Missed you guys.
I started this blog as an effort to share my experiences as I grew my real estate investing business. However, things didn't really go as I had hoped.
After some initial success in early '08 in Virginia Beach/Tidewater, we sold (lease option that went south and ended up as a short-sale) our Virginia Beach house and moved home to CA.
Turns out that I couldn't have picked a worse time to move and try the wholesaling method of the real estate business in California. The whole financial world was on a tilt after the collapse of Lehman and the 300+ lenders that melted down in 2008-09 and I was trying to wholesale properties in a free-falling market. It sucked. I won't even tell you about how bad, just trust me. It sucked.
After just one successful wholesale flip in March of 2009, and after encouragement of my lovely bride, I decided to get my license and continue moving forward in real estate as an agent/Realtor rather than return to my previous career in the insurance industry.
I got my CA real estate salesperson license Aug 2nd, 2009 and continued to try and manage my 'investor' leads as well as build a clientele as an agent. I ended up getting many of my initial listings from those leads, but as the market has continued to slide downward, getting 65 cents on the dollar minus repairs to use as a wholesale deal became more and more unlikely. I shut down 11 Day Sale on 12/31/10 and have focused all my efforts on building a career in real estate as a Realtor.
Since I was no longer attempting to be an investor/wholesaler, it didn't seem that I had much to write about on the blog. But as time has gone along, I have come to realize how much I have learned about investing in real estate, and about my market and there are a lot of things that I would have liked to share, but didn't because they weren't 'investor' topics. Plus, writing is good therapy, it's free and I like it.
But, like I said, I missed you guys. So I've decided to change the content of the blog and keep writing about the crazy stuff that happens to me as I wander along on this new career path.
Sound good to you?
Nice to be back.
Taylor