REI JOURNAL:

Thanks Alana and Laura.
It's a crazy feeling to go from sitting at home bored and miserable one day to going out and taking steps toward your success the next day.

Tonight and tomorrow I'm planning on taking it easy for the most part seeing as I'm booked for 24 hours of REA courses on Saturday and Sunday, and my first day as a rental agent on Monday. So I'll just lay low, go do some reading at Barnes and Noble, and maybe hit up the beach or go out for a drink to celebrate my new life.

Definitely more to come in the next few days!

Well I woke up today with the realization that I'm going to be in class all day for the REA exam on the 2 hottest days of the year (which, when you live in Boston, are not days you want to miss). I also woke up to a text message from a cousin, saying he's throwing a massive pool party at my parents house (where I live) on Sunday. Haha, For someone who absolutely dreads cold weather and being confined to the indoors, this isn't exactly the type of thing you want to wake up to.

But I guess this'll be the first in a long string of sacrifices I'll have to make in order to become successful.

OH WELL, I'm going now to chill at the beach all day before that saga begins early tomorrow morning.

Take care, all.

Got through Day 1 of the real estate salesperson course along with Arodriguez3322. It really wasn't as bad as I thought in terms of length, seeing as we got a bunch of little breaks, an hour lunch, and we got out a couple hours early. Day 2 tomorrow, then I'm definitely gonna need some time to review and let it all sink in before I take the exam.

Getting so pumped thinking about all the connections I'll be making doing rentals.

Bringing it all together step by step...

This is great all the steps you are taking towards you success! And I'm glad you corrected your own attitude about the little sacrifices to get to the end result! I'm spending today and tomorrow (some of the best of Jerseys summer so far) doing the final interior painting on my rehab - but just remember once we have financial freedom we can spend as many days on as many beautiful beaches around the world as we like, right! So keep those dreams alive, focus on success and stay happy!

Hey Steve....

Nice job and congratulations. Law of attration man!!! You got to believe it is real... It's awesome that you and Arodriguez3322 have been able to finally physically connect. I know I have been doing the same thing here in AZ this weekend and boy does it make a big difference, ya know!! Just the thought of knowing that you have somebody by your side makes your confidence level just quadruple. In fact on my side, we are actually going to have our first (well second for me) meeting tomorrow, and officially begin a new DG REI group here in AZ. Anyway, good luck witht he new job starting tomorow!

Remember, we are always nervouse our first day of a new job but we always tend to finish the day and think to ourselves, hey that wasn't so bad and I shouldn't have been so nervous! My recomendation to you is to mentally think about that feeling the first five munutes on the job as if it's actually day two. You will be amazed on how easy that first day then becomes. It at least seems to work for me...

Oh, and by the way, yes CPA does stand for Certified Public Accountant or as some may think, Cerified Pain in the Ass! lol But, yes I handle taxes, accounting, set up business, consulting, the whole ball of wax, so never hesitate to ask if you need some help! With technology these days, I can even handle most of your tax and accounting needs from a long distance if necessary.

Take care Steve & Arodriguez3322....

Yea you're right about that Laura... I'm definitely willing to sacrifice a little right now to have my freedom later, especially since I'm only 22.

Rob, for sure it's definitely helpful to have someone studying the same techniques around to help each other out. Alex has already started applying a nice method he's got for finding probate deals, which he's let me in on, so we're looking to start racking in probate deals from our respective counties and handing them off (first as bird-dog deals and later through assignments).

Finished up the salesperson course yesterday and got certified to go take the exam.

I started training as a rental agent today. The job's definitely a good place to start off a career in real estate, in terms of the random yet essential knowledge I'll be building up along with the ability to help me build up my investing network while working. All in all it seems like a lot of fun and I'm pumped about getting started next week.

The only thing in my way now is the license exam, which I'll be taking Thursday. There's a lot of memorization involved, which isn't really my strongest talent, so hopefully I wont have to retake it.

Rob, thanks a lot for offering help man, I really appreciate it. Hopefully soon enough I'll be gaining knowledge of a lot of the agent-based problems/circumstances that people on this site have questions about, so I'll be more than happy to help as well. Maybe if you got an extra minute you could shed some light on how exactly filing for taxes works when you're a commissioned agent (independent contractor?).

Hey Steve,

Definately! An independent contractor is simply that.... Independent, meaning they are not legally an employee. Often, many employers will try to push individuals into that description just so they don't have to pay the employment taxes, so be careful. If an individual is supervised, reports their time directly to the employee, etc., then they are most likely an employee. I say most likely becuase there are a lot more details that qualify someone as an independent contractor but those are some of the main ones.

The negative of being a sub-contractor (Independednt contractor) is that you are considered "self employed", and unless you have an S-Corp, Regular Corp, or some LLCs depending on the way it's stuctured, you can get taxed pretty significantly. See, again, the reason why some employers try to put individuals in the "independent contractor" category is that they don't have to pay any additional taxes and also don't have to deal with the hassles of payroll. See, as an employee you have your taxes taken out including social security and medicare as well. Some people don't realize it, but the employer actually matches that 100%. So, if you are an independent contractor and are considered "self employed", you will effectively pay both parts of that tax which is the equivalent of 15.3%. Now take that further down the road when you file your taxes and you happen to be in the 15% tax bracket. In this scenario, you will pay 30.3% on all of that income, which is a pretty big hit, especially if you were not planning for it.

Now the good news of being an independent contractor is that you can write off many things that are legitamite expenses for your business. Anything that you can think of that you can use for this business is most likely something you can write off in some regard. Not necessarily everything, but the possibilities are there. This also includes some things you might not consider such as a "home office", portions of your cell phone, supplies, some meals & entertainment expenses, and a good one these days is auto mileage. With the IRS reimbursement amount for mileage being .55 per mile, it can be a pretty good expense by the time the end of the year hits.

So there you go... A very basic breakdown of an independent contractor. It definately has it's advantages and there are some disadvantages as well, but each individual circumstance is different so you have to analyze that for yourself or review your situation with a good CPA or other consultant. Depending on the response we get back concerning "independent contractor" perhaps I will create a new thread about it and try to give a more detailed look at it!

Glad your having a good time with the classes. Definately would love to hear about the probate ideas, so PM me if you are cool with discussing it!

Late........

Hey Robert,

Man that was some good information. Having previously been an insurance broker (for about 8 months until I found real estate) I was told to generally save 20% on any commissions as a rule of thumb for tax purposes. Taxes have always been a vague but interesting subject for me. I've read up on the advantages Real Estate, corporations, and paper assets have on taxes, but I'm not as educated in the self-employed department (probably because I don't want to be self-employed for too long). Businesses and investing is the world I plan on living in.

Anyways, it's nice to see good people share what they know. What I have come to realize about probates is that the notices are online for some states. Knowing my State's strong legal presence as compared to others, I knew parts of MA had to have these files online. With diligence and a little luck, I found that site for my state. However, the information doesn't say whether real estate is associated with the estate or gives the executor's address/phone number. Having a local buddy take a trip to the courthouse once per week, he finds the bits of information I need and plan on drafting a letter to the executor. So its a beginning system that me and Steve are implementing as far as probate leads go. I plan on expanding my marketing efforts big-time when the time is right. But for now, we're trying to get it up and going and hopefully automate the system when the time is right.

We also met an experienced local investor (leader of an Rei Club) who only focuses on rehabbing projects. Even though he's tried other techniques, it seems he only remains within his comfort level (Like most people). I think he was surprised to see young guys like me and Steve (21,22) to demonstrate such knowledge and motivation. Anyway, when asked about probates, he knew of no one who was marketing to them. This goes to show you that probates is an un-tapped market in which you will have very little or no competition. It was funny to hear him pitch us the idea that foreclosures were the way to go, even though he admitted that there is a lot of competition.

Well Robert, I hope we can keep in touch on our quest for freedom. My Email is Arodriguez3322@**** if you would like to get back to me so I can respond in a more timely manner.

Good luck

And Steve, this Journal thing is Awesome! Don't stop it. I'm gonna keep checking back here every now and then as a another means of motivation.

It's gonna be fun to see how far we've come!

Hey...

Glad the info helped.... Remember, based on what you want to do ultimately, you will be self employed. There are just ways to reduce the "self employment tax" hit based on how you stucture things. For example, I'm a big S-corp guy becuase unlike a regular corp, you are only taxed one time. Perhaps one of the main points of an S-corp is that you have to pay yourself a "reasonable" salary. Now what is reasonable; who knows, but let's say of the $100k in profits you will have for 2009, you then take a salary of $50k. Well that reduces your profit to $50k give or take, and of course you pay all the social security and medicare taxes for it. Cool, I can accept that... Now, the remaining $50k, is ONLY taxed for income taxes, so you save 15.3%. Remember, this is strictly a rough breakdown and you would want to really go over it with someone before making your own choices. AND, the S-corp would primarily be used for the "service" revenue you create. It is definately not the best type of entity that actually holds real estate. I see a lot of structures out there where some individual solely owns and S-corp and then it owns seperate LLCs for the different properties that are owned. Again, no one should be making any decisions based on this thread alone. GET SOME GOOD ADVICE FROM A QUALIFIED PERSON!!

The probate stuff seems really interesting and I have been learning a little about it. Thanks for the info... I have thought about pushing probates for two reason... If you can find it, there are some amazing deals out there!!! Second reason is that I know a couple trust & estate attorneys that hear about this either the day a person passes away or soon thereinafter.

Keep up the good work guys.... I really wish I would have taken things a lot more serious back when I was 22!

Have a great Tuesday!

Second repost by accident...

Wonderful, just wonderful! So happy for you! Can't wait to hear about everything in your new job, what you learn, how you apply it. It's all coming together!

Nancy D.

I just went and passed my real estate license exam, and I'm about to go into work and start renting some apartments haha. I think I'm still pretty clueless as to the whole process and all the paperwork, but I'm just gonna go out there and see what happens. This should be interesting!

On the REI side of things, Alex is raving about the probate system and the ease with which he's finding buyers, and I'm planning on getting that business going simultaneously with rentals.

Alright, I'm off for now but I'll report back later.

Wish me luck!

So I went and worked a few hours after the exam and started putting out ads (via craigslist) and I set up a new Twitter account specifically for feeding my listings off of craigslist (which you can check out at http://twitter.com/RentalExperts ). Let me know what you guys think.

Now that I have free time to do things other than study for that test, I'm determined to start going through the steps to find good probate deals to refer or assign.

On a more immediate note... Once I start getting calls about my ads tomorrow at work, I'm gonna have to make appointments and lead myself through the whole renting process, which is a little nerve-racking right now, but I'm sure it'll get easier once I get going with it. I just need to get that first rental under my belt so I can get comfortable with the process and start pulling in some cash to invest in INVESTING.

But all in all... great job, great freedom and perks, and DEFINITELY helping get me on my REI feet.

(And by the way... if any of you have read some of my earlier posts, I set a goal of making around $10,000 by the beginning of winter, at which point I would make the decision of whether or not I should move out to LA... Well, I know one of the things that Dean stresses is to not get sidetracked from your goals, but I think everything kind of came together in a pretty ideal way all at once here at home, and so I think I'd just be screwing myself over by passing up on these circumstances and starting to start out anew with no real prospects in LA. I've always been pretty good at making excuses, even to the point of convincing myself that they're legitimate, but I HONESTLY think that I've made the smart and mature choice here.)

Again, any thoughts and comments are much appreciated.

Good for you Earl Ray!!! As the saying goes, you bring about what you think about. If you keep real estate on the mind, pretty soon where ever you go what ever you do, you will start noticing things... properties for sale... realtors that stick out above the rest... banks you hear are more into lending than others... people looking to buy... people looking to sell... etc.

Like when a person buys a car... a red one for example. All of a sudden they notice that there are tons of red cars everywhere when really they were always there, the person just didn't have "red car" on their mind.

Thats how real estate is, it grows and grows in your mind... gets in your blood... and before you know it you will be hooked too. The important thing is to keep positive, believing as your are and keep moving towards it because it possible.

My first deal was 13 years ago and I was scared but I didn't let fear stop me. I didn't purchase it right so it wasn't that good of a deal though I did make money on it, but it was a $235,000 4-plex.

I'll tell you a cute story about my son, the day I went into to apply for the money from the bank, my son who was 4 at the time and was with me. As I was signing papers, he looked up at me and asked what we were doing there and then he asked, "Are we buying money?". The loan officer and I both looked at each other and started laughing. The loan officer said, "Well yes, I would say that is exactly what she is doing."

My husband passed away a year before I started investing, that's why I got into it because I wanted to be home with my 3 young children and over the years I've made a lot of mistakes but I've had a lot of good deals too that far out weighed the mistakes. Follow Dean and the other successors because Dean is the real deal, he is giving you all the detail info that other real estate courses didn't and I've read them all. He gives you all the information you need to do this.

Lisa

Great advice to SteveKesh!!

Lisa

and THANKS NANCY

I love the support

STEVE!!!! Wow, Congratulations!!! That is awesome. You are on your way! First, what invaluable information you now have stored in your head about real estate! Couple that with what you already knew from this site and Dean's books and you have set yourself up into a great position! I think the job you have now is going to be helpful and I agree with you that it seems like a good idea for the time being to stay where you are and see where this leads. You can always move to LA; it will always be there! And once you have that first rental under your belt you are right that it will just keep getting easier. I really think you are poised for success.

Nancy D.

NICE!!!!

That is awesome dude! See how fast things have come along? I mean just a month ago, you had absolutely no idea where or why or whatever?? lol

Now you have the license, a job that is in real estate and working with some other great guys from this site!

I like the idea of you staying back in Boston. Everything is starting to all come together for you there and it's also your comfort zone, ya know! Like Nancy says, LA will always be there!

Have a great rest of the week!

Remember LA is a big city with very high cost of living & high prices on real estate to boot so get yourself going there first.heck I wouldn't even want to live in LA..Too big & crazy if you ask me...Just my 2 cents worth....

Thanks guys for the support.

I know I'm making the right choice by planting my feet here in solid ground, but thinking ahead to the brutal winter month's is making me want to RUN.

Work is getting easier and more comfortable every day. I haven't had any deals yet, but I've gotten used to the advertising process and I've done a couple showings. The next step is learning how to close on them. And a couple of guys from work agreed to run me through the paperwork part of my first deal for a little cut, which makes me a lot less nervous. It's tough putting in long hours knowing that I'm not getting paid, but it is also gratifying knowing that just ONE deal in the next 2 weeks will be worth it... and I'm sure it'll happen.

Not to get too repetitive, but I really can't wait to get my first check and start putting aside cash for investing purposes (Those probates are calling my name!).

Thanks again everyone and good luck with your deals.

Sounds like you definately got your feet settled! That is good to hear!

So, maybe i'm not understanding properly, but it sounds like you are actually doing deals thru this job. I was thinking you were just working for this company and you essentially signed up new tenants. Is that not the case? maybe you have gone into it in more detail previously and I just missed it, so I appologize!

Let me know a little more how it breaks down and I glad to hear everything is going so well!

Take care bud!

I'll definitely get more into it.
You're right, I'm working as a rental agent finding and signing new tenants. But what I meant to say is that once I get settled and comfortable with the job, I'll be asking every landlord I meet whether they're interested in other properties (and so on and so forth). And I'll obviously be making other contacts along the way as well.

Also, what I meant to say is that I'm waiting to get my first couple of rental deals done, so that I can be comfortable with the job and put more time and some of the pay into probate investing strategies.

And step 3, of course, will be to make a home video about my adventures and become a DG success story

Nice speaking to you the other day Todd. I'm looking forward to organizing those meetings.

On a non-investing-related note, I got my first rental deal yesterday at work. It's not completely finalized or anything, but it should happen within a few days. It's only a 1BR place for $1,000 a month (meaning I get $500 commission off it). Not HUGE, but it's definitely a good start :]

I know your were pretty excited about that first rental, nice job. I see you learn pretty quick, you are a very good hands on learner. Things seem to be falling in place for you. Reading your journal I can pretty much see God's plan for you playing out. It is encouraging to see someone around my age, you and Arod both, thinking like I am. We will be great success stories one day, I myself have only been learning for about three weeks now. But I see your passion when you were first reading Dean's books and that is exactly how I have been feeling for the past few weeks.

So your journal has been very inspiring to me just because I see me in you and vica versa. So good luck with your future deals and keep up the motivation. Tell Arod to stay motivated and good luck as well, please keep us updated with all your progress. I can not wait to hear your first deal!!

Thanks for the support Calvin. You're right, I was really excited to get that first rental deal under my belt, and it's only a matter of time before I can begin channeling some of my earnings into establishing myself as a probate expert. As for yourself, I'm happy to hear you've fallen for REI and you seem excited and motivated enough to make it happen, so I wish you the best of luck!

I haven't posted in a while... I'm still waiting for my first check and struggling a bit to lock up that second rental deal, but I'll keep my head up through it and hope that it happens sooner than later. I know that I've put myself on the right path so start this REI thing off, but it gets tough trying to stay patient until I can actually start getting into it. I just can't wait to start getting money in to pay off debts and get the REI wheels rolling.

Good luck to everyone with all your deals!

First off, I want to dedicate my thoughts and prayers to those who suffered on this day 8 years ago. My condolences to your families and loved ones...

We had our first REI meeting last night for "FRIENDS OF DG". It went very well. Mr. Tdellaporta (see above post) went through the trouble of creating a nice itinerary/worksheet for the meeting. There were 5 of us present (1 of whom was telecommuting) and we all come from vastly different backgrounds but with the same desire to succeed with REI. What we basically accomplished during this meeting is introducing ourselves and any prior RE experience, after which we went into deeper discussion about some specifics of REI. We also wrote down action-steps (specific to each person) that we will have completed by the next meeting (Oct. . I'm at work right now so I'll cut it short... Basically, I think it's going to be a great venue to come together and bounce/develop our ideas off one another. If anyone lives in the Greater Boston area, DEFINITELY come meet up with us.

ALSO, I just wrapped up my 2nd rental deal at work today , so I have some more cash coming my way. I can feel this REI thing starting to grow beneath my feet...

That's just Great about your 2nd rental! You are Definitely on your Way!!! Stay focused on the Goals that you set last night, I Know you will Make it Happen!

Hey Amy! Thank you and thanks for tuning in with us the other night. Hopefully, we can get some kind of a video chat set up for next time for you.

Hey bud....

Nice job on the second rental deal... I'm sure it makes you feel much better.

It's coming along for ya!