Behind the scenes.

Alright,
I've received several emails from people asking what exactly I'm doing.. Lately, I've been posting the successes without posting the actual nuts and bolts of the transactions.

Just ot put things in perspective, i'm working with about a 1:14 ratio. One out of every 14 offers gets approved. Each week I strive to get out about 5 offers, sometimes more sometimes less depends on how busy I am.

In a nutshell..this is what I do. Saturday-monday/tuesday I'm browsing the MLS for hosues that fit my criteria, there are usually abour 600 houses or so to go through. Then out of that i have a list compiled of about 15-20 houses. Of these I usually pick the top 10 (with the best spread) then I go check them out. I go check out the houses, run repair estimates, then I come back home and run comps.. then I make write my offers up and fax them in. by late in the week.

Lately, I've been getting lists from several listing agents which is a big help.

What I need to do is spend some more time looking for buyers.. I have 2-3 dependable cash buyers but that's not enough.. I know I need more.

Well that's about it for now!

i'm tired and I gotta study for an exam tomorrow... no redbull this time though!

g'night!

Dennis

506 Clark... done deal!

Okay,

This property you may remember from a few posts ago. I mad an offer on this house, the seller countered, so i showed my potential buyer. Well, he pointed out a few more things that i totally missed so i had to resubmit my offer at 38,9k which was about 4k lower. The seller rejected the offer. 2-3 weeks go by, the listing agent calls me up tells me they have reduced it to 41k so i submit the same offer at 38,9k few days go buy.. today she calls me up saying i have 7 days to inspect and will close on or before dec 11th :)

Good news, especially since I have a buyer who already has expressed interest. I called him up let him know, he didn't answer but i know he'll be stoked about it as this week he was just telling me he wanted to buy more houses.

I feel totally jittery. I drank 3 red bulls and a NOS energy drink last night inbetween 7pm and 12am so i can stay up and study.. well needless to say i never did goto bed. I went to school directly from the library to take my exam (that I know I aced) but the residual affects are still lingering. I feel like i REALLY need ot be sleeping buy i just can't sleep.. i'm thinking about taking some tylenol PM or something.. it's the worse feeling. Ugh!

I took a trip to the mountains last week with my GF it was pretty nice.. we missed peak season by about a week though :(

Well, stay tuned!

Oh yea. I GOT A HUGE EBAY DEAL ABOUT TO BREAK THROUGH. You guys probably know that i really don't like ebay because i feel like i'm a customer service rep at beste buy ro something.. the problem is i dont outsource any of my work and i do way to many deals. it becomes a headache. Well, i've been working with a supplier who can provide an item for me.. this item will be GREAT , i can sell a LOT less of these and make MORE then i'm currently bringing home.. so i can sell about 50 of these and make more money then me selling 150 items of what i'm selling now..just thinking about that free time i'll have makes me smile :)

okay that's all! Have a good weekend!

Ughh ! but i do have a lcosing today :)

Hey, I feel so bad because I could'nt uphold my pledge. I actually had to goto Monsanto and present research, i just got back last night, it was totally last minute.

Okay,

Mt Olive Drive:
While I was gone, I got an email from the listing agent, they countered at 85,400 but there is still no way i'm comfortable at getting the property at that price, I'm going to be sticking to my guns with this one. One of my buyers told me the max he would pay for it (82) which is slieghtly higher then what I was thinking. So I countered back at 75k, my first offer was 72.9 and now I'm waiting on word from them. I have some room to move but they do need to come down much lower.

Today:

Today I'm scheduled to be closing on another property that I got under contract a few months ago, Kildar Dr. I got this one under contract back in septemeber, for some reason closings take forever in this state.

Last night I got back and scrubbed the MLS there were 4 new properties up within my area that I'm pretty excited about, tomorrow (or today if i have time) I'm going to get the lock box key and go check them out, they fit my criteria so we'll see how it goes.

Gotta run!

A new pledge!

Alright, i'm horrible at updating the blog on a regular basis, there is so much I wish I could share right now but it will just congest this post. What i'm going to pledge to do over the next several days is update on a single property. That way the post won't be too long, and it will get me back to posting on a regular basis.

We are going to start with a property that I am currently trying to get.

Mount Olive Drive:

This is a pretty nice (2005) raised ranch home, the problem is the entire basement has been flooded on several occasions it appears and about 3ft of vertical drywall has been cut out aroud the entire basement, so the whole basement has to be redone.

I first noticed this hosue when it was 109k about a month ago (it's listed on the MLS) I checked it out and got my repair estimate, about 12k. Now, 2 weeks ago it dropped to 89k , dropped 20k! So i went back out there, checked it out to make sure no additional damage had been done. I submitted my offer that same day, this was a friday. So the following monday when I was "scrubbing" my area for deals (I think that's what you call it? lol) i noticed that the hosue was listed at 95.9k , i was like WTF?! Well, my offer had allready been submitted..this was last monday, TODAY as in an hour ago i received a coutner.. and you won't believe at what price.. 89k! WHAT! how lame LOL

Well, i'm still on the fence on what I should do, I can move up my price to 75k but not much more. I'm going to talk with a few buyers and see what their thoughts are.

Okay, well that's all i got time for now time to goto a 3hour histology lab.. i think today we're checking out large intestin epithelium, oh joy! Then Physics II lab! YAY! :'(

See you tomorrow!

Dennis

3 Terre Street, accepted!

Okay,
Got an email a few hours ago stating they are going to accept my offer :) SWEET, they are accepting it at 50,298, nice. They can't close until november 21st, which is alright.. I have a buyer lined up who will be taking it for $55k

I think it's important to mention that previously I thought this was an REO, but it's not an REO, it's a private seller.

Here is the run down.

Comps: 109k
Listed at: 78k
Repair: $7k

First offer was $49k , they countered at $56, my second offer was also $49k lol , they countered then at $52k , so then I came up $500 bucks.. and they bit the bait.

I have a buyer lined up at $55k, but it can't close until the 21st so it will be a little while before it closes but it's good to know it's under contract, it will be about a 5k payday!

Dennis

More to come soon!

3 Terre Street..$1500 away from a deal.

Okay,
This property was listed at 78k , it's an REO, my first offer was $49,978. The countered at $56.xxx and said they couldn't close until November 17th. My first offer was September 24th. I know I could have accepted their counter and made out well but I decided to wait it out. They then lowered the listed price 10k. I resubmitted my offer of the same price at $49,978. They came down to $52,xxx and agreed with my terms (buyer pays closing fees) Well.. I came up $500. to $50298. Supposidly we're in a multiple offer situation, word on the street is the other offer is in the low 20's so they basically will take mine.. GOD willing!

This will be my second deal.

I've still got a few in the bakery!

Dennis

Cash in the bank baby!!

I'm going to cut and paste my forum post here:

Man, I've been working hard at this for a while now, finally, I can join the ranks of those of you with those 1st success stories behind you!

Okay, Without going into too much detail. This was a wholesale deal I found on the MLS.

Comps: $89k (conservative)
Repair: $6600 (the house smelled REALLY BAD and had some masonite damage that one investor really loves to work with which i think discouraged a lot of people)

1st Offer: $29.9k
Counter: $35k
2nd Offer: $31.9k - Accepted!

Already assigned the contract to an investor for $44k

Payday: $12.1k !

I didnt do a double close on this, and I was really worried that the investor would look at my assignment fee and be like, Heck no! But he is really cool, he's a guy that took me under his wing a few months ago.. he said as long as he know's he can make money from the deal he doesnt care what my payday is, and to go find him some more houses to buy! So he was really cool about it.

I've submitted about 20 SOLID offers, I've got 1 accepted and 3 more counters i'm battling out. Not to mention, i've visited several properties this week i'm going to be submitting offers on.

Yes, this is the first.. but I know it won't be the last.

FINALlY MAKING OFFERS!

Okay, despite running aroudn my city like a mad man, I've been managing to go out and check out 3 houses a few days ago (I made an offer on all three) tomorrow i'm going to be going out and checking out two more.

All of these offers were found on the MLS. Every week I sift through 580 +- a few listings that emet my specific criteria, out of those nearly 600 I usually get about 30-40 properties that I will go check out, and do more accucrate comps, then out of those I will be submitting about 10 offers. If been working this system in "test mode" over the past few weeks mainly because I've been tied up personally but now I'm ready, if I can get 40 offers a month in I know I can get a deal or two.. atleast that's the plan!

That's about all for now! I'm glad I finally got those offers submitted!

Den

Praise God!

Okay,
I havent really talked about this much, if any just because it was/is a really sensative matter to me. To make a long story short, my Step Dad (Who is basically like another Dad to me) had a sextuplet bypass surgery today, and it was successful. Over the past two years, he started devloping numb legs, so the Dr's first did some extensive surguries on his legs replacing his veins as he had very little blood flow..then a few months ago my mom heard a gargle sound coming from him at night while he was sleeping, so she brought him to the doc the next day, they ran a EKG..everything came back fine, but then they followed up with a more invasive way of checking out his heart and they saw that he had some serious issues going on.. I will cut and past an email I sent to my aunt-in law.

"Just got word from my older sister, that Paul is out of the operation. The doctor said he was pleased with the results, Paul won't be really awake until about 7-8 tonight. One of the biggest challenges was that they were concerned with finding replacement veins to use for the bypass. They were also concerned about a vein that was 100% blocked, they told Paul last week that they probably won't be able to fix that one. Total it was 6 problem veins (including the 1 they said they coudlnt fix). On top of all that, during the pre-operation check ups and all that good stuff, they noticed one of his flaps was not functioning properly, allowing way too much blood to flow through which was very dangerous as he had a lot of fluid in his chest due to this (This is why he started to make gargling noises at night and what sparked mom to bring him to the dr.) This could have led to a congestivee heart failure at any time the doc said. The flap was being overly strained because of the clogged viens. So they said they were going to fix that flap as well, but it was a little more invasive as they had to put like a little "gasket" thing aroud the flap to help it shut more...so that was a worry..

Take a breath, I know it's a lot of info ;)

Good news is, they were able to fix all 6 veins (including the one they didnt think they could)! They found good veins to use for the bypass, so everything worked out perfect. AND ontop of that, when they saw the Flap, they said that it was fine, it would eventually correct itself over the course of Pauls recovery period because he has much better blood flow now!! Praise God! Everything worked out perfectly, I'm so excited about it, I've been really bummed the past few weeks just thinking about it..but now it's a huge weight off, I'm glad that he will be in great health..finally!"

That's it for now, I'll have another update for you soon.

Dennis

HELP

I'm really considering hiring some part time help.. mainly to do my marketing. I just can't keep up with everything and I feel that I'm falling short on all ends of the spectrum because my focus is so spread apart.

I need to focus more time on what I love to do:
Meet with the home owners
Talk to the banks
craft deals
browse listings..

and less time doing what I hate:
Packaging, labeling and shipping: ebay
Marketing: short sale biz

SO I'm really thinking about having one of my close friends help me out, besides I know a guy who could use some extra cash. I'll prolly have him help me out on the ebay side of things.

THEN for my shortsale biz, I will have someone do my marketing, mainly doing the mail merge, printing them out, stamping..then turning them over to me to inspect and i'll drop them off (i just want to keep track of how many mailers are going out)

This needs to be done.. Really.. it does because I just can't keep up with school, ebay and short sale biz..as well as wholesaling

I also am about to make a ton of offers this week, prolly tomorrow :) Can't wait.

Uhmm what else.. well I'm about to study some microscopic anatomy! JOY! :(

Until next post.. which will be soon.

Dennis