Hey Taylor!

Real Homes of Genius

2010-08-13T20:01:00.000-04:00

One of the blogs I frequent is Dr Housing Bubble in LA County. (http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/ ). Great commentary on the state of So Cal real estate. Besides his personal pet-peeve for garbage cans and Realtor cars in listing photos on the MLS (which I share,) he regularly posts about "Real Homes of Genius".

A real home of genius is one where a bank and buyer broke all rules of sanity in overvaluing a property to the point of ridiculousness. We've got one here in my area this week, and I think I"ll keep them coming.

Real Home of Genius - Santa Maria Style...

First,
The original sales info. Purchased in 1/2003 for $320,000

Second, Purchased in 11/2005 for $450,000!!

Third, Notice of Default, Notice of Trustee Sale 4/22/2009

Fourth, Trustee Sale on 1/14/2010

Finally, onto the market in 5/23/2010 for $165,500 and reduced on 6/17/2010

Here's the video I shot this morning. A true gem.

Enjoy!
Taylor

Bank Repairs Property Without Asking!

2010-08-03T17:22:00.000-04:00

I know it sounds crazy. I didn't believe it myself when it happened, but I have video to prove it. Check it out.

Here's the backstory.

I have a client that made an all-cash, as-is offer on a bank-owned (REO) condo. It was in pretty good shape and she loved the unit so she offered close to retail. In fact, all the unit needed was carpet, paint and install some hand-rails and it would be good to go.

Offer was accepted in a day and we moved into escrow.

Yesterday, the listing agent called me in a huff because there were contractors in the condo tearing out carpet and it looked like a painter had already come and gone....

I called my client and she didn't know a thing about it. No answers...

Until later that afternoon when the listing agent called me to apologize. The bank had hired and scheduled to have the contractors paint and carpet the unit and didn't let the agent know. (weird.)

So, my client gets carpet and paint. On an AS-IS bank REO. Gratis.

Gotta love these banks... Never the same thing twice.

Cheers,
Taylor

You're Nobody 'til Somebody Loves You

2010-07-13T17:19:00.000-04:00

I made it on a list!

Best Blogs on Real Estate ranked my blog as on of the top 50 real estate blogs!

Very Cool.

Thanks everybody!

(Click link below to check out the list.)

Cheers,

Taylor

Been Gone So Long

2010-07-09T12:31:00.005-04:00

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

Tommy and the Christmas Train House

2009-12-08T15:07:00.010-05:00

Cool story.

I got a call just before Thanksgiving from a seller who's father in law's (88yrs) (Mr 88) health was to the point that he couldn't live alone in the house and the family was looking for options and responded to my mailer. The son in law actually said that it was uncanny that the mailer came when it did as they had just talked about selling the house the day before.

My son Tommy and I went to the appointment together and after a side-trip to McDonalds for a happy meal and toy, we showed up right on time.

The nurse/caretaker took to Tommy right away and asked if she could play with him with the toy train around the tree while I toured the house. So after shaking hands with the owner, I headed off on the tour with the son in law.

About half way through the tour, the caretaker called out for the son in law to come quickly and he hustled off to help her. I was just behind him and saw that Mr 88 had slumped back into the couch and was extremely pale. She was dialing 911 when I grabbed Tommy and turned off the train controller. The son in law escorted me to the door and said that Mr 88 didn't have much time left. We chatted for a bit on the porch and I took Tommy to the car.

We could hear the siren of the ambulance as we got into the car and passed them as they came up the hill as we drove away.

As I drove away, I realized that I was the last person to shake hands with Mr 88 in this life. Kind of weird. It still seems a little surreal for me. I was a little shaken up by it. And, since I was out of the room, I hoped that Tommy hadn't gotten in the way or made any troubles.

I have been watching the paper for the last couple of days and the Obituary came out in the paper today so I called the son in law to offer condolences.

He told me the rest of the story.

Mr 88 was a bit senile and it turned out to be a bit of a Godsend that I had Tommy with me when we came to the house. See, his son had died in Viet Nam and Mr 88 was prone to having visions of his son and deceased wife.

It turned out that while I was touring the house, Mr 88 was watching Tommy and the nurse play with the Christmas train. Mr 88 was clapping and hollering for him to make it go faster! faster! and having a great time. His vision was of his son and wife playing with the train around the Christmas tree (Tommy and the nurse). He was laughing and having a good time. The nurse was watching him closely and said that he was smiling as he sat back into the couch. He sat back, sighed, got a tear in his eye and then was gone. Just like that. Total heart failure.

I got teary as the son in law told me the story. It's uncanny how things work out sometimes. I felt that it was the right thing to do, bringing Tommy to work with me that Friday. It just seemed correct. I am glad I listened to that little voice inside because it is good that my little guy could make an old man's last few minutes on the planet a little better, a little happier and a little less lonely, and I feel great about that.

Happy holidays everybody.

This life is short & we only go around once, so let's enjoy each other while we're all here.

-Taylor

Back in the Saddle

2009-11-06T00:58:00.004-05:00

You'll remember that a year ago I put on my first CA open bid sale.

And, while it didn't go as planned (plan being that i make another sweet 5 figure paycheck,) we were able to secure a buyer for the property and I eventually got some $$ (4 figure paycheck) for my efforts.

Still a big fan of the open bid sale concept.

Another year gone and as it turns out, exactly 1 year to the weekend from my last open bid sale...

http://www.postlets.com/res/2989512

It's a nice little condo/townhome in Grover Beach with views of the Pismo Beach hills and some nice amenities.

As another little reminder of how much things can change in a year, I'm licensed and running this open bid sale as an agent! No chance of 5 fig paycheck this time, however... I am hoping to make up in volume for what each potential sale lacks in potential profit compared to an investor deal.

Lots and lots and lots going on in my little real estate world right now.

I've started a consulting project for a company that works with real estate investors as a success advisor, which allows me to spend more time at home and less weekend nights working at the restaurant (which is nice.)

Plus, I have two buyers in escrow and the condo listing. Not bad.

I just finished a submission for a free quarterly newspaper that will be mailed out to every household in town in about 3 weeks. Should be a nice little promo piece.

I partnered with one of my investment property buyers in Virginia Beach (she bought Jeanne St in VB. Remember that one from May 08?), and we are going to update and re-vamp 11daysale.com and 11daysale.net. She'll help build the site and we'll both submit 'free special reports' and videos. And, if leads come in from different areas in the country, I'll be able to use my connections from my RE consulting gig to get them taken care of and hopefully make a little referral $$.

California fall weather is just spectacular and we are LOVING it here. Thanks to my wife's family for support on that one. I will say that it is truly refreshing to have your in-laws be your biggest fan/support. Not everybody can say that.

I hope to post more often, but as you can imagine, my days are full and I love being busy.

Pray for a quick sale and 2 quick escrows!

More next week.

All the best,
Taylor

Buying REO's - Market for the Insane

2009-10-13T23:22:00.006-04:00

First off, thanks to TampaSteph and also Shae for the following video.

Are you thinking about getting into the REO market? Maybe you don't like dealing directly with homeowners and think that it would be much easier to buy directly from banks?

It isn't my favorite method of doing real estate, and the following video has a familiar ring to it if you've ever dealt with a bank 0wned or short-sale property.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM7oWKgCVo4&feature=player_embedded

Enjoy & good luck with your own REO adventures...

Blog Post #100! Hawaii in 2009

2009-10-13T22:46:00.008-04:00

I've got a lot of things going in real estate land, but first,

Thanks to everyone that made my most recent trip to Hawaii possible!
My brother got married Saturday and his bride is from Japan, so the most convenient place for everyone to meet was... Hawaii!! So we took the kids out of school for 4 days and flew to Oahu.

4 Days in Oahu/Waikiki for sun, sand, surf and crowds.

I took my oldest son (13) surfing at Canoes/Waikiki (which, incidentally was the same place I learned how to surf @ age 14.) It was a very rewarding experience

North Shore on Friday and the quality of surfing literally blew my mind. In fact, the sheer number of great surf spots and corresponding high quality surfing re-adjusted my surf quality meter. Here's my surf confession: I'm a chump and my spots here in CA are crap. I admit it. Hawaii kicks serious surf booty.
Beautiful sunsets,

Awesome views,

And Delicious Food. (We ate the whole thing already?!)

Sales Mastery Resource: Option ARM Reset Schedule Update

2009-09-21T19:21:00.008-04:00

I subscribe to Clusterstock.com and their 'chart of the day. I've been sharing a similar chart with sellers from Deutsch Bank that shows a wave of resets hitting in 09-11. Looks like banks have updated their plans and extended the pain out for a few more years...

Here's what Clusterstock says of their chart:

CHART OF THE DAY: The Option ARM Armageddon

John Carney and Kamelia Angelova|Sep. 21, 2009, 6:04 PM |

Tags: Chart Of The Day, Mortgages

"The Option Arm Armageddon was supposed to strike in the spring of 2009. Across the country, option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) were set to detonate and start a new wave of foreclosures.

But it never happened. We made it well past when this chart from Credit Suisse showed the option ARMs were supposed to begin to hit. And the crisis didn't come.

Why not? Well, when interest rates dropped to historically low levels as the Fed fought the financial crisis, the wave of resets was held off. Unfortunately, low interest rates won't last forever -- they'll now likely strike next year and continue well into 2011. Many borrowers who now have the option of making payments so low that they don't even cover the interest are seeing their original loan balance grow, even as their home values continue to fall or remain flat.

The chart below shows that the option ARM reset problem is comparable to the subprime problem, and will likely last for quite some time. Armageddon may have been forestalled but it hasn't been overcome."

So what does this have to do with Sales Mastery? Well, one of our main tenets is: Foreclosures up=Inventory up=Prices DOWN.

Sellers need to know this info so they can plan what the best move is for them. Sitting tight? Better have a comfy seat... This looks like the best time to sell for the next few years...

Subscribe to the Chart of the Day.

Cheers,

Taylor

Resiliance

2009-09-03T12:33:00.004-04:00

Funny story.

You know I work as a waiter at a local italian restaurant a few nights a week to keep cash coming in (and also pick up a few real estate leads...)

Last night was excruciatingly slow so I was excited when a table of 9 got sat in my section. I was out on the patio so any night mid-week is a total crap shoot when it comes to getting tables.

I got a drink order and loaded up the largest cocktail tray we had with 3 cokes, 2 iced teas, 2 pints and a lemonade. I didn't have room for the raspberry martini so i decided to hand-carry it with my right hand and deliver that drink first when I got to the table.

I approached the table and went to set down his raspberry-tini, saying, "here's your raspberry-tini sir..."

He says to me, "no, I ordered raspberry tea."

Whoops. No big deal. In fact, I had an extra tea on my tray so that would work out fine. (Internal dialogue: now what to do with this drink in my hand so I can unload this heavy tray of drinks?)

So I stopped setting down his drink and stood back up, moving my right hand slowly so as to not spill the fruity martini. All my focus was on the martini. I was rolling through the possible temporary resting sites for the drink so I could unload the tray in my left hand.

At this point, my left arm (unbeknown to me) was reaching its limit with the super-loaded tray and made just a slight twitch. First drink to go was one of the 3 cokes. It rolled off the tray and I laser-tracked it with my eyes and caught it between my knees as it fell. Amazingly... Whew!

Martini? check
Glass between the knees? check
Tray on left? . . .

It was all super-slow-motion from here on, but as I stood next to my table of 9, in the doorway by the bar, I and the rest of the people on the patio and those within sight-line from the bar, watched as one by one, the drinks toppled off my tray and into my lap. (remember, i'm squatting, ever-so-slightly due to the drink between my knees...)

Seriously, I'm standing with a cocktail in my right hand and a soda glass between my knees. What the heck could I do at this point? NADA...

As I watched the beers begin to topple, I reflexively made a "cover the ball" motion to keep my patrons from getting soaked and collapsed the entire tray into my body.

Only 2 glasses broke! And, I still had a full martini in my right hand as everything came to a stop.

Soaked to the bone, and embarrassed as I could be, I smiled and curtsey'd to the clapping guys in the bar, and started cleaning up broken glass.

My shoes were squishing with beer and soda all night.

And to top it all off, the table shorted the payment on their bill and I had to use the gratuity to pay the remaining bill! I made $6.37 on the table.

Smile and move on... Prove how resiliant you can be.

:)
Taylor

Seller Motivation Theory 1.0

2009-09-01T16:22:00.005-04:00

The real challenge these days is seller motivation. I'm developing a theory and watching the market and am getting more firm on my idea, but here's what I have so far...

Seller Motivation Theory ver 1.0
In every market you have a range of motivation. Try to draw a mental picture with it as a pendulum where the far left represents very low motivation to sell and the far right represents virtual desperation to sell. The left half of the pendulum are those with internal motivation to sell. As the pendulum swings up to the right, external motivators come into play (foreclosure, job change/transfer etc...) and add to the motivation level.

As investors, especially in the recent past, merely talking to motivated sellers was the key to success.

The Success Equation went like this:

Get your mailer/postcard/letter/advertising/yard sign in front of enough motivated people and you were bound to buy/wholesale/flip some houses.
And assuming you could estimate repairs with moderate accuracy and perform basic math in the MAO* (*MAO= Maximum Allowable Offer. MAO=(After Repaired Value x 65%)-repairs-profit) calculation, you would make money.

Late night infomercials and internet real estate gurus sold (and continue to sell) the idea of making money this way.

But... remember that as investors, we need EQUITY to be able to get involved and make money. So, with the relatively quick run-up of home prices from 2001-2006, the moderate-strongly motivated real estate owners had equity to spare and due to their motivating circumstances, were willing to part with a portion of that equity for a quick sale and all the other benefits that we, as investors, could provide.

The true challenge in a declining market is to take those folks on the left half of the motivation pendulum, those with less urgency/motivation, but who have equity and get past the financial motivation to the real reason for selling. It takes time and some real finesse to pull off these types of deals (I've learned this the hard way...)

Downward moving markets strip equity out of many motivated seller deals and traditional investor strategies quickly become out-dated (since most investor pricing models require at least 35% equity to even get started...). Leaving Short-sales, REO's and high equity deals as the remaining ways to make any money as an investor.

But that's another post all together.

Nice to have you stop by. I've missed posting my happenings. Lots of things going on, I'll have to post again this week and we'll get caught up then...

Cheers,
Taylor

A Birthday Gift for My Bride

2009-07-29T19:11:00.003-04:00

My lovely bride's birthday is this week. (Happy birthday honey!) The top thing on her birthday list is for yours truly to get his Real Estate License so we can get on with making some money already!

I log on to the DRE website every day to check my license status...

Nothing.

So, with a little coaxing via phone this morning, I was able to get someone to pull my file and see that everything they needed was in the file, fingerprints done, fees paid, test passed, proof of citizenship, yadda, yadda, yadda... and that in fact they were ready to issue the license. Her words were "it should post today prior to 5pm mr Taylor."

As of 2pm... no license.
As of 3pm... no license.
As of 4:09pm... bing!

Happy birthday baby, we're back in business.

More tomorrow!
-Taylor

Hey Bro, Where You Been?

2009-06-28T08:01:00.004-04:00

Workin' man, workin'...

Holy Crap it takes the state of CA a long time to process paperwork! I finished my pre-licensing classes in record time (2 weeks ahead of schedule) and submitted my paperwork the week of May 16th and didn't hear from the Dept of Real Estate for over 5 weeks! I got the go-ahead (login/password) to schedule my agent exam a few days ago and I am all set to take the exam this Thursday (July 1) in LA. Wish me luck!

In addition to studying real estate and waiting tables, I have spent time organizing my leads and sending out follow up notes to everyone. The phone is ringing and I should have some seller appointments next week. Nice...

Once I get this exam out of the way I am set up to work as an agent for a local RE broker and will be calling my seller leads to test for motivation to sell either to me as an investor or with me as a realtor. I am getting tired of not making $$ and need to get my life moving forward again. We've learned a lot in the last year, but that's a topic for another post.

Keep me in mind on Thursday!
Cheers!
-Taylor

100M here... 100M there... Soon You're Talking Real Money

2009-05-25T00:36:00.002-04:00

Unreal.

I thought $100M was a lot of money. Watch this and learn...

Oh, and just for good measure, check this out. (big shout out to my family in Richmond VA!)

174mph, but what's the MPG of the vehicle? Environmentalists want to know...

On the real estate front, I've been doing lots of substitute teaching and waiting tables and studying like a maniac for the CA real estate exam. Just waiting for the state to approve my application and give me a test date.

More follow up calls this week.

Enjoy Memorial Day! Thanks to all the soldiers out there! I am enjoying my freedom thanks to you!

-Taylor

I'm not this crazy, but it's still amazing stuff.

2009-05-18T19:22:00.000-04:00

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

More real estate to come.

-Taylor

Strategy Adjustments

2009-05-01T16:44:00.004-04:00

Well, I just rolled past the one year point as a corporation. Which is good. What a crazy year it has been too. Things really seemed to be trucking along there in June/July last year, then slowed down as 08 came to a close.

With the changes in the market, I have been forced to take a hard look at what is working and what is not working.

Based on the last deals I have done, PROBATE is working... There is equity AND motivation (which are the key elements in this investing game.)

While Free and Clear/High equity mailers get lots of calls, the appointments haven't been as frequent and the resulting deals have been non-existant in the last 6 months.

Absentee owners/landlord mailers also generate lots of calls, but in this crazy market, there is just too big of a gap from where I need to be and the lowest they will take. I can't justify the expense when I'm not sure I'll be able to convert the calls to cash $$$...

So...

1. I'm putting the mass mailers on hold. Going back to the old-school. Probate mail and knocking doors...

2. Continuing my Probate method of gathering info at the courthouse each month, mailing a nice letter and now, (2b.) adding a follow up component by designing an executor follow up post card.

3. Door knocking motivated lists. I have a researcher knocking expired listings for me right now and am going to have him add probates to the list. We knocked 7 doors the other night (expired listings) and bumped into a probate executor and I was able to schedule an appointment for the following week. Quick results and little cash outlay. (gas money.)

4. Get licensed. I have heard/read many conflicting opinions about whether or not to get my RE license, but I was successful finding buyers for that property that went into short-sale and have so many potential listings and short sale leads, I can no longer keep giving the business away as referrals to my agent. I need the income and love the thought of keeping myself in the RE game during this market downturn.

We're making the same changes in Virginia as well, with emphasis on follow up with current leads and continuing to mail probates.

It's baby steps at this point, returning to the things that originally brought in dollars for the dollars spent and on making money through the market change so that when the shift comes I can be ready to jump and make cash again.

Keep watching.

-Taylor

Buy at the Peak, Sell on the Way Down...

2009-04-20T21:04:00.006-04:00

I'm making follow up calls (18 so far) this evening and just had a nutty call that I had to get online.

Here's the stats:
She bought for $397,500 in 12/05. Which was about 4 months prior to the peak of the biggest peak in american housing. Full retail at the peak of all peaks.

She has rec'd my mailer once every 3 months and called to see if she could get out of her house with a little profit.
Wouldn't tell me what she thought it was worth. (I had 3 websites open looking at current value...)
Wouldn't tell me what she owed.(can pull all that from county records in about 5 mins.)
Didn't want to meet. (I can't help those that don't want help.)

So, in the end I told her that Zillow.com and Realquest.com both showed a value for her place at $297 in today's market, would that number be in the ballpark?

Heavens no. I wouldn't sell for a penny less than $450k.

Hope you have a couple decades to wait my dear.

It's gonna be a while.

Here's the foreclosures around her house.

Ok, thanks. I feel much better now.

Back to the phone...
-Taylor

More Core Identity Thoughts

2009-04-03T03:26:00.003-04:00

I've had 2 meetings with sellers this week that have been frustrating to me.

Both were single women with houses they needed to sell.
They needed to sell for as much as possible, as fast as possible.
In the end they individually gave me the same 'i want to think about it because you're numbers are too low' as a reason to leave the meeting without a contract or a return appointment.

One has listed with a realtor and I expect the one from today to list with a realtor

It is super frustrating for me (ergo another 1am blog post) because I know that what I have represents the best possible chance for these sellers to get what they want/need, which is a. quick sale, b. Cash c. Cash that meets or exceeds what they would likely net from a retail sale.

But something must be missing. I may be too logical in my presentation/meeting with them. Maybe I don't build enough rapport, find out what their hot buttons are, paint them in to their pleasurable future...

I have mentioned Frank Kern before, but I don't think I've linked any of his video to my blog. Check it out. It is an interesting premise to approach business/sales from such a 'touchy-feely' kind of place, but it resonates with me and my best meetings have followed a similar path.

Enjoy and tell me what you think...
-Taylor

this guy was cool too. Absolute Congruence.

Oh NO! The Obamanator attacks!

2009-04-01T21:14:00.003-04:00

By RICHARD ROHL, Published: March 31, 2009

"WASHINGTON -- At the protest of "vulture" investors,

President Obama will sign legislation tomorrow reversing all

private transfers of property by homeowners in default.

This provision of the "Community Risk Abatement Plan," a

recent addition to the stimulus package in consideration. It

will require the owners of all property acquired in the last

two years from sellers where were behind on mortgage or

tax payments to be returned to the previous owners within

121 days."

Good thing for me that I don't deal in foreclosures.

-Taylor

I love surfing.

2009-04-01T01:27:00.003-04:00

I really love it. Once this little business gets going I'm going to surf more. And stand-up-paddle surfing? I'm sooo going to get one of these boards. It can be completely flat and you're having a good time. Plus, my 12 year old (who has never wanted to surf) wants to get out there with me on one, so it's got to be cool right?

Enjoy-
Taylor

Find more videos like this on Stand Up Paddle Surfing

More Good Stuff for all the Sales Mastery Folks

2009-04-01T01:00:00.002-04:00

Ok, enough politics and education. How about something you can use with sellers?

Here you go.

In my Virginia Beach office and here in CA, we have a number of people trying to sell their vacation/get-away homes. The most common response to my offers is 'I'll wait it out' or the oh-so-common 'I don't really need to sell...' which are both lies, but we won't get into that today...

What you need to bring them back to planet earth, USA is some proof.

Supply is up. Funding is down. Competition from Banks, Foreclosures and Builders are all up. What does that lead to? Price Drop! (cue the disco ball and police lights/siren) That's right kids, a price drop. And when you start lower, you can end lower. Buying low is what we like. Starting lower makes it easy.

So here's the bullet points from today's article:

The vacation home market was driven by the availability of debt (money.)
With the absence of mortgages for primary homes, secondary home loans are even less likely.
Vacation home sales dropped 31% over all and the median dropped 23%

I can make it all go away, right here, right now. All I need is your OK right here and I'll get to work putting the financing together.

Go team!
-Tayor

Farewell to File Front... :(

2009-03-27T14:58:00.002-04:00

I'm sad today. My favorite free online storage site is shutting down. Wot, wah...

Since I have contacts all over the country, I used filefront to share large documents and training videos (hi Shay!). It worked awesome and I'm looking for another site to replace it.

So... If you know of a good/great, free, non-Microsoft website out there that would be good for me to post files and have them retrieved by my 'people'... PLEASE let me know.

by the way, thanks for stopping by. I got a report the other day that my blog has 10% of all the blog traffic in San Luis Obispo County. 10%? wow.

Now leave a comment!

-Taylor

It All Makes Sense Now

2009-03-24T01:50:00.007-04:00

Sit the Family down and have them watch this one...

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Here's a print version of the same...

And Another...

-Taylor

Where should I mail your check?

2009-03-18T14:20:00.006-04:00

I just got 'the call' from my title company that my check for the Larkfield Place deal will be ready at noon. Whew!

Just for reference, here's the time line...

Feb 18th - Seller calls my info-line at 8:56am and listens for 10mins, 55 sec and hangs up.

Feb 18th - 2pm I call to follow up on the call. He states that he's interested in what I've got going and would like to sell quickly and discretely. He liked my postcard and likes that he wouldn't need to do any of the fix up on his place. Set appointment for the following Tuesday 2/24. (I should have gotten up there sooner, but had sub teaching jobs to do and Tues was the soonest I could get there.)

Feb 24 11:30 - Met with seller. 3 hour appointment went great and I ended up with my lowest, all cash offer being acceptable to him. Planned to close within 30 days.
Feb 24 - Listed house on Craigslist, 11daysale.com, 11dayproperties.com. Cautious optimism...
Feb 25 - Called previous interested buyers' list from Stoney Creek auction back in November. Had 2 cash buyers interested. One of them told a friend about he place and he drove by. Also started escrow on the 25th.
Mar 4th - Signed assignment contract for $12,000 with investor who plans on flipping the property in 90 days so we can sell to an FHA buyer (seasoning of 90 days required.)
Mar 13th - Funding in and ready to close. Seller asked to postpone signing so he didn't have to sign on Friday the 13th. Signing set for Monday.
Mar 16th - Seller, buyer signed docs. Check from bank cashed. Closed and done.
Mar 18th - Check ready!

Let's see, how many days was that? 22 days right? Now, it's not like I haven't worked my butt off for that money, but it sure is sweet to get 5 figure paychecks... I love every one of them.

Best of all, I proved that
THIS CAN BE DONE IN CALIFORNIA!

IN THIS MARKET!
IN A COASTAL COUNTY!
IN LESS THAN A MONTH!

It's all about motivation and persistance. Seller motivation and investor persistance.

I'm hoping to surf this afternoon to celebrate. Ahhh...

Now on to the next one!
-Taylor

The Competition...

2009-03-11T14:08:00.003-04:00

In any market, it is important (vital) to understand who your competition is; nothing new, right?

There are 4 key groups in competition to sell homes in any market.

Builders - generally the first to respond to upswings or downturns in the market. If a builder pays close attention to the traffic through model homes and the number of new contracts, they will undoubtably have a jump on the competition. Builders are generally very motivated sellers because they have to make huge payments on their construction loans everymonth and unsold inventory is lost $$ every month. They can get crazy with promotions (cars, TV's, free upgrades, interior design consultations, free pool, etc...)
Foreclosures- In this market, FC's make up a smaller part of the pool of actual sales. With so many homes under water, a head's up seller headed to FC will most likely sell via Short-Sale which is technically a Bank-Owned property since it is the bank that negotiates with the new buyer. In past markets, FC's with equity were motivated to sell quickly so they could get cash, save their credit and get on with life. Now, a FC is just a Bank Owned property(REO) waiting to happen.
REO's - King Krusher of the real estate market right now. In CA, 48% of all real estate sales are REO's. Depending on where in CA we're talking about, banks are taking up to 90% discounts on houses right now. !90%! (check this blog out.) Banks tend to play hardball initially, but it is well known that when push comes to shove, meaning when regulators show up and tell them to sell underperforming assets, the bank will cave and take big discounts to get the inventory off the books.
Owners- Owner to owner sales are at an all-time low in CA right now. Less than 30% of all sales are owner to owner. Homeowners are looking back 2-3 years and calculating the current price as a loss, and anyone making offers is likely to be looking 2-3 years into the future when prices have a chance to level off. This creates a big gap in the List/asking price to Offer price that most homeowners won't/can't accept. "I'll just wait it out." is one of the most common phrases I hear right now.
Investors -Technically there is a 5th category of seller, the investor. Many investors look like homeowners when it comes to selling a property. Buy low and try like hell to sell high. A perfect example of the 'Greater Fool Theory.' Find a fool greater than yourself to buy it from you and you're all set. I've had much better success at buying low and selling medium. Leaving a little meat on the bone for the next guy is the best way for me to make money over the long haul.

Use this in your discussion with sellers. Competition is critical to any transaction and I don't think sellers are getting any of the 'straight dope' anywhere in the media.

Here's an article for you to use to illustrate the competition between FC's and Builders. Wall Street Journal, March 11, 2009.

Go get em!
-Taylor

Another Business Venture?

2009-03-04T11:36:00.002-05:00

When 11 Day Sale gets going strong I may start a business like this with one of my out of work contractor friends. It would be a good way to connect with REO agents and banks. Buy them, clean them out and re-sell. Or, just get paid to clean them out. Make money on both ends right?

Cheers,
Taylor

SOLD!

2009-03-03T13:14:00.004-05:00

SOLD!
Just got a call from my investor buyer a few minutes ago and he's ready to move on Larkfield Pl! It took a week to get a buyer. Not bad considering that I only had a buyers' list of about 10 people last week. (I'm up to 20+ now) And, this buyer wants to do one deal a month once we get this one sold for retail.

Do we Love it? Yes we do!

I have a nice 5 figure paycheck coming when we close next week (gotta love a quick cash sale...)

But that's not all!

He wants to use my 11 Day Sale to sell the property to a retail buyer once we get the property cleaned up a little! I'm going to do it for a flat fee of $8500 so that puts me near 20k on this one wholesale deal! Woo hoo!

Gotta run! I've got a free and clear seller that wants to meet with me to-day. He has called twice to make sure I'm coming. Motivated? I think so.

We're off & running!

Cheers,
Taylor

I love this baby.

2009-02-27T14:07:00.002-05:00

What do I think of the economy in 2008? blech...

Funny stuff. I hope you chuckle at this one.

Cheers,
Taylor

California Contract A First For 2009

2009-02-24T23:06:00.004-05:00

FINALLY!

Picked up my first contract in what seems like years! Whew! It's a great house in a great neighborhood in Paso Robles.
Here's the stats:
4BR,
3Bth,
1900 sq ft,
Built 1995.
It's a single story classic CA home... stucco with a tile roof.
Estimated retail is $420k and I picked it up below $300k. Not a bad deal right? We'll see how fast it gets snapped up in this market. The better the deal, the quicker it'll go... I should be able to pay a couple bills with this one.

It is in immaculate condition and I was able to pick it up at a pretty good price. Now it comes down to finding my buyer.

It's going up on my website tonight! www.11daysale.com. I've also started a blog at www.11dayproperties.com. Be sure to get on my mailing list to be notified of upcoming deals as the blog is updated.

Go team!-
Taylor

Check it out!
=Taylor

Back in the Wholesaling Game - CA

2009-02-23T19:12:00.004-05:00

I got a call last night from the only other real estate wholesaler I know in this area. He has stumbled upon a nice strategy for picking up REO(bank owned) properties. He has gotten in with the code enforcement office in one of the cities we work in and got leads for 4 bank-owned properties last week. Apparently, when there are code violations on a house, the banks will take even greater discounts because of the limited pool of buyers and the added expense of continual fines from the city.

He called me to see how I was coming along building my buyers' list and to see if I was interested in finding a buyers for these properties. Yep, I'm interested.

This guy has access to millions of hard-money through some he's part of. He is also a licensed contractor. So he makes offers to the bank with his lic'd contractor estimate of repairs and copies of the city ordinance violations and estimated compliance costs and plans on having his agent friend make repeated offers to the banks and over time wear them down to the price-range where they will cash flow. Cash flow properties in California... Who would have thought we'd ever see that!?

Our plan is for him to get these under contract and put together an estimate of repairs (he is a licensed contractor.) I will have a chance to wholesale them on my websites and send out to my buyers list.

It could be a great thing for me to get back on the wholesaling train again. One thing that wholesale deals do is keep you motivated and moving forward quickly every day. It's like the slot machine approach to real estate investing. Lots of wins, lots of clanging and flashing lights (in a manner of speaking,) but smaller payoffs, and not much wealth building.

At this point though, it's all about the cash flow. I need to keep the machine going if we hope to do any of that wealth-building stuff.

Keep your fingers crossed!
-Taylor

Fine Tuning Your Conversations- Intro to Core Influence

2009-02-22T16:14:00.005-05:00

It is interesting how information comes to you when you are ready for it.

Earlier this week I registered for a free call with Gary Boomershine over at Sales Team Live. He puts on a free monthly call and Feb's call was on talking with sellers. (Link to call here.) I wasn't expecting anything groundbreaking and actually just logged into the call intending to listen for a few minutes before breaking for dinner with the family.

It was some pretty philosophical stuff and I'm sure some of the call-in attendees missed the potential in the content, but it hit me right between the eyes. I tracked down more of the info from one of the authors he mentioned on the call (Frank Kern, internet marketing genius) about the core influence methods.

In sales, we all operate at two levels of influence.

Our Shell Influence: scripting, sales/work procerdure.
And our Core Influence: Frank’s explanation for how to truly connect with your constituents - your customers and potential customers. It’s about understanding their needs and wants and the emotions driving their decision making process. You must be congruent with your motivation for doing something - for selling something to your customers - in order to truly connect with them. Once you get congruency of purpose and you know what you want, then you can find the type of customer and determine the type of relationship you want to have with them.

I spent a lot of time at the Roop Doran bootcamp tracking down successful real estate investors and getting them to open up about how they talk with sellers, how they get past some of the hurdles I have been dealing with in my business. There was a consistent pattern that each would go through.

Struggle on their own for a while, then create a basic script for talking to sellers.
Most found their way to a sales mastery type of script that they memorized.
Next was a stage where they got comfortable enough with the script where it actually became part of them and their personality was able to come through in client meetings. This is the level where your core influence can come through. It is here where your ability to create transactions can meet up with sellers' needs.
The next step is getting better and better at helping sellers determine what their true needs are and creating solutions that get them away from their pain/problem and into the pleasure of what they want to go to next.

It caught me by surprise since I wasn't expecting much more than a few scripts or ideas I could use to improve my phone and in person discussions with sellers. What I got was a conceptual shift in how I need to approach client meetings.

More on Frank's info in the next post.

Lots of good stuff coming up this week.

-Taylor

Heaven Help Our Future...

2009-02-17T23:40:00.002-05:00

Transparency? What?

Let the people decide? Who?

You're all fired.

What a waste of current and future dollars. Trillions taken from our future economy to bail out our bloated auto industry, banks and any other industry or tycoon with their hand out. Makes me SICK.

Screw you guys, I'm going home.

Cal Poly Student Housing - SLO Hood?

2009-02-11T23:35:00.004-05:00

San Luis Obispo and Hood don't normally go together. Actually, the closest thing you'll see in SLO to a 'hood' is college housing.

I got a call from an Asian gentleman this morning in the SF Bay Area about the house he bought when his son started college 8 years ago. Now that he has graduated, dad wants the kid to cut the freeloading and move out already... Dad says to "drive by the house and send me what your offer would be. I'll think about it."

Check out the house.

Here's the numbers.
Zillow says $553-590k
Cyberhomes: $495k
Realquest: $584k

The house needs:
Exterior paint
Roof update
Upstairs balcony repaired (hammered. dry rot, leaning to the ground.)
New windows throughout
Interior paint (guessing here, but with college students in there for 8 years?... plan on it.)
Interior flooring - carpet likely to need replacing.
Ceiling scraped (likely cottage cheese ceiling.)
Bathrooms redone (again, with the college students & 8 yrs...)

My likely offer is going to be in the $408 range for an 11 Day Sale auction and would be even lower for a wholesale deal. Since he owes $400k, I'm not likely to get my wholesale offer accepted, but I'll throw it out there just in case he wants to bring $$ to closing.

Walking distance to Cal Poly and a retail value just a hair under $600k. Unreal.

Some Interesting Opinions

2009-01-31T12:51:00.002-05:00

A California Deal? The Columbia Lady

2009-01-28T11:32:00.005-05:00

I've been mailing to probates, out of town owners (mostly landlords,) and free and clear property owners here in California since Oct 2008. I've had hundreds calls to my info line, had hundreds of conversations on the phone and had 30 meetings with sellers over the last 4 months.

Columbia Lady
One of these is a nice little lady who is 79, living in Orcutt, CA. She has her heart set on a specific price that is actually a little above market value right now.
When I met with her in November, we worked out a plan for me to buy her house on terms, that is, make payments to her over time, that would allow me to pay her the price she wanted for the house. I didn't get her to sign that day because she had to wait and talk to her brother in Columbia. She is moving to Columbia to be with her brother and his daughters so they can take care of her as she gets older. She also wants to die in her home-land. Our initial meeting was on a Wednesday & we agreed to meet up on Monday at her house to sign the papers and get started.

The Friend.
Over the weekend she was able to talk to her brother, but also a couple of friends, people from church and a realtor who told her that she couldn't sell her house like that and they were sure it was a rip-off. When I showed up Monday she had a friend come to the door to basically run interference for her. The deal was on hold.

International Politics.
I called mid December and she still wanted to sell me the house, but the political situation in Columbia was not good and her brother said to wait. She also mentioned that since deciding to sell her house and move away, people from church and the neighborhood were coming around all the time. She never knew she had so many friends!

I called mid January and she was planning on waiting until later in the year...

Houston, We are Go...
Then, out of the blue she called last Wednesday when I was in Orlando at the RoopDoran high equity training seminar and said that she was ready to sell me the house! Great!
The price was good, terms were good and she was ready to move to Columbia. We set a meeting for Tuesday (yesterday,) to meet. Another weekend in between...

Return of The Friend.
She talked to the 'friend' again and when I called yesterday she wanted to wait and meet on Thursday and maybe this 'friend' could come to the meeting too... Sure, I thought, anything to get this deal moving forward again...

So, tomorrow is the day for the next follow up. I doubt the friend will sit down and talk with us anyway. I'm just going to remind her that the plan we put together fixes her problem and let her decide when she wants to move forward. I've already burned up a lot of time on this deal anyway.

What have I learned, you ask? Good question.

Get them to sign. Even getting an option at full retail would be better than getting nothing signed at all. Get it signed and amend it later.
Tap into the emotions, the non-financial reason for wanting to sell. The only reason I am still talking to her is that she knows I understand her problem and she knows I can fix it. Otherwise, she wouldn't be calling.
Be active enough that each single deal isn't the make-or-break deal. I did this in VA too. I'd get a deal in the hopper and burn it up with laser focus. All my energy and attention was on that deal. Anything to move it forward. Like a kid with a magnifying glass, burning ants on the sidewalk. Ease up a little there Tiger... Remember the 40 other deals on your desk? Work them all and see which one bubbles to the top tomorrow...

More deals this week, but pray for this one anyway. Columbia Lady needs me to fix this problem for her. And I could use the money.

Cheers!
Taylor

Looking Back a Little

2009-01-22T08:30:00.004-05:00

The Dec 08 CA notice of default report was just released and it made me really mad about the banks that got us into this spot to begin with. If you listen to the media a lot, you might notice that the banks are trying to push the responsibility of this downturn on Fannie/Freddie/congress etc...

As I sat fuming I thought of a youtube video that I saw last year from Mr Mortgage. You might want to check this out. 100%LTV loans, stated income, stated employment with a 680 credit score. Lehman deserved to fold. Rediculously irresponsible programs that got worse/more aggressive each year. Watch the video. It's just rediculous. The Video was recorded in April 08. We're up to 320 lenders that have imploded at this point. Chase Prime being number 315 (I used to have a mortgage with Chase...) check out www.ml-implode.com to see the list of imploded lenders.

Good n Bad

2009-01-12T23:00:00.003-05:00

Good news! After a year of reminding people about my website being www.11daysale.net (I'd say .net twice), my dream of commandeering the 11daysale.com domain came to fruition!

Yay! www.11daysale.com is now mine! It was previously occupied by a realtor in Texas who abandoned the domain on 1/1/09. A friend of mine emailed me today and I was able to get my web providor to lock it up and it links to my existing website. YAY!

Bad news? We're still, no, STILL waiting for financing and seller sign-off on the offer we rec'd on 500 B St in Chesapeake, VA. Holy crap! This is taking For-Ev-er... We picked up this option back in October, got an offer for 140k and it fell out of contract when the buyer started making demands for seller concessions... (what part of As-Is sale is hard to understand?) So, after two weeks of breathing easy, thinking it was going to close, we were back into heavy marketing mode.

The entire banking industry collapsed.

We held an open house. Nada.

Dec 13th we held an impromptu 11 Day Sale and got 3 bids. 100k, 98k and 90k. Holy Schmoly. What a difference 6 weeks makes!

Turns out the buyer should have considered those concessions a little harder.

So, we're waiting for the 100,000 dollar man to come up with financing and trying to re-negotiate our option with the seller to create enough room to get paid so we can move on to the next deal.

There will be a next deal. Soon.

Bank execs need your help...

2009-01-11T20:50:00.002-05:00

Thanks Kirk! Hilarious clip.

What I've been up to for the last week.

2009-01-07T19:53:00.003-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/11daysale

I don't sleep much these days, so I have lots of time on my hands. I decided to make a couple of videos to help my staff & future staff do the work that I am now doing.

Use the web- It's easy & free.

Let me know what you think.

-Taylor

New year, new month, etc...

2009-01-05T02:34:00.003-05:00

It's goal season. End of a year, all that stuff. I'm pretty well on a track with my goal review from October so I haven't done much in the way of resolutions.

I do need to eat better and continue with my exercise plan this year.

I did make a review of my results from December. I am a big fan of charts and graphs so in Oct, when I realized that I had no idea how many calls were coming in, # of calls out, # of appointments etc, I decided to build myself a real sweet chart to collect all my data.

So...
DECEMBER 2008 DATA

I sent out 2800 mailers in Dec,
got 185 inbound calls to my real estate info line.
I made 107 outbound follow up calls
and was able to contact 67 sellers.
Scheduled 17 appointments
and went on 10.
Made 11 offers.
Ended up with 0 contracts
and made $0 for the month.

I do have a short-sale in the works and 2 offers on a property in VA that we have on option contract, so Jan could be a money month if all goes well.

I had LOTS of people push everything off until after the holidays, so my stack of follow up files is huge. I probably have 60 follow up calls to make this week. Busy, busy...

It was a year ago that I got laid off for hunting for another job and started this whole real estate venture in a real way. It was a heck of a year and I honestly hoped for better, but things being what they are, I feel fortunate to have the 2 part time jobs I've got and this little business to keep me going every day.

Here's to a more lucrative & less hair-raising 2009!

Cheers,
Taylor

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T13:06:00.001-05:00

Look Mom! I'm famous!

2008-12-18T13:45:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure if I have posted my experiences/frustrations of trying to do my own mailings back in the beginning of my real estate investment venture.

Suffice it to say that I have learned from my mistakes and realized that I needed someone to handle the mail "in spite of me."

Since Feb of this year I have used Sales Team Live to do all my postcard mailing. They are great and I just love that they take care of all the stuff that I don't have time to do. I have become friends with some of the staff over there and my friend Ken asked to do an interview with me on the last deal I closed.

So here it is. This went out to all the sales team live members and their potential customers. I think it makes me sound bigger/better than I really am, but... I know I'll grow into my role as one of "their best clients."

http://www.salesteamlive.com/dealclub/

Nice to get noticed. Better to get paid.

Here's to getting more 5 figure paychecks in 2009!

Happy Holidays,
Taylor

My Latest Auction

2008-11-14T17:18:00.006-05:00

As you may remember, I held an auction/open bid sale the weekend of Nov 8-9.
On one hand, the auction process was super successful.

2100 mailers to surrounding .5 mile radius generated a lot of calls to the toll-free 11 Day Sale Real Estate Hotline. Many visitors mentioned the cards.
90 Auction signs posted in 1mi radius. Amazing pull.
Over 130 groups (most groups were 2 or more) attended on both days. Huge turnout.
9 bidders willing to put their info on a bid card & participate in the auction.

Like I said, the PROCESS worked like a charm to get people there. This is why I favor these type of sales to sell properties.

Unfortunately, I missed the market by about $100k! My best estimate (comps, sold's, property condition etc.) was that the property had a retail value of 460k+. I bought it at $387k on an option contract & moved forward with finding an end buyer.

Bids:

$225k
$250k
$275k
$300k
$300k
$325k (eventually moved up to $350k)
Skipped first round; Joined at $350k in round 2, but wouldn't budge upwards...
Backed out once he heard the $300k+ bids (but asked me to call him with a cherry deal next time...)
All cash buyer. Wanted $.50 on the dollar (150k?) Hot REO investor.

Highest bids were $350 & $350. bummer. Taylor makes $0.00. Referred the deal to my realtor and she might make something out of the short-sale as the property is leveraged at $380k.

AND, to add insult to injury, the dirt in Paso Robles is like CEMENT! Holy Crap! I had to use a piece of 3/8" rebar and a 3lb engineers' hammer to make holes for my signs. I think I pounded 140+ holes in the ground getting them all posted. (Having the holes already there made for easy replacement though...)

Education. Expensive, but priceless.

Lessons learned?:

Know thy market. It is lower than thou thinkest...
Buyeth Bettereth.
Auction process works exceptionally well in this market. (assuming 1 & 2 are met)
Ingenuity and persistance are key to success in real estate investing.
God bless the option contract. I am greatful that the seller had no way to force me to buy this house at $387k. Option to purchase for 30 days... $11 dollar consideration. What a great way to control property.

Hitler as McMansion Homeowner...

2008-11-12T18:03:00.003-05:00

I love the use of creative subtitles...

Super Legit Advice

2008-11-06T23:46:00.003-05:00

I LOVE Mr Mortgage. Check out his blog. http://mrmortgage.ml-implode.com/

Check out this youtube video. He talks fast, but has been 'on the money' for the last 10 months that I've been watching these video blogs.

Go, watch, Learn.

Photos from my day...

2008-10-31T19:05:00.005-04:00

I took some time this afternoon to leave my luxurious office and take some pictures. Here's a house I went to see. The seller thinks it's worth $370k. The neighbor's place has recently been reduced to $249k. Time for a reality check.

One of the tools I use in my discussions with sellers is the # of foreclosures in the area. (55% of all sales in CA are FC/Bank Owned. At this point FC's are the market.)

Here is a jpg of the foreclosures around the house above.

Interesting note on how I use this info...

I have always checked www.Realquest.com to get an idea of the foreclosure activity around a property (Free!). In the past I had to just make a note in the file as to the number of Auctions, Bank Owned and PreForeclosure properties around the property and would mention the numbers when talking to sellers.

Useful, but not particularly Powerful. Realquest doesn't allow anyone to print this graphic from their site without paying for a full report (which contains public info anyway...)

I'm not a guy that likes to pay for info that is free. However, I did want to use the power of the graphic to impress the severity of the competition in the neighborhood from FC's. Step-by-step instructions below.

Step 1 Push the [print screen] or [Prt Sc] button on your keyboard to copy the current screenview.
Next, Open paint (Windows/All Programs/Accessories/Paint).
Right click/Paste or if you're a keyboard user like me, ctrl-V
Use the Select (outline/rectangle) tool to highlight the portion of the screen you want to use.
Right click/Cut or ctrl-X to cut the image.
Click File/new (don't save) to create a new paint project.
Paste the newly edited image onto the project. Right click/paste or ctrl-v.
Print/save the resulting image and use to your advantage.
Wasn't that easy? Use it to create .jpg images of any screen you want to. Excellent skill to know.

Here is a tricked out ride I saw around the corner. Seriously, a lifted, 4x4 Nova. Nice to see some redneck style 'hood life' here in sunny CA!

Keep your hook in the water...

2008-10-24T12:00:00.005-04:00

They say that to catch a fish you've got to have your hook in the water. Well, my hook is out there, but at times I feel like this guy. (see photo @ left.)

Last week I got to the point where I just got fed up with trying to figure out this market and started meeting with sellers. I remember having the same turning point when I was in VA. Just woke up one day and said, "Self, enough analysis. Time to get out and see some people." And things just took off from there. In hopes of improving my closing ratio, I have put together a nice little flip chart presentation (MBA guy can't resist some good charts & graphs:) and wanted to try it out.

I scheduled myself for two appointments back to back. One at 9am, one at 11am. My presentation went great both times and I got an option contract at the first house (details below,) and a commitment from the seller at the next house (no contract though, the place is hammered and she won't be able to sell it until it is fixed up.) My appointments actually ran about 2-2 1/2 hrs each, but by the time I was done with them, the sellers had an education of the market and a gameplan for what they could do 'by selling to me, listing with an agent or selling on their own...' It went better than I had hoped.

Stoney Creek Rd, Paso Robles
This 2400 sq ft house was bought by a bay area (Palo Alto) couple as a second home/investment back in 2005. They watched the price go up, up, up... and now come back down. It has been on the market for the last 6 mo's at $489k. I picked it up at about 100k less than that and will be holding an 11 Day Sale the weekend of Nov 8 & 9th. I've got a partnership with a local mortgage broker who will be there at the open house on both days to get people pre-qualified.

I've got another appointment Saturday morning and should have more next week. We're moving forward now!
-Taylor

Sold, and sold.

2008-10-20T18:43:00.005-04:00

Adobe Ct, VB
The auction in VB (see prior post,) for Adobe Ct. went well. We got a buyer under contract and made the margin that we needed to, so everyone is happy. We're waiting on the appraisal, but inspections have been done and the buyer is FHA approved so it looks like we'll be able to get funding and take it to closing in about 10 more days. Whew!

Jeanne St, VB
Jeanne St FINALLY closed as well. I originally got this property under contract back in MAY 2008! It was a probate property and I started working with the heirs back in Oct 07. It took them months to all decide on a.)Whether or not to sell the house at all, b.) Upon deciding to sell, they bickered about the price to sell, c.) One of the heirs got thrown in jail so they waited until he got out 2 months later to sign the contract.

Once under contract we had title issues, leins and judgments for each of the heirs. One of the heirs had just been released from bankruptcy so we had a couple issues to deal with there as well. As time wound along, another of the heirs STARTED bankruptcy, so her portion of the estate got wrapped up and we couldn't move forward with the closing until the judge had time to review the case. Aarrrgh! So, 6months after signing the contract with the heirs, I finally saw some $$ come my way. At least it's done.

Virginia Beach Keeps Rockin!

2008-09-25T12:11:00.010-04:00

HOT AUCTION THIS WEEKEND!!
http://www.postlets.com/res/1207279

Click the link above to check out the the latest '11 Day Sale' open bid sale coming up this weekend. Unfortunately there's a tropical storm rolling over the top of VA Beach today and tomorrow. In fact, I watched the poor guy from weather channel take a beating from the wind & rain while broadcasting live from the pier in VB while I ate breakfast this morning.

At least visitors to the auction will get an idea of how the yard drains water and whether or not the roof leaks!

We've got some blurry photos of the property on www.11daysale.net as well.

Working the VA Pipeline
With my acquisitions manager following up on the leads generated earlier in the year, we are starting to stack up some purchases. Between the two of us we have been able to negotiate:

one successful quick wholesale deal on a condo in Chesapeake,
get a recently rehabbed property (no repairs necessary!) under contract
Made a follow up call to one of our previous auction success stories in Portsmouth and got a commitment to hold an 11 Day Sale in October.

Filling the CA Pipeline

One of the challenges of starting from scratch here in CA is building a pipeline of sellers and a list of potential buyers. I am mailing about 2,000 postcards a month and am getting about a 3% response rate so far. I am filling the pipeline with people who are in various states of motivation as far as selling their homes. I have talked to 3 investors that own multiple properties in the area.

One owns 30 propts and he wants to sell 6 of them in the next year.
Another has 17 properties and is a lot more motivated to sell by the end of the year.
The third owns two 4-plexes and a single family dwelling (currently in litigation) that I will continue following up with until he "buys or dies"

I also had a conversation with the owner of a free & clear property in Pismo Beach last night that I am going to make an offer on early next week. Funny thing about this guy is he is a Former Insurance Client of mine! Small world. Hopefully he likes me enough to go for my no interest, no payments offer on his place...

Thanks for stopping by!
-Taylor

Maybe it's not that bad after all...

2008-09-18T22:39:00.007-04:00

I'm generally not a real political guy. I tend to vote with my wallet... ergo Republican.

I do enjoy it when candidates, pundits & talking heads get their facts wrong & get called on it.

Back to Real Estate this weekend. Lots happening.

Back on my feet & riding...

2008-08-14T08:46:00.004-04:00

As you may or not know, I started this little real estate venture as a response to being laid off from my corporate job in the insurance business. I happened to be in Virginia Beach at the time, so as a result, my real estate business was in & around the VA Beach/Tidewater area.

As months went by with no steady source of income, my lovely bride & I decided to put our awesome home (see it at 2904wilcox.blogspot.com) up for sale and keep working the Glass Doctor by day and 11 Day Sale real estate in the afternoon & evenings.

Since our house sold so quickly, (we had an offer in 4 weeks...) we had to make the decision to either stay in VA & rent, or find a job/place to live back in CA where we were both originally from.

It was a tough decision, but we decided to go back to CA.

And now we're here. We are here on the Central Coast of CA in San Luis Obispo County. We happen to be living with family for the near term, but are excited about the next step for our growing business.

You are probably saying to yourself, Taylor, what about your VB operations? Why would you leave something that was just getting going? Why work so hard to just leave it all behind?

Good questions my young reader. Let me fill you in on our growth strategy...

11 Day Sale in VA will continue. I have hired an Acquisitions Manager to continue to buy/sell homes using my contacts in VA Beach. She is fantastic and we just wrapped up her first closing on an 11 Day auction she did while I was in Hawaii last month. A nice little bit of bling to fund our operations on both coasts...

We're also looking at picking up another researcher/11 Day Sale contract employee in Harrisonburg VA. We'll see how it comes along, but things are coming along well with her training and she should be ready to hold her first auction/bid sale by mid September.

11 Day Sale in CA is just picking up speed! I have been fortunate enough to pick up a few night shifts a week at Giuseppe's Restaurant in Pismo Beach, and also have a gig with Advanced Teeth Whitening Systems, selling teeth whitening systems (light machines & supplies) to local Day-spas & up-scale salons. It looks to be a good money maker and the income should take any hint of desperation out of my real estate discussions with sellers. (never be the motivated buyer... ever...)

I have sent out 67 probate mailers to SLO county and as of yesterday have 7 responses so far. I have another set to mail out this weekend for North Santa Barbara County and will keep tabs on responses here in the blog.

Thanks for keeping up with us! Check 11daysale.net to see some of the hot investment properties my manager has stirred up in VA!

Cheers!
Taylor

I'm out there...

2008-07-16T17:18:00.006-04:00

Beautiful sunrise today.

Gotta love this place.

Only problem is I'm on the North Shore in summer. Waves are hard to come by....

I just got a link to an interview that Dustin Matthews & I did about a week ago. I used his business credit infusion program and was able to get a solid amount of credit for my operations.

The interview is at http://businesscreditinfusion.com/blog/?p=25

I'm working on a referral link for the program, but if anyone viewing my blog buys the program, let them know I sent you & I'll get the credit.

-Taylor

ps. Geckos outside the house this morning.

Aloha

2008-07-15T02:21:00.005-04:00

I am away from real estate for a week. I am in Leia on Oahu for a much needed trip away from it all.

I am a surfer so my first trip was to Sunset Beach yesterday. The waves were tiny, but it was great to be there and see the beach were the best in the world ride every year.

We visited Wiamea Beach today. I did one of the things I've always dreamed about doing when I swam with and got a quick tow from a seaturtle. It was truly an amazing (dare I say spiritual) experience for me.

I faced my fear of heights and I jumped off a 15ft rock into the ocean. Twice!

Surfed outer reef waves yesterday and actually caught a couple of shoulder high thumpers.

And still had time to talk a pending deal through some stumbling blocks and helped everyone get to the signing table (thanks to my acquisitions manager!)

Pearl Harbor tomorrow. It's pouring rain right now and I have nothing but time to relax with the family.

More real estate news next week...

-Taylor
(cliff jumping video of me & my brother in law. I'm the second jumper...)

Education Disguised as Failure

2008-06-24T18:52:00.007-04:00

Recently I've been selling (attempting to sell) some of these properties using auctions (technically open-bid sales...). The most recent 2 auctions didn't go as well as I had hoped.

The first was an auction in Portsmouth which was a new area for me, but just over the tracks from Chesapeake, so I felt that I was familiar enough with the area to get the sale made. This was just days after my first 5 figure paycheck sale so I was feeling like I could do no wrong.

Wrong.

After review, I have come to the following conclusions about my errors.

Bought it too high. I buy these pretty properties on option to purchase contracts so there is very little risk to me financially other than the $10 that I put up for the option fee (should i put down $11 since my company is 11 Dal Sale? T thinks so...) and anything i put into $marketing$ the property. Because of the low risk, I have felt able to offer more for the property. WRONG. I can offer up to .80 on the dollar (most investor offers are .65 or lower), but on this one I was at .90!...
Not enough time to market the property. I generally spend about $600 on mailers to the neighborhood. My biggest paycheck to date came from one of my $1000 postcards and this auction was on short notice. This ties back to the notion that the auction strategy for selling a house creates such a buzz that signs alone can generate enough interest to sell the property. Wrong again. The combination of mail, signs and buyers' list creates the volume of lookers to find a buyer.
Not getting the full story from the seller. I am eager. I want to make money. But at the same time I am also in this business to help people. I genuinely feel like I have something of a calling to use this information and skill in real estate to help people out of their financial troubles. I can't help them if I allow them to skirt the truth by taking their patty-cake answers and not asking the tough questions.

I came to this final realization this afternoon when, a month after the auction (failure?), the seller called to say that he was in default on his loan and needed me to come back and do another auction. This time he would take anything above the loan amount of $120k.

It turned out that he was already a month behind on pmts when we talked in May. I JUST DIDN'T ASK THE QUESTION! Now he's in a bad way and is reaching out to me to help. I'm going to do what I can, but with my own relocation on the near horizon, there's only so much I can do...

In one of our phone conversations, Dan Doran told me something that really struck home. He told me to get really good at getting to the heart of the matter with sellers. Get past the monetary reason for selling their home and find the real reason for them to sell in a real estate market like this. "If you don't" he said, "you'll never really to much good for anyone. If you don't dig deep enough you won't have the conviction to really help them, and will just end up wasting their time."

I thought I understood this when he said it. I thought it rang true with me. It still rings true, but I understand the deeper meaning after my conversation with Mr. Seller in Portsmouth. See, if I had asked the hard questions back then and gotten the house sold back in May, he wouldn't be in the bind he's in right now. I could have helped him and not just tried my best but come up short.

I guess you could say I feel educated. But at the seller's expense.

Jerry Maguire: I am out here for you. You don't know what it's like to be ME out here for YOU. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, ok?

Just Help me help you.

Help me,
Help You.

Finally. Money in the Bank...

2008-06-09T22:27:00.007-04:00

I knew that it would eventually come together. I just never expected this deal to be the one to crack the shell & let me out.

If you checked my last post about Postlets, you likely clicked on my ad for E. Indian River Rd. I heard about that deal from a friend of mine that is a mortgage broker. The timeline is amazingly short and truly what I originally expected wholesale real estate to be like.

Tuesday May 27, got call from my buddy the mortgage guy about a deal that he wanted me to wholesale for him. 2. Went out to property. Took pic's of the outside. Returned to my office (ie. Guest room) and comped the property. It looked like a decent deal, but without interior photos I knew I'd have no chance to get it sold.
Wednesday, May 28, Returned to property, talked to seller, got interior photos, banged head on low hanging light in living room and thought to self, "That hurt! I'd better get paid for this one!" Returned to office (Guest room) and put together Postlet, craigslist ad, flyer for REIA and flyer for buyers' list. Emailed everyone. Slept.
Thursday, May 29, got calls/emails from interested buyers. Craigslist brought 3, REIA brought 1. Sent them all out to the property.
Friday, May 30, sent more buyers to property. Repeat visits from REIA guy and a Craigslist guy.
Sunday, June 1, REIA guy wants to make offer. Sent him to my mortgage buddy.
Monday, June 2..... crickets...
Tuesday, June 3... still quiet... (by the end of the day I just knew that the deal was dead.)
Wednesday, June 4 - the deal is on, closing tomorrow! (at this point I had no idea what I was making, just that I would get paid out at closing.)
Thursday, June 5 THE DEAL ACTUALLY CLOSED! Get check tomorrow!
Friday, June 6 - Picked up first real estate check!! I went to kinko's & color copied the thing and then immediately went to the bank to deposit in my account.

WOOO HOOO!!!!!

It took 11 days to go from lead to check. Stunning since I have been working on:

Galt St since February (signed contract on April 7th! and still haven't closed!!),
Jeanne St since October 07, (signed contract on April 12, supposed to close any day now,)
Norlina Rd since Sept 07, (signed contract with seller March 27th, sold it May 5th, fell out of escrow June 1st, now a dead deal...)

I had come to expect months of waiting for title to clear, buyers to qualify for financing, delays with signatures and working around holidays & mortgage officers' days off...

I guess I'm a real wholesaler now. Quick, easy money right?

Fun, but not easy. Keep rockin! More deals supposed to close this week...

-Taylor

Killer Resource...

2008-05-29T09:34:00.007-04:00

If you post on Craigslist like I do you'll appreciate this hookup...

Postlets.com is a fantastic service that will build a beautifully formatted page for you to cut/paste into your craigslist post. I use it for real estate, but you can use it for posting rental real estate and vehicles as well.

Turn your crappy, generic posts like this poor guy... click here or this poor dude... click here
To one like the recent wholesale property I just posted... click here

Go to Postlets.com and create an account.
Create a postlet (very similar to creating a craigslist ad or ebay listing...)
Once finished, save the postlet and then click edit to return to the listing details. On the bottom of the page is a button that says COPY/PASTE HTML. Click it.
Copy highlighted html in the details box. (right-click/copy)
Click post to craigslist (right below the box)
Login to your craigslist account and create a new posting.
Create your headline and initial pricing/location info.
Paste your html from postlets in the listing details. If you linked photos to postlets you won't need to relist them in craigslist (whew!)
Finish your listing and sit back and look at the beauty that you've added to the internet shopping experience.

Now go post that thing you've been meaning to sell for the last couple of weeks.

-Taylor

Another Successful Auction... Eventually

2008-05-19T21:21:00.004-04:00

Charlemagne Drive Condo Sold! (Link here to photos.)

I spent all weekend looking at this view of the Chesapeake Bay. The air temps were 75 degrees, and there were beautiful people all around and potential buyers by the droves coming through my open house. I am pretty well hooked on this lifestyle of real estate investor. I had a great time and ended up with a solid potential paycheck.

Here's some of the stats.

Total visitors: 150+ ( I started counting 'buyers' groups' instead of individuals after the first hour on Saturday since there were just too many coming and going. 52 total groups.)
Signs posted in 1 mile radius on major roads and inside complex: 48
Signs retrieved on Sunday night (in the pouring rain...): 23
Lost/unretrieved signs: 25
Complaints/phone calls from local neighborhood residents for ugly yellow auction signs: 1
Batches of chocolate chip cookies baked for visitors: 4
# of bidders on list: 6

RESULTS: Final bidder ended up backing out on Monday morning. Bummer.
RESULTS PART II: I immediately got on the phone and got 3 bidders at a price $25k below the minimum bid. Bummer. However, since I was able to approach the seller with 3 bona fide offers and even though they were below the option price we had originally agreed upon, he was willing to lower his price enough for me to make my target margin on the deal!

Lessons learned:

Condos are more challenging to comp during market downturns. I was waaay off in my estimate of how much the market was willing to pay for this unit. Even with the private garden area, private beach path gate and extra parking, the end price was $10k below what I had originally contracted for and $40k below what I thought it might sell for...
Condos have a limited buying base compared to traditional residential/single family houses. Lots of lookers, few buyers. I had 30 visitors to sell Norlina, 150 visitors to sell this condo.
Condo association rules about sales of real estate and signage tend to be much more strict than traditional neighborhoods. This can/will put a severe damper on your marketing strategy if you are relying on signs alone. I lost a large number of signs to people in the complex and the surrounding neighborhood. No city fines though...whew!

Lucky for me I have a multiple pronged marketing strategy using signs, the newspaper (zero responses), and the AWESOME $1,000 dollar post card. (see previous post for picture of card.)

In the end it was a successful open house, a successful negotiation with buyers and a successful re-negotiation with my seller. We're hoping to close by the end of the month.

Let's hear it for 5-figure paychecks!!!

Hip-hip HOORAY!!
-TAYLOR

SOLD!

2008-05-07T21:44:00.003-04:00

I ended up with 2 potential buyers for Norlina.

I had 14 visitors on Saturday, 6 on Sunday.

At the end of the day Sunday I had two bidders on the sheet and my mystery lady from Richmond with a phone-in bid that was well below the other two. Thanks Richmond lady! You got the other two moving upwards!!!

The other two bidders were both interested and bid each other up about a grand and stopped. (I was managing this process by phoning each one in turn with the increasing bids.) It turned out to be a race for financing as both needed to get to their bankers for the $$$.

So, by end of day Monday, my highest bidder secured his financing and had begun the underwriting process with his bank. I picked up the signed docs from his banker today and took all the contract paperwork with deposit check to the closing attorney's office to start escrow.

Expecting 30day escrow. Cross your fingers that the bank likes this guy's financials!

Next week... Mother's Day
Following Week... Charlemagne Condo Auction. Stay tuned!

Deal Update

2008-05-03T20:30:00.010-04:00

The Auction is on!

My first open house/open bid auction started today and I actually had visitors! I think that 14 people walked through the house and 2 said they planned on returning tomorrow to make a bid. It's not to say that things have gone off without a hitch...

My initial plan was to list the property/auction on a Fee Only MLS listing for $400 to get the real estate agent traffic driven to my auction. Unfortunately, since I only have a contract on the property, my normal fee-only guy wouldn't list it for me. I had to be the owner of record/titleholder to be able t0 list with him... Bummer. By the time I had learned this (I turned in a completed packet with photos/etc and got the news direct from the broker a day later,) it was too late to be able to find a new fee listing service... double bummer... Since I was shooting for a retail buyer & 90% of all retail sales involve an agent and the MLS; you'll understand my state of mind about not getting onto the MLS.

I filled out/paid for a weekend 'open house' listing in the local paper with a photo & 12 lines of text. Was supposed to run Friday, Saturday & Sunday... I got a call Friday afternoon that there was a mixup with their online posting and she was calling to confirm that I wanted to be in the open house section on Sunday May4th and the weekend of May 9,10 & 11. What? I scheduled to be in the paper May 2, 3 & 4 and nothing about any other weekend. Major screw-up. AND, in a grand gesture of customer service and goodwill, she said she'd cancel the extra weekend at no charge. Oh, and Mr Taylor? Would you like to stay in the paper for Sunday May4th? YES!!!!
I was successful in getting my online USPS postcard to get mailed to every business & resident address within a 1 mile radius. (How to get such a list? That is a post unto itself...) See pict of my $1000 reward postcard. I had at least 3 visitors today that had seen the card & one intended on giving it to her friend on Sunday.

Signs. I ordered 50 Yellow Auction notice signs. I originally intended on using 25 this weekend and 25 for my next auction in a couple weeks, but decided to put out about 35 instead. Good thing too, because the other 11 people who came by the auction today all said that they followed the signs to get to the house... One even said that I did a good job with all the signs. "I couldn't miss them if I wanted to...", he said.

So, Sunday is the actual 'Auction' or open bid part of the open house weekend. It will be in the paper and I expect to see more traffic due to the exposure. I am going to make up another 8 signs to replace those that will be stolen/lost tonight. (I did get a kick out of posting about 3 signs in front of a Long & Foster Realty training center. It was at a major intersection and I couldn't miss the exposure, but I did get a little chuckle at the irony that there was likely a room with eager new real estate agents learning about how to list & sell a property when at that very moment I was out front posting "Auction Today!" signs...)

Irony. Good to the last drop.

Deal Update

2008-04-21T20:49:00.006-04:00

More hood than hood is coming along slowly. There are a couple of judgments against 2 of the heirs and it should be a couple more days to get them ironed out. I am getting all kinds of calls in response to my Craigslist ad and I think one of the guys is working on financing. Cross your fingers... One of the judgments is over $15,000 and could ruin the deal if it hasn't been taken care of already. The heir in question promised me that he took care of paying off the debt a long time ago... We'll see.

BEFORE

Norlina is really coming along. My 11yr old & I tore up carpets and took down the old school aluminum shades from the front of the house. Check out the photos! It is really looking good. I need a couple of hours to get the carpet tack-strips off of the floor and sweep/swiffer the floor and I'll be ready for the "after" photos inside & out. Then comes the open house weekend & auction and ka-ching! $$ payday.
AFTER

One more

2008-04-14T22:34:00.005-04:00

I got a call earlier tonight from the executor of an estate that I've been working with since October of 07. I mentioned her in a post a few days ago. We went over the contract/offer and she signed while on the phone with me and put it in the mail for tomorrow's pickup.

I've already got a buyer lined up and have a sweet $5k wholesale fee. Here's the numbers.

ARV - $230k (estimated listing amount $220 fixed up)
Negotiated Price with heirs - $125k
Wholesale fee - $5k
Rehab/improvements - est $25k
Gross estimated profit - $65k

The lady buying the property is a real estate agent. She and her husband are going to rehab it and put it back on the market to retail buyers & potential landlords. Financing is lined up & backup financing is on the back burner. We're hoping to close by Monday next week if title comes back in time.

Wholesaling real estate at it's finest.
-Taylor

So Much Trouble for 2 Pages & 9 signatures...

2008-04-12T01:01:00.008-04:00

I FINALLY got a signed contract for 'more hood than hood' (see prior posts.) I'm still cautiously optimistic with this one. Getting 9 heirs and 2 attorneys to all agree on the amount of the offer, terms of the contract and then all be willing get them to sign on the line was an amazing feat. Now if we can just repeat the process next week and CLOSE! After the closing I'll be dancing the Snoopy dance for sure!

You always read/hear about people making $thousands$ of dollars quickly in real estate. In fact, I heard one the other day about an investor in Orange County, CA that bought & sold an ocean-view house in Laguna beach and made a $400,000 wholesale profit in less than 3 hours! I'd love nothing more than to have a similar story for you, but my deal involves a little more leg-work than usual. Plus, I think that stories like that have a long, drawn out background like mine with the heirs etc... but since that doesn't make for good copy, the work/background gets brushed over & you hear about the 'ka-ching!' when the investor makes huge money in a few hours.

It doesn't come easy & it ain't cheap. But I digress...

I guess it's still quick cash compared to working the phones all day at a J.O.B.! I never got a rush like this from getting an insurance contract signed, I'll tell you that much!

We had the meeting scheduled at one of the 'neutral' heirs' house on Wed at 7pm, but only 4 showed up. I got them signed up and a straggler showed up... Got him to sign.

Then the key heir & I made a little caravan throughout Norfolk & Chesapeake to get the remaining 3 signors in the area. That left the uncle out in the country for the next morning. I got home at about 11:30pm Wed night. Beat.

Next morning saw me driving from Virginia Beach to South Boston, VA (home of the Danville VA NASCAR track!) to meet up with the final heir yet to sign. It took me 3 1/2 hours and after a quick 12 minutes in the parking lot at the Shoney's Restaurant to get my signature I headed back to VB. 7 hours on the road for a 12 minute signing... Whew! I will say that it was a beautiful drive. Rural Southeast Virginia in springtime is hard to beat. I had my window down and my eyes peeled for speed-traps as I worked my way through civil war country.

So it took about 3 weeks to go from verbal deal to signed deal on this one. Problem is, it took so $*%##%'ing long to get all the signatures & attorney sign-offs that my two buyers cooled on the deal with one headed off elsewhere with his money and one unwilling to pay me the wholesale fee I was looking to get.

So I'm off to find my own buyer and it looks like I may have one to assign the contract to on Sat afternoon. Cross your fingers!

ps. Check my website at www.11daysale.net for some of my other properties under contract. Lots going on around here lately!

Cheers!
Taylor

Teach Your Kids...

2008-04-03T09:06:00.001-04:00

Cool link

2008-04-02T16:20:00.002-04:00

Check out this link. Very cool info. Results as of Feb 08.
http://www.eppraisal.com/NationalMSA.aspx

Enjoy -
Taylor

New Website, New Name

2008-04-01T00:52:00.004-04:00

I got a call about 2 weeks ago from a local Realtor who was already using the Real Deal Real Estate company name that my son & I came up with. (Originality runs in our blood...)

Since I had already been thinking about a new name for my company anyway, I used the encounter as motivation to get off my butt and get a new name going.

With this new property under contract & a 30 day deadline to sell looming, I pulled out all the stops and came up with the name "11 day sale" The name says what we do. Catchy. And, the website was available for $9.99! Bargain.

Check it out! www.11daysale.net. I've been up late a few nights over the last week trying out different layouts & formats for the site. I think I'm going to stick with the format I've got now until I start making big bucks & can get a kickin new site built. I've posted a couple of the properties that I'm working on & plan to keep it updated with more of my pretty houses that I pick up. Ugly houses are quick wholesale deals and since I'll likely have them sold within a day or so I don't want to burn daylight hours posting them on my site.

Project Update:
I'm doing way too much work on this option property. I believe that the work I am doing is going to make the property more sell-able, but tomorrow is my last day to be humping it like a manual laborer. I'm going to fill the green waste dumpster with limbs/branches and be done with the labor. Check out he snapshots of what we were able to knock out over the weekend.

On to the marketing! Let's sell this sucker! I'm still leaning towards an April 12/13th open house & bid sale weekend. Cross your fingers... As long as the dumpster is away from the front of the house & I can get the carpets up, I'm going to sell this baby quick!

Step One...

2008-03-28T22:52:00.005-04:00

So, my little option property is a little like an episode of flip this house right now. Well, maybe more like one of the curb appeal shows since all I'm doing is sprucing up the yard a bit.

This option is a little strange because I am going to do work on the property myself rather than have the owners do the work. Since there isn't a lot of equity to work with, I need to make the place as pretty as possible for my retail buyer.

Generally an investor will only buy an option on a property if it is a "pretty house" and doesn't need a lot of work. But for a few thousand dollars I'll tear up a ramp, cut up some tree limbs & rake the leaves. No problem.

Apparently, the city of Virginia Beach will hire a contractor to come out and build a wheelchair ramp for your house when you get old and can't walk anymore. This is how the ramp came to be in front of my option house. At least that is how it was explained to me by the executor. Get old, stop walking, get free ramp. Hmmm... I'll stay young & walk often. But I digress...

My oldest son & I had the great pleasure of doing some demo work on the ramp. It was a blast. Banging, ripping, tearing wood, pulling nails, awesome guy stuff. Hammers & crowbars were the tools of the day. I even got to use my chainsaw to cut up some of the support beams. We got the job done in about 2 1/2 hours.

I placed an ad on Craigslist.com for the 'Free Wood' left over from the demo and I got 13 responses in the next 2 hours. Nails & all. People love wood.

1st Signed Contract!

2008-03-27T23:44:00.008-04:00

My lovely bride is skeptical, but I am cautiously optimistic that I can make money on this skinny deal.

I have been working this probate lead since Oct 07. They have had it listed with a Realtor for 9 months and it didn't sell. I kept in touch with the executrix during that time and with the bank deadline looming, she finally decided to listen to what I have been telling her and let me take the property.

There is a reverse mortgage on the property and there really is not a lot of equity to speak of so I took the property on a 30 day option contract and plan on marketing it -retail- with a 9 day sale.

I'm not going to say much about the 9 day sale except I just learned about the strategy and it seems like just the thing for a pretty house in this market.

I'll keep you posted as we move along, but for now it looks like I've got something to work on!!

Pending Deal Update:
"More hood than hood" is moving along slowly. I had a contractor come by the place & give me his expert opinion on rehab costs and the number was $$BIG$$. Near $100k (I'm sure that's a retail price though. A good investor will see right through that one...)

The heirs are like a bunch of cats in a box. If this thing actually closes it will be a true Christmas miracle. In fact, it will be a true "pray for Taylor" miracle. Keep praying. I need the miracle.

The heirs raised their price on me and once I found someone to partner with & accepted their new higher price, the spokesman dropped the bomb on me this evening at 8:30pm (they were supposed to sign the contract Tomorrow...) that they want to have my contract reviewed by their Attorneys... You read that right. Plural. Attorneys. This battle for the $$ between the family has been going on for such a long time that 3 of the 6 heirs banded together to get an attorney to represent them. Another got his own attorney and the other two... well, let's say I don't think they care one way or the other.

Needless to say, I will be spending my Friday morning at the office of attorney #1 having my contract reviewed while my lovely bride and kids head out to the beach for the last day of spring break. Didn't I decide to go into business for myself for more beach time with the kids?

Oh yeah, it was the MONEY. Money first, freedom later. My new mantra. Instead of figuring out ways to hide from the man, I'm trying to figure out how to squeeze more out of each day so I can get more done.

Hopefully I can get there in time to have lunch on the beach. It's supposed to be near 80 tomorrow. It would be nice to feel the sand again.

Also, more deals on the way! I got calls from 2 deals today that I thought were dead deals. Boomerang deals. Listed with an agent and already changing their mind. It's all coming back around...

More Hood than Hood Prt 2

2008-03-17T22:45:00.004-04:00

I finally got a chance to get into the two houses in the "more hood than hood" post on this blog.

The interior needs some serious rehab, but I think they are workable properties. I have a verbal offer to the heirs (6 heirs again!) and they should let me know in a few days what everybody thinks.
It is a pretty cool setup.

The city used to allow building on 25' wide lots in this neighborhood. So the original owner (grampa) build 2 houses on one city assessed lot back in the day. So if these two houses were knock-downs, the new owner would only be able to re-build one house on the lot.

However, since there are two houses there now, they will allow for rehab and not force demolition. Nice. That creates a situation for 3 rental units to be on the same property. Hello Cash Flow! My landlord buyer types should love this beauty.

Living Room in Single Story House
Nice Kitchen... (Downstairs of 2 Story Duplex)
Oh, and don't fear the uninhabitable warning sign on the window. Not condemned! A quick purchase and clean-up and the city will remove the warnings and permits can be pulled. Zoning/code enforcement was actually easy to talk to.

Small Setback

2008-03-17T22:17:00.004-04:00

After what seemed to be an eternity of waiting, I finally heard from my "Probate Sellers" from my previous post. I was at Panera Bread for a quick pop-in visit and answered my cell.

Caller: "Hi Taylor, this is Sallie Seller."
Caller: "It's a go"

Me: "It's a go? Great, when can we get together?"

We set up a time to take care of the paperwork on Monday night. Supposed to be tonight. At 5:30.

Got the voicemail cancellation at 3pm. No re-schedule time. I'll phone her tomorrow to follow up & reschedule. Said she has personal stuff to take care of. Okay, no problem.

Probate Sellers

2008-03-08T00:22:00.003-05:00

Thursday evening I met with a nice lady and her brothers who had inherited property from an uncle who passed away back in June of 07. Of course, they all got a letter from me back then and the executor held onto my letter and decided to call me last week.

There was equity, so I set an appointment.

The meeting went well and since they need to sell in a pretty short time period (45 days) I was the best deal going.

The home comps at $245k and has 12-15,000 of repairs to make it sell-able on the market. With carpet, paint and some updating to the bathrooms (6-8k) you'd have a nice rental.

The offer I made was for $136,600 since one of the garage doors needed to be replaced. I said I'd love to offer more, but until I knew more specifically how much it would cost to get that garage door in there I'd have to stick with the offer.

Well, wouldn't you know it, she called upstairs to her brother in law who just happens to work in the garage repair business! What are the chances of that happening? Of course, they added the 5k that we were talking about for the repair/replacement of the garage door on to my offer and after a little more back & forth we settled on $142,600 as my offer price.

Since there are a total of 6 heirs and I had 3 there with me, I moved forward with filling out the offer paperwork, something of an assumed close on my part. They had to wait to talk to all the other heirs before moving forward with the offer papers.

I would have liked to have walked out of there with a signed contract, but with probate I feel like I have more ability to be flexible & understanding since they have the challenge of trying to get all the heirs on the same page to get the property sold. Plus, I was the only person besides a realtor that they had heard from about the property. Less competition, less pressure to get a signature on the first visit.

She was supposed to call me Friday afternoon, but when the phone didn't ring I wasn't surprised. One of the heirs lives in El Salvador, so getting in touch with her is going to take more than just a quick call in the car on the way home from work.

With an offer price 100k below the comps in the neighborhood, I am confident that I'll be able to sell it once I get a signed contract.

More call-backs on Saturday and hopefully scheduling some follow up appointments for the other 5 properties I looked at last week.

At least my probates are finally starting to pay off.

Thanks for checking in-
Taylor

-Taylor

I have no excuse.

2008-03-03T23:29:00.002-05:00

I'm an emotional guy. Some of you know this. I'm also a high energy, motivational sort of guy too. Which is why I loved this video.

Motivation and a couple tears. Nice way to start off the week...

-Taylor

Cash Now, Cash Flow, Cash Future...

2008-03-01T10:56:00.005-05:00

I am almost to the point where I am looking at a house a day. I had a meeting with a great prospect yesterday and got really creative with my offer. It was a total rush. Hard to put into words the satisfaction of having all the study & struggle finally come together.

Details:
Existing mortgage of 75,000 with a 750 monthly pmt.
Current tenant pays $1350/mo and the rent hasn't been raised for 2 yrs. Could get 1450-1500.
Current tenant's rent is being paid by a trust and is auto-deposited into the landlord's account every month like clockwork. Never a late-pay.
Seller wanted to get 190k for the property.
Tax assessed value $240,000.
Realquest.com: $207,000
E-appraisal.com: $192,000

I gathered this info over the phone and after looking at the quick math ($190k-75k= 115,000 rough equity) and applying my rule of:
"If there is equity, GO!"
I set the appointment.

I'm getting my presentation down pretty well now. We reviewed the state of the local market, the national market and what the seller was hoping to do by selling this house. We went over the reality of selling a house, especially a rental where the balance of cash flow vs price is so critical to getting a quick sale.

He was really stuck on getting his price, so we discussed the concept of the different types of cash...

Cash now: most people think of when selling a house. It is the large lump sum at closing.

Cash flow: regular monthly pmts/income from a property

Cash Future: similar to cash now, only waiting for the lump sum until some date in the future.
Cash Flow Future: Regular pmts starting at some date in the future.

After reviewing the three types of cash I went over what my offers would be. My cash now, all cash offer was 133,400. Best case, most cash offer. It was too low for him. I knew that, but offered it anyway. Cash costs money (interest/points/holding costs) so my offer was low for those reasons.

However, if he would be able to wait for some/all of his cash for 3-5 years... I could get much higher on the price. Say... $175,000.

He liked the number & asked more questions about how it would work.

$75,000 underlying mortgage taken subject to.
$10,000 cash now at closing to the seller.
$90,000 cash future to the seller in 3 yrs (no interest, no pmts)
$175,000 offer price.

Since he would have a big tax consequence in the future with the $90,000 pmt in 3 years, we discussed the option of him taking cash flow/pmts at that time.

The seller really liked the higher offer price, but needed to compare it to his other offer of $145k from the ugly house people. Since I was planning on wholesaling the deal and this is still my first contract, I didn't push for a signature on the spot and agreed to follow up with him on Monday.

I suppose I should have had him sign a contract anyway & made it cancel-able in 3 days or something like that, but I didn't. Maybe next time. Cut me some slack, it's my first time...

I'm looking to wholesale this one. An investor buyer would need to come up with $15,000 cash plus closing costs (10k to the seller, 5k to me) and would have a positive cash flow of roughly $500/month with a 100% pay tenant. Sweet.

I ran it buy my mentor and he really liked the terms. He said he'd buy it as long as we got a good termite inspection.

So I've got that going for me.

Which is nice.

-Taylor

More Hood than Hood

2008-02-29T01:24:00.003-05:00

I thought my last hood house in Richmond was the best. I've got it beat.

I got a call from one of my probate leads with a couple of properties in Norfolk. I went by to look at them and ... Woah! Surprise! City code department had the doors taped with huge neon notices taped on doors/windows that the premisis was unfit for living humans to occupy...

You could smell the cat urine from outside the house!

I'm going to talk to him this afternoon & talk about a potential offer or option and start wholesaling it over the weekend.

Lovely.

Fixer-Upper!

Handyman Special!

-Taylor

Lucky

2008-02-27T12:21:00.005-05:00

I had to leave town Sunday to attend a Glass Doctor training seminar in Memphis, TN. Booking the flight was a bear and I had to look at 6 or 7 different combinations of flights, airlines & two different departing airports to finally get a combo that would work. Needless to say I didn't have a clear departure time in my head.

So as I left for the airport I glanced at my boarding pass that I had just printed & shoved into my pocket & realized that my flight departure was 2 hours earlier than I had thought! I had 45 minutes to get to an airport that was 50 minutes away in good traffic!

I frantically called the airline to check for later flights... none. I would have to pay extra to change to another airport and pay to upgrade to first class. No go. I decided to take my chances.

The traffic marquees along the route all warned of a 4 mile backup going into the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel but I kept on going... nothing to lose at this point.
Mile 4... no traffic slowdown.
Mile 3... none.
Mile 2, none...
Mile 1, slowdown to 35, but still moving.
Then I was out of the tunnel with 20 minutes to travel 30 miles to the airport...

Flight was supposed to leave the gate at 5:35 and I arrived at the airport at 5:45. Security checkpoint was a ghost-town. They were training new people and there were about 12 white uniformed security people watching me like cows behind a fence as I ripped out of my shoes, belt etc and popped open my laptop for the scanning. I got through quickly and sprinted to my gate just as the planed pushed away from the ramp. CRAP! Seriously, it was like the movies.

Salvation came in the form of a 5'2" ramp agent who, after scolding me for being late "Mr Taylor, we paged you for 15 minutes! Where were you?", proceeded to scan available flights. Nothing. She told me to "hold on for a minute," and ran over to another gate to chat with the ramp agent...

"Problem solved," she said, "You must be living right. Did you go to church today?" As it turns out, yes I did...

They had a plane that got grounded earlier in the day for maintenance and now that it was repaired, needed to fly it back to Atlanta for flights out in the morning. The pilots & crew needed to get back to Atlanta as well,
"Do you mind flying alone?"
I thought, are you serious? NO PROBLEM!!

So I had my own flight to Atlanta. (see proof @ left.) Me. 2 flight attendants. Nice ones. Lots of snacks. I sat in every seat I wanted to until I found the perfect one (exit row, #12B). I felt like Trump. "Mr Taylor would you like a blanket? Mr Taylor can I get you something else to drink? Mr Taylor, more cookies?" As we landed they both hugged me and thanked me for flying Delta. The pilot smiled and shook my hand, wishing me luck as I left the plane. Awesome.

Of course I missed my connection in Atlanta, but they did have an extra seat on a later connection. My luck held as I boarded the plane & realized that seat 4C was in the first class section. Wooo Hooo!!! Again, "Mr Taylor, can I get you anything to drink? Please select a snack from this huge basket of treats..."

On to the shuttle to the hotel. As I left the shuttle the guy behind me said, "Hey, you dropped $5." as he reached down to pick it up off the ground. I said that it wasn't mine and he said that it fell as I got out of the van & handed it to me.

Should have played the lottery.

My luck held as I came home yesterday as well. I got another bump up to Business Class for one leg of my flight, and although my car had a flat tire, I realized that I had just enough air in it to drive to the gas station & fill it. Perfect. And it started to rain just as I got in the car after filling the tire at the station. Lucky again.

So here's to lucky happenstances and fortunate random chances. Good things still happen out there when you least expect them.

I'm getting on the phone to call some of my real estate leads. Let's hope my luck holds...

-Taylor

Straight Up Hood.

2008-02-20T00:46:00.004-05:00

I contacted my Real Estate mentor today to ask about a good mortgage broker for my potential buyers on this house I have on contract (he still hasn't told his sister he's selling... I agreed to keep my marketing on hold. what a push-over I am).

I called & then met with him and we got talking about some of the deals we've seen & missed out on during our time in the business. He mentioned a potential deal he had in Richmond that he wanted to wholesale, but didn't have time to market it. I told him I'd give it a shot for a $5k fee. He said yes & we were off & running.

I made a quick call to my sister-in-law who happened to live about a mile from the house & got her to snap a couple of fresh photos for me. I reviewed the appraisal for info, drafted a quick craigslist post with photos attached and posted the listing right at mid-night so that i would be the first listing of the day. I ended up being the 3rd listing for the day. I could have probably drafted a better marketing message, but it's not an MBA project so I'm ok learning as I go.

Here's a link to the craigslist ad. Let me know if I missed anything obvious.

Here's the photos & stats...
Blt 1910, appraised at 192k as is, asking 118k (yes, that includes my fee). 3br, 2bth 1500 sq ft.

It's in the hood, but it is one of the nicer houses on the street and with the spread for the investor buying it I'm hoping we can get it sold quickly to a cash buyer & I can put some dough in the bank for next month's mortgage pmt.

I also need to wait a day for my Richmond Real Estate Investor's Club membership to process so I can post a listing to the membership list there too.

The broker has a hook-up for foreclosure properties due to his connections in the mortgage business and we're both thinking that if this deal goes well we could have a little money making venture started here...

Ever forward.

ps. I had another probate call today where the lady held onto my letter for 3 months! Gramma had leveraged the property up to 70% with a reverse mortgage before she passed so there was nothing I could do, but it was great to hear that my letters are getting read/saved!

An Option Makes The First Deal Come Together

2008-02-18T14:47:00.005-05:00

I got a call last week from one of my probate mailers where the caller asked about my "program".

I went through my phone questions and once I determined that he had equity (ARV 260, loan for 180) and a current renter not paying the rent... (His Sister!) I set an appointment for the soonest day we could get together. In the past I would have done more pre-screening over the phone, but after my phone conversation with Dan Doran I adopted his mantra of,

if there is equity, GO!

Because, as he says, you can't do this business in slow motion & the first good salesperson that gets in front of the prospect WINS!

The meeting/walk through went well & I met with the seller and his wife at the Subway around the corner from the property. The seller hadn't told his sister that he was going to sell the property yet so we needed to meet away from the property.

I went through my presentation and went over my all cash offer of 181k (taking over the existing financing subject to & $1000 to the seller,) and they weren't that motivated/desperate yet. We had good rapport at this point & didn't want to let it get away from me so I went over another option. We discussed what their lowest, bottom dollar price that they would want to get for the house in 'as-is' condition and we came to $210. My guess is that it needs about 10k of work, but is totally livable as-is right now. I thought I could sell the place to a home-handyman type for more than that, but it was too high to sell the contract to another investor.

I signed him up on an option contract which gives me a 45 day period to market the property and find a buyer for more than the option price at $210k and I get the difference at closing. If the property doesn't sell during the time period, I am only out my option fee which is $10 in this case. I think I can sell the place to said home handyman for $218-ish so I'm pretty excited about it. The seller is sending me a key & I need to get his sister's # so I can get into the place and take pictures. I'll post a few pic's once I get in there.

So, I got my first commitment/contract, but no money yet. I need to get those pictures & get my craigslist and backpage.com ads put together and get that thing SOLD!

Pray for a quick buyer, with money and a quick closing.

Progress!

Taylor

Thank You for Calling Glass Dr, We Fix Your Panes...

2008-02-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

I landed on my feet.
Sort of.
Well, more like landing on one foot than solidly on both feet.
I just finished my first week of my new job as account manager with the Glass Dr and honestly, it was pretty enjoyable. I was able to be outside, out & about meeting with clients and not stuck in an office on the phone all day. The owner is very pleasant and understands (in fact encourages) my real estate side-venture.

Downside is the pay. With flexibility comes little cash up front. So... the owner & I are talking next week about him bumping up my base so that I don't have to wait tables, but what I really need to get my RE leads turned into a deal.

I am still on the lookout for a 'good' job, but the market is really soft right now and companies are not coughing up the dough for relocations like they were a few years ago. Searching for a job in CA from across the country is proving to be harder than it was to find a job here while living in CA. Seems like things have changed in the job market & economy since then as well.

So my hope/plan is to work the Glass Dr thing along with real estate while I keep looking for a job both here & in CA. With all the recruiters looking for positions for me, my hope is that it is just a matter of time until one comes together.

As far as real estate goes, my probate researcher has promised that she'll get back in there this week. I am going to be working the Chesapeake area for the Glass Dr next week and plan to swing by their probate office & get the lowdown on the process over there. I need to get a researcher working that office for me just like I have going in Virginia Beach.

On the Foreclosure front, I need to put my foreclosure researcher packets put together & put an ad on Craigslist for foreclosure researchers in Norfolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. I have the training CD's burned and the training paperwork printed & bound, I just need to organize it. I haven't heard word 1 from my foreclosure researcher in weeks. In fact, he hasn't done much since the Door Hanger Cop episode a few weeks ago. Maybe he got spooked...

All the probate leads I processed in Jan stirred up what looks to be 3 potential deals. I follow up with the sellers once a week now and I plan on just doing follow up with any lead until they buy or die.

I'm also mid way through my 2007 executor master list. I plan on drip mailing all the executors from 2007 since they have the final say on what happens with these properties.

I am also working on a name for my company... Real Deal Real Estate. I have a domain reserved at www.realdealestate.net and am working on a logo with my designer friend. I am looking at setting up an 800 # to add to my vonage account for $5/month to give me a higher likelihood of getting calls from the out of town probate beneficiaries.

LOTS going on, just little of it generating income right now. I'll keep you posted when my website goes live & give you the 800# so you can call and hear my 'free recorded message' once I'm done with it.

Keep moving forward...

I Suppose It's Better to Know Than Not Know...

2008-02-01T01:10:00.000-05:00

My Lovely Bride is constantly posting her favorite recipes on her blog. I came across this and thought it might be a good inspiration for the upcoming Superbowl parties this weekend. Mmmmm... cholesterol. Yum.

Monday came and went and still not word on the job in CA. I called my recruiter twice. Going Nuts!

Tuesday I called my recruiter 3 times and he finally heard back from the company. They had filled the position. I think his precise words were:

"I got an email reply from the hiring manager. Looked like it was typed on a Blackberry. They said that they really enjoyed meeting you and that you were a great candidate, but the position was filled."

CRAP.

So I'm back to square ___ (I forget what square I left off on.)

I have interviewed and will be signing the paperwork Friday for a job as a marketing rep for the local Glass Doctor franchisee. We met at a networking event and our initial conversation centered around how challenging it is to try to start a business without the support of your current employer. So he's good with me trying to make a go of this real estate thing of mine. He has always left the door open for me to join him, so I'm going to take him up on the offer and hit the streets calling on insurance agencies and auto dealerships. It's not nearly enough to get me back to what I was making, but it's nearly double unemployment. Plus, I dispise the thought of being healthy and able-bodied and using a social program like unemployment. Goes against everything I'm about. Anyway, I'm going to have to do something else to fill in the $$ gap in addition to Windows & Windshields.

I'm on the fence about how hard to hit up local restaurants for night shifts. It's a tough one because I feel like I'm on the brink with my real estate thing, but since nothing has popped yet I can't say for sure. I'll probably go out & grab applications next week. Funny thing is I'll have to dumb-down my resume to get a waiter job!

"Hi, My name is Taylor and I"ll be your server tonight. I've got a BS in Finance, an MBA in Management and we've got some lovely new appetizers in the upper left hand corner of your menu.
Can I interest anyone in a beverage to start off with?"

Ahh, Crap.

On the Real Estate Front: I sent another batch of probates on the 29th of Jan. 111 Heirs from 56 files. They mailed on Wed and like clockwork, the phone started ringing as the mail hit the boxes on Thursday. The calls were not as promising as some of my more recent responses , but these were older probate files.
I got 4 calls total on Thursday afternoon with:

one already sold,
one already fixed up and on the market, listed with an agent on Monday this week,
one not planning on selling for 3-5 years (!) but she really liked me & will call me when they're ready to sell,
and one heir in Tennessee who was sure she was getting ripped off by the other heirs here in Virginia Beach and asked me to go look at the file and see if she was in the will.

I am still following up every couple of days on the Cunningham St house, the used car lot house and a couple of other interesting sellers. I have another batch of files to process, label and mail over the weekend so next week will have some more calls at least.

I have finished the 2007 probate files for Virginia Beach and my researcher should be able to keep me caught up on the new '08 files with her 2hrs a week. I'm going to hit Chesapeake as soon as my new job schedule shuffles out. I really need to get a researcher working over there as well. I may advertise on the REIA website to see if a young Realtor wants to learn the probate process...

I am still applying for all kinds of jobs here and back in CA and expect to see something in the coming months, but until then it's going to be cracked windshields, broken windows

and if Outback is hiring I'll be flinging some 'bloomin Onion' around too!

Keep praying for us.

Pray for a deal.

2 Calls!

2008-01-24T23:28:00.000-05:00

Totally depressing day today. I got word yesterday that the other candidate for this job in CA is already living in the territory and working with clients there... Seems like a total no-brainer that they'd pick him. But... they are taking their time to decide. (The voice in my head says that they've made a time-sensitive offer to the guy and if he declines...) My recuiter gets back in town on Monday and promised to get me the final word at that time. Grrr... Hate to wait. I hate the weight too, but that's another post topic :).

So, on the plus side, I impressed them so much that I'm still in the running for this job even with the no brainer candidate. But, on the neg side I have waited a week & a half in neutral thinking that this thing was going to be my ticket to ride...

I applied for 8 jobs today. Just combing the heck out of the job boards and stretching the limits of my work history in my cover letters. Home health care sales manager, Red Bull brand manager, Telefloral sales manager... everything that was even close got hit with my shotgun blast today. It was tough.

I got home & it was still tough. I stared off into space during dinner & went up to my office & heard my cell phone buzzing...

Probate #1! Cunningham Dr property. His mother died over a year ago and he held onto my letter until now. How cool. I talked through my info sheet, got the lowdown on why and when they needed to sell, fished for financing flexibility and gave him some key points to talk to the other heirs about over the weekend. No competition on this one. Hasn't talked to anyone else & doesn't want to have to. Would prefer to close in 10 days... I love this guy already. We are set to meet on Tuesday next week & he is going to show me through the house.

Probate #2 is in response to the most recent mailing that went out on Tuesday... 1/45 makes a 2% response rate already! boom. We're playing phone tag with voicemail, but it is good to know those letters are getting opened!

One thing that I came to realize during my conversation with the Cunningham Dr owner was I am getting my phone dialog down pretty well now. I determined the flow of the conversation, I directed with questions and got the info I needed to secure an appointment. Developed rapport and prepped him for our next meeting. IT FELT GREAT!!!!! What a rush. Even if this one doesn't go through, I still feel like it was something of a breakthrough for me. Now I just need to do that about 20 times a week.

I have another 30 probates to enter over the weekend and then after another day of collecting next week I should have all of 2007 entered & mailed. I'm thinking of doing an executor specific mailing once I get them all done. Maybe do that every quarter. After all, once the info is in there I should plan on following up until they either buy/sell or die right?

2 calls...

Recession forecast from a cab ride in NY? Fuggeddaboutit!

2008-01-22T16:19:00.000-05:00

Recession? I got the following email from one of my job boards that I check daily. Mark has an interesting premise where he is attempting to judge the economic forecast by the spending habits of the 'money people.' I thought you might enjoy.
-Taylor

A foreboding Monday morning Scott!

It was about 5 o’clock in midtown Manhattan and I was desperately looking for a taxi to get to a meeting in Greenwich Village when signs of the impending recession landed on my head the way the coming of the robins announces the spring.

Four–thirty p.m. is changeover time in Manhattan. All the taxis light their “off duty” signals and head for the home garage, which makes it difficult to get anywhere in a hurry at the end of the day.

So I was relieved when the driver of one black Town Car – so prevalent in New York streets and “Sex in the City” re–runs – pulled up and rolled down his window.

I’m used to negotiating with these guys. This was probably a $15 ride in a yellow cab, but the black cars will usually ask for $35.

I figured I’d offer $20 and haggle my way to $25.

So I was shocked when he offered “Bank and West Fourth? Twenty bucks.”

“That’s pretty odd,” I thought. But then I got in.

Drivers like to chat. It’s a staple of conventional wisdom and Hollywood movies that the musings of the wizened, world–weary driver are worth more than all the high–priced consultants and fancy lawyers you can hire.

“Tough year, man, so far…” he said over his shoulder.

“Oh yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah, none of them big firms are hiring us. It’s dead. That’s why I’m doing street hails.”

And that’s when it hit me, folks: the recession is really coming. When the financial services and law firms are announcing write–downs and lay–offs and, horror of horrors, they start to economize on expenses, that’s when the crimp has really hit the fan belt.

Cheapo town cars on the streets of Gotham mean one thing for you, Readers: the economy is really slowing up, and it’s time for you to take action.

Talking to myself...

2008-01-22T15:50:00.001-05:00

Still no news on the job front. I was supposed to hear today, but I'm thinking that I won't hear until Wed or Thursday.

I've gotten a new burst of energy in the last few days. I noticed that I was getting more and more scatterbrained as I waited to hear about this job in CA. My routine had gotten reduced to clicking back and forth between job searching sites, real estate sites/blogs and repeatedly checking my email for leads. I'd get the kids out the door for school (much thanks to my lovely bride for patience as I tend to just get in the way of the process) and then log onto the web and start clicking.

It wasn't productive. When I realized what I was doing I did a little self-assessment. Maybe when you get in a rut/funk it would help you too (which is why it is worth it for me to share...)

I said to myself, "Self, in a couple of months you'll be at a new job. You are likely to look back on this time (1 or 2 months without work) and wish you would have done things differently."

I was right of course. I would undoubtedly look back on my unshaved, unshowered, pajama-clad web-cruising as a waste of perfectly good time.

So my self then asked, "What are the things that you would want to have done with this time to make you look back and think good thoughts about what you did?"

No surprise as to the answer, but it was good therapy to listen to myself.
1. Workout every day. (Duh. With no work schedule constraints could potentially work out at anytime of the day.) So it's scheduled. Every day. I'm sore to the touch, but sticking to the plan.
2. Eat clean. My lovely bride is good at helping me with this, but I do tend to self-sabotage with cookie dough binges on Sundays after church...
3. Work the Real Estate like a monkey chasing a coin. I am doing something every day to move my RE dream forward. (In fact, I have talked to 1 new seller and did 3 follow up drive-by's today already.)
4. Work the job boards/recruiter follow up's every day. Since the postings don't change much from hour to hour, I check in the morning and evening and call it good. I'm on top of it, but not getting carpal tunnel syndrome from my job search.

We all would like to look back on the last 30 days and be proud of what we did. Right? Ask yourself what you'd like to look back on and get busy doing.

Thanks to MLK day yesterday my probates got mailed a day later than planned, but I suppose one day isn't going to kill any deals. Over the weekend my lovely bride and I signed, folded, stamped and stuffed 106 more probate letters. 45 decedents & 106 heirs. With my 20% response rate, that means the phone should ring 9 times with interested sellers. Not bad, but I nded more.

My foreclosure researcher has been real quiet the last week or so, but he's got a new baby and I imagine he's spending more time at home as the temps dip below 30... I need to follow up with him to see if I need to find a replacement...

I'm meeting up with my probate researcher Wed morning and hope to crank out another 50 records to be mailed later this week.

I am also going to look into out of town owners as a mailing list as well. I know that my best probate responses have come from this category and since I'm at the courthouse anyway to do probates, it makes sense to find the title office and start snooping around for info...

I think my Self would be happy with that...

-Taylor

The Door-Hanger Cop

2008-01-15T23:00:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: At no time was your host (hereafter referred to as Heytaylor or tireless host) or anyone in his association in any real or perceived danger during the following event. Both researcher and Heytaylor were far-removed from the scene as this conversation took place. And, it is your host's humble opinion that the officer mentioned in this account would not likely be such a fool to actually track-down your host (Heytaylor) or his diligent researcher (hereafter referred to as Mike) and jeopardize his badge/career/reputation because of his own ridiculous behavior that will be revealed in the following account.
This account is presented as a humorous vignette and is your tireless host's finest attempt at enjoyable writing, yet all responsibility (and even the occurance of the following event) will be completely and wholly denied if the tireless host is approached (or reproached) for participating in the following conversation. Stay calm. Everybody is fine. The real problem is al quaeda anyway right? Life is funny. Laugh a little.

That being said, please enjoy the following from "A day in the life of a pre-foreclosure real estate investor..."
I've got a pre-foreclosure researcher (hereafter referred to as Mike,) and his normal routine at the door is to knock twice and then leave one of my flyers offering our Free Report for people having trouble with their mortgage...

Now, there is nothing on the flyer that notes anything about foreclosure specifically because I believe that allowing people in FC to save face may give me a leg up on the idiots out there with lines like, "Hi, I know you're in foreclosure. Are we going to do business together?"
But I digress...

For the most part, the people in FC are very nice, but sometimes, no matter what we may try to do to distance ourselves from the nuts in the world, at times, interactions with the crazies do occur.

Case in point.

I knew that Mike was out making calls this particular evening so I kept my cell phone with me in case he called with a lead. Mike called me a couple of times with questions about foreclosure procedures and such, so when my phone rang again I wasn't surprised or on guard at all.

I didn't recognize the call ID so I figured that it would be someone calling on one of my flyers. It was. Turns out that the guy on the line was a tenant and was irate that someone would leave a flyer on his door. I calmly asked about his landlord in between his rantings and learned that his landlord was not in FC, but that the $#^*$#'ing bank had screwed everything up. I assured him that the bank would likely publish a rescission notice in the next 2 weeks or so, but to expect calls/visits from other investors in the next few weeks. (At this point I was just trying to get this dude off the phone)

He then started swearing again and began to go on about how it is illegal to leave flyers inside a door. (Turns out that Mike opened the screen door and left a rolled up flyer between the handle and the door jam.) I was getting tired of listening to this yahoo at this point and considered hanging up, but as I pulled the phone from my ear I thought...

"Self, this guy has your cell number... Better to see this through to the end and get him off the line than have him write "for a good time call (insert cell # here)" inside the mens room in every gas station in his neighborhood..." Hmmm... I had a good point there...

Since I usually have good advice, I listened to myself, but at the same time I was still a little cranky, so...

I told my verbal tenant caller that I wasn't aware of any law against leaving a flyer at the door and asked, "What do you do when the pizza guy leaves a hanger on your door?" (before reproaching your tireless host for his witty albeit ill-advised quip to the cussing phone-caller, please refer to disclaimer in paragraph 1 of this post.) The obvious intention of said quip was for the enjoyment of your tireless host and to get the crazy person on the other end to hang up the phone, while at the same time show him how ridiculous he was being for flying off the handle in a expletive-laden tirade for a simple flyer at his door. I digress...

This comment really lit him up and he came loose with a tirade of profanity that any enlisted Navy-man would be proud of and then let it slip that he is currently a Virginia Beach Police Officer (which, in some small way means that he works for me, the taxpayer...) and painted a clear picture of how he was going to drive through the neighborhood and track me down and cuff me, face-down in the street. It became clear at this point that he thought it was me (your fearless host!) who left the flyer on his door and he said he knew what my car looked like and if he had some clothes on he'd track me down right this second! (Thank heavens for the western cultural tradition of the after-work shower!)

Cue the twightlight zone music... This was really getting weird. At this point I'm thinking 'holy crap!' I got myself a badged-up testosterone fueled, tazer armed fool on the line here! Run away! Run away!

I backed away from the conversation quickly knowing that it although it was my voice on the line, it was my diligent reacher's butt was on the line since he had likely just left the house only minutes before!

OK, (I said to myself,) get him calmed down.
Why is he mad? Oh yeah, the flyer,
the visit... strangers knocking on his door...

If you were nuts, what would make you go away? Take away the pain/annoyance! Brilliant!

I told him that I would take his house off my list and he wouldn't hear from any of my team ever again, but I again warned him that he may get visits from other investors until the rescission notice got posted in the paper.

He yelled 'FINE!' and hung up.

End of conversation. Whew! (And luckily, no further calls since then.)

Of course, I called my diligent researcher Mike and he was far away from that house, in fact, he hadn't been in that particular neighborhood for over an hour, but he still put an "X" on that record to keep the "cuff master" from having a similar face-to-face conversation with him.

I've got to say, I pity the fool that knocks on this guy's door next...
Dominoes pizza, Maria's cleaning service and JT's pressure washing better watch out for...

The Door-Hanger Cop!

Ps. Please return to top of post & re-read disclaimer before reprimanding your tireless host.

Pps. Post a comment. I know you're here. I can see you in my sitemeter. :)

What would YOU Say?

2008-01-14T11:50:00.001-05:00

The call went like this...
(This is an edited version. Call actually took place Thursday Jan 3rd.)

Taylor: Hey (boss), this is Taylor. I need next Friday off & I know I haven't accrued any vacation time so I wanted to run it by you first.
Boss: No problem.
Taylor: Great, oh, and I also need to leave a little early on Thursday as well. Is that ok?
Boss: Um... Ok... Do you have a job interview or something?
Taylor: Yes, out on the West coast.
Boss: We're going to need to change the setup. This relationship isn't working for us. We're going to have to make a change.

20 mins later the office manager came in & said that they were going to let me go. Can't keep paying me to work for them if I was looking for a job. Thanks and goodbye.

I stuck with my philosophy that honesty is the best policy and was straight up with him, but he wasn't as understanding about my situation as I had thought. What would you have said?

The next day I was up and out the door to the probate office. No time to wallow in my unemployment pit of sorrow... I've gotta get a deal going!

So I went out to the west coast on Thursday/Friday for the interview & things went well, it's just a waiting game at this point since they have 2 other candidates to interview this week. I sent out thank you emails this morning to keep me in their minds while they interview the other candidates this week and expect to hear something next week. I'll keep you posted.

On the RE side, I got another probate call while I was in the airport on Thursday. I think that puts me at 16 from the last mailing I did 3 weeks ago! That is a 20% response rate! I have an appointment to call her back and go look at the house this afternoon. Also following up on the "Used Car Dealership" house(previous post) and Jeanne St today as well.

I took page out of Tampa Steph's playbook and called one of those "WE BUY HOUSES" signs to see if they were interested in being on my buyers list. The call went great and I have the details of the type of deals he's looking for and hope to send him something soon. (Hopefully one of these probate deals will materialize and I can flip it his way.) He had no problem with my 5k referral fee, so that's a great contact. Note to self... Call those signs.

With my new found unemployment, I have time to get to the courthouse and gather probate info. I met with my researcher on Wednesday after her 6 week hiatus and in 2 hours we got through the final 2007 files. She's going to keep going on Wednesdays and I plan to add another county to my list on Wednesday & Thursday this week. My table should be full of letters, stamps & envelopes all week!

I am also working on a free & clear mailing campaign in my target zip codes. There are so many options you can do with free & clear houses and since most of my probates have been free & clear's I feel very comfortable talking to owners.

I'm also considering dropping the $25/month for a 1-800 number for a 24 hr pre-recorded info line for my: probates (please press 1), foreclosure (please press 2), and free & clear (please press 3). I have developed a pre-foreclosure info report that I can use my researcher to deliver and really hope that the combination of all these things will help get me that elusive 'first deal' that I'm looking for... I may hold off on this idea until I know for sure what my job situation is going to look like, but I am working on scripts for each of the pre-recorded messages.

Now that I think of it, I'm full time real estate investor! At least until that job calls back next week...

Check back tomorrow for my post about the Angry Pre-Foreclosure Policeman!

Keepin' it great in 2008!

Taylor

ps. I'm usually not one for politics. In fact, I usually leave that to my lovely bride. But I was referred to this site and after answering all the questions, the answer I got was the candidate I like! Turns out I'm pretty right on with my gut-assumptions after all! Mitt's a hit!

Creative Career Experience Spin

2007-12-29T00:29:00.000-05:00

The joys of the job-hunt.

Welcome to my "Adventures in creative career experience spin."

As mentioned previously, I am searching for a flexible, lucrative, enjoyable job where I have some time on the road during the day to talk to sellers in between office visits. Not too much to ask right?

Who doesn't want that job though?... I've become aware that there are a lot of people in the state of Utah that will do these types of jobs for about 20k less than anywhere else in the country. Looking for a territory manager or field sales rep? Go to Utah! Thousands of former missionaries all looking for the "main job" with flexibility etc... so they can do their real estate/multi-level marketing gig on the side... (or, watch the kids while the little lady heads out to sell Mary Kay or Pampered Chef!). It all makes it tough for someone from outside the area (who is used to making more $$) to accept a job there.

Obviously I have expanded my search outside the UT zip codes. As much fun as it would be to be around all my friends from college and back in the day and do some real estate deals together, I am afraid I'd starve to death trying to live on the "main job" salary there until RE took off. (sorry Mike.)

We'll see how things progress after the holiday job search slump (all but one decent job lead shriveled up as the holidays/end of the year approached.)

Hey Taylor! You Said This Blog Was Supposed to Be About Real Estate...
Real Estate? My probate researcher took the entire month of December off (and has yet to return my calls. I may be replacing her efforts here soon...) And my foreclosure researcher took the last 2 weeks of Dec off. So my RE efforts have pretty much come to a screeching halt at this point.

PROBATE UPDATE:
If you're keeping track, we're up to 14 responses to my last probate mailing! That's an amazing 18% response rate from direct mail! (Industry standard is 1.5-2% for targeted mailings, .5% for general bulk flyers/postcards etc...) I have made 2 verbal offers that I follow up with on a regular basis. I haven't bought any houses from probate yet, but those letters sure get the phone ringing and I have been able to hone my phone skills with sellers.

HOT NEW IDEA DEPT:
I've got an idea for collecting the FC info for current and future researchers. In a nutshell: I'm tired of gathering/scanning/comp-ing/ typing all the FC info for Virginia Beach in to my custom spreadsheet every day (every other day...) Truthfully, it got real old, real fast. Instead of hiring an assistant to do the grunt-work(which just pushes the busy-work off onto someone else,) I'm looking at a website with specific passwords for my researchers. We'll talk more about that once we run it for a couple of weeks. Needless to say, I'm excited to have that 45 minutes of my day back... We're talking 4 hour workweek/lifestyle design stuff here guys! I love these ideas...

And while I don't have the luxury of taking the entire month or even the last half of December off, I am looking down the barrel of a sweet 4-day weekend coming up and hopefully a lot of time with the kids playing Guitar Hero and Tennis on the Wii!

Be safe this New Year's Weekend!

Cheers,
Taylor

Hey Taylor! Where's My List?

2007-12-18T22:27:00.001-05:00

My last couple of jobs were so flexible I actually forgot how restricting it is to have an office job. I'm in that freakin' chair from 8:30-5 every day, on the phone calling people that don't want to be bothered (by me or any other salesperson) or be bothered with the product I'm peddling (commercial insurance.) It's mind-numbing work, but, I am the dad and that's what dad's do. Like my little one says as he wanders through the house while I'm gone all day "daddy work!" At least I have a nice place to come home to every day. My little oasis... But I digress...

With the day hours taken up by J.O.B. and Daddy-time from 6-9, that leaves the night hours from 9-midnight for real estate. So this evening I am back to pulling my own foreclosure info out of the paper for my researcher(s).

You may ask yourself, "Self, why would he pull his own numbers? Why not have the researchers do that? Isn't that something that a true real estate investor wouldn't deign to do him/herself?" Well, that's a very good series of questions my young learner... come here, sit down and listen to heytaylor and I'll tell you a story...

Back when I was a young foreclosure door-knocker, my mentor had an assistant who would gather the FC info out of the public notice section of the local newspaper every day. She would input the data into an excel sheet and fold/mail his "WE BUY HOUSES" flyers and then she would email me the excel list of all the foreclosures for the entire Hampton Roads area. (That's something like 7 counties.)

The info was not sorted or grouped in any way, just the raw data. So, being the go-getter, can-do kind of guy I am, I filtered out the Virginia Beach leads by zip and sorted them by auction date and started knocking doors. There were lots of names and I couldn't keep up with the entire city so I focussed on 2 zip codes. Eventually I figured out what to say by trial and error and started actually getting to the point where people were responding to me in a positive way! As each "deal" developed I'd call my mentor and run the numbers by him... Sorry Taylor, there's just not a deal there... I heard that phrase over and over, and eventually I gave up on FC's and moved on. Because of the workload and little success I burned out after a few months at the door.

I have since clued in to the concept of only chasing those leads that have a real potential to be a deal in the first place. (brilliant!)

In fact, I am setting up my entire operation on that premise...
Better yet - My Credo...
Only chase the deals.
Leave the "not deals" alone...

Of course I built a spreadsheet. First, the basic info about the foreclosure: (name, address, loan initialization date, initial loan amount, auction date) and then added a few key pieces of info:

Comp (usually realquest.com, sometimes zillow)
Tax Assessor amount (good to use as indication that comp may be way off.)
Formula calculating the % of equity based on the loan in FC vs the comp#.

My lovely bride and I used this formula to mail to FC's, but our numbers were too few to get a large enough group to see success. There's too much competition in mailing. Ergo - The Researcher!

As we have discussed before, there are very few people who have the guts to go knock doors. Plus, even if someone else has researchers going out, my researcher has all the info he/she needs to chase only potential deals! Other door-knockers are likely to be out there banging on every door in FC! My guys will be only chasing DEALS. And, more importantly, they are relying on me to get that info to them!(which creates more loyalty.)

It is extra work on my part, but I feel like my researchers will be better informed, better motivated and not add to the aggregate of wasted time in the world... (as always, I'm doing my small part for humanity!)

So I gather the info. As soon as we pop one of these deals I'm going to hire a stay-at-home mom from church to take care of it for me, but for now it's me.

They say that when you're in charge, "the buck stops here" or "the buck stops with you."

Well, I say that there is no buck.

And it all stops here anyway.

Welcome to entrepreneur-hood.

Leave a comment- let me know you were here.

A Couple More Calls

2007-12-18T22:22:00.000-05:00

I 2 more calls last week from my probate mailing. One has a house that is 'pretty much ready to sell' that he would knock down from full retail for the amount of the remaining repairs. (no thanks.)

The other called to thank me for mailing the letter, but that the estate is going to hold on to the property and rent it out. It was a very nice call.

I'm not expecting anything more from that mailing and my researcher has taken the month of December off (she's a full time realtor, remember?) so my flow of leads has dried up.

My FC researcher is chomping at the bit for more leads and I'll be up late tonight putting together his lead sheet. I need to find a couple more guys like him and I'd be in the real estate business within a couple of months!

And the Phone Keeps Ringing...

2007-12-11T23:12:00.000-05:00

I got 3 more calls from probates today. I went to see one of the properties on my lunch break.

First Call: The Car Lot House... (Right next door to a used car lot)
Built 1959, another 1300 sq ft 3/1 brick rambler in a decent rental neighborhood. Comps at 200-207k, tax assessor 187k. They had just paid taxes (due on the 14th,) so they knew about the assessed amount and when I broke out the big question...

"If we could close by next Friday, what is the best you could do on the price?"
they came back with the obvious response,
"I'd like to get 187k for it." FULL RETAIL!? WHAT?
No fanfare, no reasoning for the price or calculation of profit, just a wish thrown into the air like a feather, floating ever downward...

I looked at her for a moment to be sure she wasn't kidding and thought to myself, "self, here we go again..."

It was another case of Full Retail Minus Repairs; until it came time for me to leave.

Just for giggles, I helped them work out the numbers:
187k
-11k (6%for realtor commissions if they were to sell on their own. I always take out of my #'s)
-40k (my estimate of what it would cost THEM to have the house ready to sell for RETAIL.)
-Holding costs/loan costs (since they wanted an all-cash offer)
-Little bit of profit,
And the best I'd be able to offer would be $110-120k. (I softened the delivery a bit by throwing the 120k in there, but we both know that I'd be pushing the seams a bit to try and wholesale this thing at 115k.)

(work the numbers on your own, 200k x.70, minus 25k repairs and you're at the same number. The way I used just works better when they're working the price down with you...)

The two sisters huffed, puffed and shuffled their feet. No buying signs at all. I just shut up and stood there for a good 30 seconds, waiting for a response. None came. So I closed my notebook, offered my card and said that my verbal offer would stand for 30 days, "call me if you'd like me to write up something more... official." And I started walking to the car.

Both of the women looked at each other quickly and the executor said, "well, you might as well write up your best offer so I can hold on to it." Since she didn't have a fax number, she asked that I mail it to her home. Hmm... Sounds like an investor price-comparison project in the works here...

Since I haven't had anyone show even the slightest twinge of interest in any of my crazy offers, I wasn't ready for this one so I said that I'd pull together the numbers and get an offer in the mail in the morning. I figured that I'd have time to get with my mentor and get his opinion on how to handle this latest twist... I forgot to call him on the way home (2 job interviews during my commute,) but will get with him over lunch tomorrow. I'll keep you abreast of the developments.

The other two calls were regarding the same probate case. It turns out that unknown to the other, they both called me to find out what property was in the estate. Since I only have my researcher pull the info from the first page of the probate, I don't have any idea the address or any other property info until the heirs call me and let me know what they're interested in selling. This was another twist for me... (two in a day!)

We got it all figured out in the end. The eccentric uncle who passed away didn't keep very good records and they thought there might have been more than the two undeveloped parcels of land (near the oceanfront in VB) in the estate. I wasn't able to help them and have no idea how to buy/wholesale expensive, undeveloped, near-to-the-oceanfront land, I wished them each well and went back to calling for insurance quotes...

So what is that now, 5 calls from 80 probate files? That's a 6% response rate! Normal direct mail rates are between 1 and 2% and with my own experience, foreclosure mailing response rates are even worse than that. As soon as I buy one of these I'm going to be a believer. At least it gets the phone ringing.

And now a word from our sponsor...

C'mon people!
Let's get desperate out there!
Baby needs a new pair of shoes!

Full Retail Minus Repairs

2007-12-10T21:34:00.000-05:00

I mailed 114 probate letters on Wednesday last week which represents about 80 decedents. I got a call from a guy on Friday (happy birthday...) that went exactly as I had planned.
Check this out...

When I came home from the post office Wednesday night after dropping off my latest batch of probate mailers I told my lovely bride, "someone from this batch is going to call me and say 'I want you to buy my house." " I just knew that someone from this batch was going to call.
So, I wasn't surprised when my cell phone rang Friday night, on the way home from job #1, I took the call and he said, "hello Scott, My name is *Bill* and I want you to buy my house." Just like that. I actually chuckled a little bit and then went into my 'find out if they're motivated' script.

The discussion went well and he pushed off any discussion of price with the comment, "we'll talk about that when you come out tomorrow." No problem, I thought, the loan is low enough that I could take it over and get this guy out of trouble and still have enough room to make a little bit of money.

Here's the details: Built 1959, 1539 sq ft brick rambler, 3BR/2Bth with a new comp roof and new AC unit. Owner estimated that it would take $25k to fix it up and get it looking 'perfect'. Bathrooms needed work and the kitchen floor needed to be redone. It comped at $355k on realquest.com and the assessor's website had it at $307k. The loan on the place is down to $145k so I thought we'd have some room to talk about it...

Next morning I brought my brand-spankin' new foreclosure researcher with me to look at the property. The co-executor/sister was there and it turned out that they now wanted to get what they could sell it for on the market minus repairs. When *Bill* and I had talked the night before, he spoke of 'getting rid of this thing' and 'I'm too old to tackle all the work that needs to be done here...
"What do you think it would sell for if it were fixed up?" I asked the sister kindly.
"Oh, about $365,000," she said. I let out a "ha!" before I could stop myself.
Next I asked how they came up with that amount.
"Oh, from looking around the neighborhood at other houses around."
Market research I thought... what a novel concept.

"If we don't get the price we need to, we can wait this market out. If worse gets to worse, we can just rent it for more than the mortgage payment. Hmmm, the motivation level must have dropped overnight..."

So, in the end, they were looking for $365 minus the $25k in estimated repairs which brought us to a grand total bargain price of $340k. My max offer was in the 180k range and that was going a little light on the repairs (my estimate was a little closer to 35k.) So, in the end I wished them luck and went on my merry way, having looked at house number 19 in my quest for investment properties. They say that you need to look at 100 properties before you buy your first. I've seen the outside of that many, but have only had 19 face-t0-face mtgs with sellers. Many more to come.

My birthday was awesome. Great times with my kids, a great night out to dinner with friends and a couple of great birthday gifts to boot. Thanks everybody.

On the Foreclosure front, my researcher/doorknocker signed his IC contract on Saturday and was supposed to go out knocking doors this morning. He's an IC, so I have no control over whether or not he goes out, but I should hear from him soon and I'll let you know how he's doing.

Best of luck out there!
-Taylor

Whew!

2007-12-06T18:18:00.000-05:00

Well, that was close...

You'll notice that my blog shut down for a few days until I could get an invite list going.

As you know, I am a little bored with my current job and as much as I love my boss for helping me out in my time of need, I struggle sometimes with some of the more boring aspects of commercial insurance sales...

And, I have found something of a voice to the world with this blog. Ergo- a chance to spout on about my excitement for real estate investing...

Mix the two above and you get... a few more hours at work online typing about your blog/real estate than your boss would like. After reviewing my internet usage and comparing that with the company internet policy, my manager gave me a chance to redeem myself by NOT using the internet for personal use at work.

Since he had a list of the websites I had visited over the last 2 months working there, and knowing his distaste for my pursuit of real estate as a second stream of income, my obvious fear was that he would find this blog and realize where my true passion lies.

So... until things cool off at work (or until I find a new job,) this blog will be *invite only.*

If you have someone that expresses an interest in my blog, just send their address to me at:
olasmuchos@gmail.com or heytaylor30@hotmail.com and I'll get them invited.

I really do love everyone's visits to the blog, so keep coming by and leaving your comments.

That's it for now. Cross your fingers...

Some Good RE Resources

2007-12-04T10:19:00.000-05:00

I am a total junkie for free RE info. I have stumbled onto a few great resources out there that I thought you might want to check out.

http://www.reiclub.com/freebies.php Reiclub.com is a great place for free articles and audio downloads. They even have an automatic podcast update feature that will download their latest interview as a podcast! Amazing. Lots of great info here.

One of the national speakers at our REIA meeting this year was Larry Goins. He's got a great system called the Ultimate Buying/Selling Machine. My mentor bought the package when Larry came to Virginia Beach to speak and I got a chance to borrow it and listen. It was good stuff, but I didn't want to drop the $$ on it until I had a chance to make some money first. If you're interested in his program, click here.

One of the other things Larry does is interview other RE speakers. He has a series called 'Brain Pick a Pro' that he does on a regular basis. The replay audios are available at http://www.larrygoins.com/brainpickapro.asp I was inspired by the Dan Doran interview to set up my researcher program and the Alan Cowgill interview totally blew my mind (private money etc...) I just right-click the audio, save to my Real Estate Folder on my hard-drive and then burn the audio to CD for the drive to/from work.

Another of my inspirations is the original season of Flip This House on A&E. I love to hear the theme music and the opening line "Hi, My name is Richard Davis and I buy and sell real estate..." Well, it turns out that Richard Davis and A&E are in a court battle around the show and rights etc... I have had a good time checking the site http://www.flipthislawsuit.com/. It is run by a recent law school grad and is very informative. Check it out. You can get the dirt on Montelongo (who set off my lovely bride's BS meter the first time he was on the screen,) as well as the low down on the law suit. Good dirt.

Another great free resource site is Real Estate Investing Brain. It is run by a really nice guy in Oregon. His name is Jared I think. Again, tons of info and free resources. I love the free contracts and forms. He has a good blog too. RSS that baby today...

I also like magazines... The one that I subscribe Personal Real Estate Investor Mag. I found my first copy of Personal Real Estate Investor Mag at Borders and loved it from day 1. Great stuff.

And last, but not least, the one that got it all started for me... Steve Cook's flippinghomes.com. Great community, awesome boards, good solid products. Get on the email list for their Saturday audio sessions. I can't send enough blessings to Steve & JP. Great stuff guys.

My First Researcher

2007-12-04T10:08:00.000-05:00

I am pretty excited about my latest development. If you read my probate post below (set aside 30 mins...) you know that I have someone else pulling my probates for 'free' each week. She is usually pretty reliable, but missed last week and is running late this week. Get what you pay for I guess.

Anyway, I met with the guy that in all likelyhood is going to be my first foreclosure researcher. He is an ambitious guy, wants to learn the RE business and has another job where he works 3 10hr days and has the rest of the time off. Plenty of time to knock doors for FC's. And he speaks SPANISH! A very handy guy to have around.

I gave him my 'training' audios and we planned to get together in a couple of days to see if it is something that he wants to move forward with. When I left our meeting last night, he was saying that he wanted to get going on Friday. Great!

So I am putting together his leave-behind flyers and need to get some admin stuff figured out, but we are moving forward a little at a time here... Good timing too, because from what I understand, most foreclosure investors make their money from Oct-April each year with the winter months being the best time to pick up properties. We'll see.

As you know, I started my little RE experience knocking doors and had to make it all up as I went along. I have been collecting info since then and feel like I have enough good info that I can get my guy off to a good start.

Cross your fingers!

So Far, So Good

2007-12-03T10:59:00.000-05:00

Admittedly, I may have gotten a little carried away on the probate post. My lovely wife mentioned that she thought about posting a little "we need to talk" comment since the actual post time was during my 1st job working hours. Well, I stole a little time from the man, but most of the post was developed at home & I banged out the body during my lunch break. No harm, no foul.

I am in full swing developing my network & getting my little venture off the ground. I attended the TRIG Christmas event on Saturday night and was able to have some good conversations with other investors and talked wholesaling with the local homevestors franchisee. A good time... (although I didn't win any of the doorprizes...)

As previously mentioned, I am working FT at an office-type job so I have little time to get out and pound the street for RE opportunities. I have decided to pretend that this really is a business venture and act accordingly. I have one researcher worked out to collect my probates each week (free! Yay!) and I interviewed my first researcher for pre-foreclosure and think he is going to work out well. I have a couple of audios for him to listen to and plan to go knocking doors with him for a few hours on Saturday to be sure he's up to the task. I still need to work up my leave-behind flyer with customized testimonials. I am going to get on the phone tonight and call a couple of people that I was able to help get out of Foreclosure back in the spring and see if they'd write up a testimonial for me. Hopefully they'll do it.

Since I'll need more than one researcher, I'm going to see if my current guy has anyone that he could refer me to and then post a listing on Craigslist for some more willing door-knocking souls to get the leads going in Chesapeake and Norfolk. I'm also looking for a probate researcher in Chesapeake, but expect that I would have to pay him/her so I'm holding off on that until I have a deal finished and some $$ to pay them with.

I also got a bird-dogging system over the weekend and since that's basically what I'm doing these days, I'm excited to see what he says. If you're interested in checking it out for yourself, check out the blog at www.unemployedinvestor.com and check out his product at www.investorslunch.com.

Seems like a good product. I'll review it in a future post...

The Probate Hookup

2007-11-29T10:22:00.002-05:00

"So, are you guys like Pedro's cousins with all the sweet hookups?"

"Simon."
-Napoleon Dynamite

I have had a few people ask about my probate process. And in the spirit of the sweet hookup I'm going to go into detail...
If you make a ton of cash, you can send my referral fee to my paypal account -heytaylor30@hotmail.com-. Now go make some money!

First off, big thanks to Preston Ely for his probate course. He gave it out as a bonus along with a teleconference put on by flippinghomes.com and it was exactly what I needed at the time. I understand that he is developing a probate specific course & I will link that when it comes out...

Intro:
My first foray into real estate was by knocking doors of people in foreclosure. Foreclosures (FC) are tough. There is a ton of competition, even thousands of other investors trying to get a hold of people in pre-foreclosure(PFC).

People in foreclosure get:

mail(letters/postcards/post-it notes/fake "while you were out" phone message slips/pens...),
phone calls,
investors calling their neighbors & relatives,
investors knocking on their doors
investors door-knocking their neighbors (& possibly relatives,)
fake UPS deliveries, (this is a good one - Brilliant!)
business cards jammed into the door & stuffed in the mailbox,
annoying I buy houses signs posted around the corner,
etc...

People in PFC are good at throwing away mail (ergo the pending FC?) and avoiding/denying, so you end up being:

one of the many investors, that are
trying to contact someone that doesn't want to be contacted and
who is good at avoiding you.

An uphill battle for sure... (That doesn't mean that I don't pursue FC's, I just think that it is a tough market to start your RE experience with.)

On the other hand...
Probate heirs are regular people.

They open their mail.
They will call if they need your service.
They will answer the phone if you call.
They will return phone messages.
They don't get letters from many investors and
They tend to be very, very nice, (even grateful for the contact.)

You don't need to knock on their door, call their neighbors or bombard them with repeat mailings. A one-time mailing is all I send. (I am planning a 6-month follow up letter, but that is still in the works & will be a future topic...) In short, probates are an easy way to get your feet wet in real estate & get comfortable talking to sellers. And a great way to get/keep the phone ringing as you expand into other marketing/seller avenues.

Probate: A Primer
Probate is the process of settling financial affairs when someone passes away. It is a judicial process handled by the courts and the files are public information. People can use living trusts to avoid probate and keep their financial information private, but most don't and the estate ends up going through the probate office. Many people actually die intestate and the courts have to decide who gets what... messy stuff. (Come to think of it, I need to get a will going... So do you, right?)

The Courthouse: It All Starts Here
My most recent job was pretty flexible and it allowed me to go to the courthouse and collect my probate info each week on my own. The Monday after my flippinghomes.com probate teleconference I beat a path to the courthouse to try out my new skills. Being the MBA-spreadsheet building knucklehead that I am, I tried out a ton of different ways of collecting and processing the info (designing different info collection sheets, tracking the files by hand and then via excel spreadsheet, mail-merge tweaking, etc...) until I had it down to a pretty efficient system.

One of the barriers to entry in probates is the fact that the info you need is only in the file.

Obituaries are published in the paper,
some counties have basic info online,
but the list of heirs and whether or not the estate has property is only in the file. Someone has to open it and get the info.
This actually keeps competition low.

Many (dare I say most?) RE investors are lazy, buying into the 'work from home in your underwear' mantra. (by the way, what is so great about working from home in your underwear? PUT ON SOME PANTS!! Again, I digress..)

My first trip to the courthouse I was a little unsure of what to expect. There is no reason to worry. As it turned out, I had no competition in my county! None! The ladies in the probate office were very nice and said that there used to be a couple of people that would come into the office to pull files, but they didn't come around anymore. In the 3 months that I collected my own probates I only ran into another person collecting info; one time, one person. It turned out that she was forwarding the info to a guy that runs estate auctions out of Florida. No competition for the real estate.

Since my aim (and yours too) should be to get 3 counties going at a time, once you get the procedure for your own county, it is likely that you'll find similar in adjacent counties as well. Do your best to systemize the process so you can get others gathering the info for you. Make it easy for them and they'll keep working for you for a long time. (Who doesn't love an easy job?)

The Probate office in my county is at the courthouse and is staffed with 2 very nice ladies. The files are numbered (2007-xxx) and start at 1 at the beginning of each year.
I was only looking for files that have property in the estate, so I asked one of the girls if there were any easy ways to do a quick check for real property in the file.

It turns out that there is a $1 transfer tax charged if there is real estate transferring in the estate. No tax, no real estate. They also note the amount of the property in the column next to the fee on the opening page. So all I need to do is flip open the file, scan the first page for the transfer tax, check the amount of property and then start filling out one of my info sheets. Easy, peesy, Japanesey...

**Look/ask for shortcuts like this. A couple of Starbucks gift-cards go a long way.

The File:
The file contains the decedent's will and any addendums. Initially I would read through the wills to see if the property was listed specifically and see who the heirs for the property were.

A note about reading the will: I thought it would be a little creepy to read someone else's will, but most times it was quite touching to read the comments in the will. You can tell how much people care about leaving a legacy and helping out the heirs. It is a surprisingly emotional thing and not impersonal as you might think.

It didn't take me long to realize that I didn't need to read the will. All I needed was the info of:

Whether or not there was RE in the estate
The names/addresses of heirs
Name/address of the attorney (if there was one.)
The date of death (so as to not send my letter too soon.)

The reason you don't need to read the will is that the county requires that all heirs be contacted/notified so that they have a chance to make any claims against the estate. The list of heirs includes the assigned executor (with phone #) as well as the mailing addresses for all heirs concerned. Occasionally the estate will use an attorney & my form includes a spot to collect that info as well. I also have a letter that I send to attorneys. No responses yet... but I still send the letter.

The File Part II: Schedule of Assets:
One thing I learned is that within 4 months after the decedent passes away, the estate executor is required to file a schedule of assets with the court. They have to list the bank account and retirement account balances, cars, other items of value including real estate. So in the beginning I started going through files that were at least 4 months old so I would have the specific address of any real estate and the amount that the executor assigned to the property.

It turned out that this was just extra information and by waiting to contact the heirs after 4 months I missed out on a number of chances to buy property. Good info if you happen to get it, but not vital.

I got a call from one of the executors thanking me for mailing my letter, but he had just signed the documents with another investor & sold the house. He actually said "too bad I didn't get your letter sooner, he got a really good deal on the house..." I hung up the phone and thought, "CRAP!!! What an idiot I am!"

The only thing that matters is that the letter gets in the hands of the decision maker when they have decided to sell. Sooner is better. Don't wait for info about the address or value of the property. If they want to sell, they'll call & tell you about it.

Lesson learned. I changed my approach. Instead of collecting the info months after the fact, I started collecting info from the prior 4 weeks. The file notes the date of death, and I didn't want to mail too soon after the passing, so I decided on 4weeks. Figure out what you're comfortable with and mail as soon as you like.

The Letter:
I encourage you to write your own letter. I think that one of the keys to working with probates is your philosophy of helpfulness and being genuine.

You will want to have some key components in your letter:

Address the heir,
express condolences on the loss of their loved one (I insert the name of the decedent - totally your choice)
Then you will need to address the fact that you understand that there was property in the estate and you're interested in buying it if they want to sell.
Note some of the challenges of trying to sell real estate (cleaning up the property, expenses of taxes & upkeep, expenses of real estate commissions etc).
Don't forget to encourage them to hold onto your letter in case they decide to sell in the future and
wrap it all up with a nice, heart-felt best wishes of sign-off.
Sign the letter in colored ink to make it stand out from the black printed letter.

My initial letter included the address of the property listed in the probate file. I thought it might be better received if I showed the executor that I had done my homework. I learned through a few conversations with heirs that when someone owns property in an estate, they often own multiple properties and likely in different city/counties... **So my idea of having a specific address in the letter actually limited my potential responses from heirs.** Whoops.

I got a couple of calls that went like this... "I have your letter here and 123 Elm St. wasn't my mom's house, but we do have her house in "random city" that we are thinking about selling. Would you be interested in that?" Holdonaminuteletmethinkaboutit, YES!

Lesson learned. I have modified my letter and have removed any specifics about location of any property. It mainly says, "I understand that there was property in the estate and if you are interested in selling I would be interested in discussing it with you..."

The number of response calls has gone up and as an example, I even had a guy with a property in FL ask me if I was interested in it. (I referred it to an online associate of mine "Tampa Steph"whom I also met online at flippinghomes.com.) And if it goes anywhere I'm getting a referral $$. Nice.

Be Flexible & Look to Remove Bottlenecks (Including Yourself)
At this point, things were going along fine. I was going to the probate office twice a week to gather the probates on my lunch-hour and then entering the info into my spreadsheet in the evening. Once a week I would mail-merge the list and sign/fold/stuff/stamp/mail the letters.

Like clockwork, the phone would start ringing a few days later and I would talk to the heirs. Cool. Met some nice people and looked at a bunch of houses. So far so good.

Then came the layoff. And the new job. 8:30-5, M-F. At the office. Probate office hours... 8:30-4:30 M-F. The courthouse was across town, 20 min drive...

I couldn't collect my own info anymore. I contemplated placing an ad on craigslist for a real-estate researcher, but I didn't have the $ to pay anyone. Quandary... It turned out that I was the bottleneck. I am the limiting factor and when I couldn't get the info, my little venture came to a screeching halt.

The Solution: Coop-a-tition:
I was discussing this situation with a fellow member of TRIG who is also a Realtor. She was interested in getting the list of probates to mail for possible listings. Since I only mail once and then basically never use the list again I suggested that we split the cost of a researcher and share the info.

She did one better and offered to gather the info for me if I would train her on the process and share the names with her.
We worked out a deal where she goes to the probate office once a week and collects the recent probates and then leaves the info sheets for me at the front desk at her real estate office.
I grab the envelope on my way home from work and enter the info in excel.
I print my letters and my lovely bride stuffs the envelopes.
The letters do their thing for a month and then I email the spreadsheet to my Realtor connection for her to do her mailing.
She is competition, but I like to think of it as coop-a-tition. (phrase from JP Moses, flippinghomes.com) which is a mash-up of cooperation and competition. We compete and yet we work together. Can't we all get along? As it turns out, Yes...

Now Go Do It
The point is, you can get this thing going for free (other than some sweat equity on your part if you insist on pulling the files yourself or entering the info & stuffing envelopes.) If you feel like you have to do it yourself first (you don't,) take a few hours on an afternoon and go by the probate office in your county.
Get the low-down on the process, look at some files, get some info sheets filled out and get your brain around the process. Find someone to do the work and get it going man! You can do this!

I'd love to hear what you think & if you have any suggestions. Leave a comment.

Much love.
-Taylor

Motivation and A Low Information Diet

2007-11-21T09:43:00.000-05:00

I went to my local REIA last Tuesday night. It was a very uplifting meeting and I had the chance to meet a number of other new investors and some money people (lenders mostly.)

I also learned about a new association here in VA called the Foreclosure Prevention Council. The idea is to provide investor training and encourage ethical FC investing in VA in a effort to become something of a self-governing group rather than having legislation forced upon the industry. I like the idea and plan on attending the initial meeting next week. Here's the link. I'll let you know...

The main platform speaker last night was Tony Horner. Tony was a former railroad worker who has really grown into one of the more successful RE investors in the area. It was really inspiring for me to see a guy with so little formal education and coming from such a humble background make it in the RE game. I really enjoyed his talk and appreciate how approachable he was.

I also met Lonnie Scruggs who is a 30 yr RE veteran who gives speeches at RE conventions across the country. We had a chance to chat about the industry and the value of the connections made when attending local and national group meetings. Lonnie is a mobile home investor guy, which is not my thing, but I appreciate where he's coming from. Can't knock his success, that's for sure.

I've been reading up on how to network with attorneys and am putting together my unique value proposition. I am going to contact estate and probate attorneys in the area in conjunction with my probate mailing program and see if I can get some contracts going that way.

One of the things that has come up in conversation with various people is the question of how I find time to do all the things I have going.
First answer is that I am committed to creating the life I've always wanted and will do what it takes to get there. (And I tend to be a little bit of an insomniac when big projects/things are on the line.)
The second is an idea for creating useful time that I got from reading Timothy Ferriss' book 'The Four Hour Workweek' called a media fast. He actually has a section of the book dedicated to developing a low information diet. The concept changed my whole approach to info/news. Basically, you skip the local/national news for 21 days and use the time/energy to forward your projects.

I have been doing it for the last 4 weeks now and have to report that my mood is better and I have a lot more time to work on my RE project. I totally abstained from all news for 21 days, but am now back to scanning the WS Journal in the morning for Insurance and RE related news. Try it, you'll like it!

Endless Optimism... With a Little Pharma Help

2007-11-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

I love this stuff...

The Humor, not the Juice.

Good times.

A Tale of How This Real Estate Biz Got Started

2007-11-19T14:49:00.000-05:00

Ok, now that we're past the formalities of me getting some of my creative muse out, let's talk Turkey... Real Estate turkey.

After I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad in 1998 I knew that I would eventually get into the real estate business. A number of the insurance guys I knew were also real estate investors and it seemed like a good fit to mix both avenues to make money & keep things interesting.

In 2006 I moved to VA from CA after finishing my MBA. I thought my job was cool and liked the area (12 mins from from the beach!) But within 3 months the regional officer got laid off, I thought that there would never be a better time to get something on the back burner. I looked at teaching part-time for the local Jr College, but my schedule for work involved so much overnight travel that I couldn't make the commitment. So I started combing the internet for real estate investing & flipping homes ( and watching every home flipper show on cable that I could get.) I stumbled upon the chat board at the best website for real estate investors, www.flippinghomes.com and was able to learn and make acquaintances without spending tons of money on courses. I read and listened to audio downloads and filled my drive time with Real Estate education.

In Jan 2007, my direct supervisor got laid off and I had another shiver go through me and knew somewhere inside that my time with the company was limited. (I had no idea how limited...)

I knew that one of the agents in my territory was an active investor and we struck up something of a partnership with me knocking doors on the foreclosure leads that he was mailing every week.

I knocked doors for about 3 months in the evening after work and was able to help a good number of people, but we didn't end up buying any properties. There were just too many people that were right up against the loan to value on their homes...

I eventually decided to quit door-knocking and decided to join my mentor in the direct mail business. I/we mailed to foreclosures in the area and had a decent number of responses, but again it seemed that the 'up to my neck in debt/no equity' deals were the only people calling us. I tried phoning forclosures, but calling people that didn't want to be called was worse than trying to find people that didn't want to be found. I was searching for something else - my real estate 'thing.'

I listened to one of flippinghomes.com's saturday workshops on probates and decided to add probates (inherited property) to my list of mailings and saw the number of response calls go way up. And, as foreclosure responses tailed off, my probates continued to respond at about the same rate... ergo- drop the FC, keep the probate.

Late summer '07 I got laid off as the company merged the VA & Mid-Atlantic territories and I became redundant. I was encouraged to 'return to the field' (sales,) which is corporate speak for 'get out.' I found a job pretty quickly, but continued to work on my little real estate investing machine in the evenings and weekends.

That's where I'm at today. I have partnered with a local friend of mine that is a Realtor who goes to the probate office each week and collects the new probates (for free!). I enter the info into a spreadsheet and mail my letters. After 30 days I send her the list of names and she can mail to them as often as she likes at that point. It's a great little partnership since my new job isn't as flexible and I can't get to the probate office myself.

I mailed 90 probates last week and have another 30 going out this week. I generally get 5-6 calls per hundred letters and I have one offer out there (not returning my calls,) which is likely a dead deal...

I'm working on a business plan and adding more to the business, but need to get some of the kinks worked out of my organization and call tracking system. I'm using a paper system right now (post-it notes & 4x6 cards) and it's failing me. In order to grow, I'll need to replace that with something more predictable. I'm looking online for some free resources and also have some software that I have used in insurance for tracking clients/prospects that would work well too. I'm open to suggestions...

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

2007-11-14T15:17:00.000-05:00

I had a strange premonition today that I am on the eve of something big. I'm putting it down here to make it permanent and we can all see in the future what the feeling was all about, but it was a really cool de ja vu kind of thing. I was at the courthouse gathering info for another of my probate mailings and had the feeling. We'll see what it was all about, but it was cool. Hopefully you've felt it before too.

When I got back to the office I checked my email and got a blog-link of Steve Jobs' Commencement speech at Stanford 2005 titled 'Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish'. I found it surprisingly soothing that someone so ridiculously successful had something of a rocky beginning. It's a great vid clip and you can click here to watch it by clicking above. For the entire transcript etc, check out the link on my blog in the links/blogs section.

Between my RE connection and myself, we were able to get 26 new probate records and when added to the 10 that I have from last week, I am looking at over 100 more letters to go out tomorrow. I also sent out 18 attorney letters this morning and 90 or so probate letters on Tuesday.

If my numbers hold true, my phone should start ringing around Friday this week and I should get 8-9 interested calls.

I'm also thinking about getting back into pre-foreclosures by door-knocking since it is dark in the evening again. We'll go over that in another post.

Learning & Earning!
Taylor out

Cold Cereal is my Comfort Food

2007-11-13T15:17:00.000-05:00

My delightful wife and the boys were all down and I couldn't sleep.

You've been there too I'm sure. Money, job and dreams (ie. real estate plans) were all rolling through my head & I had too much nervous energy to even lay down.

Raisin Bran Crunch to the rescue! Ahhh...

It is kind of healthy what with all the bran and raisins and all, but it is more about the crunch and the endorphin push of eating my favorite comfort food. Honey nut Cheerios is also a favorite (lowers cholesterol, no?), but since the baby doesn't like them I have no excuse to keep them in stock in the pantry. I actually stay away from the sweet cereals as they seem to incite nightmares once I head off to bed. No, it's healthy mid-night eatin' at it's finest.

A bowl of cereal, the remote and a couple of episodes of Property Ladder or Flip That House and I'll be ready to drift off to nighty night land.

Oh, you have to check out the show Flipping Out on Bravo. It's Awesome TV. The gays, quirky assistants (with rankings for assistant #1, 2, 3), and Jeff, the nutty property investor. Love that show. Forget Survivor or The Simple Life, this is my kind of reality TV.

So, a virtual spoon clank salute to you my cereal insomniacs! I'll be working on probate mailers for the next couple of nights so look for updates on how that goes...

Cheers!
Taylor out.

It's All Scripted

2007-11-09T19:50:00.000-05:00

I'm focussed on scripts today.

Real estate speaker and NLP disciple Bill Twyford came to our REIA group meeting last month and my head has been spinning ever since. I didn't pay the $900 for his CD's/workbooks/Boot Camp, but there was something he said that got me thinking that I haven't been able to shake...

His whole premise is that we all use scripts in all of our communication; from our dialog with the kids to conversations with customers at work. We all use various combinations of scripts that have either worked well for us in the past or that we use, but don't realize how they impact the people we talk with.

I have spent the last 3 weeks taking time to focus on my own scripts while phoning for prospects at work or herding the kids off to bath and bed and I was surprised that I use the same script at nearly the same time of day (in the case of putting the kids in the tub)! I was stunned!

The second part of Bill's premise is if we are hoping to develop the skills necessary to discuss real estate with sellers & potential buyers, we should take the time to craft what it is that we want to say and practice like a true professional would. You're a professional - act like it. Stop practicing during the game!

Up to this point, my thought was that when someone called in response to a mailer or leave-behind I would use each call to 'get better each time.' That was actually part of my business plan, to get better as I went along... Seems ridiculous now that I think about it. While I knew the value of learning a script when prospecting for insurance, I somehow missed the connection between what I'm trying to do with real estate and my prior learning. Duh.

So I have spent considerable time/effort searching my resources for little bits and phrases that I want to use to develop into my very own script and then memorize it. That way I will be able to at least start each conversation the way I want to and should have the right stuff to bring back any wandering conversation. That way, when I am discussing someone's foreclosure situation, I'll be paying attention to what they are saying rather than trying to think of what my best thing to say should be.

It really is an interesting idea that I am looking at in all areas of my life. I've started asking myself the question "where did I pick up that little bit of script from?" when I find myself speaking on autopilot. You should try it.

I think it was W. Shakespeare that is credited with the whole 'all the world's a stage, and we are but merely players...' thing.

Seems to me that he was on to something...