Tom and Jeri Journal

Tom and Jeri Journal,
We have finally decided to do ours. I am not really sure how to begin our journal, but I can see that most write a about backgrounds, good and bad experiences in real estate, and how everyone started. Real estate has definitely been a passion for both of us, and since we acquired Dean’s book and attended couple of the events, we truly agree that Dean is a real thing, and not just actors playing to make money. We met several of Dean’s success academy people and just like us, real estate with something in common, passion for real estate and desire to become independent from our regular jobs, more importantly, live and enjoy our lives.
We have a wonderful child, Henry who is getting closer to 3 years old. He is great and always comes with me when we do rehab a property or just simply to look at a property. I am sure he will follow our steps. Tomas is a foreign from Venezuela (in South America) but also a US Citizen. He came to the US to pursue higher education and better life in 2003. That’s how he met Jeri, at school, specifically at the University of Tulsa. Long story short, started dating, then marriage, now a child. Life passes by, but we have to enjoy and live it! Real estate started in our life in 2005. Tomas became a real estate associate for one small local company, no RE investments at this time, but just buying and selling properties for others. Prices were going up and people buying like crazy! I am sure a lot of investors remember those times. In particular, Tom was helping Jeri’s Grandfather who was an active investor of almost 80 years old. Jeri’s grandfather is also like a mentor as he took us through our first and second real estate investment property in 2007. We were not doing very actively, until in 2009, we started watching Dean’s info commercials, late at night and decided to buy two of his books. We remember that if you buy one of his books, you would get the second one just paying shipping and handling charges. So, we did it. We read both books in a few weeks, while on the plane or just laying in bed. Through Tom’s engineering career, he travels a lot overseas, so instead of reading boring books, he read Real Estate books.
In 2009 was a great year. We acquired several properties in foreclosure for pennies on a dollar which we flipped or sold in land installments. We didn’t use our own money. Stocks were down and Jeri’s grandfather had an interest in lending at higher interest rates as stocks were paying nothing. So, we used one of Dean’s strategy, use OPM. It is true that someone in your family is tired of getting pennies from the stock markets or CDs. In August of 2010, we joined the success academy through events in Oklahoma. We did several more deals, including a small mobile home park, multifamily residences, and single family properties. We have done so far Owner financing, Leases, lease options and flips. We have been thankful to have local banks work on our business in addition to local private investors. Although some people may not agree with this, but Tom’s Real Estate license has helped us to find properties well-before the property goes in the market. Tom has his own brokerage company TuCasa Realty, LLC and does BPOs (Broker Price Opinions) for lenders on properties that are falling behind. This allows us to know what’s coming up and look up for the REO market prediction. Jeri with her financial background, we have been able to apply other techniques, such as buying real estate in retirement accounts, etc. This year in May, we attended the Edge event where we met Dean and several other great people. We thank ya’ll for your support, and believe this is a great family. Last but not least, our goal is to be financial independent, and not to depend from our regular job before the next Edge event. We are looking forward to do more quality deals. Just a piece of advice… start in your own back yard, Tulsa, OK has been ours, small town but a lot of business. Best is quality and not quantity, so do your research.