Movin' On Up in PA

Just had a FANTASTIC 3 days with our mentor Randy Vaughn. Randy just tells it how it is- no BS, no sugar coating, no beating around the bush- just some tough love! Here's a quick overview of us and our journey thus far. There are two of us - Phyllis StLawrence and David Murry. We've decided to share a journal so at the beginning of a post we will start out by posting which of us are posting. Married since 1989, we have 4 kids and 3 grand kids. Passing one of those milestone birthdays made us realize that we were spending time in pursuit of someone else's goals instead of our own. We got a copy of Dean's book and realized this was something we could do together.

We went to a 1 day seminar and signed up for the three day session. Phyllis had to go on her own because I was out of town on business. We talked all weekend about what she was learning and decided to go big. Phyllis found a lease purchase opportunity and I re-read a chapter in the book and came up with an offer. We didn't know what we were doing but took Dean's admonition to "take action" to heart! 48 hours later we had our first rental property. A month later we were looking online and saw a property. We looked into it and a week later had our second property. A month later Phyllis saw an ad from another investor who was relocating to another part of the country. A week later we did an installment purchase for three properties.

Our net worth has increased by $250,000 and we cash flow close to $1000/ month in a
little over 8 months. Our three days with our mentor made us realize that we are just at the beginning - that our dreams of working together are well within our grasp. Wen are currently working on several deals in our area. We will keep you up to date on what is going on.

(Phyllis)

So Dave covered most of the "how we got started" details all but a few. After 22 years together he really is my best friend. We still like each other very much and do everything together, (not in that weird irritating needy way ...so when David had a heart attack two years ago I wasn't far behind (6 months).
We've raised 4 great kids together and we love them very much but we've been making plans for when their all raised and what we would do in retirement for many years. Having heart attacks was a wakeup call for us that we might not be talking about as many years as we thought. We looked at our savings and started talking about how we might retire earlier. We had read several real estate books in the last year+. David had read one of Deans books and watched his infomercial many times. (Dean looked a little afraid when I met him at a book signing in Vegas and told him "It's nice to finally meet you, you've been in bed with my husband and I for a year"...I explained I was referring to his book

We went to an insiders edge meeting in Philadelphia and signed up for the three day training . Davids brother was having a serious surgery in Texas so I went alone. We decided on the phone that we wanted to make the commitment. When David got home a few days later he ask me when we would start making payments for the program. I told him "ummmmm...no need to worry bout that honey, I wrote a check". He laughed and said well , I guess were all in". Believe me we were.

We came home and started scouring the newspapers for any properties we could get into with not very much cash down and "less than perfect credit". We found a three story, 6 bedroom house for sale just two blocks from our home. We made an appointment with the realtor to see it. We found out from the realtor that a young couple had flipped the property with a partner but there was a disagreement and the partner left. The couple had started another business in the mean time and needed to put their capital into that. We ask to meet the couple at the property two days later and made a lease purchase offer using one of the contracts from Deans book. (I mean we tried to fit everything from every contract in the book into this offer . ) They took the offer without ever running our credit and we were instant real estate investors. We were happily telling everyone who we met (or just anyone who would listen). "we are real estate investors in the area and we are looking for properties to invest in".

Next we found an ad in the paper that said "investors need to sale". I called and got into the property and met the renter. She said she had been in the property for a year and planned to stay. We got the cash together and bought the property. She has paid her rent on time for a year.

After we paid cash for the property we realized it probably wasn't the best idea since it was most all the capital we had and didn't know how we would be able to buy more houses. We were moving so fast I guess we hadn't gotten to that chapter in Deans workbooks ;(. We hadn't spent enough time on the "due diligence" section either we would find out later.

We were searching the Internet and newspaper ads everyday when I saw an ad for a package consisting of three houses being sold by an investor. I contacted him and told him we were interested and set up a time to see them. David wAs out of town on business so was unable to accompany me (I wonder if that was starting to make my poor husband nervous, considering the last time this happened I emptied our savings to start this business :/ )that's not true, David was and is as excited as me...lol...after all he's the one that had the vision to get us rolling . When the seller knocked on the door of the first house I was to see we were in for a surprise. The seller hadn't been to the property for some time due to the fact that the renter is very punctual with his payment. A very nice man answered the door in womens clothing, high heels, makeup and manicured nails. (I really felt a little under dressed since he had more girl stuff going on than me ;0 . He told the seller he had an appointment so he had to leave but we could show ourselves around and lockup when we finished. During one part of the conversation Tim (the seller) called the renter Michael and he corrected him that he now goes by Michelle. At this point I'm just thinking "well duh". He made a very cute woman and was very sweet , definitely not a Michael. We started through the property and Tim looked a little pail. He ask if I was alright and said he had no idea about the cats running around our feet (there were many) due to the fact that the renter delivers his rent a week early always so. He had not been to the property for awhile. I told Tim not to worry that I hadn't seen anything that scared me off yet (he had no idea what I was willing to overlook to get control of three properties each cash flowing $200-&260 monthly. Probably much more than I should have, at this point I'm knowing I gotta get home and pull up some contracts on dg.com to see how I can make this work. Which we did. We got all three properties for less than $3000 down. When I delivered the new lease to the tenant I described I had changed the name to Michelle. He looked at me rather bewildered and told me he had gone back to using micheal due to some recent events. I, looking just as confused ask him if I needed to change the names on the lease. He told me to leave it as is for now and he will let me know. He still is our most dependable tenant. We took possession of the properties only one week later

(Phyllis) july 26
So I drove to a nearby town to check out some properties I heard about yesterday. Police dept, tax assessors office, building code dept. One property had a lien on it from the county or township. I dont know how many states have this, but pa allows electric and other bills to attach a lien to a property. I'm really excited about two of the properties and put offers on both of them. I hope my mentors really mean it when they say "If your not putting offers in that are embarrassing then your not making low enough offers" This is not the first "aggressive" offer I've put in by any means. The first time I put in an offer I was embarrassed of, I waited until the investors office was closed and put it in the mail slot...and ran away...lol...he called my phone an hour later and said he thought we might be thinking of different properties...or his car.. I assured him I had the correct property and politely ask him to keep me in mind if he decided to lower the price. I was very glad he had a sense of humor. I dont think he took me seriously as an investor though and made a decision I would not stick it under the door but send it through email if I was so embarrassed I couldnt do it in person.

Phyllis---Sunday aug 30

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday was the most awesome day ever since we joined Dean. Thanks to Randy we found some awesome deals.
When Randy showed us the list of properties he said something like "I have a friend Carol who has some properties from a bank tape". After driving to the nearby town to talk to the tax office and the police dept we decided they were awesome properties. I called "Carol" and made an offer and she forwarded it to the bank and after a very small amount of negotiation they accepted. Carol called the next day to inform me the bank had accepted and wanted to close in two days. I was panicked because I knew I couldn't get the money ready for 3-5 days. In the mean time the bank went ahead and forwarded the contract to Carol and she called to let me know the offer was contingent on closing by friday. The next morning (thurs) I emailed Carol to let her know there was no way I could close Friday and how sorry I was. During the day that day I was watching Deans 2nd video and he referred to "Carol", later in the video he actually said "Carol Stinsen". I got up from the computer and turned 3 circles. I picked up the phone and called David at work. I told him very excitedly "I'm watching Deans video and he is talking about Carol, OUR CAROL!!!". A couple of hours later David got home from work (THURS) and Carol called. David was on the computer working on lenders when Carol told me "I will tie them up for you so you will have two weeks". When I ask omg why would you do that, she said Phyllis this is a family. When Dean says we all help each other he means it, its not just talk. She said she could get hard money to hold them for two weeks. I was blown away. She said she doesn't normally do this and we couldn't let her down. Im not going into the other documents I signed to secure the loan. Suffice to say, Carol is not a hard money lender, she just believed in us and stepped in to make it happen. When Dean says she is "an unbelievable" woman, he knows what he is talking about. We feel blessed and lucky...more later but we really are Movin' On Up