I got my RE License in the mail over the weekend. Once I'm in the system I need to start making offers directly through the listing agent so they can double dip (a KISS flipping tactic). I need to tell my realtor I will not be using her for these types of transactions and I am TERRIBLE at this type of thing. Any suggestions would be fantastic.

Okay, I need to run. Have a great rest of the week/weekend!!

Craziness!

2010-07-27T14:01:00.000-07:00

I got an email today from my realtor stating we are clear to close on the property we got under contract. Would Friday at 4pm work for me? Uhhh, no. Crazy mode... get addendum I needed for close, get insurance guy information, call attny regarding private lender forms (note, mortgage), get private lender wire instructions, etc., etc. It seems to be all or nothing in this business, at least for me! So I felt like I was in panic mode all day. I'm waiting on some information in order to forward to my attny/insurance guy but otherwise hopefully we'll close mid-next week. I sent an email to my buyers list and one guy wants to go through. Hopefully this will be a fairly quick close for us! I'm also tossing around the idea of getting the outside painted if this guy doesn't want it. I had someone go out there today for a quote but haven't heard from him yet. We'll see where it comes in.

The roof at the "water house" should be going on today. The appraiser needs to get out there again and I'm hoping he will go tomorrow afternoon. After he gets out there the bank said it should take another 4 days and then we should be able to close. Hopefully we'll be closing next week! Fingers crossed, fingers crossed, fingers crossed.....

The A-hole house contract fell apart-CRAP!! The inspector told the prospective buyer that the basement would take $30k to fix and the buyer bailed. Can't say I blame him but the inspector doesn't know sh!t. The co-owner of this house runs a basement business and he said it should only take $5k to fix (which we are going to do but he hasn't been out there yet... yep, he really wants to sell this thing, I know).

What else? Going to look at a house after work. There are about 15 I need to look at but they're all over. I should have gone this past Sunday but after a very long Friday and Saturday I took the day to chill out. It was very nice but now I'm kicking myself b/c I need to see these places.

I think that's it for now... Have a great night!

It's been almost 3 weeks?!?!?!

2010-07-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

It's been almost 3 weeks since my last post?! Holy crap. I'm usually good for at least one post per week, if not two! Well, I should go on vacation more often! First of all, we had a blast. It's always an awesome time when I can hang out with my kids with no other responsibilities on my plate. Soooo relaxing. The other reason I should go on vacation more often is because we got a property under contract! This one is NOT a HUD but was listed with an auction company. They did not allow any contingencies when submitting offers so it had to be cash and inspected prior to my offer. We submitted the offer one week before my vacation and we knew the following week that the bank was in the process of accepting it. Yippee! We are using a private lender to fund this transaction. This will be the first time we're using a private lender so should be interesting. However, our private lender has been through the process before so she will most likely teach me a thing or two!! Our closing is scheduled for August 17th.

We were scheduled to close on the "water house" today but it has been delayed. Urgh! The appraiser swore up and down that he would get to the house on July 5th but ended up not going through until a week later. I did not follow up with the appraiser because I thought that was the banks job since they ordered it. However, I found out that banks can no longer have any contact with the appraisers whatsoever. They order the appraisal through an online system that rotates companies and the lender never has any contact. Of course if I had known this I would have made sure he was in the house earlier. At any rate, he took pictures of the roof (which the buyer knows needs replacing) and the underwriting dept wants it replaced prior to closing. The buyer is still paying for it but now we're delayed at least 10 days. Not too big a deal but it would have been nice to get this one off my plate. The buyer reeeeaaally wants the house but he is a nervous nelly and everything gets him anxious. I just want it done! Hopefully the roofer will get out there tomorrow, the appraiser will hopefully get out early next week (I'll be calling for sure!), and then it needs to get commited through underwriting. So that's that!

We got an offer on the A-Hole house. I'm totally out of the loop but I think, if I'm lucky, I will just about break even on the house. The co-owner will make some money so that's good. I'll be glad when this one is off my plate too.

The KISS flipping seminar was cancelled... : ( I'm not really sure why? I think they only had a handful of people sign up so he is rescheduling for some time in September. I'm committed to going again and I'm really looking forward to it! I was given access to the KISS members area so I've been listening to the 4 modules on my way to/from work. They are awesome and when he explains his philosophies (on almost everything) he is stating my thoughts exactly. I think that is why I like him so much. Actually this is probably why I haven't posted in so long. I've been trying to study the mls the way he teaches. I'm trying to determine my opportunity markets. To me, it's hard. I haven't really determined mine yet. There are a couple areas I already know but nothing pops up too often in those areas and when they do I'm all over them. So I've been researching other areas. I haven't found anything all that appealing yet. I'm still searching though.

What else? Still making offers like a crazy person. Last Friday my son and I went through 8 houses (he was a trooper!) and submitted on only one right now. I'm really hoping to get this one and make it a KISS flip. The offer went in today so hopefully we'll hear something by Friday. I also submitted on 5 HUD's yesterday. One counter is getting really close so I may have my inspector go out there. Another is a property on a lake with a pier. We are still quite a bit apart but there haven't been other offers on it so I'm going to watch and keep at it!

Private Money... I have 2 more people interested in lending on my properties. Yeah! They are in the process now of moving funds to a SD IRA. Yet another reason to get another property under contract! Not to mention I still have to put my IRA funds to good use!!

Non-REI: No work-outs since before vacation and been afraid to get on the scale. See how easy it is for me to fall out of a routine!?!?! I'm going to start up again though. I'm feeling icky!

This Friday me and the girls are going to 6 Flags Great America. They are sooo excited and I'm looking forward to it too!!

Gotta run. Hope everyone has a good week/weekend and we'll talk next week!!

First Seminar BOOKED!

2010-07-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

So I just booked my first ever real estate seminar.... KISS Flipping with Bob Norton. I have been wanting to attend his bootcamp for a while and I never seemed to make time. Well, this time I am making time!! I registered for the bootcamp, reserved my flight and hotel, I'm ready to go. And, I'm a nervous wreck - ha, ha! I'm really looking forward to the event and am hoping it will give me what I need to reach my goals. Thanks Kelly for the help with the event!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was hoping to get a deal under contract this week but it just didn't happen. Wah, wah, wah... Very frustrating!! Next week I am on vacation so I will be doing very little in the REI department, although I'm sure I'll still submit HUD offers : ) There are a couple houses I wanted to view this week but it ended up being a nightmare of a week. I'll give you one example: Wednesday night our St. Bernard ripped his WHOLE NAIL out of his paw and lacerated a blood vessel. Yep, good times. I took him to the emergency vet, got him all patched up and now he's okay. He's sore but okay. I may take a morning to look at some houses since I'll be in the area but we'll see how it goes?!

Working out has been, shall we say, non-existent. Well, I did work out twice and I feel like crap for NOT working out. I'll need to get back into it after vacation!!!!

That's about it for now. Hope everyone have a WONDERFUL Forth of July!!!!!!!! Talk to you all after vacation!

It's been a while

2010-06-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Long time, no talk! Unfortunately I do not have too much to add from my last post. We closed on the "water house" last Friday, thankfully there were no delays. This weekend my buyer is going to repair some busted pipes so we can get the water on/appraiser in for his loan. One step at a time.

STILL no new properties under contract... urghhh!!! I just know something is going to pop soon but it's been a while and I'm starting to get frustrated. Of course I will not stop until I get one (which will be soon) but it is still frustrating!! : ) I've been making offers daily, looking at houses but nothing is solidifying. I know, I'll end up getting 3 under contract at once. That's usually how it works, which is A-OK with me!!

We almost had an "as is" offer on the property I co-own. You know, the "A-hole house"? Unfortunately for us that never happened. The guy was showing all the signs of writing an offer but, for whatever reason, he never did and stopped returning calls/emails. Crap! Oh well, back to sprucing it up a little.

That's really it for real estate related stuff. It's been pretty quiet since my last post.

Insanity update: I took my measurements last weekend and did not lose as much as I thought. It was a total of 4 pounds and 3.5 inches. I'm still working out daily, well this week is off a bit b/c I'm on the early, early shift and getting up at 3:45am to work out is too much for me. I definately can feel/see a change so I'm not stopping until I get to my goal. It is just taking a little longer than I anticipated!! Oh well, I will get there.

Heading back to work.... Hope everyone has a great weekend!

WHEW... A little overwhelmed!!

2010-06-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

The past few days have been a total whirlwind, in a good way. It started Friday night preparing to have a 4th birthday party for my daughter on Saturday. Saturday was crazy finishing things up, having the party. Sunday I set up a couple showings for the "water house". The one guy showed up with everyone he knew, I think. Actually they were the nicest buyers I have had in a looong time. He brought his electrician, plumber, HVAC guy, roofer, etc so they could look at everything. They were all his friends, they all live in town and they all knew what a killer deal it was. This is the buyers first time buying a home so he wasn't as casual as his friends. At any rate he decided he wanted the house, we agreed on price and I told him I would send him an offer to purchase later in the day (this was Sunday).

On Monday I got a brand new offer to purchase from his attorney and I thought the deal might be dead. The attorney lowered the price, asked for concessions, me to pay for gap insurance and a letter from the city regarding the zoning status of the house. I was so frustrated BUT I kept my cool and we worked through every issue to date. I sent off a counter offer yesterday and recieved the signed acceptance today. Yeah. He is getting conventional financing through a local bank and I spoke to the lender yesterday. He assures me seasoning will not be an issue but I lost faith in what bank people tell me. It's unfortunate but true. I've been told the exact same thing before and at the nth hour I'm told seasoning will be an issue. However, I'm taking him at his word for now. I'm a little more at ease because he is a local bank and I am not making a killing.

The next hurdle we will have to cross is the appraisal. I have no doubt it will appraise for what we agreed on BUT the bank wants the water on for the appraisal. We can't turn the water on b/c there are broken pipes. Yikes. Well, during the buyers initial walk-through his plumber told him they were going to do a full re-plumb when he moved in. On Monday the buyer asked me if they could do the full re-plumb for the appraisal instead of wasting money on minor fixes and then tearing it all out anyway. I told him that was fine and his lawyer is drawing something up for that as well. My thought process was that the buyer pay for the fixes and IF (if, if, if) he cannot get financed I have it inspected and then pay for the plumbing. I mean, it needs to eventually get fixed anyway. Side note: I just got a fax from the lawyer regarding the plumbing. It's basically an email in fax form, this guy is old school. He also "gave me permission" to speak to his client. What? I wish he had an email so we could correspond that way... Geez lawyers are a PIA!

Another (little) hurdle.... This buyer is going to want to get in there and pressurize the pipes right away. My closing with HUD is next Friday, we are actually closing 10 days EARLY!! This is an absolute first for me and is perfect for my situation. Well, perfect would have us closing this Friday... see I didn't exactly tell him that I didn't own the house yet. I don't outright lie, I just adjust my words a bit. I find that some people get scared off, think you're doing something illegal, confused, etc. Hopefully I can put him off until next weekend to look at the pipes. He has a LOT of time to get that done since our closing is set for July 21st.

What else? Oh, I am using private funding for the downpayment which is going to be about $23k. The private lender is my mommy : ) The agreed upon return rate is $2k so she will be making that much in a matter of 1 month. Not bad! I just found out yesterday that someone else wants to invest with me. My aunt's "gentleman caller" - heehee - was talking to my husband yesterday when he mentioned that he wanted to start investing with me. I have to give him a call. There are a few properties I am very, very, very close at getting and want to put this money to good use.

Regarding the 'A-hole house'... he wants to have "a meeting" next week to go over bids on the projects we will be doing on the house. That's all I have to say about that!

Non-REI: Still working out consistantly. I can really feel/see a difference in my body and I'm loving it! I actually think I'm going to do the P90x when I'm done with the Insanity program. This Saturday I will be halfway done with the program and I'm going to take measurements. I'm excited to see how I've done. For anyone looking for an at home program

Rolling with the changes...

2010-06-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

Is everyone looking forward to the weekend as much as I am?!?! I'm glad today is Friday so this is going to be brief. Last week I mentioned we had the "water house" under contract and inspected. The inspections came out fine, foundation is fine, plumbing needs to be fixed (of course), some electrical, etc, etc. At that time we decided that we were going to rehab this house since the numbers are so nice. Fast forward to yesterday I get the following email:

Morning! Mike wanted me to ask you if you want to buy Dardis from him. He is getting the feeling that some work needs to be done to it and his crews are too busy in this area right now. What are your thoughts? I was going to advertise in the local papers. Maybe do a one day only sale. Then again if the home could get repainted etc. that may make a big difference.

Yep, the house where my realtors broker is holding the note (the one I don't talk about a lot) is not selling. Hmmm, is it because the picture on the mls has a foot of snow in it and no other pictures? No? Hmmm, did you advertise it on CL? No? Hmmm, did you advertise in the paper? No? After he basically took the listing from us, which we allowed b/c he was doing us a favor, did nothing and now wants to give it back to me. I can't buy it back from him since I still can't get financing in that area. I know this probably sounds all confusing but suffice it to say he screwed up, IMO. So instead of rehabbing the "water house" we are going to put some money in this house. The numbers are good here too BUT I have to split the profit with the guy who initially only wanted to give me 20% of the profit. Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for sharing a profit when it is FAIR but I don't like getting screwed. I'm kind of irritated that he took control, couldn't sell it and now puts it right back in my lap and wants me to "take care of it". Just kind of jerky to me. Whatever... it shows that I have grown because I have not freaked out. Not sure if I'm just more laid back this week or if I've come to a realization that these things will happen. Maybe a little of both?!?!

Because of the short week and these problems I have not submitted any offers. I want to get another property under contract and, hopefully, put some private money to good use!

BTW, I put an ad on CL for the "water house" as a wholesale deal and have had about 10 responses so far. Hopefully it will sell quickly and we can focus on the "a-hole house". Not sure I like that name.

Okay, real quick, I worked out all week but didn't lose a pound. That's okay because last week I fit in to my size 10 jeans that I have not been able to button since my first child was born. WOO HOO! Now, the jeans were tight... very tight BUT I buttoned/zipped up so that's an accomplishment in my eyes. I will complete this goal and continue I'm sure.

Have to run hope everyone has a good weekend!!

It's been a while...

2010-05-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

How're things going?! Well, we finally closed on the Evansville property that had the initial contract fall through, put it under contract again and then delayed 2 weeks till closing. FINALLY we closed! We made about $5k less than we would have from the first contract but I just wanted it closed and we netted somewhere around $12k, not bad!?! We bought this property waaaay back in February so we've had it for 3 months. That is too long for me, even though it was under contract most of that time - ha, ha.

No new properties under contract but I can just feel one coming down the pike. I mentioned in my last post that the 3 properties I've been watching had price reductions. One sold last week to an o/o. It's the one I loved but needed a lot of work. The other 2 I was able to put offers on yesterday and I'm waiting for my counters today. There are also 2 condos in a nice subdivision on the WI/IL border that had price reductions. I'm thinking of taking a look this weekend?! Since my other 2 L/O candidates were sold I'm thinking these might be something to look at? We'll see. There are a couple others I'm watching too but nothing close enough to even mention : )

Let's see.... we're still trying to get the water out of the basement at the "Water House". At this point HUD is supposed to turn on the utilities (I've never done this before) and I'm getting it inspected. Once the electric is on everyone says the sump pump will get rid of the water and we'll need to see if it there are any major problems. I'm not anticipating any! I have the plumber scheduled for Thursday so hopefully we'll be getting an answer then.

I think that's it for Real Estate. Seems a little slow but, again, I'm hoping to get at least one, if not two, properties under contract real soon!!

Non-REI related: I got back in the groove of working out. Last week I weighed in at 148.5, which I am happy with (at least I didn't gain again)! I did not measure myself but will be doing that this week. I feel like I can keep up with the dvd's better, I feel stronger, I've been eating better but I still have a long way to go. I'm keeping at it and am on week 4 of the videos (should be week 5 if I didn't get lazy). I'm shooting for being under 140 by the 4th of July... what do you think? I'm going to try!

Also, a couple months ago I brilliantly suggesting doing a garden this year. Hmmm, I've never done a garden before, have no idea what is involved but thought the kids would like it. Well it is hard work people. We had the area tilled this past weekend, last night I was clearing out the remaining sod and breaking up soil. My back is killing me. Who thought this was a good idea?? ha, ha. Actually, the girls are loving it so I just can't wait until everything starts growing!!

Okay, I gotta run so everyone have a good rest of the week!

Delayed closing... again.

2010-05-14T12:11:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday everyone!! How did everyone's week go? Mine... not so good but not so bad either!

We have no new properties under contract but there were 3 that came down in price. I'm hoping to snag one some time in the very near future! I'm also planning on using private money to fund the transaction.

The closing that was scheduled to close today was postponed another week. Yuck! However, it looks like the closing next week is pretty solid. I can wait another week to get paid! Patience is key in this business, right?

I went into the property we got under contract last week (we'll call it the "water house" from here on out) and the water was still in the basement. Obviously they never got it pumped out. I told my realtor if they didn't get it pumped out I was bailing. I truly do not think this is a big issue but I can't have water in a basement for another 2 months and not know how much more is coming in (if any). Frustrating. According to HUD they are waiting to get an electric bill resolved, turning the electric on, getting the water pumped out and keeping the sump pump running. I also want them, or me, to get a dehumidifier in there to lessen the dampness. This is the ideal situation...

Non REI related: I only worked out ONCE this week. I'm so mad at myself! Monday night I got a stomach bug and literally could not work out Tuesday morning. This led in to Weds, Thurs, Fri, etc. I am a terrible creature of habit. But, I'm dusting myself off and starting again. This is a non-negotiable thing for me, I need to lose some weight. What did I lose at the end of last week (I did not mention on my last post)? U humm, I gained .5lbs so up to 150. This is the end of last week, before I stopped working out. That sucked. However, I did lose another .1" on my waist and .5" on my hips. I did not lose inches anywhere else... weird.

So, that's that. I need to push on with everything and get MOVING!!! Hope everyone has a good weekend!!

Fridays Closing

2010-05-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday everyone! And a happy belated Mothers Day to all you wonderful women out there who make the world go round!! I had a craaaazy busy weekend. Friday we worked around the house when I got home from work. Saturday morning we had to be up early to drive down to my nephews bday party in IL. Saturday night I spent the night at my folks which was very nice. We had cocktails with my brother and sister in law, laughed and had a good time. Sunday we had to drive downtown Chicago for Dave's family and sat in traffic for 45 minutes. Nope, I don't miss the city at all! Then we had to drive home from the city back to WI last night. Urrgh... lots of driving but it was nice seeing everyone!

Okay, on the RE front. We had 1 successful closing last week. The other closing is pushed off until this Friday. Quite frankly I'm not really sure if it will close this week either? We didn't have the signed cash offer for the property (which is our backup for now) so I didn't feel like I had a choice in signing the amendment for extending the closing. Again, I'm keeping positive thoughts and hope it will close for both the buyer and mysef. The buyer has put a lot of money out there for inspections/appraisals and I know she really wants the house. So here's to both of us getting what we want *fingers crossed*!!

Still putting offers out there. I have a feeling (whenever I say that the Black Eyed Peas start singing in my head) something more is going to pop soon. The properties I've been watching have been out there for a while so they should be coming down in price soon. The property I was initially thinking of L/O'ing probably would not be a good candidate - too much work. There is another property that I'm looking to get at $20k, put in $10k for fix ups, which would seem more profitable for a L/O. There is a 2nd property that has been listed for a couple months that I may go after for a L/O too. This one I will try to get for $15k, put in $15k and have another $30k loan. It all sounds good in my head/paper but we'll see how it plays out in real life.

I think that's it for now. Hope everyone has a good week!!

New contract and closings

2010-05-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

On Friday of last week a HUD property came back on the market after about a year of being MIA. I was watching it for a while last year and then it was off their website, not listed on mls, etc so I forgot about it. I was surprised to see it listed again on Friday so I put an offer in and it was accepted. The house was listed for $129k, it's ARV is about $149k and I have it under contract for $66k. After work I took a drive over to see if it was still in the same shape as last year. Walking through the house I'm thinking, "this is better than I remembered" until I.......... got to the basement. At the bottom of the stairs I could see that the floor looked wet but it was dark so I wasn't sure how wet. Slowly I put my foot on the concrete floor and hit water. Yep, there is about 6" of water in the basement. My initial thought was, "Crap!" But decided water in the basement may or may not be a big deal. Of course we cannot have it there for the ETERNITY it takes HUD to close and we need to find the source. I told my realtor what I found and she must have mentioned it to her broker. He said he would take a look (he has a basement waterproofing co. on the side). He didn't see anything concerning and says we just need the sump pump on to get rid of the water for now. So, at this time, not a deal breaker. Should be a pretty good deal!

I have 2 closings set for Friday but neither are solid. Can you believe this? I'm not sure what is going on with the banks around here!!?!?!?! WTF? The one that seemed solid said she (the lender) was concerned with how much money I am making on the deal. She wanted to be SURE I put money in to the property because I bought it so cheap. What the hell is it to her how much money I make? Lucky for me this happens to be the property that I had all that plumbing work done so I supplied her with my invoices. In the end I'm only going to be making about $6.5k profit. The bank for the other property (that fell through last month) required a 2nd inspection that came back fine according to the buyer. The bank states that the inspector suggested seperate roofing, electrical and plumbing inspections. Again, WTF? I had a plumbing inspection and the roof and electric were new as of about 7 years ago. Neither go bad in that amount of time. Soooo, not sure what the hell is going on BUT I'm really trying to stay positive and have positive energy/thoughts that these properties will close. I pre-signed both sets of closing docs yesterday so I have everything done on my end.

I've been thinking how to avoid these problems for the next flip and here is my solution. I will be making a contact at a local bank in the same town the property is located. I will explain the situation to the lender and see if their institution/underwriters will have a problem with seasoning, my profits, not doing any work on the property, etc. If they do have a problem I will move on to the next bank. If they do not have a problem all of my buyers must go through them or pay cash. I'm not sure if this will limit my buyers or not but I just can't have these fall through days before closing. I just don't get it? Don't the banks look at any of the information more than 5 days before closing? I mean, why do we wait a month to close? It should be 5 days : ) Okay, enough complaining.

Still submitting offers. I hope to have another one under contract in the next couple weeks.

Still working out. I missed 1 work out last week so I did 5 out of 6. This week I will probably do 5 out of 6 again since I am going out of town for a birthday. I am measuring myself again this weekend too. Last Sunday I weighed in at 149.5 so 2.5 lbs lost (which is probably all water weight) and I measured my waist just to see and it appeared I was down .5". We'll see what the tape measure says this weekend!

If any of you follow Shae's blog and haven't read it recently, she has some outstanding news!!! Head on over to www.goodfaithinvesting.com and real all about it!

Have a wonderful day!

Private Lender Appointment/Closings/long term wealth/Workouts

2010-04-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

I had another sit down meeting this past weekend with a prospective private lender. They are interested and want me to present my deals to them as they come up. This is GREAT! I'm not 100% sure they will commit to lending but they did not say no. That is fantastic in my book.

Both of the closings for our HUD properties are set for next week. We hit a snag with the same one that fell through last month. Of course this did not make me happy but we're working through it and I'm hoping and praying it closes successfully. I have all my money out again and am really tight financially until these properties close. I do not like being in that predicament. So far so good and you'll be the first to know if it falls through!

I have been analyzing our business again as I look towards making my early departure next year. As you know I have not had an accepted offer on a wholesale property in months which means I would not have a profit in... a while. I cannot let this happen when my sole earnings will be real estate. So as I thought about the properties I'm going after it occurred to me, "hmmm if my exit strategy on this property was a lease/option I would be able to purchase it, make a nice monthly cash flow and get option money". The more I thought about it the more I liked that idea. If I had, say, 10 houses with $300/mo minimum cash flow I would be come close to replacing my income. I would also have the option money and, finally, if and when the options are completed we would have a big pay day in the end. So, it all sounds great EXCEPT I hate, hate, hate being a landlord. I know this is a bit different in the sense that all the responsibility goes to the tenant but... I don't know. I feel like I keep coming back to the lease/option niche and really feel like this is the direction I need to go in order to make my future happen. Of course I would always wholesale properties between L/O's which would also add to our cash flow but I just don't think I can soley count on wholesale deals.

The property I am looking at is a 3/2 Tudor style house in a great neighborhood, near lakes & golf course, close to the IL border, etc. The house is mostly updated (kitchen, flooring, baths), had a new roof in '04. What is needs is a new well drilled, new windows and major landscaping. It also has a stucco exterior which I've read could cause problems. Right now I could get the house for $59k, I want it for $55k if I'm going to L/O and $45 if I am going to wholesaler. Back in '07 it sold for $200k+... amazing, huh?! There have already been some other bids on the property so I'm pretty sure it's not going to sit much longer. At any rate, I could lock up this property, get a new well drilled for $5k, update the landscaping and then L/O for $125k, I think. I love this house, it is really cool. This is all based on an inspection coming back clean, of course. Soooo, I'm thinking of trying it on this house and see how it all goes?

Received my Insanity workout over the weekend. I started it on Monday and have completed 4 workouts. I'm very, very sore and hate getting up at 4am to do the workouts BUT I am committed. My starting weight is 152 and I'll post my progression.

Alrighty then... another roadblock (shocker!)

2010-04-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

Monday: So I'm making dinner when my mom calls with some questions regarding financing the real estate deals. She mainly wanted clarification on 2 things:

How many properties they can fund/year before getting taxed (I didn't know there was a limit, nor did I know they could get taxed as it could be construed as a business if they did too many).
The website states very clearly that ALL profits go back in to the IRA upon sale of the property and she wanted to know how I would be getting money in my pocket. Isn't she sweet thinking of me : )

I tried explaining to her that the note would spell out the terms and conditions regading how much they would earn from each property. So if we agreed that they would make $2k for a short term note and the profit was $10k after we sold the house, I would get $8k at closing. She wasn't understanding because, again, the website was very clear on where the profits went. So I said I would talk to Equity Trust the next day and get it spelled out for her.

Tuesday: I get my representative on the phone and start asking my moms questions. For the record, question #1 is 6-7 properties conservatively but more likely 10-12 purchases per year before a red flag is raised to the IRS. Okay, that sounds good - on to question #2. This is where things turn south. As I'm asking my question about my parents' IRA funding our purchase, how the terms are laid out, etc. he proceeds to tell me that that cannot be done. WHAT?! What do you mean it can't be done? Well, you are a "disqualified person" and your parents' IRA cannot lend to you it is against the IRS rules or some BS like that. I was soooo upset when I got off the phone. My mind would not stop racing on how I was going to get this to work without putting my parents money in jepardy of getting taxed, "A prohibited transaction can bring into question the tax-deferred status of the account, resulting in the disqualification of the self-directed IRA and severe tax and penalties". The first thing I did was send an email to my mentor at private money blueprint program. I'm currently waiting on his response.

In the meantime I started searching the web for an answer. It sounds like we can partner on deals where they put in 50% and I put in 50% (or whatever percentage you agree on) but they cannot fully fund a deal. I want 100% of the property purchased with private money.

So I'm pretty sure, not 100% but pretty damn close, that my parents will not be able to be a part of my program. All their money is in their retirement accounts and if they take any out they have to pay taxes. Not worth it and I completely understand!

Soooo, that's that.

Have not received the Insanity workout yet...

Headed off to listen to Steph's newest Wholesale success story interview. If interested head on over to www.flipthiswholesaler.net. You will get a ton of great content if you listen, I assure you!!

1st Private Money Meeting/New contract/Offers, offers, offers

2010-04-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

As you all know I purchased the Private Money Blueprint Program about 6 weeks ago. Over this time I have been going through the program, listening to the modules, updating the presentation and mentioning it to people who ask how the "house thing" is going. Well after talking to my parents, they decided they wanted to learn a little more about investing their hard earned 401k money. This past Monday I sat down with them, presented my program and they were very interested. I'm hoping that in the next few weeks we'll be purchasing a property using their self directed IRA (which needs to be set up and funded, of course). I am also rolling over my 401k from a previous employer in to a SD IRA. The tax benefits are outstanding! From what I'm hearing this is the concern most of my prospects have is paying taxes on the money they would be investing with me. However, if they roll their money in to a SD IRA it is tax free. THEN, when they get their profit upon closing it is directed back in to their SD IRA tax free. Woo Hoo! The only draw back would be if someone wanted their profits in their pocket and not in their IRA acct? I imagine it would be doable but highly taxed. Sooo I told my dad that if he was happy with his return to just mention it to all of his friends that are retired with big 401k's! Hopefully this will start the ball rolling and I'll get more people interested in hearing about the program.

We got a new contract on the property that had the FHA buyer fall through. I emailed the buyer that was super interested when we accepted the other offer and told him the contract fell through. They went to see it 2 days later and put in an offer the next day. It is lower than the first offer but I want the house gone so I can move one! We are scheduled to close at the end of the month (4/30). Fingers and toes are crossed.

Since we are heading in the private money direction I'm putting in offers like crazy. I feel like I have a little more flexibility even though nothing is set in stone regarding the PM. There are a bunch of HUD's and other regular bank owned properties out there that I'm watching. Already this week 2 HUD's have been sold to o/o's and just today I got a multiple offer notice on another property. Urrghh.. frustrating! But it's part of the game we play and I hope we'll get one under contract soon!

Tomorrow we are looking at 2 or 3 properties and Sunday I am going to look at 2 more. There is a HUD that just came on the market today with a phenomonal list price. I cannot bid on it until a week from Monday but that gives me time to go take a look and be sure it has a back wall : )! If it's in good shape I will probably be offering full price. We'll see, I'll probably have an o/o beat me out anyway... I'm starting to get a little frustrated with no properties under contract BUT I just keep submitting them and know that I'll get one soon!

****Non real estate related**** I am making a commitment to do the 60 day insanity workout program as soon as I get it (just ordered today). I have to lose this extra weight, it is really bothering me!! I don't really have a lot to lose, maybe 10-15 lbs but, urgh, I just want it gone. I'll be the first to admit that I suck at sticking with programs, I love junk food, I love to sit around, I love my cocktails, you know all the stuff that's not good for me!! BUT, I need to make a change and I'm committing myself here, today, that I will do the 60 days to the best of my ability!!!

My FHA closing totally blew up!

2010-04-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

Yep.... last Thursday night my realtor informed me that there was a little "glitch" with our closing. The buyers lender (a mortgage broker) said FHA changed their rules to reinstate the FHA 90 day non-flipping rule. I called him up an reamed him up and down. Not professional, I know... But remember, I spoke directly to him right when we received my buyers offer and he ASSURED me that the 90 day flipping rule would not be an issue. He also assured me that the profit I would be making from the sale would be a non-issue. Okay fast forward about 40 days to last Thursday. I was absolutely livid when I got the call that he could not proceed to closing. I was also livid that he assured me, the realtors AND the buyer that this would close w/ no issues. I was also confused that FHA would reinstate the 90 day rule after just over a month. So I went on over towww.flippinghomes.com to see if anyone had posted this change. Hmmm, no posts referring to the change. Weird? My first thought is that this guy is lying to us. Why would someone do that? Just to be sure I posted the question of whether this change was actually reinstated. Here is the answer http://www.flippinghomes.com/forum/replies.aspx?tp=1&tr=165244#m184494

Okay, can anyone say I was livid at this point? I call the broker up again and ask him to fax me the change. He then proceeds to tell me that he never said that FHA reinstated their 90 day rule it was just the lender he was using............. If I could have gotten my fist through that phone to connect with his face I would have been one happy camper. Anyhoo, we went back and forth and in the end I basically called him a liar and that I would never work with him in the future, ever.

So the buyer is now out $1,200 for 2 appraisals and a home inspection on a property she cannot buy. Man, would I be pissed if I was her. Now, I could wait the 90 days but I just can't hold on to the property and hope she can close then. I really feel for her. She is trying her damndest to get another loan but it doesn't seem to be working out for her. I told them that they have to go through a local bank for me to even entertain the extension again.

So what are we doing with the property now? Well this buyer still wants it but we are not waiting so we put a bump clause in their contract. This way if we get another buyer they are bumped out of place. I just found out this morning we have another buyer who should be submitting an offer by the end of the week. I got this particular buyer off CL and he wanted to go through it right when we got the FHA offer. Urrgh... should have taken him through. We also have a showing tomorrow night. I think it will work out fine, less profit but still something to pay down our last credit card (WOO HOO credit card debt free!!! Can't wait).

More to share later...

Organizing for Private Money

2010-04-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

Hello All! Hope everyone is having a good week.

This week I am trying to focus on getting my power point presentation together in order to present our program to potential private money lenders. This past weekend I opened the PP presentation so I could modify it and found that I only have a PP reader on my home computer... WTF?!?! So, I've been trying to modify it at work but have not been successful at completing it yet. My "due date" is Tuesday so I'm probably going to have to download something at home, not sure yet. However, I am getting excited about the potential I have ahead of me. I have not taken my eyes off my the prize, which is my completion date of August 2011. This week at work has been very slow and I feel like I am wasting my time by sitting around and talking. It's nice to have a break but there is so much I need to do re: REI but cannot do it all at work. I do too much as it is! At any rate, I asked my realtor and one of my buyers to write up a testimonial for my presentation and both said yes. I have to say I was really, really nervous about calling my buyer but I literally said - out loud - "what the hell, just call him" and I did.

No updates on the FHA closing. Seems good to go at this point.

The inspection on the Wind Lake property (HUD #2) showed electrical problems (shocker after the plumbing!). We negotiated and that's taken care of. Now I'm just waiting on the well inspection report and I should get that back tomorrow *crossing fingers*.

I am going to look at a couple other properties this weekend. I picked 3 specifically b/c they were in the county my one bank lends. It has frozen/broken pipes but if the rest of the house is decent, there might be a deal? We'll see. Also looking at a HUD a little further north as it looks like a great deal! I NEED to get another property under contract and keep this momentum going!!

Wish me luck!

It's been a long time in posting!

2010-03-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone had a good weekend! We did a lot of nothing and it was great! Well, we did decide to grab some burgers Saturday night for dinner instead of cooking so it took some effort to get everyone in the car : )

The closing for our FHA buyer was supposed to be this Wednesday but it has been extended. I guess she could not supply her lender with proof of child support? Not sure but her mom has decided to help her out so things should be good to go. The lender has pretty much guaranteed that this will close it is just a matter of when (and he wants it done asap!).

The buyers for our second closing have their inspection today. I'm hoping they do not find anything major! We had the furnace inspection checked and it was fine. We had the water turned on last week and plumbing was NOT fine! Urrghh... These are the worst plumbing problems I've had since starting! Honestly I couldn't even give you a list of things right now b/c there are so many but it is all fixed and ready to go. The well inspection is this week and I'm hoping and praying that it comes back ok. If the well inspection comes back with tainted water our profits are all just about out the window. Dave thinks that most of the neighbors are on the same well so it should be good (this is a private street with about 5 houses so he may be right?). We'll see but I'm keeping positive thoughts. This closing is not until May unless they want to push it up.

Tomorrow is the closing of our 3rd HUD this year. This is the one I am partnering with my realtors broker. I haven't talked much about this b/c I'm not really doing anything with it (not intentionally)! I asked my realtor what price she was going to list and she said $99k which I think is way too low. If I closed on it myself, I would start it at $109k and see what happened. When she told me I was shocked and asked her why. She said she doesn't want her broker to have to sit on it. Whatever!

We do not have anything else under contract. I have been submitting offers but nothing accepted yet... bummer! As always, it seems to come in waves so I'm hoping my next "wave" will crash soon! I've been trying to get my rental refi'd with another bank so it would free up my LOC but she hasn't been getting back to me. I am going to call her this week - again - to see what's up. I also have my 30 minute call scheduled for tomorrow regarding private money getting. If I can line up private money I think my business would definately soar to the next level! I feel like I am at a hump I just can't quite make it over... YET! I'm trying to put pieces of the ladder in place in order to get over that hump! Lining up private money would certainly help!

Okay, gotta run. Have a great week!

Offer/Taxes/Closings

2010-03-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

Not much new to report this week. The appraisal for our closing (with our buyer) at the end of the month was submitted Monday. My realtor called the listing agent yesterday to see if she had an update and she hasn't heard anything. At this point we're hoping no news is good news. If for some reason this falls through there has been a TON of activity on the property since we got it under contract. I'm hopeful we will close successfully on the 31st though!

The property I am partnering on was delayed (b/c of me) until the end of the month. It was supposed to close on the 16th but now it is set for the 30th. I will be lucky if I make a whopping $2k on this deal. Woo Hoo. BUT, as my dad would say, it's better than a sharp stick in the eye. I have to keep reminding myself of that! ha, ha.

We got an offer on our Waterford property from the guys who emailed me late last week. We have been going back and forth but I think we should have it signed by Monday. There are 3 buyers on that deal so it takes them some time to get all the signatures & fax back. We are not making as much as I thought but, if all goes well, it should definately be a decent payday.

We looked at a bunch of short sale properties last weekend and submitted 2 offers this week. There were also a bunch of HUD's that were listed this week. I am eye-balling one that could be a great payday if I can get it where I need it. It is actually a re-list so I'm hoping they will be agreeable to the lowball offer I am going to submit : ) We can't submit for over a week though due to the owner occupants getting first pick. Anyhoo, we are going to see it this weekend.

This weekend I am dedicating most of my time to tax preparation. I have to organize all my documents from the properties I bought and sold last year. My appointment is set up for Monday afternoon so I want to have the majority of my documents ready for my accountant. I'm sure I'll be missing some things but if I have most of it, I (and she) will be happy. As we all know, I lack in the organization department so I'm going to TRY and remain calm through the paperwork!

Hmmmm, what else? Oh yeah, I never heard back from the private money blueprint people so I could set up my 30 minute phone call. I took it off my list of "to do's" because I sent the email and just realized this week that they never emailed me back. That's irritating. I just sent another email...

Okay, I guess that's it for now. Here's to everyone having a great weekend!!

Offer/FHA Appraisal/Private Money

2010-03-12T08:46:00.000-08:00

I guess my week isn't as bad as I made out in my last post (but I did get stuck in the mud that night at work and had to be pulled out by a tow truck - $79 - nice!). Yesterday I received this email:

"Hi, My name is Jeff I looked at this House on Tuesday March 9. My brother Jim and Phil were present.
We would like to make an offer on this house. Were do we go from here? Feel free to cam Phil at 262-xxx-xxxx or email me back."

You know I woke up yesterday morning forcing the negatives out of my mind and saying positive thoughts. I didn't want to wait until next week for things to get better. I figured I was kind of bringing on the negative myself. Soooo, yesterday was definately a better day and I should be getting an offer from these guys by the weekend. They are starting the offer low but I'm hoping to get them up about $4k. Even if they didn't budge on price, which I think they will, it's still an OK payday for holding the property for less than a month.

The FHA appraisal was started 2 days ago on the property we should be closing by month end. There is chipping paint on the soffit and trim of the garage that needs to be fixed. This should be done this weekend. I also did not have the water on so that is getting turned on today and the plumber is going to de-winterize the place. Hopefully he is going to tell me there are no major problems. Actually they should both be there in 10 minutes : ) It sounds like everything else was OK with the appraisal. Once the water is on and the painting is done the appraiser will go back out and check to be sure everything is good.

I received my Private Money Blueprint program a couple weeks ago and have been diligently going through the manual and modules. I'm currently waiting to set up my 30 minute 1 on 1 phone call to ask some more specific questions. My husband mentioned to his friend that we are starting to look at finding private investors and he said he might be interested. He said we should have dinner and discuss. I'm trying to get through enough of the manual and talk to Trevor or Patrick prior to the dinner. Hoping to have that set up in the next couple of weeks!

Looking at a bunch of properties this weekend. They are in a higher price range, less repairs, have been listed for 200+ days and are short sales. We'll see how it all pans out.

Everyone have a good weekend and happy house hunting!!

2nd HUD closing of the year

2010-03-10T14:03:00.001-08:00

Our second HUD closing for 2010 took place this past Monday, 3/8. I had many, many people interested in the house and told them all I would be showing last night at 5:30pm. I wasn't sure how many people would show but thought a minimum of 3 and a max of 8. Guess how many actually showed?? ONE! Yep, one person. Well, actually 3 people but they were together : ) I even had one guy from my buyers list say he would be there and no showed. I was pretty pissed off for more reasons than one. The guys that went through seemed really interested, said they would talk and contact me either last night or this morning. I haven't heard anything. This doesn't really surprise me since I am having the worst week EVER!! Not necessarily REI related but just a bad week. It is kind of whatever could go wrong will go wrong. Sooo I wasn't really expecting that call, "We decided to submit a full price offer, Eileen. What is your fax number?".

I'm just waiting patiently for this week to be over and looking forward to a better, more focused week next week.

Guess what I gooooottt?!?!

2010-03-03T05:32:00.000-08:00

Two HUD keys and MLS access. WOO HOO! I'm using my realtors access right now but when I get my license I will get my own. Pretty damn cool!!

MLS Access & Buyer update & Funding update

2010-03-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

Tonight I am getting my mls access, I think. I know we are going to go over my options, costs, if I will be an licensed assistant or actual realtor, etc. I'm very excited. However, I can see myself spending hours and hours on the mls checking things out... all the time. I'm sure it will be that way in the beginning but will taper off.

I spoke to my buyers lender and he seems confident that this FHA loan will go through. He said he's been doing this 8 years, knows his stuff and it's a solid loan. I told him I knew FHA lifted their 90 day rule but then imposed a cap on how much an investor can make. He said yes, some FHA lenders have that cap but the one he is using allows 50% profit. I will be making less than that so everything should be ok. I'm still a little skeptical because of everything you hear but it will be interesting going through the process to see, first hand, how it all works! One other thing I'm a little worried about is the appraisal. If you read my previous blogs you'll know that my appraisal for this property came back at $65k. But this took in to account a $25k POS house. Hopefully the next appraiser will be a little more mindful of the definition of "comps"... you know, comparable properties.

Next week we close on another HUD in a town called Waterford. I've had some interest from my CL ads and I just got an email today from one of my buyers. Haven't heard from this guy since I tried selling a short sale back in the day. See, never write someone off unless they ask to be written off. Who knows if it will work out but now I know he is at least reading my emails : )

The 3rd HUD we're closing 3/16 is in a town called Menomonee Falls. This is the one where we didn't have financing (my realtor found a lender that would send in our "HUD approved pre-approval letter"). I have been trying to get this thing financed by myself but was not having much luck. Two weeks ago my realtors broker said he would finance the property. Cool, right? Terms... I get 20% of the profit. YEP, 20%! Nice! You get totally screwed when you don't have any money. I've known about this for 2 weeks but was unable to type it out because it infuriates me so. I know, I know, I should be grateful he is willing to loan me the money. I should be grateful that I am not losing $1k of my EMD. I should be grateful that he is taking the risk. Yes, I should be grateful. And I AM grateful. But 20%, really? Oh well, something is better than nothing and I'm certainly not going to say no and let the deal fall apart!! Now with that said, I spoke to the lender today that changed their policy to only work in their county. I told him we have a contract on the Evansville house (they have the loan) and if they would consider lending on Menomonee Falls? I kind of asked tongue in cheek but he said it's already on the agenda to talk about at their Thursday meeting! I'm not counting on getting them to loan it but if they can that would be great! I am going to see the broker tonight so I'm going to talk to him about this and see if we can work something out if the bank finances me. Maybe I'll give HIM 20% for helping me out!?! We'll see how it pans out.

P.S. Remember... head on over to Stephs blog for my interview. I'm pretty proud of it myself. I didn't sound like a complete idiot!!

P.S.S. Everyone have a good day!!

You are NOT going to believe this!!!

2010-02-26T11:34:00.001-08:00

We got an offer on the Evansville HUD last night for more than asking price. WOO HOO! They are asking for a lot in return but it is a more than generous offer, in my opinion. Of course there is 1 sticking point (it can never, ever be easy!)... the buyer is pre-qualified with a broker. Soo, we're in the process of determining if there will be seasoning issues. I told my realtor to just have the buyer get pre-approved through a local bank and it would be a non-issue. She is talking with the buyers agents to get things straightened out. Hopefully the buyer is easily qualifiable (is that a word?)! We also have a rural direct loan that this home would qualify for. IF all goes well we will be closing the end of March and numbers will be pretty good!

Re Furnace: Since we have a pseudo-accepted offer on the property we are probably just going to replace the furnace. We have a lot of wiggle room in our profit to just make the buyers move nice and easy. I don't want her to have a problem in the next year or two if we just replace the heat exchanger. Karma baby... what goes around, comes around.

Finally, Steph put the link to our interview on her blog over at www.flipthiswholesaler.net. Exciting stuff!!!

Interview, closing and problems!!

2010-02-25T12:28:00.001-08:00

Hey all! Last week Steph over at http://www.flipthiswholesaler.net/ asked me do an interview for her "Flip this Success Story" series. I was thrilled that she thought of me and immediately said yes! This is a new addition to her already awesome sight and it will be a great motivator for new and experienced investors alike. We did the interview on Saturday and I should be able to post it here in the next day or so. We basically went over how I got started, the type of deals I do, how I close them, how I find my buyers, how they are funded and a description of my last deal. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to hearing the interview back and also hearing more success stories moving forward.

On to my updates... we closed on our Evansville HUD property this past Tuesday. Yeah! My lender had to get an appraisal of the property and it came back VERY low. BOO! We bought the property (4br/2ba/2ca garage) for $55k and it appraised out at $65k - WHAT!?!?! The most recent sales are in the $130k's. Late last year there were 2 houses that sold for low prices - 1 for $24.5k (that was a POS, literally) and the other sold for $68k. Okay, he should not have even included the $24.5k property in his analysis and if he added the $68k to the $130k's properties were looked at $99k which is what I would have expected. Hell, even $85k would have been acceptable but $65k?!?!? Oh, he also calculated in my purchase price, I think. I just hope this isn't a problem when we go to sell the house.

Making me more nervous about this property is the fact that we had the furnace guy out there and the furnace is a POS. Well maybe not a total POS, the heat exchanger is cracked and the blow motor (or something) "doesn't sound right" as he put it. He is suggesting we replace the whole furnace but, of course, I don't want to replace the whole furnace. Side note: I just did a search on http://www.flippinghomes.com/ and found that if the heat exchanger is cracked the furnace should be replaced... CRAP! So this will dig in to our profits by about $2.5k unless we can get one of our friends up to replace it. I know there is a government tax credit out there too that I just may take advantage of... IF I can. I always find that those credits don't apply to me : )

UUURRRHHH!!

On a brighter note, we did have a showing this morning. Will be interesting to hear what they have to say!

Will keep you all updated!! Have a good rest of the day.

Purchase/updates

2010-02-12T09:51:00.000-08:00

The waterpark was great fun last weekend. My 5 year old went on ALL the watersides except 2. I was very proud of her. She loved the "roller coaster" waterslide that goes very, very fast. She'll be on all of them next year. My 3 year old just wanted to hang out in the baby pool. She didn't want anything to do with the waterslides.... she didn't like the water in her eyes : )

Anyhoo, finally got an email back from my first potential private money guy and, basically, he wasn't interested. I'm sure I went about it all wrong but I'm proud of myself for even putting it out there! I ordered the private money blueprint system today. It took me a couple of weeks to swallow the price but I KNOW it is what I need. I'm getting shot down right and left by the banks for more reasons than one (I don't have the energy to go through them right now). Since I already have 3 HUD's in the pipeline I cannot bid on anymore. Why? Because no one else will provide a custom HUD pre-approval letter for me. Frustrating. Soooo, I need to get some private funds lined up so I can start really moving along. I'm hoping to have the system before next weekend so I can have some idea how this works. My mom is coming up to visit and I wanted to talk about it with her a little, even though I know she'll tell me to talk to my dad. She is then going down to FLA to visit friends and I want her to put the bug in their ears too. Again, not sure about the approach but... I want to get moving.

I have been thinking about who I know with money and, surprisingly, I think there are quite a few people I know with some extra cashola. The main reason why I'm a little gunshy about asking family is b/c my brother had people invest in a couple of his ideas and they lost money. A lot of money. I know they will not lose money with me but I'll have to convince them, I'm sure!

This weekend we are going to see 2 REO's (non HUD). Both are priced extremely well so we need to check out their condition. I figure I can just use a basic pre-approval for these and hopefully have them sold prior to closing. What a concept!!

The HUD we are closing 2/23 has a few very interested parties. Three people from Craigslist want to go through and one of my buyers just called again today about it. Hopefully we'll have a buyer on this one quickly!

Looking to buy Sean Stephensons book for Steph's book of the month. I have not gotten around to it yet. It's on my "to do" list.

Okay, gotta run. You all have a great weekend!!

Interesting week...

2010-02-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

So, I didn't hear back from the private money inquiry email as of today Friday, 2/5 @ 10:15 : ) I sent a follow up email to see if he had any questions/concerns so hopefully he'll send something back! I'm actually surprised he didn't respond b/c he almost always responds to every email I send out, even to just say he's not interested. Don't know? I also didn't hear back from the other guy at all. That's also interesting as he almost always sends some type of response back too. I hope my email isn't screwing up!

This week was pretty tough for me at my real job. I was just in a funk all week, crabby, hating being there (even though I don't hate my job), etc... It's really hard to go to work when you, at times, despise it so much. It's like I'm bitter at my JOB because I have to work. Isn't that pathetic? Like it's my jobs fault that I have to work?! ha, ha. It sounds pretty funny when I type it out though! In the end I'm always very thankful that I even have a job in these times and I know it will pass (which is what I told myself all week). Still, it's hard...

Real estate front... HUD delayed my Feb 11th closing 2 weeks. Yeah, someone forgot to pay a bill and closing is now delayed. This is going to totally SCREW up my timing for all my other closings. Urrrgh. Seriously? You've had 45 days to pay the bills?!?! Of course, that really pissed me off too.

Another HUD came back on the market last week that I totally wanted a month or two ago. This is the property I thought I had in my back pocket but it ended up being sold in the 1st day open to investors to an o/o. It looked like there was a type of bidding war in the o/o week so I didn't even have a chance. Anyhoo, it's back and I can bid on Monday. I'm hoping I have a shot at it this time since it wasn't re-sent out in the mls. It was just re-listed on their website. We'll see, I don't have my hopes up but it would be a phenomonal deal!

The BIGGEST thing that happened occurred yesterday. I sent my realtors broker an email with the FIRST sentence saying I hadn't discussed the following with Michelle yet. I basically said that I took my realtors test, didn't send in the paperwork yet and IF I decided to send it in could I hang my license at his brokerage? Pause: I didn't go to Michelle's broker to go around her back in any way I just wanted to get his thoughts before discussing with Michelle. It was very hard for me to bring it up to her b/c I enjoyed working with her so much AND I know I made her a lot of money... consistantly (or semi-consistantly). Continue: He sent me an email saying he discussed it with Michelle, no hard feelings and he wants to have a meeting with me next week. My first reaction was, "WHAT?! You asshole, I wanted to tell her I was getting my licese!" Why? Because I didn't want HER to think I was going around her back. At any rate, I know I'm rambling, everything is fine between everyone and I have a meeting with her broker next Thursday. Hopefully all will turn out well since I'll still want her to list most of my properties for sale.

We are headed to the Wisconsin Dells this weekend for a long indoor waterpark "getaway". I soooooo need it! I can't wait to spend some quality time with my husband and kids! I'm leaving work today at noon and taking Monday off - WOO HOO!

Everyone have a great weekend and we'll talk next week : )

I'm going to kick some serious butt in 2010!

2010-01-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

I got 1 response from an email I sent the other day regarding private money. He wanted to know what kind of return his investors could expect. I quickly emailed Shae and looked up some info in the flippinghomes.com archives. Both Shae and the archives gave me some great info so this is how I responded:

"Good Morning Gary!

8-10% annualized. I'm looking at a 3 month term for starters with interest only payments being made at the end of the term. The investor would be in the first position and their investment would be secured by the real estate.

I also have another property coming up that you may be interested in. It is across the street from Wind Lake - 3BR/1BA needing the typical work but no basement. The address is 26215 S. Wind Lake Road if you wanted to take a look - $69k if you can close quickly.

Let me know on both or if you need more information."

I know I didn't give a ton of info but I intentionally kept it brief. I hope it will pique his curiosity and get them thinking! So now I really feel like I can continue down this path and make things happen in 2010. Not that I didn't think I could make things happen before but I just see more doors opening for me with private funds. We'll see how this goes and if they're even interested. However, now I know that people will at least check out my program. I need to invest in the www.privatemoneyblueprint.com system to really get going!

Hopefully I'll have some type of update later today!

Got my Pre-Approval!

2010-01-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

My realtor came through in the clutch and got a lender to provide the pre-approval for our next HUD property. This one will most likely close in late March/early April provided we attain funds for the closing! I'm crossing 1 bridge at a time here...

Trevor from www.privatemoneyblueprint.com answered some questions I had on my last post. I thought that was pretty great.

Neither investor replied to the emails I sent regarding loaning private money. They're usually pretty good about saying yes or no about something so I'm hoping they are "thinking it over" : )

Our 1st HUD of the year closes Feb 11th. I sent an email to my buyers list not expecting anyone to reply since it's in a different county but lo and behold someone wants to take a looksy. They are actually going to do a drive by today and let me know if they want to go in. Man, would that be awesome to have a contract prior to closing! What a concept!! heehee.

That's it for now, talk soon!

May lose my first deal due to funding... MAYBE

2010-01-26T11:25:00.000-08:00

And so it goes, the HML decided not to fund my next contract. As I said in my last post he likes the "warm and fuzzy" of knowing that the person he lends to will be able to get re-financed out of his hard money loan if the house doesn't sell. If someone can get financed by a regular bank why in the he!! would they need a hard money guy??!?! But I digress... So Shae has really got me thinking about private money. I don't think I will be able to go as far as I want only using local banks. Don't get me wrong they are great and I will most likely always use them but they change their policies/procedures so damn often that I am constantly having to run around trying to find another lender. I know, it's the way it goes for a lot of investors it's just annoying!! So I signed up at www.privatemoneyblueprint.com and have been trying to watch their free videos. I was hoping they had a download so I could listen to it on the way to work but I couldn't find one anywhere. So I tried watching a video last night at home and it (my computer) is so slow! It has to load up 45 seconds worth of video every minute or so. Uuurrrggh. I was trying to see how they structure their loans. I might just buy their system, I don't know. I need to do something though! I want to thank Shae again for bringing this to my attention!!

In the meantime I sent 1 of my buyers an email saying I was on the lookout for people who want to invest their money in real estate. He is in the mortgage industry and may know someone. Hey, it's a start.... I also sent an email to another one of my buyers who I KNOW has a lot of cashola about this new HUD property. He invests in this specific county and may be interested? I sent the email only to him in hopes he would at least want to take a look. If he wants the house my funding should not be an issue. If he doesn't want the house I am going to approach him about investing in ME!

Finally my realtor is supposedly getting a lender to get a HUD pre-approval written up for me. This will get the contract solidified BUT I will still need to find the money over the next month or so.

That's it for now. Hopefully some good news will be a comin' soon!

Have not heard anything yet

2010-01-22T14:00:00.000-08:00

I'm still waiting to hear back from the HML about funding my new HUD contract. I will be surprised if he passes but you just never know. This is the guy that has been burned in the past with people defaulting on his loans. I can't say I blame him for being gunshy but I'm hoping he'll get all warm and fuzzy when he drives by the place. It is the typical ugly house surrounded by nice houses scenario. I guess we will see though...

The lady at the other bank said she could not fund this deal. She did however tell me that if I refinanced our rental unit with another bank we would open up our line of credit for more properties. What?! I was kind of surprised (in a good way) to hear that. Soo, I am calling another bank Monday to see if they would be able to do that for me.

I was also reading the paper today and came across an ad that said something along the lines of "Need money to buy houses, no credit, no problem". Me being the skeptic I am I think it is a scam. However, I will be calling on the off chance that they have millions to lend out. Once again, you just never know : )

Also, lovely Shae gave me a couple websites to visit and see if I can get some tips on recruiting private money. I am SOOO bad at that stuff though. This is the kind of thing my husband is great at. Maybe I should make him the money guy?!?! hmmmm.

Alrighty nothing more to report. Hopefully Monday I'll have some good news!

Another HUD under contract... maybe...

2010-01-20T14:07:00.001-08:00

More roadblocks and more roadblocks and more roadblocks.....

A new HUD property was listed about 2 weeks ago at a great price so I went out to take a look this past Saturday. On Monday it was open for investor bidding and I wanted to be sure it wasn't falling over before submitting a bid. I also wanted to submit a "real" bid since I suspected someone would pick it up quickly. Anyway, I submitted an offer that I thought might be rejected or might be accepted, I didn't know. It was accepted - YEAH! This is in a fabulous, well established neighborhood. It's close to schools, parks, expressways, etc, etc. The sold comps for other foreclosures in the area are high $90's - low $100's on the market for 2 weeks or so. The current listings have nothing under $122k. We got the property for $85k. It is in very good shape as HUD's go and should sell quickly.

The problem: The new bank I was using changed their policy as of Jan. 1st to lend in ONLY 1 county. As you might have guessed that county is NOT the county my new property is located. So now I have to ask the other bank I work with to provide my pre-approval. I do not think she will do this since we have another HUD under contract with her and she is SUPER conservative. My final person to reach out to is the mortgage guy I've used in the past to see if his hard money guy will lend to me. This is closer to his area so it may not be a problem but it is obviously way more expensive. HUD is requiring this pre-approval within hours of signed contract so it's really hard to delay. Urgh. I need some cash partners.

On a brighter note my goals are going pretty well. It's not perfect but I'm just trying to be consistant.

I've got more to say but I gotta run! Wish me luck!!!

No new HUD contract

2010-01-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

My husband went to look at the HUD I blogged about yesterday and he really liked it. Of course it needed the inevitable cosmetic work - flooring, carpet, patch work, etc - and we were also calculating in a new roof since it was convered with snow. We submitted another offer yesterday and when I looked today it was sold... not to me. An owner occupant got it in the high $90's. This person got a great deal! It sucks we didn't get it but I will definately keep an eye on it since a lot come back on the market (especially if they will not be able to prove they have their downpayment!).

The HUD we are closing in Feb. has the foundation inspection today. Hope all goes well!

Have a great day!

First post of the New Year - Here's to a Fabulous 2010!!

2010-01-05T05:13:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! We had a great Christmas and New Year. I was on call at the hospital for Christmas so I only made my in-laws on Christmas day. Later in the day my husband took our kids down to my parents for dinner. They all had a wonderful time and have enough toys to REfill our toy room. New Years eve was fun too. We ended up having small party at the last minute and I was over served : ) We had a wonderful time dancing, singing, playing dice/cards, etc. Anyhoo, it's back to business now.

I've been working on my goals for the new year and I'm doing pretty good. I now need to put an action plan into place. Honestly, I'm not really sure how to do that?? I know the basics but I'll have to read up on that.... BTW, I finished Brian Tracy's book for Steph's book club (go to www.flipthiswholesaler.net on the 7th to join in!). This book had some quality information but I wasn't crazy about his writing style. I'm looking forward to her next pick.

Right now we have 2 HUD's under contract so far for the year. One will be closing on 2/11 and we do not have a closing date for the other yet. probably the end of February or the beginning of March. There is another HUD my husband is going to look at today that could be another great deal. It's comping out at an easy $160k and we can get it right now for $90k (which I think is still too high - it's due for a price reduction soon). It doesn't sound like it needs a lot of work but that's why we need to go look. I'll keep you all posted.

I looked at 4 houses this past weekend and I will make an offer on at least one. These are regular REO's but we are VERY far apart on numbers so do not think there is a deal there - yet! I'm staying very focused on HUD's too. You know they changed their policies a little. You now need to show proof of funds for you downpayment monies. So if your bank gives you a pre-approval for 80% of your loan you now need to send them a bank statement (or something) showing you have money to close the deal. It is a pain in the ass but I know why they are doing it....

I have to run. Today is my daughters 5th birthday! I can't believe she is 5 already!! She acts like she's 15 though..... heehee!

A Good thing and some not so good things...

2009-12-23T13:35:00.000-08:00

The good thing... we ended up getting that other HUD under contract. I told you I was going to submit an offer a week until I got it for what I wanted? I resubmitted on Monday and they came down another 10% so I got it at the $55k I wanted. This one definately needs to be inspected though. Not as nice of updates at the others but in a good area.

The bad thing... my husband Dave's brother in law's mother passed away this past Sunday. She had a severe stroke a couple months ago but she seemed to be doing okay. On December 8th she went in to hospice and then passed on the 20th. Very sad. She was a lovely woman and many, many people will miss her. I know she is much more comfortable where she is now though!!

Another not so good thing... I bought the book of the month club book "Million Dollar Habits" by Brian Tracy. Do you think I cracked in open? Uuhhh, no. However I did read the third book in the Twighlight saga (don't give me any crap, it sucks but I need to know how it ends - and DON'T tell me).

Yet another not so good thing... I have not even thought about my goals for 2010. Well, I've thought about how many houses I want to flip but that's about it.... Not true. I know I want to do the triathlon again and complete it at a better time than I did last yeart. There, that's 2. I would also like to be more organized. Easier said than done...

Well, I've got some things to work on don't I??? I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a HAPPY/prosperous New year!!

We closed early!

2009-12-18T12:37:00.000-08:00

The bank was able to close our HUD property even earlier than we had hoped! Ya gotta love those local banks!! I pre-signed Weds night and the buyer closed yesterday morning. My realtor told me the buyer was sooo excited he couldn't sleep the night before - ha, ha. She said she thought he was going to cry he was so happy. Makes me feel kinda warm and fuzzy! The profit we made off this property pre-tax is $18,680 ish. WOW! This is the most I've made off a wholesale deal yet. I'm sure it's peanuts compared to what others are making but, boy howdy, I am thrilled! We are going to pay off 2 credit cards in FULL and pay another $2k on another card. We will only have 1 CC left... WOO HOO! After that is paid off (with any luck our next HUD will pay it off) we start tackling the car loan. At this point we still will not have any extra cash laying around : ) It's all for the greater good though!!

What a great Christmas present!!

Okay, back to business. We did not get that HUD I've been watching FOREVER! They will not budge on their price. Sooo, I'm going to make an offer every week it is available until the price is reduced again.

Another HUD came on the market today in a great school district and a great price great. We're going to take a look Sunday. Unless it is a POS we'll be able to bid close to asking. It looks pretty nice from the outside but it does sit on a busy road. It's always something with these houses.

Next year I want to be able to have 1 accepted HUD offer per month, or any REO for that matter. I'm thinking I might try to focus more on HUD since I have so much luck with them. The issue is that I will have to go outside my area a little bit more. This means I have to do more studying of towns. I'll have to think about this a little more. If I want to get to my ultimate goal I need to close at least 1 property per month which means I need at least 1 accepted offer per month. It doesn't sound too hard, does it? Ha, ha. I laugh b/c this was my goal last year. I will keep making this goal until I have been successful!!

Everyone have a good weekend!!

Closings, contracts and Christmas

2009-12-14T12:13:00.000-08:00

We are set to close our HUD property next Monday which is about 2 weeks earlier than our contract states. Yeah!

We got another HUD property under contract. Yeah! This is the one my husband went to look at a week ago. Apparently it has new vinyl windows, new siding, new high efficiency furnace, newer roof, etc. Sounds like just some carpet, paint and appliances on the inside. We will probably close on this one next February.

We're also looking at another HUD (you're shocked, I know) and just trying to get our price. I've been watching this one for quite some time and they are just not coming down to where we need to be... My agent just sent me some updated sold comps and the two lowest are $60k & $73k, then go from $118k - $173k. We are looking to get the property for no more than $55k.

I did not go to Steve's event last week. Jodi, if you're reading this did you go? The snow was insane by me on Wednesday and I didn't go to work. Thursday I was concerned about the wind/drifting/ice on the expressway. Urrggh. Another one missed. Hopefully there will be another one soon!

I got most of my Christmas shopping done this past weekend. I always say I'm not going to wait this long to shop and inevitably I always do... and get frustrated! It's crazy out there!

Quick updates

2009-12-04T12:44:00.000-08:00

Everything for the HUD closing is moving along nicely. No snags as of yet.

There is another HUD we are looking at closely. My husband went to look at it yesterday and liked it a lot. We submitted a lowball offer yesterday and are waiting on their counter. We're not sure we'll be able to get it at the price we need so we may have to wait for the next price reduction (which should be in 2 weeks).

We submitted another offer this week. There are some other properties we're still looking at but I need to re-organize my thoughts/properties.

I'm still waiting on mls access. I guess it was all smoke and mirrors until I just forgot about wanting access : ) Next year may be the year I'll be a licensed realtor?! I will ask this broker if I can hang my license with him though since he is so investor friendly (he is a rehabber himself).

Tomorrow we are headed to Chicago for our yearly visit to Santa at Macy's, ice skating in Millenium Park, dinner/drinks/good times with family, etc. We are ALL looking forward to it. I just love seeing my kids so excited!! They have been looking forward to it for WEEKS! ha, ha.

Everyone have a great weekend!

The universe WAS listening!!

2009-11-30T12:31:00.000-08:00

Yep, we have an accepted offer on the HUD house so, apparently, the universe was listening. Or was it my positive thinking : ) At any rate, the offer was accepted on Friday. We were not sure about his credit but I just found out his score is a 770 (WOW!) and he is going through a local credit union so seasoning should not be an issue! Our closing date is scheduled for Jan. 4th but the guy would like to close before Christmas. I guess we'll have to see how fast his bank moves. They already have the appriasal set up for this week or next so00... maybe?? If all goes well and we close successfully this will be the biggest payoff for us to date. I am not going to post any numbers until we close.

My husband checked the oil tank and it (drum roll please!) was full of oil. Dumb HVAC company. When I called the co. and told them it had oil the guy said, "oh, maybe there is a plugged line?". Hmmm, did you think of checking that a week ago?!?!?

Two HUD properties went down in price but are currently listed for o/o's. We cannot bid on them until next week so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no one snatches them up. However, I'm bracing myself for the letdown since it's happening quite a bit lately! I'm pretty confident I can get the 1 at the price I need and the other is a condo in an area of high priced condos. So, we'll see.

Still didn't hear back on the other REO's. Yeah, I guess they rejected. I'll keep an eye out. Also watching other properties and going to submit on a few short sales.

I think I'm going to Steve's event in the WI Dells on the 10th. I haven't signed up yet but already took the day off work. It's a little over an hour from my house so it will be a 1 day deal for me.

Updates/HUD House

2009-11-24T12:58:00.000-08:00

None of the HUD properties we put offers on last week had another price reduction (even though 2 are past due!).

One of the REO offers we put in accepted another offer. We're still waiting to hear back on the other 3. Since we haven't heard from them I'm assuming they rejected our offer. I'll keep watching.

We have a lot of activity on the HUD home we listed. Again, no contracts but a lot of interest which makes me happy. We are hoping for 3 showings tomorrow which is good since it's the day before a Thanksgiving. At least I think it's good! Sooo, I am trying to get the furnace up and running since it is getting quite cold here in WI. I set up an appt for the oil to be filled last Thursday and an appt for the HVAC guy to go out on Friday. Friday I get a call from the HVAC co. saying the oil tank is empty. After I get that message I call the oil company and they tell me they filled the tank the previous day. I made sure they had the correct address and told them I would look into it. I personally checked it this past Sunday and it looks empty to me (but I am no professional). I called the oil company today and we basically got in to an argument on the phone and she accused me of calling her driver a liar. ha, ha. I told her I was just trying to figure this out b/c I need to get my FURNACE WORKING! Urrrgghhh. How frustrating is that? I think the driver filled the tank of the wrong house even though they have the correct address. Our address is 261 South Monroe and I think they went to North Monroe. Just a guess.... I'm rambling, I know.

I'm hoping to go look at some properties Sunday morning to try and get another property under contract. I WISH we could get some consistancy with this whole flipping thang!!

Still haven't heard about my mls access even though I bring it up about every other day. Are you all getting the same feeling as me... he's changed his mind?

Everyone have a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving!!

Not much going on

2009-11-20T12:33:00.000-08:00

As expected we received counters on our HUD offers. None were good enough to accept so we are waiting for another price reduction and hoping no one buys in the meantime! Here are the numbers if anyone is interested (By the way, the 1st list price is true. Do you love it?! 1-2-3-4-5-6 They really thought about that list price!):

Listed Price Our Offer Counter from HUD
$123,456 $65k $98,900 (80%)
$94k $50k $65.8 (70%)
$98k $78.4 $60k (80%)

HUD is great b/c you almost always have an idea of what they will counter with. Not always but most of the time. Sometimes they come in even lower. It seems to me that they follow a formula for when they lower the % they will accept. I have found that a new listing will never go for less than 90%, if a property has a "Price Reduction" they usually take 80%, the 2nd price reduction is 70% and "Significant Price Reduction"(s) usually start at 60% and go down from there. I know other people will argue with me that there is no "formula" and they can get HUD properties for much less than what I am saying. This may be true but from what I've seen these numbers hold true. And, I'm sure the house itself/location makes a big difference.

Anyway, enough of boring everyone. We also got out the 4 REO offers I talked about in my last post. My husband went to look at one and he really liked it which is rare. This is the one in a higher price range. When he and our realtor were looking at it another group came to look at the same time. We're pretty sure we are not going to get that one. As for the other 3 offers, we are about $30k apart on price... heehee. One is actually $40k now that I think about it. There is 1 out of the 4 that may come back with a decent counter but we shall see.

Okay, there have been a few showings on the property we just closed on and a lot of good comments but no contract yet. I'm thinking positive thoughts and telling the universe that we WILL have a contract by next weekend!! Are you listening? ha, ha.

I think that's it for now. Everyone have a great weekend!!

HUD closing yesterday

2009-11-17T09:35:00.000-08:00

We closed on the $43k HUD home yesterday. I posted pictures a couple weeks ago. It is in good shape, not much needed. My husband went out there today to replace the locks, meet the plumber and have the water/electric turned on. Apparently the plumber told him we need to replace all the water fixtures in the house, including toilets. This was an expense I was not expecting (is there any other?). My husband is of the mind to sell the properties without having the water turned on and let the next person get things fixed. I agree with this mentality if we were selling to investors. However, since some of our homes are sold to o/o's my thought process is to make the property 'move in ready' to start the cosmetic updates. I have found many people to be uncomfortable buying homes with no utilities on no matter what the price. BUT, since we live in Wisconsin and are going into the winter season freezing pipes cause concern too. At any rate, I am going to get them fixed and hopefully entice buyers even more!

Let's see... I put in 4 HUD offers yesterday. I'm expecting them all to be countered, not accepted. I want to know where they stand on price. This is one reason why I love submitting on HUD properties. I'm also going to get another 4 offers out on regular REO properties. We are VERY far apart on numbers so I'm not expecting any positive results but I need to just get some offers out there.

There is one interesting property that I would like to look at soon (those words seem to be the kiss of death for me these days, it has probably already sold!). This property is a bit different though in the sense that it is in a higher price range than I usually go after. It's ARV is a conservative $189k and it is priced at $124k. Of course I have not idea of repairs at this point but want to take a look.

My son threw my phone in the toilet this weekend - good times! So I'm phoneless, it's weird but I have to get another one sometime this week.

Friday the 13th - not having a great week.

2009-11-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

The $50k HUD property I was 99% sure we were going to get was sold to someone else. They actually bid $62k when it was listed at $50k. I guess the wanted the house... bad?! I'm still watching to see if it comes back on the market, for some reason a lot of them pop back up. However, I hate to say I'm pretty sure this one is solid. Urrgh. In my neck of the woods HUD homes sit for a while but not this one!

We were set to look at another HUD tonight that's been on the market for a looong time. I looked this morning and it is sold. What the F*$K?!?!?! Frustration sets in.

My meeting with Michelle's broker did not go as I had hoped. I AM getting mls access, I think but I'm sure I'll still have to push for it. He left me a little more confused rather than anyting else. Unfortunately I don't have the time to go into details now.

We were set to show the single mom the HUD property we're closing on Monday, Tuesday night but now she is going out of town. So we cannot show this (to her) until next week. There is someone else rather eager to get in and we can't show her until next weekend. What's another week, right? Anyway, I got 2 ads going in the papers and I think I'm going to list with my realtor for $69k. We'll see how it goes.

What else? We are just coming SOOO CLOSE to getting properties under contract but nothing has been solidifying! Next year I really want to focus on getting 1 property under contract a month and selling 1 per month. This was my goal this year but unfortunately we did not successfully complete that goal. I believe we are going to have to make some tweaks to our processes in order to accomplish this goal. Maybe put in some offers on short sales? We will not be doing another letter campaign in the near future though. The short sale offers would be through my realtor. The one thing I KNOW I have to do, and soon, is organize myself. I'm very, very, very bad and getting and staying organinzed. My office is embarrassingly unorganized. It's a wonder I can flip one house, let alone have a goal of 1/month!

Anyway, I have to go. Everyone have a good weekend and keep making those offers!!

Real quick...

2009-11-09T08:18:00.000-08:00

The HUD home for $50k that we looked at over the weekend was nice. Well, as nice as a HUD home can be : ) No work on the outside, nice deck with nice fenced in yard that has a view of the lake (it kind of sits on a hill). The roof/siding were in good shape too. The inside was as expected needing carpet, paint, appliances, etc. It is listed as only a 2/1 at 984 sq ft but the basement is studded out/insulated just waiting to be finished. It also has a 1/2 bath that has plumbing and electric already done including a new toilet and sink. The basement just needs drywall, tape/mud, paint, carpet and some finishing. This would add another 300 sq. ft and a 1/2 bath. Not really another bedroom though unless you made the whole thing your bedroom? It also has a framed out bar for those who like to entertain - ha, ha. Anyway, I think this is a good deal so we are putting in an offer of $48k total so I'm expecting to get an accepted offer tomorrow unless someone bids $50k (which would still be a good deal). Hopefully we'll get this one under contract.

There are also 3 other HUD properties we are watching and waiting to come down one more time to make them good deals. I'll keep you posted.

The HUD home we are closing on Monday may have a buyer. We do not have a contract BUT I think she really wants the house. She is newly divorced single mom looking for cheap housing. Oh, I think I mentioned her in a previous post... her mortgage would be WAAY cheaper than rent. Anyway, she told me today she would be getting a USDA loan which I think could cause seasoning issues. I really don't want to hold the house 3 months if necessary but I think this house would be a great fit for her! IF she really wants to put an offer in I may talk to my lender and see what he can do. I want to help her out if I can.........

I have to go back to work. Later!

The Comback House Came Back & My husband was right...

2009-11-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

We FINALLY closed on the Comeback House (and successfully I might add). The closing was Tuesday afternoon but I have not had a chance to post since. We lost more money than I originally anticipated but as I said before I've come to terms with it. Hopefully the next house (closing with HUD 11/16) will cover that loss. I had a buyer who was biting at the bit to get inside. She is pre-approved, she rents at $1,000/mo and is looking to buy in this neighborhood. At the price I'm selling she would be looking at $650/mo (w/ taxes & ins). Anyhoo my realtor said she would take her through and then backed out at the last minute. Of course, I shouldn't have expected anything less. Soooo, to make a long story short, we have a meeting set up with her broker to see if I can become her assistant, get access to mls, lockboxes, HUD KEYS!, etc... If we cannot work out an agreement I told her I was getting licensed. Period. End of story.

On to the $43k house... we went out with our inspector and it seems the property does not sit on a foundation. It was sitting on concrete bricks. Nice. We obviously could not continue with the deal, no one will be able to rehab the house without putting in a foundation and the house is not worth saving so it would be a knock down/rebuild.

There are a few more HUD properties we are looking at. One came on the market this week in a nice area (we sold a home there earlier in the year) at $50k. It is a nice size 2/1 with a 1 car garage. Unless it is crap on the inside we could probably list for $69k. However, the HUD condition report did not state anything that bad but we will see. We are also going to look at a few other properties.

For those who would like emails sent to them when I enter a new post, please send me your email and I will mark you down as wanting updates. My email is eobrien15@yahoo.com.

I think that's it for now. Will update with our findings this weekend.

One Down, one to go!!

2009-10-30T11:45:00.000-07:00

Last night was the successful closing of our last two condos! WOO HOO! They will definately be profitable for the current owners going forward, especially since they are getting the condo association formed. BUT, when you do not have a lot of cash flow (as I'm assuming these guys do) you're kind of limited. We'll get there one day. We broke even on these units and may have lost a little with all the fixes we needed to put into the one unit but all's good.

Monday I am going to pre-sign for the Comeback house. It is scheduled to close Tuesday morning. Yeah, a pretty big loss here BUT over the past few months I have come to terms with it. It is what it is and we will move on! We may even make an extra couple hundred dollars b/c the previous owners left a refrigerator, window A/C unit and an antique dryer. We've been told the dryer is worthless but it's pretty cool looking.

Halloween this weekend - FUN! We're just doing kids stuff but I love seeing them have such a great time! We are also going to the $43k house with the guy that does our inspections. I'm going to see if this is, in fact, the deal I think it is OR if my dear ole hubby is right. I'll keep you posted!

Inspections/Appraisals

2009-10-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

The inspection and appraisal are being done tomorrow on the Comeback house. It's GO TIME! This is when we will know for sure whether closing will take place. As of today, closing is still set for next Tuesday. I have no idea whether that will happen or not but I think I'll have a better idea first thing Wednesday.

I took my husband out to see the $43k property and he thought it was a complete gut job. I think he's nuts! For sure it needs work but a gut job?! Urrgh... not sure what to do. I mean it definately needs work. Let's see it needs windows, garage roof replaced, new bath, kitchen counters/sink, paint, carpet, appliances and a bit of landscaping. He said he thought $30k for repairs but I think that's a bit high. However, I've been wrong before (see comeback house : ) ) I'm thinking of sending it out to my buyers list, put an ad in the paper and see what kind of activity I get. I also might get a cleaner in there prior to showing (prior to closing too... sssshhhhh). There are cobwebs with an inch of dust on them in some rooms. Nice!

There is another property I submitted an offer on a while back at $60k, they countered at $72k (original list price $74.5k), I countered at $62k best and final. They passed. The house is now listed at $64k and I resubmitted at $50k with basement mold inspection. Hmmm, we'll see what they say.

Condos are still on schedule to close this Thursday. Hope all goes well!

I think that's it for now.

Has the Comeback house... Come back?!?!

2009-10-22T09:04:00.001-07:00

That remains to be seen. We DO have an offer on the table that we have been countering since the end of last week but nothing signed yet. Of course, once signed we need to get through the inspection/financing contingencies! This will be an FHA loan also so that can throw a wrench into closing. I have a good feeling about it whether that be "wishful thinking" or "third time is a charm" syndrome but I'm still keeping good/positive thoughts. She had closing as Nov. 3rd on her original offer so we would close mid-November which makes me happy too. Please keep you fingers crossed to get this one off our books!

We are set to close on our condos next Friday. Looking forward to getting rid of those!

We are also set to close on our next HUD property Nov. 16th. Still not sure whether we will put a little work in to the house (carpet/paint/refrigerator) and sell at $89k or just sell as is for $59k (our PP is $43k)? Here are a couple pictures...

Let's see, what else? My realtor moved agencies and she is even busier now than before. There were 3 properties I wanted to put offers on but never got the written offers from her. Well they all sold. Urgh. There is another property I've been trying to get a written offer on since 10/1 and she STILL has not written it up and faxed it to me! This is even AFTER I've told her about those other 3 properties selling. I know, I know, it's my fault. I was going to talk to her about me getting licensed last weekend when I met her but my husband threw a fit and told me to wait until after the condos closed (he wants them gone as badly as I do). I know she wouldn't cause problems b/c I DO still want to work with her but I guess you just never know? At any rate, the new brokerage is investor friendly and the owner also does rehabs which is good for me. After we sell the condos I'm going to talk to her about becoming her "assistant" so I can submit offers/access mls/etc when she is too busy. I'm also going to ask if I can talk to her new broker about it. As you can see, I'm trying to avoid getting licensed at all costs but counting on just my realtor to get things done is not working in my favor. Okay, enough about that.

Finally an REO came on the market last weekend for $43k. It is in a desirable area, near town, lakes, restaurants, large lot, etc but it was only a 2/1. I have a bad taste in my mouth for 2/1's but b/c of the price I asked to go take a look. Well, this is the first time I've gone into a property where the listing description was WRONG. I know Steph has talked about this but I've never seen it. This listing agent (who is a total B~ BTW) must have never gone in the house. Don't get me wrong, it's not huge by any means BUT it does have 3 BR's, a LR, Family room, porch and kitchen. You can tell it had an addition put on but must not have been re-assessed/updated in system. The garage is marked as a 1 car garage but it also has a HUGE work area so it could easily be made in to a 2 car garage OR you could store a boat or something in there. Anyhoo, I came in at $38k and still haven't heard anything. It doesn't sound like there are other offers out there so not sure why the bank hasn't countered yet? We're only $5k away on price. Hopefully this one will pan out.

Okay, gotta run.

No new contracts

2009-10-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

I thought we were going to have another house under contract this week but, no can do. The one I really wanted is in a neighborhood where I have an investor looking, the bank is at $75k and I offered $60k. We were not that far apart. After a couple of counters I went highest and best at $62k and they rejected (they were at $70k). This listing agent said there were no other offers on the table. Oh well, I'll keep watching and waiting. Maybe I'll get it even lower. There was another property in good shape, same neighborhood that came on the market at $82k, I offered $62k. This one is not bank owned but a probate. Anyway, they completely rejected. Not sure if they will sell it for $82k b/c the basement is 1/2 dirt. People do not like that much around here.

Okay, so I just read the post over on flippinghome.com http://www.flippinghomes.com/forum/replies.aspx?tp=1&tr=164355#m179198. This has me a little confused/frightened. Did I misread this or is Steve Cook actually saying to hold vs. rehab/wholesale? I've determined that we are not landlord material NOR do we have the money to put in to rentals. I can't wrap my mind around laying off REI during this time b/c it would SEEM to be the best time to buy. But if people won't be buying??!!?! Okay, someone make me feel better about this....

Unsure of what to do next............

Update on the Comback House and more

2009-10-01T11:41:00.000-07:00

So I've received about a dozen calls on the "Comeback house" and not ONE person has called back to take a walk through. OUCH! Did I misread this property or WHAT?! I'm so mad at myself but I digress. Anyhoo, last night I got a call from the buyer who's financing fell through a couple months ago (remember, I thought I was going to puke?). He saw my ad/number and wanted to know if I would be interested in doing a rent to own, which I mentioned to him before but then got the other offer. At the time his financing fell through I mentioned the rent to own to my husband and he was against the idea. We talked about it again last night and we think we are going to go that route. I am going to call him back letting him know how it works. I will need $1k in non-refundable deposit for the house that will be applied to his downpayment and 1 months rent. I will also be crediting him $100/month for downpayment when we close. My selling price will be $79k. He was going to be paying $72k but since we're holding another year I'm upping the price. He will also be responsible for everything in the house. I'm going to talk to him about all this today and send out an application to get things rolling! We'll see what happens. If all goes well I would like to have him in the house no later than November 1st... maybe even mid-October!

I got 2 counters today. Nothing great but no rejections.

We're putting out 2 more offers in the next day or two. One is in the town of West Bend where I had people banging down my door to get the property, the other is in a town near me.

That's all for updates!

FINALLY... a successful closing!

2009-09-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

What a relief! The closing on Friday went off without a hitch! WOO HOO. I was starting to get a little worried about never doing another successful flip. I guess that is what patience, determination and persistence will get you - a successful flip. I am so relieved I can't even tell you! So we will make about $9.5k pre-taxes, nice. It has a been a looong time ... I hope it doesn't take that long again! We have another HUD under contract that is supposed to be closing the end of October (haven't advertised yet as we do not have signed contracts back) and we are set to close on our condos the end of October also. Things are moving along.

There are several properties we are watching now. Yesterday we went looking at 4 and are making 3 offers. The 4th's location is just too bad to make even a low offer. This is a first for me... someone else can have it. On all 3 we are pretty close on price but we'll see how it plays out. I am hoping to close 2 more (for sure, maybe more) by the end of the year.

I was really looking at going to the KISS Flipping bootcamp next month but I just don't know?!?! I know the content will be excellent and I will get the course but I just do not have the $2k now to go. Well, we have it from the flip but there are many, many, many other bills that need to be paid.

Gotta run.

Making offers again

2009-09-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

It looks like Fridays closing should be on schedule for the HUD property. I can not believe how many phone calls I got from our yellow sign in the front yard! Whew. I wish all my properties had that much interest. I'll be looking in this area again!

We signed the offer on our condos. We'll be losing a little on this one too (just getting that all out of our system!) but we'll free up our LOC for downpayment money on future flips! I just hope the bank doesn't close it once we pay it down!

We put in 2 more newspaper ads for the comeback house. I'm hoping something will pop on this one soon!

We have 2 other interesting HUD properties we're looking at. I submitted lowball offers and they came back with decent counters. Hopefully we'll be looking at them this weekend.

There are also about 6 other properties we will be submitting offers on next week most likely. We'll see what happens!

Gotta run!

HUD/condo Updates

2009-09-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

Our accepted offer for the HUD property is still on schedule to close next Friday but the buyer is being weird about the boiler. Of course this stresses me out a little. The HVAC guys were in there yesterday and need to come back tomorrow b/c there the boiler is not holding pressure... great but not surprising. We wrote up the offer as selling the property "as is" and he knew it was an old boiler however he keeps pushing for us to pay for it. I'm really bad at dealing with this kind of stuff b/c I want the deal closed but I don't want to pay for things we shouldn't be paying for. On a brighter note, we are getting a ton of calls from the sign I put in the front yard (just in case this buyer backed out). I have one secondary offer and probably could have had another if I offered it as an option. The secondary offer I have would be a full price cash offer with a quick close.

We got the offer for the condos last night. It is a bit less than I wanted to sell for so we countered but I think he is going to hang tough on his offer. We have another buyer going through tomorrow but I think he is only interested in buying 1, not both. I would rather sell both at once.

Nothing happening with the comback house.

I have restrained on making offers but am watching a couple houses to see where they are at when I AM able to make offers!

OOOHH, one more thing. The local bank I was trying to build a relationship by refinancing the condos is going to finance my next HUD deal. Yeah, another local bank to do deals. This bank is in the other county I do deals so it's a win-win, I hope. Options... I like options!

Positive thinking

2009-09-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to change my way of thinking these days since my negative approach just isn't working : ) Every time I start a negative thought or start worrying about something that is not in my control I say, "God grant me the serenity". Yep, that's all I would say b/c I couldn't remember the rest but now I just looked it up online:

"God, grant me the serenityto accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."

It seems to calm me down. It's my goal to not get so worked up and stressed about things. I know it will happen from time to time but I want to limit those times. I actually did pretty good about the Lake Geneva property ("house from hell") that fell through. I just can't change it and can only move on and try to find another buyer. Hopefully it will be soon.

More good news. My buyers property inspection last night went okay, nothing for him to back out about. They could not get the boiler on so that is the only sticking point now but I think it will be okay. Also, we are getting an offer on the condos tomorrow. Hopefully that will work out too b/c these buyers have another set of units in the complex so financing should not be an issue.

That is it for now. Gotta run.

The "house from hell" deall fell apart

2009-09-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

I could just puke...

I - Must - Stop.......

2009-09-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

submitting offers until I clear out some of my inventory! The offer that we have on the "house from hell" (2/1 in Lake Geneva) may be falling apart - again. It has not completely crumbled yet but the signs are there. They were concerned about the foundation so I got a guy out there this weekend who said it was totally fine. There were a few other things (which I consider minor) from their inspection that they want money to fix. I'm not going to bore you with what they want because, honestly, I don't even know for sure. However, their realtor said if we would lower the price she may be able to get it done. I told my realtor to GET THE PLACE SOLD! Sooo, I'm not sure if it is going to get to closing or not? If we do come down in price I will be losing about $5k instead of the $3k I had anticipated. Does this make me happy? Of course not but I need to clear these properties out.

We have someone interested in the condos - no contract - but interest. I'll leave it at that for now.

The buyer for the HUD property we just closed on has his inspection tomorrow night. Hope all goes well! The electric came on fine and the plumber was out this morning and only saw a couple of small things. I'm only worried about some sagging in the floor (which my guy looked at 2x) and the boiler.

That's it for now.

You just never know...

2009-09-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

So as you all know, I often put in very, very low bids on HUD properties just to see where they counter. Yesterday I submitted 3 offers and 1 was actually accepted. Crap. Yes, I said crap.

First, if they accepted my first offer it was too high!

Second, I am not really familiar with this area however I know the price is right. It is the only 3br/2ba for sale in this particular town.

Third, and most important, we are broke (as I commented in a previous post). Even though we are broke I am continuing down the RE path. I'm determined to be successful one way or another. If we are not successful we are going to go down in a HUGE bon fire! ha, ha. No it's not really funny b/c I do not want to fail. I have 2 years to create a replaceable income. Every day when I drop my kids at daycare it lights a fire under my ass to keep going. My husband thinks I am out of my mind b/c he knows our financial state but I just need to find buyers before we close (at least that's what I keep telling myself). Anyhoo, the problem we are having is that we don't have EMD money anymore and the holding of the 2/1 in Lake Geneva and the condos is killing us. I have been trying to re-fi the condos to get rid of the high interest LOC but the bank keeps pushing it off. Each time I talked to the mortgage guy he made it sound like it was a done deal, just needed a couple days for title and that was it. I emailed him today and he wants all kinds of shit now. Urrrgh. If we had it refinanced we wouldn't be in this financial predicament. This is another small local bank that I've been trying to build a relationship with but he's making it difficult. The current bank we work with wanted 6 months ownership b/4 they would re-fi me but I didn't want to wait that long. However, since this guy is taking so long I could just wait a couple more weeks to get it re-fi'd by my current lender without jumping through hoops.

There are 2 other properties I am going after. The first I am going to look at tonight. It has a great price listed and could be a real deal but we'll see when we get there. The second is another HUD property (shocker!). The offer I put in was rejected so I'm just waiting for 1 more price decrease and then it should be ours.

So what to do about the EMD's? Hmmmm, I have access to a small amount of cash through a credit card I could use? It just gives me a headache to think about it...

BTW, I try to post comments on other peoples blogs but for some reason I cannot type in the box. For some I can post comments, for others it seems like the comments box is not getting recognized. Has anyone else had that problem?

What's been happenin'

2009-08-26T09:06:00.000-07:00

We had our sons 1st birthday party this past weekend. It was very nice. I can't believe he's ONE and will most likely be walking (on his own) any day now.

So most of you know I took and passed my real estate license exam and have just been procrastinating on sending in the paperwork for my licensing. Part of me just doesn't want to go down that road but another part of me thinks it's a necessity. I absolutely need access to the mls - I need to get comps, market analysis', run queries, etc all in a timely manner. My RE agent has been great but I just need need things faster! Soooo, I'm going to tell her today or tomorrow that I'm getting my license. I feel like this is going to be a really awkward conversation and am not sure how to approach it?! I want to continue to use her for listing properties (at least for now) but as far as submitting offers and getting all the info I need I will be able to do that myself. As a reminder, I did ask her for mls access and she said no. I also need to get my hands on a HUD key and she will not give me a copy of that either. Maybe she will change her tune when I tell her I'm getting licensed?! The other thing I need to decide on is whether I should talk to her broker about hanging my license in his office. Would that be too weird?

Okay, I've been talking to a local bank about refinancing the condos to get me out of the high interest unsecured LOC and he can do it but only for 90% of the loan. In other words I will still have about $13k on my unsescured LOC. I guess that's better than what I have now... It's eating away at every penny of profit I have on the place.

We have secured the downpayment for our HUD property. I did break down and ask my parents. I haaated doing that but sometimes you just have to put your pride on the backburner to get things done. Hopefully everything will work out with this!

We got another offer on the 2/1 in Lake Geneva. It is scheduled to close on 10/2 so I can't tell you how much I need everyone to put me in their thoughts and prayers to make sure this closes. We'll be seriously screwed if it doesn't work out.

Looking at a bunch of other properties but haven't submitted any offers. I would really need a slam dunk right now since we have so many balls in the air. I'm hoping to hit things really hard again mid to end of September. I just need confirmation that things will truely be closing.

I think that's it for now.

Closing delayed

2009-08-18T11:16:00.001-07:00

HUD needs to delay closing and for the first time this is working out to my benefit. We shouldn't have a problem getting the 20% down with this much time but I guess we'll see how it all plays out. I called my realtor to see if we can get the utilities turned on so my buyer can inspect prior to our closing. This way he will not have to delay his closing.

I'll keep ya'll posted.....

Closing... maybe?

2009-08-18T05:28:00.000-07:00

Well the HUD closing is scheduled for Thursday, yes that is the day after tomorrow! Actually I was told yesterday that HUD might need an extension b/c they still need to get a special assessment paid off or something. My bank is willing to do the loan but only with my 20% downpayment. Great... I don't have that since it is all tied up in my other properties. Okay so now what? 1.) I called some of the Platinum credit cards I got way back when (and never used) but they were all canceled... because I never used them. Suggestion to anyone reading this blog, keep you Lines of credit open in case you ever need them. 2.) I have some money in my 2 business LOC and 1 of my other credit cards but not enough to cover the full 20% (not to mention I don't think I would get them in my account by tomorrow. 3.) Use an HML that is asking for MORE information than any bank has ever asked for and still is not confirming he will fund the deal. Also, IF they did the deal it could take them up to 2 weeks to close. 4.) Ask my parents. This is the direction I will most likely take today but I have to tell you I hate, hate, hate asking them for anything. They are wonderful people and have told me from the beginning if I needed anything just ask but I'm a stubborn person and believe in making things happen for yourself. So there you have it....

I guess there isn't anything else I have to share except that today is my sons 1st birthday! Time flies people, I can't believe he is ONE!

Everyone have a good day!

When does persistence turn in to stupidity?

2009-08-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

Real quick, I only have a few minutes...

Did anyone watch the new show "Shark Tank" the other night? One contestant wanted money to put computers or something (it wasn't computers) in doctors offices. The "sharks" did not like the idea and turned him down. They asked him how much of his own money he put into this idea and he said "Everything, I re-financed my house - twice, pulled money from my 401k, used my kids college funds" and then he started to tear up. It was really hard to watch but, for me, I kind of saw myself in him. Don't get me wrong, I haven't done anything he has as far as using my family's money. However, I connected with the "do whatever it takes to succeed" which is when I started thinking when do you know what is persistence is really stupidity? I haven't decided yet : )

I was home with my 1 year old M, T and W since he had a high fever. During that time I was working my ass off to get my HUD property financed. You know, the one we have a contract on? I'm still not sure my bank is going to do it but I'll let you know when I find out.

The other HUD property I was looking at had a higher bid, a MUCH higher bid. I put in a bid of $68k and they offered $110k. heehee. It was a nice house too, well as nice as HUD homes go.

There is another REO that looks promising so we're going to put an offer on that too.

Dave's sister is getting married this weekend and the whole family is standing up in the wedding (except me, I am doing a reading at the church). We are going to be running like a bunch of lunatics this weekend.

I think my home computer has a virus or something. I need to take it in. It is running so slow I barely want to use it anymore. Literally it takes me 10 minutes to log on and open my email... pathetic.

Okay, I gotta run but hopefully we'll have some good news on something next week!

Have a good weekend!

This business will be the death of me : )

2009-08-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

It will be the death of me with all these ups and downs and ups and downs and ups....

I took Shae's advice and emailed my buyers list which isn't super long but, who knows? I asked who was still actively buying and, specifically, what their criteria was. I told them that I was streamlining (sp?)/tailoring my business for them. Did I suck up too much? I'll give you the outcome next week as I just sent the email. Also, there is another HUD property in a very sought after area where one of my buyers looks so I sent him a 'teaser' email to see if it was something we would go crazy over or not? I did not give too much away since I do not have it under contract yet. We can not submit an offer until Monday. I'm sure there are a lot of investors waiting for the open bid.

We ended up getting an offer on our HUD property that is supposed to close on 8/20 and he wants to close on 9/12. Wish it was sooner but he will be out of town for 2 weeks after I close and he can't close on the 20th. This is good. I'm still nervous about him backing out but he seems solid so we'll see. It makes me happy we have an offer. Hopefully it will help me secure financing. HA, yeah, I don't even have financing lined up. Flying by the seat of your pants isn't all fun and games!

As for the 2/1 in Lake Geneva, the backup buyer is no longer interested - shocker. However, we have sllliiiim hope of getting someone in to buy it with bad credit. My lender is calling him. If the loan does not work out he want to rent to own. We'll see how it goes. It may not be the best scenario but it will be something.

One more thing, I listened in to Bob Nortons KISS Flipping webcast last night (until my sound stopped for some reason?) and I soooooooooo want to do that. I think having a mentor to go through flipping from A - B would be priceless. Of course, I do not have the money right now to get it. Hell, I don't even have credit to get it (not that I would go that route you Dave Ramsey fans - ha, ha). At any rate, I hope he continues to take students in the future b/c as soon as I DO have money I will be signing up for his course.

I think that's it for now. Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Only gettin' worse

2009-08-05T12:03:00.001-07:00

Seriously, I don't know that I am cut out for this RE "stuff". I know it is the only way to my personal dreams and ambitions but nothing, and I mean nothing, is going right these days. I hear y'all saying, "if it were easy everyone would be doing it". Got it. I know there are ups and downs but I only seem to be dealing with the downs lately. Last week gave me a glimmer of hope that things were looking up but then, BAM, the pendulum swung the other way, down. I am as close to giving up as ever and I can say I have NEVER thought of giving up before. After almost 2 years of REI you would think that I would have gotten better at things. Nope. It seems I have only gotten worse. I am not sure how that came to be? Okay, here is what's going on:

* The buyer for the Lake Geneva property backed out. Thought this might happen but hoped like hell it wouldn't. This was my shining star when I was getting down on myself last week. Now thats gone!

* There were 2 people that went through my HUD property (that I am supposed to close 8/20) and both claimed there are foundation issues. I had my contractor out to look before signing docs (3+ weeks ago) and he said it was fine. To make a looong story short we are all going out there again Saturday to see what's going on. I may lose my EMD if there really are foundation issues. I can afford to lose my EMD like I can afford a big, gaping hole in my head.

* We are flat broke - again! I thought we were digging ourselves out, well we WERE digging ourselves out with the flips but then it all came to a screeching halt. Day care is just killing us with no extra income. Just killing us.

* The thought of having to work past my 8/2011 "end date" makes me want to cry. Actually I did cry all the way into work this morning. This thought does make me want to perservere but I truly don't know if I have the energy/guts to keep going.

My current uplifting things:

* I can refinance my condos to include my unsecured LOC that's killing us.

* I am putting the condos up for sale w/ the renters. I don't think they will sell for what I want but I'm just putting them out there hoping for that one buyer.

* We are putting the Lake Geneva property back on the market w/ my realtor at $69k. I am going to lose another $3k probably, making it a $6k loss, or so. If no contract in a month I am going to put another for Rent ad in the paper - maybe I can sell it as a rental?

I basically want to wipe the slate clean and start all over........... I gotta go to work - urgh. Thanks for letting me vent.

Realtors...

2009-07-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

Well the aspiring realtor/investor spoke to his boss who told him the following:

I talked with my manager and he said I can't do it unless:

1. I have a one party Listing Contract which at the mininum of $4000 commission.
or
2. I have a one property Buyers Agent Agreement with each Buyer you provide - I would need this signed before I even show it - with all terms stated within.

This is to protect me and my companies interest in the deal also this is the law that I need a contract to deal with for sale by owner fi not in the MLS as such (which you are).

At this point I cannot procede - sorry about that.

So now I'm back to square one with this property. Mother fucker. I wouldn't mind having a 1 party listing contract but I'm not giving a $4k commission. Did his boss pull that out of thin air or does he have an idea what I'm making on the property? Dammmmmiiiittttttt..............

Contacts, contracts, new offers, Dave Ramsey, etc

2009-07-31T08:15:00.000-07:00

I have been advertising my new HUD property on craigslist and am getting a decent response, usually I only get spammed. I also have it in the paper but only received one call so far. That surprised me. One of my responders from craigslist just happens to be a realtor/aspiring investor. We got to talking and I asked if he would show my HUD property for a commission/bonus if sold by a certain date. He said yes. Soo, I'm trying to set up times for my interested parties to see the place. I hope he doesn't get "caught" showing the place b/c I left out the fact that they could get irritated by showing prior to closing. BUT, b/c he wants to be an investor I think he wouldn't care anyway. I guess we will see.

My Lake Geneva contract has not fallen apart yet. Of course as I'm writing this I may be getting a VM stating the opposite. I'm not trying to be negative, I just want it gone and I'm being realistic. It's a nice house, it still baffles me?!?! This past Wednesday I got a call from a gal who went through the property the same night that my current buyer went through. She wanted to know if it was still available and I told her no, we had a contract. She asked if it was solid and said she was very interested. Sooo, if this one DOES fall through at least I can give her a call. She wanted to be added to my buyers list too.

I'm putting another offer on a HUD property (why do they have to be my best deals?!). It is "All Reasonable Offers" we're going to see how low they go. But, if I can use this realtor to show the properties then I will be set... for now.

Outside of that offer and another one I'm watching, I have kind of backed off submitting offers b/c I want to be sure Lake Geneva closes and I also want to focus on finding a buyer for my current HUD. I know I need to "keep things in the pipeline" but I need to get back to a clean slate too (minus the rentals which are a whole other story I'm not going into right now).

I picked up my Dave Ramsey book again this week and am all pumped to get our budget together. I guess that would put us in the pre-Baby Step 1 stage. My biggest, biggest, biggest hurdle is going to be getting my husband on board. He seems to think we have that money tree out back that I find so damn elusive! If I can get him on board we will be good to go. I know this is going to take time and change so we'll see how he reacts.

My husbands sister is getting married next month and I'm going to bachelorette party tonight. It should be fun. We're going to Chicago and our first stop is a pole dancing club. heehee. I think it is a pole dancing fitness club that you can rent out for parties. You can bring in booze and food, much needed. After that we're heading out to the bars. I'm looking forward to it and can't WAIT to see my mother in law on the pole! I always say I'll post pictures but never do. If I get some good shots I'll put them up!

Everyone have a good weekend!

Not such a great week after all...

2009-07-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

Well, the HML decided against lending to us b/c the property is outside of his area. He is very willing to lend to us w/in a certain area. I've now had contact with 2 HML's and they both are hesitant to lend at all b/c they both had to take back 2 properties each. Urgh.

I still have not heard from the local banks. One is just not calling me back at all which is totally unprofessional in my eyes. She can't even tell me I was declined? The other said he would call me this week. This one is to re-fi' my condos to pay off my unsecured LOC downpayment. I'm hoping to also build a relationship re: investment properties.

The REO we got under contract is not going to happen. My husband went there today and there is a lot more water damage/mildew and we found out the driveway does not belong to the house, it belongs to the neighbor (who is tearing it out - nice!). Sucks. I was hoping for 2 closings in August...

I'll keep plugging away... I need to find out how I can show these HUD properties w/o some pissed off realtor turning me into the HUD police.

Updates

2009-07-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

It's been a pretty good week! I do not have a ton of time so I'm going to use bullet points:

* Working on more financing options. I have applications into 2 local banks and also trying to get a HML lined up. We have been playing phone tag.

* Got an offer on the 2/1 in Lake Geneva. I will be losing about $3k on this deal but just want it closed and gone. My fingers will be tightly crossed for the next month in hopes that it closes with no problems.

* Got another offer accepted. This is an REO we have been watching for many, many months. It had an accepted offer, financing fell through. Then it had another accepted offer and that person (an agent, I guess) "fell off the planet" so the listing agent said. I will be showing/advertising this property as soon as I get the signed contract back from the bank. I'm hoping to get a buyer before closing on this one (you know, the way it's SUPPOSED to be done : ) )

* I took the REL test Weds and passed. Too funny. I learned a lot over the past 2 years so that helped in my studying/test taking.

I think that's it for now. Hopefully next week will be just as good and productive!

Where to start?!

2009-07-16T11:27:00.000-07:00

I'm back from a wooonderfuul vacation! It took me a while to relax and get in the "zone" but boy howdy when I found it I didn't want to leave : ) I just loved hangin' with the family, friends and especially my kids. Oh how I miss them now. Not that I didn't miss them before but we had such a wonderful week together I want it all the time now. Anyhoo, I'm back at work now and hating every minute of it. Not really, it's okay.

So real quick about the last rental property I bought... it has HUGE cracks in the cement in the screened in porch and add on dining room area. Of course I am livid and didn't see it b/c it was covered by carpet. I got my guy in there again and he said it is not the main foundation of the house (which is good, of course) but it will be expensive to fix in order to resell one day. Why do we now see it? Because the renters pulled up the carpet in the screened in porch and discovered the crack. Then moving into the add on dining area (where there is more carpet), you have to feel for the cracks and most of them were under the table. Was any of this disclosed? Naw, why would they. This guy owned the house for 18 years, don't tell me he didn't know. At any rate I have a call into a lawyer and am waiting to hear back from him. With my luck I'm just stuck with it since it's not the main foundation. I'm going to make a couple other calls b/c I haven't heard back from this guy yet and I'm anxious.

On to the HUD property. My HML fell through - no financing. Ha, ha, ha. I'm full of good news, right? I'm not sure what we are going to do? I told my insurance guy to put all on hold and then asked if he had any HML's and he does. This may be a good thing, we'll see.

We put an offer of $40k on a property listed at $59k (short sale) and the owner rejected. Funny. I always laugh when the owner rejects or counters. Leave that up to the bank.

I am doing my triathlon this Saturday. I think I am going to die. Well at the very least I am going to be so sore on Sunday I will not be able to move! Needless to say my training has been nonexistent.

I also signed up to take the REL exam next Weds. I figured I needed to just take the test. What is the worst that can happen? I'll fail. I decided I needed to take things into my own hands when I told my realtor about the foundation issues and I didn't hear back from her for 4 days. I had to call HER for an update (which there wasn't one). This is a B-I-G deal for me.

I'm sure there is more but I have to run. Hopefully I'll have some good news soon!

HUD Update #2

2009-07-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I got someone to write up my 'HUD Specific' pre-approval letter. Damn they make things difficult! I actually think he had to re-write it twice to meet their approval. So who did I use? As I'm walking out of work Monday night, thinking I was going to lose out on the property, I thought- HEY - I'm going to call Ed Goggins. He is the mortgage guy I used last year for our pre-hab and also acquired another property (the duplex) with a hard money loan he referred. Some time last year the Hard money guy stopped lending so I've only talked to Ed a handful of times over the past year, mainly about rentals (he's been a big help in that area too). I thought maybe the HML was lending again or that Ed can just write me up a letter. I called him on my way home Monday and he called the HML but has not gotten a response yet. However, he did write up the pre-approval letter for me so we have the property locked in. NOW, I need to find a buyer. I just asked my realtor again if I can have a key but I'm pretty sure I know how that is going to go. She mentioned a while ago that they have extras around the office and she might just "misplace" one but I never got it. We'll see what she says. Otherwise my plan is to advertise like hell, set up a group showing and hopefully get a contract. Once again, another reason to get licensed! I thought about bringing my REL book on vacation next week but I decided against it. I just need time to relax and not think about work... any kind of work! All work and no play, right?

We are putting in 2 more offers. One is a HUD property and the other is a regular bank owned. We'll see how they go.

HUD Update #1

2009-06-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

We have not heard from HUD yet as to whether I lost the bid b/c of no loan commitment. Apparently this is new protocol. They used to use the banks pre-approval my realtor sent over but now they are requring the bank to put it on their letter head or something. Why my lady at the bank can't just do that and if I can't find a buyer/other funding I'll lose my EMD? It's my risk... She is very, very, very conservative. I liked my residential loan lady at this bank better. I'm currently under the commercial side of things. I want to ask for a new person but I'm SURE I would be rocking the boat so I'll just bide my time here.

Anyway, I was given the number of a lady who works with hard money lenders in the area and called her this morning. I gave her the information and will hopefully be hearing back from her today with some good news. My contractor went out over the weekend and said the water in the basement is due to grading/no gutters. This is what I thought. Is it possible I'm actually learning something? Soooo, I truly think this is a great deal I just need someone to agree with me and give me some moola for the transaction (or at least a loan commitment).

Wish for some good news...

Yet another Hiccuup

2009-06-26T17:20:00.000-07:00

Sooo, I get a VM from my mortgage lady today at 5pm saying that she needs more information on "this house on 7th" (which is my new HUD property). I call her back and she asked about the property. I proceed to tell her that it is a 3/1, 1 car detached garage, nice lot, nice town etc... Then she proceeds to tell me that I have maxed out my $120k pre-approval amount and she cannot give me a loan commitment on this property. Urrrgh. Why did she even ask about the property?! AND why is everythng so damn difficult! She basically said since we have not sold the 2/1 in Lake Geneva she could not commit on this loan. I gotta tell ya, I kinda knew this might happen. I mean, did I really think they would give me unlimited funds? It would be nice but I have been waiting for the "ax to drop". So now I have to find out if the whole deal will fall through if they do not get commitment. I called my realtor and she has not called me back. My inspector is going out tomorrow to take a look at the basement so al this may be a non-issue if there are major issues. AND since this is a HUD property they are extremely hard to show prior to closing. I may have to pay my realtor off to get a key, show and just take the chance. I need to get a buyer fast. I hate the fact that she tells me this on Friday at 5pm so I have no chance in contacting anyone else before Monday. Now just have to think about it all weekend..........

Side note: I am going to through my POS computer on the floor and stomp on it. It is so friggin' slow it drives me absolutely CRAZY doing anything on it. I mean I am so annoyed right now. And there must be something wrong with the keyboard. I type fast and now letters are not coming up so I have to watch everything I type to be sure all my letters pop up.

Why can't anything be easy?!?! Because everyone would be doing it, right?! I know... Monday I'll be calling banks in the town where this property is located AND calling a couple hard money lenders to see if they are still lending.

I've got to get off this computer before I throw it against the wall. Later..........

HUD Property

2009-06-24T05:31:00.000-07:00

We got a HUD property under contract Monday! It is a 3/1, 1.5 story home with a 1 car detached garage in a really cute town. There is almost no work that needs to be done BUT there is water in the basement. I'm pretty sure I know why the water is getting in but will be having my inspector go through when we get all the paperwork sent in. It seems HUD has changed their policy to allow 15 days for inspection after getting the property under contract vs. 24 hours or something crazy like that! There are several homes that have sold recently in this town and the average sale price is $120k. We have ours under contract for $50k and I'm allocating $15k for repairs assuming of course, that the water in the basement is due to no gutters. If it's not b/c of the missing gutters this deal will change immensely. If the water is due to the gutters I think we have a pretty good deal here! We need a good flip baaad. I'll let ya'll know how the inspection turns out.

We close on our next rental this Friday. Nothing too exciting about this one... everything is already in place.

The condo deal is still a possibility. Apparently the "investor" that the bank was pushing the deal on is either not interested or their offer is lower than mine. Now the bank in pursuing the owner of "phase 2" of the condo complex. He has already said he wasn't interested but I guess they are trying everything they can to get the best "bang for their buck". Can't say I blame them. And in all actuality, I'm not real sure I'll be able to pull this deal off anyway. Maybe if the the "money man" came through it might be a possibility. However, it's not something I am pushing right now. I'm really bad at this kind of stuff...

There are a couple other REO's I'm looking at but nothing but the HUD in the pipeline.

I've decided to take the week after the 4th of July off. I haven't had a week off without being pregnant or a newborn in my arms for over 5 years!!! I think I'm going to head on over to my familys lakehouse for the week and have a few cocktails, sit in the sun, have a few cocktails, play with the kiddies, have a few cocktails, you know, just chill out. I've been feeling very stressed and anxious and wound up about lots of things. And I've been feeling like I totally hate my job and want to walk out the door. Not a good thing : ) I need a break!

That's it for now!

Lightbulb?

2009-06-16T12:16:00.000-07:00

I think I have an idea as to why I'm getting so frustrated/"lost" with my REI lately. First let me say that I'm trying to make monthly goals ala Steph's blog. I don't think I consciously thought about this months goal but it just kind of came to be while I was trying to work through my "lost" feeling. My goal is to just take a step back, relax and try to pinpoint my problem areas. I know this sounds like a lot but it's really not. It is just me trying to take a breather. So anyway, one of the reasons I think I'm getting frustrated is because I have not done a flip since April. It's been 2 MONTHS!! It's not that I haven't been doing REI at all b/c I've been renting out my condos, getting a new rental under contract and trying to sell my 2/1 (thanks Shae for pointing this out to me!). However what I have not been doing is getting properties under contract to flip. Of course it's not for lack of trying but we just haven't gotten a good deal yet. So when I get frustrated it's because I have nothing to flip and nothing on the horizon. I just have to keep reminding myself that we are moving forward in the long-term department and have to just keep submitting offers for the quick flip department! It will happen. I'm impatient and I want deals to happen faster than they do. I need to learn patience!

Updates

2009-06-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

We found another renter for our 2nd condo. We should be signing the contracts this weekend. Yeah! Hopefully (and hopefully is the key word) we'll be done with these condos until next year. Or, if we're lucky, our renters will be great and want to stay another year! Each unit should cash flow $150/month.

We have another property under contract. This will be another rental for us. It was on the market a couple months ago and had an offer right away. That offer fell through and then we jumped on it again. It is right in our town, huge house, huge yard, detached 2 car garage, cash flow approx. $350/month. It is currently rented through August '10 to the same family that's been in it for the previous 2 years. I think this is a good investment and fits with my current goals.

I have been submitting a lot of offers lately. I'm trying hard to get another flip under my belt SOON! There are a few houses that have been sitting out there a long time and the bank "just wants to get rid of". However, their idea of price and my idea of price are still pretty far apart. My offers are very low b/c I want to be sure I'm not stuck with another property I don't intentially want to keep - ha, ha. So we're looking at offers in the $30's and $40's. We submitted on a property last week that has been on the market over a year. It needs almost no work, very cute house and has been sitting for a price of $104k. No one is touching it. Why? I'm really not sure but the lising agent told us to "just make an offer". Soooo, I offered $45k knowing I would negoitate a bit. Using the 70% rule I put a FMV of $89k minus $5k repairs minus $10k wholesale fee I was sitting at $47,300k. Anyway, the listing agent asked my agent if my offer was a joke and the seller (who is in FC by the way) countered at $99k! Only $5k off list price. I about fell over when I saw that. The house has been on the market for OVER A YEAR! Whatever, I told my agent I wasn't coming up if she wasn't willing to negotiate and that I would wait for the bank to take possession. I felt kinda mean saying that but, really, what a dumbass.

We were called on another property we made an offer on a while ago because the bank "wants to sell". Yeah, I've heard that before! It is listed at $84.5k and my offer is $35k. This house needs lots of work. It is another big, big house with an attached garage but, again, it needs a lot of work and it sits on a busy street with a pretty small yard. We'll see what they say.

The 5 condo deal has been brought to the surface again. It seems the other "investor" submitted an offer close to mine but the bank hasn't accepted anything yet. These properties would cash flow about $175/month/unit for this year. If I got them I would fight the assessment and get the taxes lowered so they would cash flow another $125ish/month/unit next year for a total of $300/month/unit. If I got these units I would be well on my way to my August 2011 end date! Focus, focus, focus. I really want/need a quick flip though! We'll see how it all pans out.

I just got off the phone with my realtor who has a potential "money man" for me. Someone who is looking to invest in real estate without doing much. Maaaaan, if I had access to unlimited funds at a decent rate that would be fantastic! Just fantastic. I don't know if this will pan out either but we need to go down all avenues!

Okay, I think I've said enough and caught up on my blogging. It's been over a week! We were sooo busy last weekend. My husbands sister/nieces were in from Atlanta and I took 2 days off so we kept busy visiting with relatives.

Anyway, hopefully I'll have something pop soon.

One more thing... I still have not sold the 2/1 in Lake Geneva. Crap. I'm going to list as a rental and see if anyone is interested. If not I'm going to list for a loss.

Baby Steps

2009-06-04T08:50:00.000-07:00

As I stated in my last post I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I know what my issues are (at least some of them) and need to attack them the best I can. One of my issues is time management. Since my husband has gone back to work my RE time has gone waaay down and my stress level has gone waaay up. Of course it's a good thing that he's back to work but it can definately be challenging trying to work things into my schedule. I feel like I've got a million things on my plate and one of the reasons I feel that way is b/c I am not organized. I am a terrible procrastinator and terribly unorganized. It's a wonder I make it through a day sometimes (I'm sure you will find this quote in earlier posts - heehee). At any rate, my first "baby step" was to get out a handheld notebook given to me by my title company 2 months ago. I've been writing my 'to dos' in the book all week and I've actually accomplished a lot. I'm feeling very good/productive about that. I need to keep this up and more productive actions will follow suit!

Struggling to get back on track

2009-06-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, I had the meeting with the mortgage lady and it was kind of a waste of time. Well it wasn't really a waste of time as much as we could have done it ALL over the phone. It ended up that she gave me a loan application to fill out and she was going to talk to one of her commercial loan officers this week. I'm pretty confident that isn't going to happen unless I constantly harrass her. It was also apparent that there was not going to be any zero downpayment loans coming my way. However, she did stress the no payments for 6 months which I liked. The commercial loan officer she is going to talk to is the same guy I worked with last year on a simo flip. My buyer used him and he is the reason I called this bank. The reason I did not call this guy in particular is b/c his branch is so far away from where I buy. In hindsight I should have called him anyway, he is the guy I should have been talking to. Well, at least I got in to see her and I will fill out the loan app and see what happens. It never hurts to build more relationships in this business.

I have not been listing my weekly goals b/c... well, I'm not sure? I feel kind of "lost" and overwhelmed now. I have 4 books at home I want to read but I only get through about 5 pages a night in 1 book. The first is my real estate license book which is HUGE and I just can't seem to get through it. The second is the Dave Ramsey book I was given (which I NEED to read!). The third and fourth books are the new landlording books I ordered last week. Since I have no freakin' clue what I am doing in this area I thought I should read up on it.

I am also "lost" because that 2/1 in Lake Geneva is still not sold. In fact, I'm having a hard time finding someone interested in renting the damn thing. I have totally lost faith in myself. I must say it's a pretty crappy feeling! I'm seriously thinking about lowering the price another $10k and taking a loss just to be rid of it. I would lose about $3k, I think.

I'm pretty close to finding a 2nd renter for my condos. There is a 2nd showing today and they seem like a nice family so... cross your fingers. The issue with this property though is that I've got my 20% downpayment tied up (which equals about $28k). I use a unsecured LOC so my payments are almost $650/month ALONE. I need to get this property refinanced so I can get my money out.

With all this said I am still putting offers on on various properties. However I am nervous about each and every one - "will I find a buyer", "will I be able to close w/o a buyer", "are my numbers right", etc., etc... As I said above I've lost faith in myself. I have NOT lost faith in the business and know that people make bad decisions at times but it still sucks. I know I will learn from this but I just want to move forward. I feel stagnant right now, you know, like I'm spinning my wheels. I need those wheels to hit the pavement again. It will just take time.

I've got to go back to work... hope everyone is having a good week.

Deleted blog/updates

2009-05-27T10:56:00.000-07:00

I spent about 20 minutes yesterday writing about everything thats been going on and when I hit "publish post" my computer errored out. When I went back my post was gone - crap. I thought this blogger saved the post until it was published but I couldn't find a copy of it anywhere.

Anyhoo... I don't have a ton to update.

First, we got one renter in this past weekend. I was a nervous wreck ALL weekend wondering if I had all the paperwork, if it was correct, if everything was done in the unit, etc, etc. I have a major learning curve here and just want to push through it and get this done. I also ordered 2 landlording books online and are waiting for them to arrive. I'm showing it to 3 people tonight so hopefully we'll have the other one rented

Two, I have my appointment with the mortgage lady on Friday. Hopefully we'll have access to new mortgage loans.

Third, there may be another interested party in the 5 condo deal. We're supposed to know by end of the week. I guess I'll also know if we will have a loan for these by Friday too.

Fourth, nothing new on my 2/1.

Fifth, my realtor totally pissed me off this weekend. Can't get into it now but needless to say I read 2 chapters last night in my REL book.

I'm sure there is more but I have to go train now...

Quick Update - Thanks Steph!

2009-05-20T12:39:00.001-07:00

The mortgage lady emailed me first thing this morning to set up an appointment. It will either be this week or next Friday. I'm shooting for this week.

I would have never thought of getting an email address. Thanks Steph!!

Completely absorbed with rentals

2009-05-20T05:44:00.000-07:00

Okay I don't think I completed ONE goal from last week. I take that back, I did get the email address of the mortgage lady at the bank (suggestion from Steph). Yesterday I emailed her so I can set up an appt next week. Unfortunately she hasn't responded yet. My parents spend a lot of time up here during the summer so I have sort of a built in baby sitter at night if I need to do things. I'm really, really, really hoping to get in to see her. I just read Shae's blog and they are refinancing out of a HML to a 5.5% loan - SWEET! Since I am holding the condos this is what I want to do. I've been talking to my current morgage lady and she's telling me I need to hold my units, with leases in place, for a minimum of 2 months before they will do anything with the equity. I just need to talk to some other places and get a feel for what other banks will do. I've been thinking of just taking a day off work to walk in to the banks and talk to people.

As the title says, I have been so focused on getting the rentals filled that I have not submitted any offers. I think I have both condos filled but need to get the leases signed. I saw a HUGE increase in respondents when it was advertised as just a rental vs. rent to own. I didn't expect that. Anyway, I'm now trying to get some appliances in asap so these people can move in. The one side is a little dirty and smells like smoke so I'm going this weekend to clean and air out. We already had it painted and the carpet cleaned but it still smells. Any suggestions?

We still do not have an offer on the 2/1. I am lowering the price by $5k and if we do not have it sold by the listing contract end date I'm going to rent this too. This will be good cash flow.

The bank is standing firm on the 5 condo deal in Darien. They are sticking with $70k/condo and I am at $65k. This is still a smokin' deal at $70k but I cannot commit to this until I find a bank that will finance me 100% OR be willing to refinance me fairly quickly. If I can't find a bank to finance it 100% (which wouldn't surprise me) I'm hoping I can find one who will use the equity in my condos as the downpayment. This way I will not have anything out of pocket. My current mortgage lady said they would consider using the equity in my condos after the 2 months. So if I can't find anyone to do it prior to that I guess I'll have to wait. One of two things will happen...

1.) They will be sold to someone else - wasn't meant to be (I'm trying my damndest though)
2.) I may get a cheaper deal - sweet!

Okay, I gotta go to work but I'm not sure how much real estate I'm going to get done this month. I have to focus on filling the condos and I need to re-organize my current offers, get out to see some houses, just get my shit together. I'm shooting to June to get back in "the game" as far as submitting offers.

You know, it's amazing how much I relied on my husband when he was laid off. Just amazing. Now that he's back at work my life is complete chaos - not in a bad way - just constantly busy. I'm very lucky I have great kids b/c they do a lot of RE with me. They are pretty laid back.

Anyway, gotta go.

Thought I was going to have good news...

2009-05-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

I had a few calls on the condo rental ad and a serious inquiry on my 2/1 in Lake Geneva. Last night I met 2 interested parties for the condos - one filled out the rental app right there and the other took the app with them. I have not received the 2nd app yet. I did an initial bkgd check for the first couple and the wife looked good. The husband, on the other hand, was not so good. It doesn't appear to be anything HUGE but it's a lot of little stuff, like driving under the influence and pot possession. I don't know... I liked the wife a lot but don't want trouble. They want it so bad I thought it was a done deal.

I still haven't received the other application. I'm also showing it again on Sunday.

Tomorrow morning I am showing the 2/1 to a buyer and a rent to own(er). The rent to own guy seems serious but we'll see when they get inside. Otherwise no other calls.

Gotta go.

Accountability Monday... on Tuesday

2009-05-12T13:17:00.001-07:00

Goals from last week:

* Start wish board - Not done. I thought about it all week. Does that count? I'm getting the board when I'm at the grocery store this week.
* Submit 4 offers - Done - none accepted
* Work out 3x - Done - Worked out 4 times
* Place ads on Craigslist - Done - No response
* Secure financing for condo deal - Kinda Done - Never got in touch with the lady at the bank. I left another message with her and, as expected, she never called. Steph suggested I try and get her email which will be on this weeks goals. I do have financing through my bank but wanted to avoid the 25% down. If I have to go this route I am going to get a HELOC for the 25% after closing so it will be like 100% financing. Hopefully that will work.

This weeks goals:
Work out 3x
Get email for lady at bank
Work on vision board
Submit 2 offers - Done
Begin Dave Ramseys book (it was given to me by a special angel!)
Sign up for RE licensing test
Look into placing ad in Chicago Tribune for 2/1 in LG

REI will be a little slow this week b/c my realtor is going to Atlantic City. This sucks that I rely on her to even get me information. I just added signing up for the RE licensing test to my goals. I think I have to take it before August.

Our offer on the 5 condos was rejected by the bank... expected. We were told they would accept something in the $60's so I re-submitted at $60k/condo. We were also told that the bank is getting someone from Green Bay to do the BPO. The BPO is going to come in waaaaay higher than $60k so I'm not sure how this is all going to play out.

We still have no bites on the condos OR the 2/1 in Lake Geneva. This is not good. Even with the Rent to Own ad in the paper I've only gotten a handful of calls. No one seems to be the least bit interested in this house. I guess I totally misjudged this house/location. I truly thought the area would be the big selling feature on this house especially since it's summer but nope, I was wrong. What I SHOULD do is place an ad in the Chicago Tribune's real estate section. Yeah, I'm going to add that to my Goals. Maybe someone wants a cheap 2nd house up this way? Good thinking.

I have another For Rent ad in the paper for the condos. We'll see what I get for that. Sucks.

I think that's it for now. Everyone have a good day!

Condo offer accepted...

2009-05-06T09:18:00.000-07:00

Kinda. We put in the offer of $50k/unit for 5 units and the seller accepted. However, this is a short sale so ultimately, of course, the bank needs to accept. We all know how much I LOVE short sales. Thankfully I am not the one negotiating this deal, it is actually the seller who, "does short sales every day of the week". Let's hope he is good. We'll see...

I have been working on my goal to obtain financing for this deal and it's not going that great. I can get financing through my current local bank but they are requiring 25% downpayment w/ verifiable funds. What?! I don't have $50k-$65k just sitting around waiting to be used! I have been using my LOC which they have been happy with in the past. She explained why it needs to be verifiable but I don't really understand so cannot explain to you. In light of this I have been calling around to see if anyone else had better terms. Can I just say I hate cold calling banks. I don't know if it is truly classified as "cold calling" but I feel like I'm selling myself each time I call. So I spoke to a guy yesterday who basically said they would not be interested in the deal. Hmmm... nice. Personally I think these are no-brainers. They are all occupied with a $950+ rental income/unit. I must get these. If/when I close on these my plan is to convert all rental agreements into rent-to-owns to cash out in 2 years. Hmmm... that might coincide with something else in my life? Back to obtaining financing - I've been trying to call that other gal who I've been trying to get an appointment with for two weeks. She is one very hard woman to get in touch with. I've found if I leave msgs she does not return the call but if I get her on the phone I get great information. At any rate, I've been calling every day, a couple times a day and she's out of the office or with clients or in closings or blah, blah, blah. I'm calling again this afternoon and also calling my bank to see if they might be interested.

I put in my 4 offers and may submit 2 more. Three of the four offers were HUD properties and they countered each but were not low enough to even go view the property. I'm waiting for them to come down in price again.

Oh, I did end up putting an ad in the paper for Rent-to-own (RTO) on my 2br/1ba property in Lake Geneva. In order to complete one of my 2 year goals I need a certain number of RTO's with a minimum of $200 cash flow/month. If I sell this first, great, I'll just look for another RTO they should be easier to find. But, otherwise I'll keep and keep chippin' away at my goals.

That's it for now. Hope everyone has a great day!

Reflection

2009-05-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I edited my last post because there may be some potential followers to this blog who do not need to know my future plans. This kind of sucks too because I wanted to lay out my plans in black and white 12 pt, arial font for the whole world to see. I have been thinking about my plans all morning and wrote out a few things that I want to accomplish. I can tell you though that my date is August of 2011. This may be too long for some and not long enough for others but I feel like it's doable for me. It will be difficult but I am going balls to the wall to get this done. I'm already feeling a weight lifted. I am going to write everything up and create some type of colorful board to look at every day. What is this called? A wish board - no? I know there was a big ta do about this a couple years ago. Was the book called "The Secret"? Whatever, I don't know but that is what I am going to do. Okay, I guess that is a goal - to start my wish board.

Goals:
Start wish board
Submit 4 offers
Work out 3x
Place ads on Craigslist (I get almost no response from CL, not sure why I do it?)
Secure financing for condo deal

Gotta run!

Updates

2009-05-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post all week but just didn't seem to carve out the time. I do not really have a lot to post but wanted to give updates about my goals.

I never did meet with the lady at the bank - crap. But this was not because I didn't try. Here's a little backstory... every winter my husband gets laid off work and I am able to work my REI freely. However, now that he has gone back to work I am finding that meeting with bank personal/looking at properties/closings/etc. is much, much more difficult to schedule since I now have to get the kids from daycare. I was right on the edge of getting a new contact and now I'll have to wait in order to schedule another meeting. Patience...

I have 2 potential renters for my condos. We do not have anything signed yet so of course it's not "in the bag" but at least there is hope here.

I did not put an ad in the paper for the rent-to-own on my 2 bedroom. I'm giving it a few weeks on the market before I go that route. I did get a bunch of calls on Thursday but nothing with good potential. The reason I am waiting to do the rent-to-own on the 2BR is because there are 5 more condos that are interesting me (in another town/another subdivision). These would be long term holds. I am looking to get them for $65k/condo and each are rented for $950 (one is rented for $995). They are 2 years old and look/smell brand new. I'm not sure how my mortgage lady will take this OR if she'll even finance it so I am going to talk to her Monday. I'll let ya'll know what happens.

Finally, my boss gave me a little nudge yesterday into thinking - AGAIN - about how much I want to leave this job. He is such an ass. Don't worry, if he ever read through this blog this information wouldn't be anything new to him. I'm going to think about this over the next week.

I'm sure there is more but I gotta run!

Accountability Monday...

2009-04-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

Weeell, I didn't do too great on my goals BUT I didn't do too bad either. We got out 6 offers (check), I worked out 2 times instead of 3 (pseudo check) and I called one rent to own in the paper. This guy was a total ass and made me very self concious to call anyone else! I know, I need to get over it and move on - make those calls!

Goals for this week:
Work out 3x
Meet with the new local bank (hopefully tonight)
Get ad in paper for rent-to-own on my new 2BR house
Find renters for my last pain in the ass set of condos
Re-assess my strategies

I am closing on the 2BR house tonight. Well, I'm actually pre-signing and the actual closing is tomorrow. I put the contract on this house with an exit strategy of Rent-to-Own. However I put an ad in the paper for a quick sale and am having dismal results. Usually when I put my "Owner Desperate" ads in the paper I get loads of calls but not with this property. Of course this is making me very nervous about my price and the 2BR thing. I knew this was a sort of 'test' to see how well 2BR's went over and it's not looking good. I have had about 7-8 calls on it but not one has wanted to go through it. This is in a very sought after lake community and is the cheapest house in the area that doesn't need any work. The closest priced home is $10k higher and has foundation issues. We'll see...

Still have not put in renters in my condos. These things are just going to give me a headache. We did get an offer on 1 late last week but I think it is going to fall through. We'll see how that goes too.

What else?!? I think I am offering too much for properties. My offers going forward are going to be much, much lower. I started last week with one... It was going to be $50k and I changed it to $35k.

I'm sure there is more but I need to get back to work.

Closings/Offers/40th BDay party

2009-04-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

I should have 2 closings this week. The first is tonight for one set of condos. This is the 3rd set that I've bought/sold over the past 5 months. I am still holding the last set with no buyers lined up nor any rent-to-owners. I thought I had one lady who wanted it bad but we haven't heard from her in a while. At any rate, I will only be making about $3.5k tonight at closing on both units but I'm good with that. And, we will continue the search for rent-to-owners.

The second closing is tentatively scheduled for Friday. If it's not Friday it will be next week. This is for the HUD property that we closed on last week. We got the buyer from the HUD property we sold last month. He wanted that one but it was already sold. Michelle told him about this one and he put in an offer. We didn't even have to market. I wish they were all this easy. Again, we're not making a killing but it's paying the bills and I don't have to stress about holding too many properties.

We will be submitting more than 5 offers this week, I think. I will know for sure tonight when I talk to Michelle at the closing. I am participating in Steph's accountability Mondays and that is one of my goals. It is a great idea and one that I hope I stick with.

My husbands 40th birthday party was this past weekend and we all had a ball! It was such a good time. I didn't go to bed until about 4am and there were about 15 people up still dancing after that. I will try to post some pictures later. My home computer is so slow I hate posting anything... it takes forever and a day.

I think that's it for now.

2009-04-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

So I'm trying Rent-to-own on my last set of condos. It's not going great... I've only had the ad in the paper since Friday but I only got 2 calls. The 1 guy is interested but I think I have him thoroughly confused. I'm not very good at explaining things and tend to scare people away, I think. This is one reason why I was never very good at short sales. I just called my mortgage gal and she is going to touch base with him tomorrow and see how good/bad his credit actually is. It sounds like he wants to get both units so he can live in 1 and rent out the other. I'm just not sure that is going to work for him doing a rent to own. I'll have to think about that and if anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears! These things are a pain in my ass and I just want them GONE! Unfortunately for me I think I will have them forever...

We lost out on the other 2 properties I wanted. I really thought I had a chance with the one that had a super low starting price but apparently someone wanted it more than me. Personally I think there is something "weird" with the RE agency. You know, maybe they do not play by the rules?! Hmmm. I'm going to watch that one and see where the buyers came in on price.

I did go look at the property where the bank came down $10k. I thought it would be a total dump but it was actually pretty nice. Of course it needs the obligatory carpet/paint/windows/roof but that is about it. I'm sure there are some other minor things but nothing major (at least that I know of prior to my contractor looking at it). The bank came down to $55k, I was at $42k and came up to $50k. I'm just waiting on them to respond now. This is a huge house with lake views but no garage. What's up with the no garages?!?!

Nothing else happenin' - ate like a pig on Easter. It was wonderful!! ha, ha.

Accepted contract/Called Bank!

2009-04-09T14:22:00.001-07:00

We got one of our offers accepted! This is the 2/1 with no garage in a sought after town (Lake Geneva, WI). Again I have not bought a 2/1 until now so it will be interesting to see how this plays out. I am going to forward the info to my buyers list and maybe call a couple "For Rents" in the paper and feel it out. This is NOT a grand slam by any means but I'll be surprised if I have trouble unloading it (famous last words).

I finally called the local bank I've been meaning to call. In fact I just hung up with her. I am going to give her a call and meet with her next week, hopefully. She mentioned their "in house" products could have no downpayment, depending on our working relationship (of course), and she does the underwriting for those. And, it would also include no payments for the first 6 months... sweet. I want to take this contract to her so we can start building the relationship. If I could get no downpayment and no pay for 6 months I would be REALLY happy and I would be able to accomplish a lot more deals. I wish I could meet with her Monday but this damn J.O.B. is holding me back. I'm taking off early Thursday (for a closing - maybe - I'll get into that in another blog) and Friday. We're having a 40th birthday party for my husband on Saturday. It should be lots of fun - adult fun. heehee.

I'll keep you posted on everything. I'm goin' home!

Complete gut rehab - Dump

2009-04-08T09:15:00.001-07:00

The property where the bank came down $20k is a complete rehab/dump. Anything would be good at the right price I suppose but this house was downright scary. Not in the TampaSteph sort of way (at least that I know of) but just scary. It actually was a duplex, not a SF as I'd thought, 1/2 the windows were missing, tear off roof, new siding and gutting on the inside. The whole shabang. AND, there was a 1 bedroom house in the backyard. That was in OK shape but had water damage/mold. Whatever, I didn't counter back and will just watch it - maybe.

I looked at a couple other properties last night. One just came on the market 2 days ago at $55k (that is LOOW in my neck of the woods) so I had to see it. Of course I was expecting it to be a piece of shit but lo and behold it was in great shape. It has nice siding, new roof, HUGE yard, deck, french doors to deck, backs up to a school (could be good or bad), 1.5 car attached garage, minimal repair on the inside. I have no idea why they priced this puppy so low. It does only have 2 bedrooms/1 bath but there is a very large rec room in the basement. Someone could possibly use that for another bedroom. Anyhoo, they are taking offers through tomorrow so hopefully I'll know something by Friday?!

We also saw another property where they came down $20k. This one is also in decent shape but is a 2/1 with no garage. This is a great area with a great school district so I came up $8k and told them that was my highest and best. Apparently this is NOT a bank owned but an older couple that have moved out of state. We'll see if they are motivated enough to come down another $10k.

The last one I put an offer on was a 3/1 with no garage, GREAT yard, small deck, very little work. It's a small but cute house. Very nice, larger homes surround it but, directly across the street, there is a complete shithole. It sticks out like a sore thumb. It's really too bad for the neighborhood.

At any rate I'm hoping to have at least 1 if not 2 contracts for May! Wish me luck!