Tammy's journey to refinement and FREEDOM. GREAT THINGS ARE HERE!

I have just read all of your journal since you began and boy did you have hurdles. Great job at being persistent!

I have just read all of your journal since you began and boy did you have hurdles. Great job at being persistent! It took me several hours to read it all and I learned many things from here. I will continue to follow your success and hope to see you at the top.

Sorry for the double post.

Just checking your progress, good going . I replied to your PM. This post may help us connect.

Please stop by more often! I need some of your energy and activity over here

Thank you for reading, and YES, I've had more downs than ups, and still continue to have downs amidst the ups. Its definitely NOT an easy journey. This takes work, persistence, perseverance, and what Dean talks about in his blog this week... recovery and bounce back!

I don't know the Seattle area at all, do you have any knowledge of that area or any contacts?

Thanks for coming by my journal.

Well, delayed more than 5 weeks, but it is now ready to close tomorrow. Didn't get as much as I wanted, but from here I couldn't arrange a home to be built. So, now I don't have obligations to pay taxes and HOA on that lot, which frees up another $200/month (yes two hundredddd!) This was in a extreme luxury community and would have been nice to build on. I'm happy my buyer will get to ENJOY the community (I could never go there because its in PA!) and build a nice home for himself there. Bye bye Poconos!

Wow you are doing great Tammy. Yes is is up and down and some day it seems like a lot of downs, but we can do it!!!
I love reading your stories. You are so creative with your Ideas. Thank you

Sounds like another deal comes to a close. Great job. I know this one has been a pain in the assets, just happy to see you succeed yet again. Go get some more deals so we can all hear more.

tammy been following your journal and the ups and downs, but you just keep going. Keep posting because we can take something away from each post as your success continues.

Brad
Circle3investments,LLC

never cease to amaze me.....I'm currently working on two deals.....I have an offer in on one, a duplex for rental, and getting ready to make an offer on a rehab thats not even for sale, to live in myself.....and just reading your journal has given me the courage and motivation to finally do it.....keep rocking, Tammy!

is $200 a month more that you can use for your REI!!

There will be many more Poconos for you... you're flying girl!

Wishing you success,

valerie

I feel bad because I don't get here too often; and when I am here it is just to research something real quick or check my inbox. My poor journal has been neglected lately. I'm literally going like an energizer bunny and there literally isn't a moment of free time. I even go on FB only to contact people about business. I need some PLAY desperately!

Thanks John, Brad, Grant and Valerie for keeping the place warm.

Well, I finally signed the grant deed for that land on the 24th and the buyer FINALLY , at LAST, (supposedly) mailed the check and his documents in today; so we SHOULD actually CLOSE on this tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. It will be GOOD to finally have this OFF the books!

This weekend I finally wrote my essay for the success academy; the entire 18 pages, single spaced 11 pica! (aging myself there... aheem). Edited it through twice and sent it off along with the oodles of paperwork to back up each of my deals. Turns out I actually did 7 of them technically (this doesn't count this land). Can't wait to get that refund! I'm so excited. I had forgotten about getting the tenant in my NC property, and that counts as a deal; and I also submitted the cabin because it wasn't finalized until 3/10/10, plus the renter for the rehab property was found and signed a binder before the 10th of February. I've got more than enough even if they don't count the last renter due to my no season refi not going through.

The tenant for the GA property I took subject to is finally moving in; it seems like forever since January when they signed the rental binder for it. The tenant left the place a COMPLETE disaster, so I've had to get painting done, the deep cleaning STILL wouldn't clean all the crap this family left all over everything. I think it was rented out to pigs, I can't see humans living this way. Anyhow, I am *GLAD* to be rid of that tenant (as a summary, I took the property subject to with the existing tenant). Today the tenants had to do the walk through even though we aren't done fixing it up nicely just for the fact that they have to physically start moving their stuff over to the house. So, closing the door on selecting yet ANOTHER tenant.

STILL working on redoing our loans and getting our DTI ratio fixed so next time we do a no season refi it won't stop cold in the water for such a silly reason (although the bank found expenses to add to assure we didn't get the loan; we were literally off by 2 lousy %.

YES! It finally happened! It will be nice to get a check for it instead of having to pay a bill on it; even if it isn't very much. Much needed right now with property taxes coming due, as well as the dreaded $800 annual LLC taxes CA has regardless if you make a profit or not. CA is NOT BUSINESS friendly at all!

Trying to restore a corrupt .pst Outlook file again. My luck. Every time there is a Windows critical update something happens.

It is CERTAIN we will SUCCEED!

congrats on your refund. i didn't make mine, but life goes on. at least you have the coming back to you. congrats on all the deals too. awesome!

Good job, I knew you would do it! Free PMI can't be beat!!

Michael Mangham
MD Home Acquisitions LLC

Ok, warning, this isn't a pretty, positive, uplifting post. There are bits and pieces of hope within it, but its mostly the realities of trying to do buy and hold with a hard money loan sucking the blood out of me like a leech and greedy banks wanting full docs and taking only partial amounts of our actual income due to people who couldn't have actually qualified for loans getting them back in the 04-07 era.

Its property tax and LLC tax time. With the no season refi not going down, I am throwing away over $1100 extra a month. Just transferred $8900 of our personal funds to cover everything. OUCH! So, Evansville is on hold again until I can get this refi done. Sometimes staying in this is too tough with 4 kids. I have been dealing with full doc loans since December now and I am getting nowhere. I've been promised time and time again that I can close on loans to fix our DTI ratio. Each time, the underwriter decides to reduce our income by more and more and more.

Paid $1350 for appraisals that are no longer any good and have to be redone, at my expense. Sent $5000 over to do a deal back in January and nothing's come of that deal yet either so no cashflow there as well. I'm a walking money pit. At least I got the academy refund coming, that will certainly help a little, but I'm afraid until I can get these refis complete I'm very limited in what I can do. All my cash out refi money on the cabin went to property taxes and LLC taxes. I can't even get my sweet Evansville deals that cashflow $1300/month w/o the mortgage payment. If there is ANYONE in IN that can do a PML for a very short period of time (a month or two) please PM me. It would be for $25,000 only. I have the rest of the money but I just HATE this no season refi DTI ratio problem I'm falling under because banks want ratios of 45% of your income whether you make $60K a year or $500K a year.

I'm still wanting to sell my own house to cut down the monthly payments but realistically, showing it with 4 kids being home all the time, its not even feasible.

My no seasoned refi SHOULD refi on May 5th, but I'm not holding my breath as nothing I've started with loans has gone through except the ones not in our own names and the one that did bait and switched me into a tremendous amount of loss. Not only did I have to come up with the same amount of money upfront, but my loan is for $30K more and I paid over $12K in fees than the other loan I had which would have only been at $170K and several % lower and cost me more than $550 a month less. Over 6 months time, that adds up to over $3300 in savings. Had I stuck with that other 80/80 loan, I would be so much better off. I kick myself over that every day for switching loans. I didn't anticipate the bait and switch, but I should have. *sigh* My husband will NEVER let me live that down, and now I'm paying out of the pocket even with a renter in place (I did include the rental of this in my deals for the SA, but it probably won't count due to the lack of enough cashflow because of the no season refi falling out, but I did include it in my deals because it was a definite learning experience, but I have 7 deals, so one deal not counting I still should be ok). Even selling the land barely put a dent in the property tax burden. Having my husband rub it in CONSTANTLY is really cracking me UP!!!

Ok, enough pity party. I have to get this all off my chest. I'm really down in the dumps right now and trying to stay positive and keep it all together but that loan is absolutely killing me right now and I'm so afraid of it falling out again this time. I just gotta get out there and get a wholesale deal closed. The 25/1 is not working out here, banks are all holding on to their properties and not letting them go to justify getting a HML and fixing them up. I have a couple of resources for business credit, so now I'm going to check my D&B report to make sure everything is ok. For some reason, one of my business credit cards is reporting on my personal instead of the business side so I have to report that immediately.

Why don't you do a deal in Colorado? I have a hard money guy that WILL fund 70% of ARV. I won't send you one that is more than 70% including repair cost. The hard money gets you your earnest money back at closing, covers the rehab costs and you just pay interest only until you close. Been averaging 4 months from purchase to closing, under contract in less than 90 days. I have the contractors, realtors, title company and I will supervise the work and the realtor when you bring it to retail.

Anyway, these guys charge 4 points, payable at closing and 15% interest only.
PM me if you are interested.
I would wholesale the property to you, double close, make my fee. I would buy at 65% or less minus repairs. Then we could work out how I would be compensated to run the project for you. OR?

Just a thought. You deserve to have a deal pay off!

Michael Mangham
MD Home Acquisitions LLC

And that was where my deal got away from me by literally a few minutes. I'm working with someone in that area and need a good spread. Can you really get loans there where the lenders don't need skin in the game? They don't seem to exist out here; although they talk the talk; this week even had one say they put the closing costs and fees into the loan and give 65% ARV on top of that... then, when push comes to shove they need at least $30K in the game. That seems to be the magic number here in CA. $30K. I need to really get pushing on my PML, that's what I really need to concentrate on more!

How about you find me a home in Colorado Springs or other property in an area with a low crime index with mountain and maybe views and seasons, 5+ bedrooms, 3+ baths, 3500+ square feet cosmetic fixer that can be outdated and I'll leave this rat race state all together and head for the hills, literally. I'm serious, I'd love to get out of CA. The only thing that keeps us here is my hubby's job. Grrrrr. Was hoping I'd be at a point he could retire by now! But, I suppose it will take a few years to get there unless I retire too and sell off all our properties. HMMMMMMMmmmmmmm.....
House rich, cash poor I believe is what its called.

Today some hope, I got loan docs from the bank on one of my rental refis doing a 105% of value loan. This will reduce my monthly expenses by over $225. Slowly but surely I WILL MAKE IT and be out of this DTI problem. And, once I get that HML refi'd I'll be out of this rut I'm in right now.

It is CERTAIN we will SUCCEED!

Tammy, I will give you first shot on my next deal that will qualify for hard money. I personally work with two HMLs that require 0 skin in the game. They do require 6 months of interest payments showing in your bank. They will do their own appraisal, you supply the rehab estimates and if they agree with the numbers, they can fund in as little as three days. $ points at closing, 15% interest only, 9 month balloon.
I have some people working out in southern California and it is a totally different situation out there. Don't know why, a bunch must have been burned or lost money.But like you said they ALL want skin in the game. It has hurt our efforts out there for sure. Working on actual PM lenders.
Also, out here in Colorado, make sure you are working with people that KNOW what an actual deal is, be careful and don't go by there numbers, get a second opinion.

Glad things are looking better today!

Michael Mangham
MD Home Acquisitions LLC

Tammy just making my rounds and thought I'd see how you were doing.

Hello everyone.

Jim, always love to see you stopping by!

Michael, I am ready to do something in CO, especially if there REALLY are no money out of pocket companies out there! They don't exist out here because so many HML got burned with the bubble burst.

Michael, (helpme2), please let me know what part of your team is set up there

Linda, I haven't heard back on my refund yet, but I did get a sign off on PMI for the 5 deals. Waiting to hear!

Ok, I don't watch many webinars anymore because they are mostly about selling things. But, I watched one by Kent Clothier that is a MUST SEE for every investor, and there is ABSOLUTELY no selling whatsoever. It is about the 15 keys to success, and there are SO many things I learned from this webinar. I need to rethink some of the things I'm doing to set myself up for the next level, and THIS webinar was AMAZING at helping me structure and prepare for success.

All of the advice in it was GREAT, but the #1 thing to take out of it is that MOST people are afraid of failure; when in fact, we should EMBRACE failure and the struggle of getting to the success. You will learn MORE by your failures than any successes you have! And failure, is just a part of life, it will happen, so you need to ALLOW YOURSELF TO FAIL! Fear not living up to your potential. Fear what happens if you DON'T make all the efforts you possibly can!

It is a PHENOMENAL webinar, and I don't recommend many of them, but this one is a MUST for all of us! I love Dean's messages and this one goes hand in hand with them and his philosophies and will be extremely helpful! Check it out at http://sales.findcashbuyersnow.com/cashbuyers/success15/ . I don't know how long it will be there, but this is one you DON'T want to miss!

It is CERTAIN we will SUCCEED!

Well, I was so excited about the Edge and got word that Dean's nannies would be watching them a few months ago. I got an email today saying they won't be able to do it.

So, I have no babysitter at all and I have everything booked to go. They say the hotel will do it, but last year it was going to be way too expensive for me to do that because I have 4 kids. I don't think I'm ready to have my 12 year old son do babysitting on his own. Lord, I pray for a trustworthy solution to this FAST! I am not one to ever leave my kids with anyone, so this is a BIG deal; I figured if Dean's kids were being watched by them, and they'd be right there in the hotel, I would be ok. Now I may not get to go to the Edge.

If its not one thing its another.

Now more than anything I need that refi to go through. I got approval on it, but the lender has NOT sent me the paperwork backing up that approval so I'm VERY skeptical of it all. I was just thinking how great it was going to be to actually get to go somewhere without the kids. I haven't had a break from them for more than a few hours, and at that, never all of them at once. This is a HUGE disappointment. I don't want to put anyone out with watching the kids, its a big job.

whether you realize it or not, you are doing a great job! here's a quote that might help:

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn." - Harriet Beecher Stowe

that will become my next CA rehab! Went directly to the listing agent; he's got other offers, but because I'm going directly to him and offering cash, he will look at mine with especially if I can 'close by the end of the month'. Offer submitted. Now I wait and see. The property needs about 30-40K of work, but it has an ARV of $365K; trying to purchase for $222K; We'll see how that goes!

I was given a reference for a nanny for the Edge event by Dean's wife, and called but never got the email with the application. I'll have to call her again because I need to make sure that is taken care of and I'm quickly running out of time. I like to do things months in advance for things like this because I'm always so busy, I don't like to worry about things last minute like this, so I'm stressing about it.

Will be home from college by then she can be your nanny for the weekend. She can even sleep in my room. Don't know how much those nannies are, guess it may be too expensive to fly her down from MN but just a thought. She is a GREAT babysitter very creative and fun.

Aww, so sweet! Jonelle actually gave me a referral for a company she trusts, so I am filling out the application and hoping to get childcare arranged within the next week. Its just scary leaving the kids with someone I've never met, but having the referral is a good thing.

Linda, thank you so much for the encouragement. I've been in a bit of a slump lately; still working on everything through the hump, but its just been a strange last couple of weeks.

Ok, I think I'm crazy. I'm pursuing a short sale that is not on the market; using a short sale negotiator. Its a 3/ 1.5 that needs a little work. I have YET to have a successful short sale go through, and my experience with them has only been bad, but I'm going to GO FOR IT and keep on TRYING! Am I a little nervous? Perhaps, yes, but I'm willing to go all out and give it my BEST! Wish me luck!

Also looking for a buyer of 41 homes in GA under bulk contract and trying to co wholesale; where I find the buyer and the other guy has the seller. I'm going into territory that I'm uncomfortable with, but its because I want to really get experience with everything and learn as much as I can!

Even though I graduated the academy and have grown by leaps and bounds in knowledge, AND been investing in RE for 14 years now, there is STILL a lot I don't know! Humbling, and hopefully encouraging to others at the same time!

Got in and looked at another REO. It is already priced competitively, but it requires $50K in work. So, I'm going to give an offer at 85% of asking price at $202,500. This makes the offer 58% of asking price + repairs. ARV (quicksell) is $345K conservatively. Holding costs + repairs are $83K (including realtor costs to sell). Profit margin is $60K/ 17.35%.

Agent thinks the repair costs I'm coming in with are too high, but they actually aren't. So, I have to see about getting the offer in myself without the listing agent. Maybe I'll go directly to the broker.

Also went out and looked at a probate, but it has a poor setup and foundation issues, and 2 others. Don't think and of them will work out. Looking some more next week.

Thank you for reading, wow, I hope I can make a positive impact on you and others newer to REI. Some of my journal isn't always uplifting because I let it all out here!

Remember, even if it gets tough, NEVER give up!