Linda's (from Indiana) Journal

that landlord was very smart. i need to keep that in mind myself.

i didn't have much of a sweet tooth yesterday, but i may have to work on it. sometimes it's just knowing that i can have as much as i want. then i don't really care. but, if i feel deprived.....look out!!

it's nice here in Owasso. hasn't been too chilly and last night it was very pleasant out. Grayson's party on Saturday was nice; that Jupiter Jump was the highlight of the party. Jared and i kicked the soccer ball around and reminisced about old times. he loved playing soccer and was so good at it. i asked him to do a rainbow for me and he did it easily. he trained himself at 7 years old to do that and was the only kid around that could. (it's where you grab the ball with your feet and flip it up and over your head. throws the other players off.) he also was juggling the ball with his feet. me, i am lucky to be able to kick when it's dead still. my kids had a Halloween party for their friends, so i took Kadi with me and we took pictures, then we came home and i got her to bed. all the kids looked so cute and i got some good pics. last night we ate at Toby Keith's restaurant at the Casino, then we took the kids trick-or-treating. Grayson is so funny and he really started enjoying it. Kadi is a "professional" and knows exactly what to do. she was a big help with Grayson. Gentry is only 8 weeks old so next year will be the year for her to start. i've seen some empty houses here, yet there is a ton of building going on here and in Bixby and Tulsa. lots of very expensive communities going up. at the other end of Owasso is a complete community: their own elementary school, shops, homes, golf course, etc. i read a forum Richie started in October about no money, no credit. it was really good and very encouraging. someone posted a statement by Elbert Hubbard that said (my paraphrase) "the worst mistake you can make is being afraid to make one". kind of hit home. something to think about a lot. i hope everyone is out there making deals and posting on here about them. i trust that November 2010 is an awesome month for us all!

You amaze me! You just keep on going through it all! I'm glad to hear your broker doesn't get part of your investment deals. I have a page and a half left to catch up, you've been very busy in your journal! I too am working on a lease option. Took the property subject to, but I'm not having any response to my advertising on the internet, and sellpoint on SFL is not working for me (reminds me I need to call them again as they haven't called me back the last 2 times.)

Hope you are feeling better now (I'm still reading the 2nd week of October!)

thanks for stopping by. yes, i write alot in my journal and it's not all REI related. it just really helps me keep going.

on the L/O, do you have a sign in the yard of the property and directional signs leading to it? also, i have found that in Indiana, they understand rent-to-own, but not really lease/option. sometimes it's the wording. if you have a mortgage broker you can work with, she/he might be able to send you referrals. then you can send your T/B's to that broker for credit help and eventually financing. i used a letter from one of Dean's books and changed it to fit me, then sent it to all the A+ rated brokers listed with the BBB. if you are working with realtors, i have a letter at home to send them asking for referrals when they can't help a buyer who can't get a loan. i will be back home this weekend, so if you want to PM me on Monday, i can email it to you. also, on your ads, are you making it sound like you can help people with a new start? remember, it's all about what you can do for them and finances/credit are a huge thing right now. most people cannot go out and get a loan for a home. hope this helps. you are doing a great job!!!

Sounds like you are on the right track, I'm still in the learning process too and live in Indiana, if you want we could bounce ideas off of each other.

thanks for stopping in. i'm always in the learning process, despite being at this for 10 years. hard to believe! are you keeping a journal? if so, please share the link. thanks.

well, i hate to say it but it's my last day here. kind of sad but i need to get home too. the election is finally over and maybe now we can quit being bombarded with all those political commercials. hard to know what's true and what's not. at least i did get my absentee ballot in and obviously my vote counted. i finally did some REI stuff today! yay!! i'm really proud of myself, especially since i should be packing and getting things ready to go for tomorrow. i listened to a webinar on co-op lease/options with the same 2 people i took notes from on 6 teleseminars. i still hadn't found my notes when i left home and so i have brand new notes to take home with me. i still believe i will find my notes when i get home, but these will do in a pinch. it was a 96-minute webinar that took me 2 hours to get through, but i take good notes. i have some ideas and i needed that spark to reignite because i've had so much going on lately. now, i'm inspired again to get back home and get to work! and i'm going to be a lot more careful with where these notes go too. i did read something very interesting the other day. you can "buy" subject to, but don't "sell" sub to unless you actually own the property. you shouldn't do a sandwich sub to, which i have to agree with. just my opinion. well, i guess i should get to packing; unfortunately i haven't seen the "packing fairy" around here lately.

i am finally home. i got in at 1pm yesterday and got everything unpacked. that was a huge relief. unfortunately, Chuck is real sick again (i guess i can't leave him home alone anymore), but on antibiotics and should be a lot better by Monday. i am playing catch up as usual. doing laundry, going through phone messages, trying to put things away as i go. i can't tell you how good it feels to be home! it was nice to see all the kids and be together, but now it's time to get to work. this weekend i hope to get all caught up on all the journals and forums i follow on this website. i've really missed not being able to keep up with everyone. i will keep moving forward all week, no matter how slow it might go. i must be pressing on and get my first L/O deal done. i guess my clients have their rehab done and have invited us to look at it. it's been only a month, so i am anxious to see it. i hope everyone has a great weekend and gets a deal!!!

Welcome home! I guess you can't leave Chuck home alone anymore. Sorry he's sick but hope he is better soon!

I know you'll get your 1st L/O done. Have fun while your clients show off their 'baby.'

Looking forward to talking to you soon.

Lea

thanks. it feels good to be back. hope you're having a great weekend.

it's sunny and chilly outside. i'm still playing catch up and trying to rest a little too. tomorrow starts a really busy time and i need to be up for it. i want to do all my running around tomorrow and get it out of my way, then down to serious business. i found another DGer who is working L/O's and have talked to her a little. it will be great to be able to network with someone working them. a thought keeps going through my mind: WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE? not much. what is the worst case scenario? there are plenty of people out there making it somehow and there are plenty of people out there making a good to great living in REI. why not me???

it is so beautiful out today. loving it. should be nice until the weekend here. i had a bunch of errands to run today, so i got that out of the way this morning. one of the things i did was go and get a basket and some things to give to the clients who did the HUD deal with me. i never got the chance to do it before now. Lea was kind enough to send me several ideas to choose from and i worked from that list. thank you, Lea! now we are trying to figure out when we can go see the house they are working on. they said they are having a blast with it and it looks so different. can't wait to see it! i talked with the insurance company this morning that i applied with. hopefully they now have all the information they need and will approve my application. just in case they don't, i have to have another insurance kick in because of the company i'm using not doing insurance for us anymore. very complicated to me. yesterday i made a huge list of what i had to do today and most of it is completed. i even marked out the time slot and the amount of time needed. i love it when i run ahead of schedule, like i'm doing now. just a few more things to complete. i had to remind myself to only schedule what i really could do; not so overwhelming that way. i made it through all my mail and got everything filed away that needed to be. tomorrow i will be working on finding the laws for L/O's here in IN and doing some "reminder" studying since i've been gone so much lately. i also got back to my affirmations, which is always a huge help to me. i figured out how to get back to reading like i want to and am focused on getting through two books and one magazine at a time. i have a tendency to have several going at one time and it can be overwhelming. this is separate from my L/O studies, which take priority. i heard this in the L/O webinar i was on last week and wanted to mention it here: "THE HARDER YOU WORK, THE MORE HARD WORK YOU GET" (meaning at your J-O-B). something to think about.

another beautiful day. i got to talk to Lea this afternoon and we always have a good time on the phone. we did some brain-storming and hopefully that helped us both. we got disconnected, which hasn't happened for a while, but that is usually our sign to say goodbye. i did my studying and have a better understanding of some things. still lots to go. i searched the internet and could not find anything on L/O laws and landlord/tenant laws for Indiana. not a good thing. i emailed 2 investors from my REI club to see if they could help me out. i finally ordered the book "Law of Success" by Napoleon Hill, the 1925 version. that version is supposed to be the original, non-watered down version. i am constantly learning and constantly moving forward, no matter how slow it may seem. hope you are too.

Greetings Linda,
I must say you are working this Journal. I enjoyed reading your daily posts. Much success to you.

Peace and Blessings,
Sheila

thanks for stopping by. how are things going? yeah, i'm working the journal. now i need to start working the deals.

Wow you are busy too! keep going forward. How is Chucking feeling now? I hope all is well.

what a nice surprise. thanks for stopping in. Chuck now has bronchitis and they are trying to keep him from getting pneumonia. he was put on a stronger antibiotic, so hopefully that will do the trick. i read your journal and you are really "kicking it". hope to follow in your shoes soon!

It was great to finally get to talk yesterday. I guess the phone God's decided to end our conversation LOL! I enjoyed our brainstorming session and appreciate your thoughts and ideas. You are very creative.

Have a wonderful day and week!

Lea

at least i finally got my "Lea fix". it got my mind to really scrolling through some things that i needed to think about. are you having the beautiful weather like we are? it's been so nice.

oops. i was not expecting that today. will elaborate in a minute. i insisted that Chuck go back to the doctor last night and he now has bronchitis. they put him on a very strong antibiotic (trying to keep him from going into pneumonia) and i have him on a probiotic since the antibiotic will kill all the good bacteria in his gut. we don't need that. he is really dragging along right now and i'm trying to talk him out of hunting this weekend, at least in the early morning hours, if nothing else. he has a hard time realizing he's not 25 anymore (not by a long shot! ) Jared called last night and i think he just wanted to hear a voice from the family. he didn't have much to say, just wanted me to talk. usually i have no problem with that, but with him it's harder because his life is much more exciting than mine. Danelle calls me every day and right now she is exhausted from having a sick 2-year old plus the baby to handle. Desiree called me last night about a Christmas gift for Danelle. she never calls during the week, so that was a nice surprise. i am really tired today, but i had things to do and i have been doing them. i have a L/O website i'm going through and i listened to a good interview with a couple from MD. they had some very good ideas and seem like good people who are very sharp in this business. they used to do short sales, rehabs, and sub2's. now they only do L/O's and they love it. they make about $20,000-40,000/month and are increasing that regularly. they also use lots of social media, which i need to get more into. i really need to figure out a schedule for myself that i do on a regular basis during the week such as: calling/emailing/texting on "for rent" and "for sale" ads; looking at houses; going to open houses; talking to people; remembering to give my business cards out; working on my websites and social media; etc. it can't be that hard, but i seem to have a mental block there. i also read a post about "just doing it". i'm really surprised my name wasn't at the top of the post and that they weren't speaking directly to me. i have to get past trying to do everything perfectly and remember that my main focus is on helping people where they are at. i can do that and i don't have to be perfect!!! oh, i forgot, i am not perfect. just ask anybody who knows me. sorry to destroy that idea. so, i have to work on getting out there and doing what will make money. mmmm, what a novel idea.

I hope Chuck is better soon!

I have no doubt that you will be getting a lot of things done regularly on a weekly basis - you already are! It's always good to keep evaluating ourselves to see how we want to improve.

Glad you are having some great weather. Right now it's about 78 degrees The past few days and evenings have been chilly with temps in the 40's and 50's BRRR!!

Lea

thanks for stopping in. Chuck doesn't take very good care of himself, so it's slow-going.

thanks for the encouragement, but i always feel like it's never enough. i think the main reason is because i'm not pursuing a deal right now. but.....i'm gearing up for that and i have decided that it's not about knowing everything. i will have to figure it out as i go along. lots of others are doing it that way.

temps here are in the 20's-40's at night and have been getting into the high 60's and 70's during the day. very uncommon for here, but so nice. this weekend it's supposed to change. yippee.

how are things going?

as i stated in my new forum post for today, Happy Veterans Day. i'm sure we have many veterans and active military on dg.com. i do want to honor them for their service and THANK YOU! i texted Jared Happy Veterans Day this morning and he texted back "Thanks, Momma". that may not mean much to anyone else, but when my kids use the term "momma", it is their special endearment at special times. usually they just call me mom and i'm good with that, so i know there is special meaning when they call me momma. . i'm studying L/O information like crazy so i can get started doing something besides just running ads for buyers. i have been running the same buyers ad all week and will continue until Monday. no responses as of yet. i'm hoping this will help me weed out the ones that don't work or don't work very well. i want to get to calling sellers and finding properties. i tend to agree with Elix that once you have a property, you will find plenty of buyers to put on your list. we'll see if that works for me. are you familiar with www.searchtempest.com? you can weed out things for when you search for ads on craigslist. i will be trying it out soon; i am getting some other things in order first. i just heard that one of the best times to run ads on craigslist is at 11:30am on Mondays and Fridays. i'll try that too. when i just have a phone number to call for ads, i'm going to text them through google voice to see if they are even interested. no sense in wasting time and money if it's a cold lead. with google voice, i can text and it doesn't count against my texting limit on my cell phone or the email limit with craigslist. most everyone nowadays has texting, so we'll see how that works. i love new ideas and implementing them. something to keep in mind as you do deals: EVERY DEAL IS UNIQUE. you can't expect them to be a cookie-cutter deal every time and you may have to think outside the box regularly. okay, i'm up for it. are you?

actually, just an update, but it sounded good.

i just got done watching the contest videos Dean asked for. they are so good. the last one was especially creative, but i loved them all. i hope to do one of those myself very soon. they are very encouraging.

i got an email from a rent-to-own ad i have been running. it's not the ad i've been running here lately, so it's from a while back. anyway, i don't know if they are really serious or not, but i answered back very quickly. before, i would kind of drag my feet and answer within 24 hours. today i saw that and my first response was "ugh". now, what kind of REI is that? so, i quickly changed my attitude and way of thinking and said to myself i will respond to her right away. because i have kind of changed what i'm doing, i gave it some serious thought and answered her with what i thought was an informative email. not too much hopefully, just enough to whet the appetite. the email did say they have a steady income, so that is a step in the right direction. i am just amazed at myself that it would frustrate me when i get a reply to an ad. do i want a deal or not??? actually, until now, my attitude has been: "what if i actually get a deal? what do i do?" well, i get excited and call for help!!! sometimes we really need a reality check.

one more thing: keep your word. Chuck just called and was telling me about a young man and woman (who shall remain nameless) that made a certain agreement with a bank for a house loan. now that they have the loan, they don't want to transfer their checking account over to the bank who took a chance on them and helped them with a house loan. he really had a good talk about honor and keeping your word with the young man. what do we have if we don't have our reputations and our word?

I have to tell you since we spoke the other day you got my wheels turning and ideas are just popping into my brain - thank you.

When you talk to Jared please tell him I said a big THANK YOU for his service to our country. I don't know if our veterans hear that often enough. I was with a friend having lunch a couple years ago and when a young veteran in uniform walked by I thanked him for his service to our country. He sat down and talked with us for about 15 minutes.

Lea

i will tell Jared. he always says that he does this for people like you that appreciate what the military does. Chuck has paid for lunch for military before and he loves doing that.

yes, our talk was very helpful to me too. my brain was turning and sometimes it's hard to keep up with it. hopefully it won't turn so much it falls right out one of my ears! i have been moving forward more since then. thank you too.

i have gotten so involved in reading stuff on several websites that i can barely stand to walk away from them. it's very hard to sit at this computer for hours on end, but i get caught up in this stuff. it's really pushing me to move forward and quit messing around. and i'm actually really excited about it. i got another response to my ad i ran this week (i mistakenly thought yesterday's response was from an old ad) and now that i have an email i can just copy, i responded right away. whoo-hoo! 2 responses this week! i will put it in again at 11:30am, although i may have to change it a little since it hasn't been 24 hours. i was just telling Chuck (on the phone) that i was going to post an ad on Craigslist and he gave me 2 to post for some furniture he wants to get rid of. thank goodness! it's been in the garage for 2 years and we need to sell or give it away. i still have stuff to clean out too, but it's in totes and boxes. anyway, so at 11:30am i will be posting 3 ads on Craigslist. then i have to run to UPS and the dry cleaners real quick, but i consider UPS to be business because it's my business mail box. this morning i emailed my mortgage broker with some questions about FHA and their underwriting guidelines. i also emailed the woman at the title company i use to ask some questions about her doing a "closing" for me when i first sign up a T/B for a L/O so everything looks good to the lender when the T/B actually cashes out the L/O. i hope to have answers early next week, since i did this on a Friday and i don't want to rush them. anyway, if i could do the first "closing" with the title company, then have the "real actual" closing with them too, that would give them more business from me. always have to remember to state the benefits for THEM and not you. the question that's been on my mind the last couple days is: WHAT IS IN THE SELLER'S BEST INTERESTS? i have to have the mindset of how can i help each person in the deal. i also have to make sure i set my T/B's up for success. have a great weekend!

am i motivated or what? i put my new ad on Craigslist, which i had to because you can't repost an ad for 48 hours. anyway, i got a response while i was out running 2 quick errands. so, she sent me an email 26 minutes after i posted that new ad. yes, i did respond as soon as i got to it when i got back. at least i am getting responses. now to get a house under contract and i think the response rate will be much higher. just my opinion.....as i was leaving to run my errands i got something in the mail that i normally would have stressed out about. i decided to deal with it when i got back and left it behind. i made one phone call that lasted maybe 5 minutes and it was taken care of. i'm reading something from an REI and he says he keeps stress out of his life, unless it's good stress like exercise. i need to follow that example. he also talks about taking immediate action on his ideas and working out the details later. he's very successful, so maybe he's on to something.

finally we are getting a little rain. Chuck is out hunting in it and i was so hoping it would hold off until he got home. not good for his bronchitis. i went to my first meeting with the celiac club in town (gluten-free) and the guy who owns the compounding pharmacy i have used was the speaker. he was very helpful with information and told me what to try for Chuck and see if it helps him. so far the antibiotics are not. this morning we went to see the HUD house my clients bought and are rehabbing. it looks so much cleaner, to say the least. they have the roof done, the painting is pretty well done. the kitchen appliances were coming today and they have done a nice job with things. the neighbors have been great to them, even offering chairs to sit on while they painted the fence, which looks really nice. they are having a great time. Chuck said that looking at that house would rekindle my fires for doing a rehab; i said i don't have to be rekindled, Chuck does. we went to breakfast this morning and talked again about approaching the banks. he has some good ideas and i mentioned that with his J-O-B there is no security and he doesn't know what will happen from one day to the next. why not start building up something else that will help him out. he did agree. so....we are supposed to start a plan this coming week. we'll see how it goes. right now if we could just get our ideas down about how we want to proceed, who we would hire, etc. that would be a good start and not too overwhelming while he is trying to get well. he did give my business card to a mason working at his job site yesterday. the guy has 2 rehab properties he wants to sell and Chuck said i can help him and i have lots of contacts. he always thinks of me as a realtor, but when i mentioned L/O, he was good with that too. from what this guy told him, they need/want cash, so i may have to act as a realtor, if they call me. you just never know.....

It really does work, amazingly enough! I've had so many leads from CL! I've also advertised my current deal to double close JIC the HML falls through. Response has been great!

Its wonderful you can keep a to do list and actually accomplish everything on there! I haven't had that happen yet! I seem to always have so much to do and so many interruptions! LOL

It is CERTAIN we will SUCCEED!