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Jul

31

My Business Philosophy

July 31, 2008 | 4 Comments

I’ve gotten a lot of questions recently about what parts of the rehab work I’ll be doing myself, and why the hell am I planning to hire the expensive contractors vs. just picking up day laborers to do the easy stuff or doing it myself. The answer is obvious (to me, at least), and is […]

Jul

30

House #1: Scope of Work

July 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I started meeting with contractors this week to get bids on the rehab work for the Corn House. While I was originally only going to get three bids, I screwed up and overbooked and am now on the hook to get about 5 bids on this job (a couple GCs didn’t call me back […]

Jul

29

House #1: More Details

July 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment

…continuation of yesterday’s post with more details around the Corn House:
* I had a full inspection of the house on Saturday. Overall, there were no major surprises, which was a good thing. My inspector is tremendously detail-oriented, and found at least a hundred little issues, but most of them I had already known […]

Jul

28

House #1: Some Details

July 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I officially signed the contract for House #1 (”The Corn House”) on Saturday. And as promised, here are some more details:
* First, some pictures of the new property. The basement pictures aren’t in here yet, but since I’ll likely be finishing the basement, I’ll upload those when I get a chance. If […]

Jul

26

House #1: The Corn House

July 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment

It’s only Saturday, but it’s already been a good news, bad news weekend…
First, the bad news: Offer #2 was a day too late, and buyer who submitted an offer a day before mine got the house. I was hoping that he’d back out during the 7-day inspection period, but that period expired on […]

Jul

25

Getting & Building Credit

July 25, 2008 | 1 Comment

As I start to build my business, I keep getting the recommendation to build business credit earlier and often…as when I actually need credit, I won’t be able to get it…
So, I’ve been focusing this week on finalizing my financial setup (opening a business bank account, setting up Quickbooks, etc), and I’ve put together a […]

Jul

24

Strategy on Offer #2

July 24, 2008 | 2 Comments

Yesterday, I mentioned putting in an offer on another investment property. Some people have asked me what I’d do with this property if I get it. The nice thing about this one is that I believe it has multiple good exit strategies…here are some more details…
The house is an REO (bank-owned foreclosure) listed […]

Jul

23

My Second Offer

July 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I made my second offer the other day. The house is a 3/2 ranch in a suburb of Atlanta, built in 1970. I first saw the house last Friday, the first day it came on the MLS, and I was pretty sure that — being a good deal — it would probably go […]

Jul

22

Finding a General Contractor

July 22, 2008 | 2 Comments

I’m confident that I’m pretty close to purchasing my first house, and as such, it’s time that I really buckle down and finishing building the team that is going to help make me successful. So far, I’ve built part of that team — I have my CPA, one great real estate agent, two property […]

Jul

21

Finding Financing

July 21, 2008 | 2 Comments

Once I decided to pursue investing in single family houses more seriously, it became clear that I’d need a serious financing strategy. While I can afford to buy a few houses for cash and pay for all the rehab costs myself, if I’ll be holding those houses for any period of time before selling, […]

Jul

18

My Strategy From Here

July 18, 2008 | 1 Comment

A lot of people who have been reading my blog have been asking why I’m focusing so much on single family houses recently when my plan was originally to focus on apartment investing. It’s a good question, and I can understand why those following this blog would be confused…I haven’t really clarified my plans […]

Jul

17

Update for 7/17/08

July 17, 2008 | 2 Comments

I know, not the most creative of blog post titles, but it will have to do…
Lots of “fun” stuff happened the past couple days:
1. Met with a couple more banks. While they aren’t going to be able to get me the financing I’d like, I may not be in a position to be too […]

Jul

16

50% Rule for SFH

July 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment

As long as we’re talking about analysis of Single Family Houses, I thought I’d write a quick post on the 50% rule…
The 50% rule is a rule of thumb to do a very-quick first-pass analysis of a single family investment property. The rule states that — on average — the total expenses associated with […]

Jul

15

Meeting with the Banks

July 15, 2008 | 2 Comments

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my biggest obstacle to be able to scale my real estate efforts is the difficulty I’ll face in getting loans. I have some cash in the bank, and I have great credit, but without income (I quit my job, remember), it’s very difficult to qualify for loans these […]

Jul

14

House Buying Philosophies

July 14, 2008 | 1 Comment

I’ve been working with a real estate agent the past couple days who continues to try to sell me a few overpriced duplexes. I’ve tried to explain to her several times my conservative buying philosophy, but it doesn’t really seem to be getting through to her. Today, I received an email trying to […]

Jul

11

First Offer Dead?

July 11, 2008 | 3 Comments

It looks like Offer #1 probably isn’t going to close…here’s the latest…

I got a call from the agent/wholesaler who is negotiating this offer on my behalf, saying that the bank’s agent has multiple offers and wants a best/final offer from us (this may or may not be true, who knows);

I *hate* the best/final offer negotiating […]

Jul

10

First Offer Questions

July 10, 2008 | 3 Comments

In yesterday’s post, I discussed the possible exit strategies — and the financial implications of each — for the property I made an offer on the other day. Because this is my first potential deal, I ran it by a bunch of other experienced investors who I knew would provide impartial advice on the […]

Jul

9

First Offer Details

July 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment

After getting feedback from some other knowledgeable RE folks, I’m not sure that my potential first deal is the right one to start with. While I’ll go into my hesitations on the deal (and the specific feedback I’ve gotten) in more detail in a subsequent post, I wanted to lay out my rationale for […]

Jul

8

My First SFH Offer

July 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment

It’s crazy…I moved here with the intention that I would be focusing on buying apartment buildings, and after putting together a solid business plan, starting to make contacts with other investors, agents, lenders, etc, it looks like the first investment property I buy will be a single family house (SFH). Don’t get me wrong, […]

Jul

4

Happy 4th of July

July 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment

It’s 4th of July today, and Monday is my birthday, so I’ll be taking the weekend off from writing (and working), and will be enjoying some free time with the family!
Hope everyone has a great holiday (and if it’s not a holiday where you are, have a great weekend!)…

Jul

3

SFH Investment Analysis (Part 4)

July 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment

In yesterday’s post, I laid out a range of financial projections regarding the SFH Investment business I was considering funding and implementing. To recap, I developed two business and financial models, to help give an accurate range of financial expectations for this venture. At the low end, we assumed very conservative business growth, […]

Jul

2

SFH Investment Analysis (Part 3)

July 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment

In some previous posts, I laid out a quick-and-dirty business and financial model for a real estate company that bought, rehabbed, and sold/rented single family homes full-time. My goal was to determine whether this could be a potentially lucrative undertaking, as my fiancee would love to get into the “house flipping” game (she’d be […]

Jul

1

Cash Flow Analysis for SFHs

July 1, 2008 | 2 Comments

In my last post, I discussed the two major investing philosophies among SFH investors: Cash Flow vs Appreciation.
As I mentioned at the end of that post, I tend to focus on the cash flow side of the investment, and hope that appreciation takes care of itself in the long run. So, that said, I […]