Mark's Millionaire Mindset (M³) Journal

Sounds like some good things are happening!

Love how your buyer's list has expanded already off the sign in the yard.

Also, sounds like this atty is a keeper! Someone who is interested in developing a new client relationship and not just how much can he gouge you for!

Can't wait 'til you get the contract signed!

Karen

So I was mucking around my county's website, which I usually do about once a month. You never know what gems lay hidden in the pages of obscurity.
I end up finding a detailed report of the tax status of all the properties in my city.
Each one had a "delinquent: yes/no" entry.
This was in a pdf report.

IDEA: Search term: delinquent yes
Find 67 properties that are delinquent in my city.
I know one off hand that's been vacant for 8 months.
Time to take a ride around and see how many of these 67 properties are vacant.

Also called up the county finance dept to see if the county sells tax liens.
Nope. People have 2-3 years to pay their taxes or they go to auction.

Found out when they will be publishing that listing on the website and when the actual tax auction will take place.

It's Tax Auction Season folks!
Find out when yours is happening.

Yeah, being obnoxious right now. lol

Did research on those delinquent tax properties and pared the list down to about 10-11 properties. Will call on them soon and see what the story is.

The property that the offer was accepted on fell through. The seller was making excuses for not selling now (we never signed a contract). She was never able to come up with the court papers to show she was authorized to sell the property as executor.

It wasn't a total loss though. The for sale sign I had in the front ended up netting me 4 retail & 4 cash investor buyers not to mention a contractor too.

I'm currently working on a 5/3 with a detached 2 car garage on 2 acres. Seller wants out by summer...

Hey Mark,
A newbie here lookin for any great advice you might have in the future but I had a quick question. First I wanted to say nice work at that bandit sign placement. Hope I get as lucky with a move like that. As I was wandering through that last part right after you talked about how the sign mysteriously showed up in the code officers yard. Nice. I was wondering what you meant when you said "find the location of the exchange where the number is registered at. The exchange is about an hour and half away from me." What did you mean? Whats the exchange and why do you have to have it registered? Thanks for any help you can provide now and hopefully later...
Sean Bearden

Thanks for the compliments. The bandit sign locations (to me at least) were a no-brainer, put them in high traffic areas and the phone will ring off the hook.

It's rather easy to track phone numbers nowadays with google, just punch in the whole number with area code (as ###-###-####) into google and the least you'll get out of it is where the exchange handling the number is.
For instance if you google my google voice number (let's say 123-456-9999), the exchange number (where the '456' is in my example number) is usually set at a certain location by the phone company that controls that exchange number. I don't have anything to do with that aspect of the number. What I could do though was pick what number I was using through Google voice. It just so happens that the number I liked to use to make the word "KEY" is 539. As 539 is the exchange number for a different area than which I live in, people will think I'm there instead of where I actually am. As you can tell from my previous posts, it didn't deter people from calling me.

I hope that explained your question thoroughly.

Thanks Mr. K,
That did answer my question thoroughly and I appreciate you taking the time to answer it. My bad about not seeing that you had already given the answer. I was just bouncing from post to post looking at whatever caught the eye. BTW Only been on the site a few days and Im a big fan of your journal already. Lots of good stuff on here! I was wondering, where are you from? Hows business in that area? Again, thanks for taking time out of what Im sure is a busy day. Good luck on all endeavors.

Sean Bearden
Shui the Builder

MarkK,

Your journey is so seemingly flawless, so organized, so according to plan.

You are admired by so many. Thank you for sharing. If you ever need to, please get in touch.

Wonderful journal.

Hmmm, flawless, organized & according to plan? It's all smoke & mirrors, but you can't fake organization. Hey, one out of three ain't so bad is it?

I write in here what I do so people can see that it really can be done. I also like to keep it real so people can also see that there are obstacles and negativity every step of the way. A person needs to have the right mindset and drive to make real estate work.

One does not need to do 8 hours worth of real estate a day to be successful (although you make a heck of a lot more progress sooner). Doing only a few concentrated efforts at a time will keep you moving in the right directions and the pieces will fall into place.

Thank you for your kind words, they give me a warm, tingly feeling. No, wait, scratch that last part, my computer isn't grounded properly again.

In all seriousness though, have you ever looked at the users/guests on the right side of the screen? The numbers are so much greater for the guests which, in a way is kind of sad. That means that more people are just "window shopping" instead of just jumping in. Interesting thought, I wonder if the ~96% that don't do anything or give up on real estate are the majority of guests?

Thanks for reading my journal and the heartfelt words Tina, you're an asset to dg.com as well. Keep up the great work, that's a gamble that's paying off in Vegas over there for you!

"Dear Optimist, Pessimist and Realist. While you guys were arguing about the glass of water. I drank it. - The Opportunist"

I love this - its SO true

Keep up the Good work!

I used to hear all the time at my JOB (Just Over Broke); "Hey, if we could do ___________ we'd be rich!" and nobody would take action on it.

I got tired of that and that's why I'm here!

Thanks for stopping by!

Mark,

I thought about your reaction to "according to plan", and I could just see you go, "huh?", but I meant it. You're plan is real, just as you said. I see it as you being able over-deliver and that's a good thing. You're just right. Yeah, flawless I think in taking the steps, as in not flailing, jumping around, faltering.... steady, true.

Go get it!

Respectfully,
Tina

Oops, I forgot to respond to your comment about the lookie lou's...
yes, I notice that every time I'm on; like 22 or 33 users and 256 guests. I just figured the guest haven't taken the time to sign up, but you're right! They must be just scoping to think about getting started. Sounds like a post to me!

Mark

I just took my first stab at reading through your journal. Like Tina, I appreciate how well written, organized it is. You have tools like a table of contents which if every thread had I am sure I would get a lot more out of the thread. One of your early posts about "attitude" is so true. I love the mix of action, the ability to make mid course changes when necessary and the fact that you went back to the success academy lessons after being away from it for awhile and picked up where you left off. I also have 30 days to RE success, which is an amazing amount of info in a small pkg. I hope that you use the phone calls you get with the success academy. I think this is the most valuable part of SA.

And you just keep going till you find the right team, your agent and now attorney sound they are on board. I think that by taking your time to find good folks the first time around will save you a lot of time in the long run. I have been through contractors on my flips like crazy. So, take your time and do it right.

Several folks posted about making money in the beginning but not doing by the DG steps, then when they started doing the DG steps, they really started to rock and roll. I started with DG, but took the steps out of sequence and am now filling in the holes.

So, keep following the program and working it, and I will keep following your journal.

Judi

I love the M to the third power in the journal. You must be a very creative person.

judi

full circle approach. With you, I'd bet you have the date in 2 or 3 years when the auction list comes out already marked!
We'll stay tuned for the tax lien find you'll get in 2015!

Work it!

I think you may have mis-interpreted my intentions.
My county doesn't sell tax liens, property owners have up to 3 years to pay up or it goes to auction.
What I'm doing is finding those that are delinquent 1-2 years and calling them up to see if they're interested in selling (hopefully for only the taxes due) BEFORE the auction. That way I can get the deal before it even thinks of going to auction.

Wow, thanks Judi! You never know how you affect someone's life until they say something.
You know how some people say there's no "off" on the genius switch, with me there's no "off" on the imagination/creativity switch!
Regarding the table of contents, that came up out of frustration. I've been to other journals and threads that are pages long and I give up on reading them because there's no easy way to jump in and out of them conveniently.
As far as taking it step by step. I have noticed that there are times where you just have to jump across the creek and then come back to build the bridge later on. There's no way to go from start to finish on your first and successive deals step by step without missing or botching a few. Besides, that wouldn't be any fun if all deals were perfect from day one now would it?
By the way, that last agent I talked about? Another dud! That could be a good thing though. If all agents were performers, there would be no deals left for us investors.
The Success Academy is great! It's easy to jump back into your lessons because there's a progress sheet and you can pick up where you left off. The phone calls are great too. The only catch is they can't be state specific sometimes at which point you'll need to consult with an attorney or fellow investor in your area. If you're networking and setting up your team properly, it shouldn't be a major issue.
I've also noticed those that have done one deal then seem to have crash & burned. I think some people think this is simpler than it really is, luck out to the closing and then wonder why they can't repeat their success. You need a solid foundation, plain & simple.
Alright Judi, thanks for stopping by M³ and your thoughtful comments!

So today I went to the bank to pay my rent and to open a business account.

Asked the teller if I could open a biz account, she rung somebody up and then this lady walked out of a side room. Joined her in her office and find out she's the VP of the branch, nice!
While talking to her I asked if they had an asset manager at this branch, said no but she could call and see if she would talk to me. I said what about email? Sure, that's no problem, what is it? Handed her 2 of my business cards, one for her and one for the asset manager. *that's why you should have at least two methods of contact on your business card*
Got that out of the way and we were chatting back and forth...

Me: Do you write mortgages here? (It's a small branch, wasn't sure)
Her: Oh yes, all the time.
Me: You get people refinancing often?
Her: We've been doing A LOT of refi's.
Me: So, for my business, if I fix and refi to pull cash out, that's fine here?
Her: Oh sure! We go up to 70% appraised value.
Me: Sounds good, is there a limit on the number of outstanding mortgages I can have as a RE investor?
Her: No(!!)
Me: So you're saying that as long as the property has a tenant in place with a positive cash flow every month, there's basically no limit to how many times I do this?
Her: Nope.
(how cool is that?!?)

I also find out her and her husband own a nice string of properties on one block in an adjacent town, so she's familiar with RE investing.

Another idea popped in my head...

Me: Okay, so you write mortgages here, I'm sure you get those that you have to decline or reject for one reason or another right?
Her: Oh sure, not everybody can qualify for what they need.
Me: Well, what if..., what if I left you my business card and every time someone doesn't qualify for a mortgage, do you think you could refer them to me? As I could secure properties and allow them to rent to own.
Her: Oh sure, that would be no problem!

So that pretty much rocked my day, visiting the bank and all.
Not to mention I got a free picnic blanket for opening an account, whoohoo! LOL

One of my favorite quotes is from the movie "The Matrix" where Morpheus is telling Neo: ...you have to let it all go Neo; Fear, Doubt, Disbelief. FREE YOUR MIND!

How true is that for REI?

Have a great day everybody!

For those of you wondering, I'm currently building up my woodworking business. Real estate is on the back burner but not forgotten.
By the way, if you need any woodworking done, don't hesitate to contact me.
We do carvings, signs and unique gifts, all custom made!

I like your tag line"REDUCE YOUR REGRETS!!" Also, the last paragraph is really something special. I truly hope you find what you are looking for. Take Care.