Chris's - Rhode Island Real Estate Journal

Hey there Chris, I'm Shawn and lived in RI for 15 years than got tired of the weather and moved to Paradise...SW FL I live between Sarasota and Naples just on the line of Cape Coral were the whole realestate "bubble" happened...Like you I saw Deans Ad on tv back in early August 2010, went out the next day baught his book "Profit from Real Estate Now" read it in like a day,got on the web site and got his "Be a RE Millionaire" and his "Think A Little Differently" program. Now my x wife and I invested in some land and a condo and a house about 5 years ago when we moved her, but that was it....until now. I got lucky and have a great RE agent who only deals with investors and "creative" deals and financing,got a list of 68 houses,narrowed them down to 30 and now down to 14(which I personally went to see,yeasterday) and am getting back together with her Monday to do the numbers and make offers on 5. I have an investor friend who has people looking for the types of properties I am looking so it all seems to happening quite fast, great since I am out of work and need the money for bills,etc..401k only takes you soo far. I was really impressed with you dedication, thurst for information and the amount of work you have accomlished since November, WOW. You are an inspiration to all "NewBees" to stick to it, follow your dreams. Perhaps we can chat sometime about partnering up if you are looking for someone in the SWFL area, and I could allways use a friend up north to shoot idaes off and help. Keep up the great work and thanks again for your dedicated journal.

Shawn Jones

Thanks for stopping by my journal! Glad you are inspired by it, I do this for a number of reason. 1. to hold myself accountable 2. to leave trail that hopefully others will be inspired by & can follow 3. to provide a history that I can go back and read.

Thanks for you complements. I would have thought I would have been further along by now, but then again, I am much further along than I would have been if I hadn't stumbled upon Dean.

I will send you a pm, always looked to partner with other DGers. Sounds like you are on the right track. Before you start making offers, make sure you have a good list of buyers and know what they are looking for. Don't be afraid to make low offers (50-70% below asking). Matt Larson never looks at the properties until his bid is accepted. Just make low offers and see who bites, if you have a list of 25 properties, you should get one accepted at least.

I have been working getting bandits out too. I reviewed Randy's video to visually see how he is making the signs. I noticed that he put the wire on each end of the sign. He also uses the colored signs to draw attention. I am going to try that too. I have been using the professionally made signs from 2004 and I want to see which ones bring in the most responses. Let us know how your signs work too please. I wondered how you made out with all the reports of flooding up there. It seems you didn't get too much rain since you didn't comment on it here. Praise God. Please keep us posted and keep up the good work.

great job man !!! way to keep taking action !!! its awesome to see and hear all the action you are taking !! your determination to succeed is addicting !!! i am studying the sfl system also and it is cool all the organization it provides.keep up the great work you are doing and eager to hear about how you doing with the video part of traffic guyser !!
jay

Boy, sometimes the job gets in the way of business. But then again, it motivates you to do more.

Been getting a lot of replies to my Craiglist ads and new buyers on the SFL system! Finding it hard to keep up with it all right now, was planning on doing some catch up a lunch, but ended up working through it!

Can't wait to get the video training going, that will be tomorrow's goal.

GO PATS!!!!!!!!

Final getting to my Private Money training, my goal it to have $1M of private money to fund my deals!

Have a ton of e-mail from my ads to reply to, have been a bunch of new buyers in the SFL system.

Working on a renovation loan for my deal #3, it has taken way too long, close on where i need to be with the renovation estimate. Had to add some items that I missed on the inspection. There were no outlets or heat on the second floor, not sure how I missed that.

The work on Deal #2 is just about done, have a few extras that we are finalizing, if it ever stops raining we may finish up!

Getting added buyers in the SFL system! weeeeeeeeeeee

Haven't been on my journal in a while....

Had a nice long weekend and spent some quality time with my family! We went on a foliage ride on Sunday...boy I wish I recorded it!!! LOL Rule #1, if you going on a long car ride with 3 teenage boys, make sure you pack some snacks, it makes for a much quieter ride, especially if you are out in the country with no stores!

I slacked off this weekend, I need to get back in the game. Need to start making offers again and get my marketing going!

Chris,

Been reading your blog and noticing that you are really going strong on your buyers list. How many people do you have on it? What types of buyers are they? Owner occupants, investor/buyers, cash buyers, etc? How do you manage these? Do you periodically contact them? Have you been able to wholesale any properties to them? I'm revisiting my list and updating information. I also need to be searching for more, including cash buyers.

Thanks for your input.

Rick

I need to focus on deals NOW!

OK, here's the breakdown of my buyers list:

18 - Retail buyers (some of them are out of the area I am working)
6 - Lease option buyers
4 - landlords (looking for rental properties)
28 - rehabbers

A lot of these have come as a result of the set for life system, so I already had on my list.

Chris

I got someone interested in buying Deal #3 from me!!! He tried calling me 5 times!! Going to show him the property tomorrow!!

Deal #2 is close to being done!

Posting ads tonight!!

OK, so I don't normally post on Sundays...but I am a little excited and wanted to share with DG.com.

DEAL ## SOLD LAST NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For more info...see my Deal #3

http://www.deangraziosi.com/real-estate-forums/my-deals/54050/deal-3#com...

My deal #2 renovations are almost complete, plan is to sell it, hoping to start marketing next week.

Congratulations on your done deal! Continued success to you.

Lea

Hey congrats on the deal. Your post is telling me Ireally need to dig into SFL. Doesnt' the purchase and resell count as two deals (academy wise)?

WOW, what a great week I had last week!

I just need to start pumping some deals into the machine and crank it up! Early retirement here I come!!!

The work on my second deal should be done this week, time to start marketing!

On the Set For Life Q&A session tonight, glad they are finally doing one in the evening.

I think this system is awesome! I have gotten more new buyers in the last 2 months in this system, than I have with 6 months of the 800#.

I haven't been making it hear as regularly as I should. It has been real busy at work as well as with this business. Got a lot accomplished this week!

First of all I closed on Deal #3 yesterday!!! I advertised it and actually closed on it within a week!! Lightning fast. I learned a lot from this deal and in the end I ended up making about $3,500 on the deal. Better yet, the couple that bought it has a condo they want me to help sell and his brother has some money coming that he wants to invest. So it is leading me to more deals.

As far as Deal #2 goes, I am going through the refinance process now. I found a small local credit union (that I already do business with) that has a real estate investor product, they have no seasoning requirements and if I remember correctly their aggregate is $1M. I can do quite a few deals with that! I am meeting with my contractor today to review the progress, they should be just about done, then I can start marketing it. I talked to a property manager who works in the same building as my realtor, he looked at my property and thinks he can rent it for $1400 - 1500 a month. I haven't run through all the numbers yet, but I should have no problem getting this to cashflow. The only decision is if I use the property manager to lease and/or manage the property for me. I will have to see how the numbers come out!

I have had several people tell me that banks will not loan out any money to a new business. Does anyone know about this? Both my mortgage broker and my attorney has mentioned this. My attorney did tell me that after paying the loan for a few months I could transfer the deed to my company.

Last night I put together two press releases to promote my company and new SFL squeeze pages. I am using PRWeb, it's a great way to get your name & web page all over the place and for low cost.

OK, now to get some more deals in the pipeline.

A new week! I switched my Craigslist ads to go to my new squeeze pages. I will see how that goes. The website seems to work a lot better than the phone, I got a lot of calls, but they were mostly hang-ups and not many people listened to my entire message. With the squeeze page, they will get on my auto responder and get regular messages from me automatic, so when they think of real estate, they think of me.

Finalizing my re-finance application, they are looking for a rent roll form, this is all new to me.

OK, now that I have grown my buyers list time to get some deals rolling in!

The couple who just bought my house from me wants me to sell their condo for them. None of my buyers are looking for condos, but I think the price is so low, it could make a good rental investment. I am going to have my realtor run some comps before I market it. I went and took photos and a video of the property today.

I also called the success academy to make sure to find out how to best go through the process. They sent me a non-circumvent agreement. Which is an agreement that they can not go around am sell the property directly to a buyer that I bring them.

Dean does it again with a weekly challenge! Take time to do something you haven't done in a while.

The one thing that I have been slacking off on is finding deals. I need to focus on multiple ways to find deals.

On another front, I have a couple of people interested in my Deal #4!!! Keep on trucking!!!

"It's not that some people have willpower and some don't. It's that some people are ready to change and others are not."

James Gordon

My wife & I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary yesterday! The real celebration will be later this month (after football season and college tours!).

I am totally focused on finding deals. I sent out letters for expired listing, getting ready to make offers off the MLS from the criteria I learned from Matt Larson at the EDGE and combing through Craigslist and other on-line sources! I am determined to get my 5th deal!

On another note, have someone coming to look at deal #4 tomorrow!

And I am just about ready to rent deal #3.

Deal #5...here I come!

I was just informed that some of my deals my count as 2!!!! I may be closer than I think. Anyhow, gonna keep going.... I can feel things just clicking!

Quote of the Day" "The most important thing about goals is having one."

Geoffry F. Abert

Well...after the EDGE I found a local bank that will do no season re-financing. Well, looks like I will be able to pull $20K out of the house and it will still cash flow!!!!!!! Weeeee....thanks to the EDGE I never would have thought of this! The house is done, time to rent it out.

Any tips anyone could give me would be helpful. I am planning on having someone lease it for me. I was also thinking of signing up for the auto draft system, so I don't have to chase anyone for rent.

Busy day tomorrow, need to squeeze in some drive by to look at a few of the houses on my list.

"Without a struggle, there can be no progress."

Frederick Douglass

lots of great things happening. way to go. after being out of town for 6 weeks total, i'm ready to get back in the game. you are leading by example. thanks.

Thank you Amy!

Yeah, what an awesome weekend!

Did a drive by for a bunch of houses we are considering making offers on. Saw some good propects and some that will be coming off the list!

Sunday, my son's football team was in their conference championship and they won!!!!! Boy was that fun!!!

CONGRATULATIONS! You are doing AWESOME! As far as leasing goes, I have my tenants direct deposit their rents into my account. I include my routing number, business account number, and whether its a savings or checking account in my lease contract. Then, they can easily set up the direct deposit to my account every month for rent. Unfortunately, the property I took subject to has a family in it from the dark ages and doesn't use a computer, so I can't do that on that property; but all 3 of my other tenants, it works like a charm!

I know you already know this, but interview your property managers extremely well. The most work is getting the actual tenant in place. A tenant is EASY to get in place and VERY hard to get rid of, so make sure your property manager actively calls neighbors, checks police reports on their current homes, does full background and credit checks, and checks references and prior landlords. Best indicator is to see how upfront they are about what's on their credit. I let my tenants know that I do thorough background and credit checks and tell them its best to put all their information down. Your tenants won't have great credit, but if they've been honest about what I might find there, they've scored big brownie points with me. There are MANY that look good on paper and then their credit reveals a completely different story. MANY property managers just take the first applicant to get their job done.

I have a whole thread on here at http://www.deangraziosi.com/real-estate-forums/rental-and-cashflow-prope.... Hope it helps you!

My dentist wasn't diligent about this and has had THREE tenants from he**, his property as been left destroyed twice, and the last one left feces and urine all over the entire house (when pets weren't even allowed). Their security deposits didn't cover even close what it cost him to repair it each time. He's gone through 3 property managers.

Sounds like your dentist might be a motivated seller, you might want to discuss with him.

Cathyb

most definitely. He didn't want to sell it last time, but he was getting pretty disgusted with the whole situation. He may be ready the next time it happens.

I left him information on becoming a private lender last time and asked him to look into my website and read the report, so he could be in real estate without all the headaches. Private lenders like that are great to have. HML are steeeeep in their fees. I'm going to end up paying 5 points on my most recent purchase. That's $20K!!! Its pretty crazy!

Sorry, I was under the weather for the past few days, spent a lot of time resting..ughhhh. So not too much happening this week. I am getting my property marketed, so hopefully I can put a tenant in place soon. The place should be final cleaned tomorrow and ready for showing!!!!

Now...to line up the next deal...I like Rina idea of collecting houses!!! LOL, sounds like a great hobby!