Donna's road to Success

Congratulations for starting your journal and taking action. It sounds like your doing all the right things and before long things will begin to click. As you try to find your niche, just keep trying to learn as much as you can and perfect a certain area in real estate. Success will follow, the rewards are discovered in the journey as you reach your destination deals! Good luck on all your future real estate deals. Believe and Achieve! - Joe

Thank you for your support.
Today we went and looked a a few houses, one was a post card call, another a ad and the 3rd was a sign call.
How do I find my niche???
We got one offer back rejected.. Another they countered only 7k under thier inital price. My realtor is wanting me to offer more. How do I help him understand that that is not my strategy? It was a good marketing day

As with any business, your niche will be discovered through time, energy and effort. A niche could be building a buyers list and finding great deals to assign. A niche could be finding motivated probate or estate sales. Another niche could be dealing with local banks and inquiring about their foreclosure REOs they have available in inventory. Part of your niche is the opportunity in your local area, but another part is what you enjoy doing. Try to learn everything you can on that niche area and it will happen. Believe and Achieve! :)- Joe

Congrats on returning to a life of real estate. Wish you all the best on your journey. God Bless.

Sandra

Well today I am at work, a 4 day stretch. And I have my phone in my pocket IT IS RINGING OFF THE HOOK! I cannot answer it! It is unbelievable what a little advertising can do. I have calls from people that live far away from where I live and have been marketing. I work with a lot of people. and I have worked there along time. I keep talking to everyone about my business. Today I find out a friend that has been working on a deal can't swing it. So I ask him, "If I buy that house will you rent to own it from me?? Yeah, I probably would. Tomorrow I will try to get it under contract. It is a 8 bedroom, 3 bath partically renovated. He told me his appraisal which he will give me came in at 250. I will be offering 125k. The guy has 10k to put down and he is already prepared and dreaming of the 30k in repairs he wants to make. win win or what!

Donna

We have been making offers using Matts 25/1 strategy and in September a bank accepted our offer at about 45% below after repair value. We have been rehabbing it while marketing it, with our plan being that we would flip it and walk away with 10k. I has been slow moving but today we have an offer that will give us just that!!!!! Whoo Who! It a buyer from my buyers list. and we will have owned the house less than 2 months.

Donna

Donna, congratulations! Very happy your deal has worked out so well. Was your buyers list buyer someone who called from your mktng?

Cathy

on getting the deal and flipped! It's on to the next! God Bless in your REI.

Thank you both for your encouragement. But that deal isn't quite complete we haven't closed yet. I will keep you posted.
to answer your question Cathy, yes my buyer is from my buyers list, and he asked if we have any more??? And as of today YES I DO!!!

Our second accepted low ball offer on a REO!! It is a 3/1 1300sqft, it needs 2-5 k in repairs and will rent out for 800.00 a month. FMV 105k our purchase price is 55k. will will flip it to my buyer for 75k. It will still cash flow for him and still about a 33% discount.
I want to find out how to assign these REOs.
How things are going right now;
we are mailing 250 post card a week now I have flyer out and bandit signs as well as ads in local papers. Our population in this county is 90000. not very big so we are doing a modified 25:1 strategy 20 a week until the supplied drys up then we will adjust. Our reatlor is doing a great job. Doesn't mind making low offers. finally.
We have open rentals I am going to try to lease option all of them.

Donna Doo & Co.
It seems you have taken action and how good it is,I have read where some people have done the bandit/flyer and maybe they did do post card.I bring this up because,It sounds like you are doing something so right or the cards of life are falling your direction.I did read where you said;the leads came from all of your marketing groups.Hey forget what i say and great job for you and great info for everybody/You by chance live in a small community?

You are tearing it up! Way to take action and make things happen. All we have to remember is KNOWLEDGE + ACTION = SUCCESS!

Thank goodness it is Friday an very long week at the hospital. But back to real estate.
As of January 1st I decided that I would be going part time at my JOB that will give me more time to invest We will have decrease our monthly expenses enough to allow me to do that. That feels good in it's self. We are continuing to make offers.
We have 1 REO that we purchased and our buyer has backed out. I am marketing it again. Our 2nd accepted REO is closing soon. private money financing in place Whoo hoo! Now to find a buyer to flip it to. This is the property I talked about last week. It will be a good property for cash flow.
Wednesday, sick as a dog I might add, I had a long meeting with my realtor. I had spoke to a coach prior so that gave me the confidence I needed. The just of our meeting was that I am marketing in a small community and if I do Matts 25:1 stategy that I will run out of property very quickly. I did know what to do that is why I called my coach. My coach's answer to the problem was so what! if you don't do the 25:1 then you might miss something. Make another plan after you have exuasted your supply. Excellent!
So that is my plan. I am hoping to pay off all of my CC debt by the 1st of the year.
I still need to do my first quick cash deal!

Finally, we have a lease option tenant in our 1st lease option deal. Wow I thought it would never happen. I have been worried sick about losing money and it being an "alligator" good Job to my husband. He never gave up and never lost confidence. This being our first one, we sure didn't do it but the book. We got the house under contract way before we had a tenant line up ...ducks in a row...Just remember all you new investors out there find your lease option tenants, qualify them and then sign the LO contract.
Our other investing is going well we have many offers aout and we are expecting 2 more to be excepted this week. We have to keep marketing!! Anyone wanting a 50% off deal that will cash flow give me a call

Fake it til you make it!

I am continuing to make multiple offers every week. I have 4 properties under contract right now!! however they are all REOs. So we will be closing on ALL them.3 of them will take 5k or under to fix, 1 the biggest discount will take 20-25k to fix. but FMV is 250k and after fix up will should be in it for 160-165k....
I have found 2 more buyers this week. both investors. I am trying to convince to go to an investor meeting with us.
Those of you reading this making offers on REO is very easy. I have found that if you keep making the same low ball offer they usually finally except your offer, here anyway. Be careful of the house autions on line they want a lot of money down and usually $1500.00 online internet fee!!, probably cheaper than paying a realtor. The other catch is that you have to agree to bid without any contingencies. I don't like that very much. We are buying one through an aution, don't know if I would do it again. the nice thing is our realtor is very flexable and we can get our people in the houses before we sign anything.
This week we will be working on finding funding for our big property. It a nice place. The draw back to this house is that the previous owner,who is an electrician, cut all the electrical wiring to the house at the fuse boxes. Anyone have a general idea of how much it would cost to pull wire in a 2300 sqft house??
Onward and upward.... let's keep going

I awakened this morning at 3:30 am, worrying. We have 4 deals to close in December. A big rehab coming up on one of them and an assigment deal that just popped up.
This is all very exciting and scary. All of this will happen with private money. Our funds are tight and in the mean time we are "gifting" for my brothers deal.
I just finished a 4 days stretch at my JOB and have lost my momentum. So today will be catch up all day.
My daughter is managening most of our property managment and office duties. Thank you God for blessing me with her...She is my right hand.

Right now I feel overwhelmed.

Enough of that! I am so lucky to be where I am. Dean, thank you for the motivation to keep going, because I know I can do this. It takes time and energy and creativity and patience. A few months ago I was sitting stagnent,wondering what to do. Now I have 5 deals going at the same time.

I have read Dean's books completely through twice and almost every night I pick up one of them and re-read a chapter or so. I always see something new.
Today i will add to my investor/buyers list, Update my marketing and start work on our rehab deal.

A new fresh day, time to be an investor

Well, time passes and November is gone. Where has the year gone??
Over the past 2 weeks a lot has happened.
Our big deal is going nicely. It is a 3/2 on 0.5 acre. This deal is another REO, It was on the market for 7 days when My realtor and I went to see it. The listing agent had not a clue of what this property was and the tax records were all wrong also. It so happens that my husband and I knew the people that lived there a few years ago and knew the history of the property. The tax records and the listing agent had it down as a 2 bedroom 1 bath, 900sqft, built in 1943. Well when I saw it I got soo!!!!!! excited and couldn't stop talking. my agent thought I was going crazy because I was extremily excited. make an offer now!! don't wait!! do it now!! I told him... He did what I ask and to my surprise we got an call the next day asking for our highest and best offer. Be careful if anyone says that to you because it would be easy to get pulled into a bidding war. The house was rehabbed in 2004 to a 3 bedroom 2 bath, 2 story house with a finished 1/2 basement.It has a hugh master bedroom and bath with an upstrairs loft area. It is 2300sqft.
The asking price was 131500k I offered 135k cash. MONEY TALKS... :)The next day the bank excepted our offer we close next Monday with private money on this house The terms are at 9% interest only, no money down.We have control of the money for 3 years. It took some sweet talking but my husband, the negotiator got our funding. This lender knows we plan to rehab and sell this property and he is OK with us reinvesting the money on other deals when this house sells. Low comps for this house is 220-250K. And as a bonus on the property are 4 full RV hookups.
We built in extra money to pay 5 months worth of payments into the loan. So that should help the cashflow situation.

The other 3 property that are under contract will also close later in DEcember. tomorrw our main private money lender will give us an answer. S I am anxiously awaiting the phone call . All 3 of these properties are 3 bedroom. and all are 50% or better under market value.

Hello

Good work sounds like you had a busy month

Later Fred

PS are there any investor groups around the Longview Kelso Area

Here we are in December, Merry Christmas everyon!

DAn and I have been very busy. I haven't written because I didn't want to jinx myself. But I am thinking I am off track. Today I called the HOT line and got some good advice, but you know how it is you think of things later. So, we currently have these 4 properties that we should be closing on in the next week. all privat money 4 differnet people. That story is for another day. AFTER we close.
Today my dilima is that I think I am off track.. I am suppose to be doing a fast cash strategy. That was the intent and low and behold if we are not buying again!!!!!!
Our plan now is to buy them rehab them and list them. But isn't fast cash strategy really find a buyer and go on to the next deal??? Not rehab. should we start rehab?? My coach today gave me some good advice he told me to post signs in areas around the house to find buyers. But I am not sure what the signs should say. they all need around 5 thousand dollars in fix up. Any words of advice are welcome.

hello Donna

The signs could just advertise the home you are working on

ex: 3bed two bath or 2bed one bath

Hope this helps

Take care

Fred E

Hi Donna,
Buy/fixup/sell is a fast cash approach. Put up a for sale sign, as you are doing the rehab, that way if potential buyers come by as you are working on the property, you can explain your plans and ask if they would like to pick out the colors and/or fixtures. That gets them involved and increases their interest in making an offer.

I will be putting out signs tomorrow. We close next week on all of them!!!
Thank you all for the advice. I will keep posting my progress

To keep my jounal up to date I have added the story of our second deals.

Last April I started reading Deans books. In September of this year Dan and I started using Deans stategies.
Today we closed on our second deal! Yippee!! This the biggest deal we have done yet and I can't wait to tell you about it.
For those of you that have read my posts you may remember that in September I finally found a realtor that would work with me. We started making offers 5 a week not exactly what I wanted but I was a little scared, Because I don't have the money and I cannot qualify for a bank loan. Dan and I have too much debt. Our debt ratio sucks!! And we have too many mortgages in our names. My Realtor, Chris, was on board and excited too.
Chris and I go look at houses and discussed stategies every Friday. On October 30th, we had a list of 6 houses to go see, He likes to visualize the houses and since I am learning from him, I like to go with him. We both found this house. It was the 5th house on the list. The house is a REO listed for 7days. The listing said it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath 850sqft. Vandilized.
I want you to know I have lived here a long time and there was something about the house as I looked at the listing, I knew I knew the house. As we drove closer, my heart stated racing ... to my surprize I knew the house well, it was my husbands old boss's house.
I have learned that many times the listing agents for the banks do not actually go look at the properties. So, The listing data can be totally wrong. And it was really wrong here.
The house is 3 bedroom, 2 bath . The master bedroom is upstairs and it is a master suite with a heart shaped jetted tub and a seperate shower. Off the master bedroom there is a 300sqft loft with an office area. The lower level is a full basement that is a game room with french doors that open onto the lower patio. the main floors has two bedrooms, a full bath, kitchen, living room with a fireplace, and a 2 car garage,totaling approxiamatily 2300 sqft. I will try to attach some pictures. The house sits on about a half acre. It has 4 full hookup RV sites. Bonus..
I was so excited! There is so much to this story. Inside the house someone had spray painted everything, every outlet, every wall, every room in the house, I mean everything except the fire place. Someone has also cut all of the electrical wires from the breaker panel. Oh boy!! I instructed Chris to write up an offer now. which we did. A day later the banks agent called and said give us your best and highest offer. Our offer was 135000.00. 2 days later they acccepted our offer. FMV is 220k.Fantastic!

Our closing date was set at 12/14/09. Our plan was to fund the whole thing including repairs with private money. We talk to our private money people and the said yes.. Oh my I couldn't believe it. Two days before closing he( our private mney lender) called me at 7am and told me he wasn't going to do it. WHAT! 2 days before closing. Now what?
After a day of calming down, With Chris pushing me, I called him and asked "what could we do to make this happen" He told me he would lend no more than 120000.00 and no more. I said OK
We borrow another 30k from a personal friend and today we closed on it and we have the keys!!
Now the work begins. Our plan is to rehab the property and put it back on the market hopefully turning it by March 2010.
Oh, I wanted to tell you our agreement on the private money lending. With the lender of $120000.00 we agreed to interest only payments at 9%, 6 months of interest guanteed. The term to be up to 24 months. the second lender of $30000.00 we agreed to $1000.00 flat fee up front, with 6 month of interest guanteed at a 10% rate payable in 18 months.
Thank you all for the word of encouragement. It really does help.

I hope eveyone had a wonderful Christmas. We sure did here. Happy New Year Too!

Today we started renovation on the Ohio house. Here we go!

the closings on our 2 other houses was schedule to close on Wednesday, now is it has been pospone because our news private money guy wants me on title also and since it is an REO, We have to have special addendums. The banks are funny that way. All the i's dotted and t's crossed. Now we close in January. Bu that will give us some time to get other projects completed. We have 2 rental to get ready for occupancy and 1 houses to finish to list next week and keep progress going on the Ohio deal.
Well, one more shift and I am officailly part time. Boy this is scary! I have not ever had a part time job before. Real Estate.
Oh I have to tell a funny. Dan and I have these REO houses under contract for a while now.the same ones I spoke about earlier. Well, today the listing agent for the bank came unglued because I was marketing one of the properties on craigs list. She called the number and yelled at my duaghter,(my office assistant) and then call my realtor and yelled at him. "How could I!!!!"
She is just upset because I am marketing for more than my purchase price. To make peace I did remove address on my ad. Does Anyone have any advice here?

Well that is it for now. Happy New Year Everyone!!!

I have deside to enter in my journal weekly. I am hoping this will help keep me on track. Everyone feel free to give me feed back.

This week I officially went part time at my JOB! So day one as a full time investor, I was down on my knees scrubbing floors,what you say??? Well I have a new tenant going in a house and no cleaner available. Thats how is goes and I was happy to do it.
So week one, we have started rehab on the Ohio house. The electrical repairs are completed and just a little over budget. We found a product that will remove spray paint from some surfaces so that will save us some money there. One of the bathroom will only need fresh paint and it is complete. we ar going to reuse all of the carpet padding, this will also save us som money. It is fun to see the progress.
Today we close on 2 more houses. Both houses are 50% off FMV. I will tell more after we close I do not want to jinx it. One is an REO and the other is a FSBO.
I had been advertizing these houses on CL and the sellers agent saw the ads and had a cow! Next time I will use more of a ghost ad until after I close.
I have made 6 offers this week. And put out 2 bandit signs.
I am still struggling with what I should really be doing. I will be calling DG for support.

Keep up the good work, it is a numbers game the more "players" you have in the game the better your odds. By players I mean those hard working bandit signs, fliers and business cards networking through-out your local area. Keep doing what your doing and more good things will happen. Keep on working on expanding your network by considering joining a real estate club and networking with more investors. Good luck on all your future real estate deals. Believe and Achieve! - Joe

We are going to a REIA meeting, and we have some interest. I one of them is a hard money lender and offered to us at 12%. At the next meeting we plan on asking him more questions directly.

I have not been every good at marketing lately. I will focus on that.

I do appreciate your encouragement. So we closed on 2 houses today!! with a single private money person WOO HOO!!!! So back to the hunt I am looking for more deals.

Donna

Well yesterday we closed on 2 properties. Oh my, unless I get one sold soon we will be rehabbing 3 properties at the same time.This will really test my husband. since that is mainly his area. We can do it!!! I had one spoken for but she back out because our local paper ran an article that said our local market has dropped by another 10%. Funny because even with the drop she could still make 15k on the back end. Oh well, we can make it.
Also yesterday we have another offer accepted!!! Another REo, It took the bank about 5 hours to accept the offer. I thought it would at lease a day or so. This house is big 3400sqft. We call it the "POT house". The previous owner had a growing operation on the bottom level. Our intention was to have a couple months before getting another one we wanted to rehab. so now I am on the hunt for money again.
This house is a 5 br, 3 ba, in the upper end area of town . It has a view of the city. Our offer was 130k. we will have to put about 30k into it which includes financing expences and the best thing is that FMV is 250K.

With all of this going on I still want to be doing what Carol is doing and I haven't figured that out yet.

Donna

hello Donna

funny thing about people "fear of whatever"Real estate will always be a good deal if purchased right perhaps you could contact that buyer at the end of the week and give her piece of mind that its still a deal and perhaps she will come around

When I was a REALTOR we called this the sickness It was called buyers remorse

Hope all goes well and perhaps because I am not working I could work for Dan

Talk soon

Later Fred E

Thanks for the pep talk Fred. I did speak to her again. I am not sure she knows what she wants to do. I Hope to see you at the meeting next Monday.

Donna

This weekend was the first time I really got to get my hands dirty on the Ohio house. The electrical is repaired, the heat pump is in and we have water!! Yeah! this weekend we, Danny and I got about half of the house prepped for paint it is much nicer with heat in the house. It had been in the 40s this week.
When the bank winterized the house they missed an outside line that blew when the water was turned on. But my handy honey fixed it. But so far, knock on wood, everything is going well. We are on schedule currently.
I made 5 offers this week and sent out 200 post cards but out some more signs and found 3 new buyers.We have had one offer accepted and one countered.
The offer that was accepted is a large house. which will need about 25k in repairs. The funny thing about this REO is that the bank included in the acceptance a 10 inspection period and an additional 7 day lead basedpaint inspection. That is a new one.
Our realtor thinks we should take a vacation for the entire summer!! WHAT??. He is worried that we have too much going on. Which we have 3 rehabs still, all progressing. But I do need to figure out how to proceed. We still plan on resaling these 3 properties. I really want to figure out wholesaling. We are not taking a vacation.
It has been a good week. I love being part time at my JOB. And I love being a real estate investor the most.
Tuesday we will go to our local landlord meeting. Have a great week everyone.

Donna