Happy Thanksgiving!!

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

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...

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...

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...

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!

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

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.........