I am not a big writer so please excuse me if I miss spell and am grammatically incorrect I will always give credit to quotes of inspiration I have adopted over the years of being a stay at home mom and raising my daughter and son in suburbia America!
I am writing this in hopes that those getting started in Real Estate Investing will find it useful and will go out and attempt to do as I have done!
First of all I am not the most organized and detailed person in the world but do I try. I feel when I have read and re-read things that I will retain it in my volt called my memory. Therefore no one can take it away, in some cases I may retain it to memory not quite as I learned it---at times if I feel important information is loosing it’s force I will write it down in my ‘handy-dandy-NoteBook’—Blues Clues (kids morning show)
So have a system that works for you very important! Sometimes we learn the hard way, life is a great teacher and only then do we “get it” Duh!
Just getting started in the Wholesaling niche of REI—I was not the most organized, the most positive, the most motivated, the most prepared person. Like most, Dean’s books and kit sat on my desk for months before reading them—skeptical I was, life had beaten me down in just the past 5 years. My husband lost his job we lived off our saving for 6 mons before he finally started working, to which we added 10,000.00 worth of new debt to our already high debt to income we had incurred over the years. I managed to get small part time jobs to help in some ways and still continue to raise my kids. My husband tried like hell to attain bonuses that so many in his work thought were unreachable, but he reached them. If it wasn’t for his persistence in trying to find a way for us to keep our head above water, worried and up late one night he watched Dean on late night TV, he bought his books and Foreclosure Finder Kit. However, because he was working long hours he hoped that “I” would read them and do.
I was not motivated to follow through, I hadn’t watched Dean and I just added the stuff to our collection of self help books etc… Looking for work online one day and slim pickins I went door to door to look for work instead. I was hired by an insurance agent as a receptionist, being out of work for several years my computer skills suffered, I offered to drive a 30 minute drive every morning for a week to get trained by his office manager on the other side of town
he agreed, there was soooo much to learn she crammed as much she could in that time, I actually wrote EVERTHING down and brought it to the office the next week. Needless to say, the company was making new changes to his system, more stuff to learn that he didn’t know and spent 3 to 4 days out of the week at his other office. I tried to maintain as best I could without him there….soon after we parted ways he was not very helpful and well might I just say in my opinion, of course, he was a jerk! One thing I will never forget was what he said one day to me that made me do what I have done to this point: “…..Everyone (meaning his office staff who were 20 years younger than me) is passing you by…” that felt like a slap in the face, I felt the sting! That day I decided I wouldn’t let that happen!
So…… I took a computer course at my local community college completed that in 8wks and took another insurance exam to acquire my Life/Health Insurance license, my old boss was the only one with that license at his office and now I had it too not to mention my Home and Auto insurance license as well.
I thought I might look into owning my own insurance agency and I attended a few seminars until I found out I needed at least 10k to start it with; which I didn’t have, I felt defeated! I was trying to figure out how to come up with that cash looking through some paper work I found Dean’s book again and this time I read it, it was about 9month later after putting on my shelf…..I suddenly woke up and smelled the Coffee (cheesey cliché) But it was soooo true where was this book and information10 years ago!! We ate up every bit of information on Dean’s website but because my husband and I felt a sense of urgency we bought the success academy course. I have done my first three deals all assignments and made 20,500.00 total and am making progress every day.
I learned so much in just these three deals that have brought the theory part of the
learning process full circle and many Aha moments! This website is supportive in everyway, I sat around too long when I started learning just stirring the pot of information
over and over and finding the ‘What-If’s’ to worry about and that waisted so much time! I never had all the answers, you must do in order to know! The biggest What-If that bothered me most was not Trying….and I am trying every day and making progress! Don’t just say it! Do it, live it, breathe it… BE IT and LOVE IT—I AM
Who is Dean Graziosi?
Are People Actually Successful?
Does Dean Practice What He Preaches?
What Deals Are The Students Doing Right Now?
Reeling in the...
"Your everlasting summer you can see it fading fast
So you grab a piece of something That you think is gonna last
You wouldnt know a diamond If you held it in your hand The
things you think are precious
I cant Understand....You know the song from Steely Dan (one of my favs)
Well that's How I feel most of the time in this business, it's that "Stinkin' Thinkin'" Dean talks about all the time, that Stops us Dead in our Tracks or Prevents us from taking the first Step in Being the person we So Want to Be but we hold ourselves back for one reason or other. The words that go off in your head telling you to get down from the clouds and be ordinary people like the rest of us, it's the voice that you think is trying to tell you that you are silly if you have a dream, it's the voice that tells you everything to Stop you from doing what you love what you know you should do and can do but it's that voice that sneakily tricks you to believing it's being reasonable, and that you cant keep on doing this Crazy thing called Real Estate Investing! It's easy to listen to and stay where you are safe.
I took a chance and did well, boy I felt great, like everyone does, putting my efforts and what I have learned into action, when along comes the Ugly Monster (just an analogy of what stink-think looks like) in your head telling you not to take risks and even though you try to put it out of your head you still let it sneak back in.
* Tip #1 Learned Look on to others to talk to to share what you are experiencing, your fears, worries and of course your many, non-ending questions. Just because at first I did Succeed I was afraid that I woul soon fail too, I suffered in silence and stopped moving forward with my goals, until I shared this with my partner/husband, I released that ugly monster and put it in the cage of non existance where it belongs it feels great when what you were thinkin was just all in your head and nobody elses, I was worried that I would mess up or had messed up, it would keep me up at night and yes I suppose I suffered in silence well never again, I will profess to Yell, SCREAM, from the roof tops well at least to my husband if not my partner then who else, oh wait and yes the DG Family!
Because my life had changed so suddently and drastically, I didnt want to change how I was inevesting from one city to the next, it's like day and night I wanted to stay where I was comfortable and not face the Bigger City where I live now, I was remoting wholesaling only in my town and refused to look at the monter dead in the eye, I thought I wouldn't have to deal with it when really it was easier than I thought because this big city was like 20 or 30 little towns in it that are ripe for the pickins! It's just plain rediculous what you can tell your self to stay in a made up safe zone. So I had a new Realtor, who is hungry but I didnt want to put her to worklike I had learned for fear of scaring her away, so I decided to just do it, have a Real Talk with her and share with her what I wanted to do and what I was already doing in my home town city I had moved from. Well it was the best thing I could have ever done because what she said next absolutely floored me, "..I dont have a problem putting in offers for you anytime any day and I dont care what the sellers agent tells me (talking about low offers) they can be ugly all they want that's Their Problem! She has already submitted a few offers for me and told me how she was blasted by a sellers Agent over my offer and she said quite frankly she didnt care (she somes from short sale department from a big bank that downsized her department....and now she is what she is) she understands with much appreciation what this business is all about, we talked more she shared some insight and nuggets, glad I shared a no B.S talk with her because now we have an understanding so profound that if I loose her I think I will die (just kidding) and believe me I have been through many Realtors.
I just applied what Matt shares on 30 Days to Real Estate Cash with Dean about working with a Realtor your main "Team Player" is key to being successful in your goals as a Real Estate Investor and it's not a magic word that I said or Didnt say, it was just me speaking from the heart and what goals I wanted to accomplish. Time goes by too quickly, as I have realized, no matter what life throws my way I will never wait too long again to get Re-engaged dont ever let a day go by that you "take-off" from Real Estate because it may be the last!
Working Two Cities in Wholesaling and they are two Very different Breeds. My Analogy of them are one is the Tazmanian Devil and the other is the Big Blue Monster (you know the one) and each one is different but they are both Hungry for ...Real Estate..My true Freedom!
Long distance Wholesaling turned up a $DEAL$
A Call From my simple Craigslist Ad, Motivate seller going through a divorce wanted to unload his custom
(Not quite done yet) Home in the valley of my home town of which, by the way, I live over 600 miles away. Yes, I still advertise there since I have a small but dynamic team that I feel confident I can still close any deal with their assistance, glad I met them and Boy! Have we evolved!
Seller needs to sell his house that he built on a half acre of land he purchased over 6years ago. He got with some friends who where custom sub-contractors who built him this very new house some 3 yrs ago. Needed exterior paint, roof, and all interior paint and floors, lighting, finish showers etc...I locked it on contract for 75k and wholesaled it for 85k ARV= 209,000 with DOM of 148 days pretty good considering it was in the "country". This area was "dissed" by almost every buyer I had on my Buyer's List they would always tell me when I was getting their criteria, any place as long as the numbers make sense but NOT (that area) So, of course as the wholesale gods would have it this deal was in "that area" haha-boy I almost passed on it. Well,actually I low balled the seller thinking he will just walk away and that will be that, right, well he came back! and make me a deal I couldnt refuse, regardless what most of my buyers said, I Wholesaled IT in under 25 days to a local Investor I met some time back ago who wasnt doing it DEAN's Way and was buying too high at the court house steps! AND I Made $6500, my Co-Wholesaler made 2k and my bird dog made 2k! My team held two open houses and made bandit signs, thru the rain and the looong 40minute trip from the main city, they took photos for me, videos and marketed it for me as well on line.
Everything that could go wrong, did and it tested my own belief as well as my newest addition to my team my newbie birddog, but we held strong, shared thoughts and creativity and at the end some big sigh of reliefs and laughs! We jokingly call it our buckets of Goo Deal, because one day when faith was thin, and raining cats N dogs and the signs were hard to get in the desert ground their shoes were muddy and their clothes wet, this would surley test their true" A-team-ness", we filled our BUCKET that day for sure!We pulled through it and ON to the NEXT ONE!
My sellers were for ever grateful they could now both move on with their lives and my buyer was just as grateful that he and his wife will enjoy this one themselves and of course wants more of my deals! By the way I used my Title company (not Buyer's choice) who have done and will do some great things for me in the future as I have now closed two deals with them!