Justin B. McClelland

This week I did something that I really felt needed to be done. I went against the grain (as I often do) and went with my gut. Literally, as I pulled into the parking lot at work this past Monday, I decided that that day I was going to give my notice of resignation. During a normal bi-weekly meeting with my boss, I told her that I was giving 4 weeks notice of my resignation.

This is going against the grain because I don’t have much money saved-up and I don’t have much of a safety net at all. But, more importantly, I felt like this was the right decision because I feel like my job has been holding me back as much as it has supported me. In the REI world, I believe he/she that hustle’s most wins. So, I have been hustling for months and months, but I just haven’t been able to come up with anything. For instance, just when I’m getting somewhere and making progress at 3am, I would have to get some sleep because I would have to make work the next day. Or just when I may have a lead to check out, I would have to usually defer my meetings to weekends because of work. I still plan on reaching a 7-figure net-worth before the age of 30. And I know that I can’t do it while sacrificing 45 hours of my life every week to “the man”.

I should also mention, that the stress of that place is just unhealthy. I don’t have any kind of power/authority complex, so I have no problems taking orders. But it’s extremely hard to do, when the orders just make absolutely no sense at all. Stuff like, “Justin, I need for you to tell our customers that 1+1 = 11″. When your job depends on it, you just have to go with it. And when customer’s try and reason with you that the correct answer is “2″, you deep-down want to agree, but you can’t. But anyway, enough of that mess. Knowing that I won’t be employed there after March, feels like I’m getting a tumor removed or something (I hope to never experience what that feels like, by the way. I mean if I develop one, I do hope it is found, well…you know what I’m saying).

So, I’m going all-out. I’m ready for the adventure and the beginning of this new chapter of life. I’m about to hustle like you wouldn’t believe. I mean, if you thought I was a hustler before…you ain’t seen nothing yet. Steph Davis gave me the name “Mr. Hustle”, I like that. And I’m going to more than live-up to it.  Since I’ll have more time I’m going to give you more of the ups and the downs, it’s either sink or swim at this point.  So, just stay tuned and enjoy the ride.

P.S.
I’ve had a few people now ask me, “Do you make your videos primarily for theatrics?”

Seriously….seriously?  “Funny?” Am I here to amuse you?  Am I here to make you laugh?  HUH!!? Funny…funny how?  What do you mean I’m FUNNY?!?! What the %&@# is so FUNNY about me! (bonus points to who knows the movie reference).

Truth is.  I just do all of this stuff because I like to act.  I play the role of a struggling real estate investor on-screen…it really allows me to show my range.  I was all-in after I read the script in one-sitting. Here’s a clip of my latest work….pretty “theatric” stuff.

Random, Real Estate Hustling, Steph Davis

The week’s almost over and I need to get this accountability post in.  It’ll be a quick one.

Let’s see.

I was supposed to get 12 MLS offers out, distribute 50 brochures, and post 5 flyers.  Well, I got 29 MLS (expired) offers out, I only got about 30 brochures out and I was able to post 2 flyers.  So does that balance out to meeting my goals?  Nah…it doesn’t.  I think the trick is to not try and do all of this in one mission.  I think that’s where I’m getting caught-up.  From now on, I’ll just do what I can each day and pace myself, instead of deferring these tasks for completion all in one day.  Again, I’ll keep these goals constant for next week.  I need to add to this list…so I’ll think about what else I should be doing weekly.

There’s a helluvalot more that I could post about right now, but I’m going to save some of it for later.  Besides it may take 3 hours (that I can’t spare now) to write.  I mean I got some real entertaining shit.  The type of stuff that newbie’s quit real estate after going through.  But worry not.  I’ve never quit anything in life because of difficulty…sure ain’t about to start now (I mean who does that by the way? Quitters suck at life and always will because they habitually quit…but I digress).

But enough about that nonsense.  I’ve got big things on tap.  Let’s just say that March 12th should be a great day.

- I’m Out

P.S.
Champaign is just not ready for what I’m about to do!  The “Takeover” is near!  To clarify my point, check out this clip from the prestigious, illustrious, and all-time classic film “The Mack“.  Let me break it down for you.  Here is the analogy.  I’m “Goldie” (the pimp in the red with the shades on), the competition is “Pretty Tony”(the pimp in all black), and the motivated sellers is the uhm…”employee” (only girl in the scene).  And…….ACTION

Accountability, Random, Real Estate Accountability, Marketing and Advertising

So I finally have my semi-automated system in place that will allow me to make 40+ offers per week.  Basically what I have is an Option-Contract and a Cover Sheet that are mailed out to the owners of properties that have been listed and since withdrawn from the MLS.  My Realtor was able to export an Excel file from the MLS that contains the expired property information that I desire.  This spreadsheet was then appended with county assessor information (last date sold, owner name, assessed value, and etcetera).  The Option-Contract and Cover Sheet have mail-merged values that include the property address, offer price, mailing address.  This mail-merge along with the custom Excel doc, makes me semi-automatic.  After all of the printing is said and done, I hand-address the envelopes.  I just sent out my first batch today.  Next week, it’s on and popping again.

However, next week I’m going to use my Tax Delinquent list and not the MLS expired list.  I have a Tax Delinquent list left over from the tax sale last October.  With the MLS expireds, there is way too much additional manual-work needed…it’s best to check if the property has since been relisted, if the property has been sold, and etcetera.  This extra work takes the automation right out of the equation.  This is still a task to pursue, but best in addition to something that’s close to automatic and always running in the background while I perform the tedious composition of some offers.  With some of the offers that I’m making, many will go straight to a waste-basket, I’m sure.  But I need to boost the amount of “hell naws” that I receive so I can accept more “yes please” replies.  We all know this is a numbers game.

And to the email naysayer #242 who wrote:

…I seen your 40 deal a week strategy. Thats almost impossible dude…

This is my formal response:

Please Believe That.

- I’m Out

Business, Entrepreneurship, Internet Marketing, Random, Real Estate, Short Sale Microsoft Excel, offers, tax delinquent

I’ve got a few things in the works that are looking pretty good, they might just “make romance explosion” all at the same time.  Like I mentioned before, the new theme is minimal blogging about the details until after they close.  So, I’ll just say that I may have three deals closing shortly.  We shall see…

I had the day off today from the 9-5 because I had to go to Springfield, IL to pay a stinking speeding ticket that I got on my way to Saint Louis for Thanksgiving.  This kind of sucked but ended up working out in my favor.  It sucked that I had to drive the 100 miles to Springfield.  However, I initially wanted to just pay the fine via mail and be done with it.  But, I was forced to show in court because I had two tickets during that one stop (insurance card was expired).  I tried mailing in my payment with a copy of the current insurance card….no dice.  And a lawyer wanted $400 to take care of it for me…aw hell naw!  So I did it myself.  This worked out in my favor because in person I was able to opt for the court-supervision to prevent the points on my driving record and I also had my request granted to pay the fine in April!  Almost 6 months after the ticket, I get to pay for it sans interest!  The time value of money is on my side with this one. Booyaw!

It’s been over a decade since I’ve been to traffic court, so I forgot the typical scene.  It was funny, because I noticed that all the people with money had their lawyers show up for them.  They stood in line and had their cases dealt with first and within the first 10 minutes, about 10 lawyers walked out the court room with their clients all taken care of.  All the broke mofo’s had to show up and do the talking for themselves, this includes me…but not for long.  Moral of the story, get money to have lawyers waste their precious time in court for you and also NEVER drive drunk.  You should’ve heard some of these cases!  Besides endangering the lives of others, don’t do it because those fines are out of this world!  The lame part is that some of those people that I saw present themselves in court, were repeat offenders!  I don’t get it.  Snatch their license away permanently and be done with it.  But I digress…back to real estate.

Speaking of lawyers, I’m almost thinking that I should’ve went to law school.  Between the $400/10 minute charge that I saw in action at court and the astronomical invoice that I just paid my real estate lawyer….that’s where it’s at!  That’s if you like studying case-law and law in general….ZZZZzzzzzz.  But, I meet with my real estate lawyer tomorrow to go over some things.  Besides the expense, I love the meetings we have.  I learn a lot and get much accomplished in the way of bettering my business and protecting my neck.

Oh! Accountability Day.  To update on that for this week:

1. Make one MLS offer each day direct to listing agent – FAIL, no excuses. However, I deferred this goal each day because I didn’t know what the best approach was to submit the offers.  Via fax, email, mail or what?  I put the goal aside and now it’s next week already.  I’m not calling each listing agent to see what they prefer, that’s just not efficient.  I’ll leave this goal for next week and figure out how to approach this.

2. Deliver 50 brochures to Urbana houses - Success. This wasn’t bad at all, I knocked these out between two appointments that I had last Sunday.  I think 50 is a good number to stick with consistently on a weekly basis.  The 200 that I did the first go-round was exhausting and too time-consuming.  Hard to do that myself, consistently.  A 50 quantity it is.

3. Deliver 5 flyers – FAIL. Keeping this goal for next week.

Still haven’t forgot about the 40 offers a week.  After I met with my lawyer tomorrow, I should have the tweaked contract that I need to complete my creation.

*Tangent*
I was in the gym today and noticed in the locker room, there were various advertisement posters with a valentines day theme that said, “Get your sweetheart a gym membership for Valentine’s Day”.  This sounds like a setup!  I can’t imagine how bad that would go over.  I don’t think a woman ever wants a gym membership as a gift from a man, especially on V-day.  You might as well say, “Hey baby, I want you to feel beautiful inside and out on our special Valentine’s Day.  Soooooo…….here’s a gym membership so you can work on that tautness….that your sister has”.

LOL, I crack myself up.  On that note, I’m out.

Accountability, Random, Real Estate Accountability, lawyers, Valentines Day

So I did some research and also consulted with my lawyer regarding the legality of compensating a seller post-short-sale.  On the internet I found an article on the Kick Ass Short Sales website.  After reading it, this made a lot of sense.  However, I still sought out the advice of my lawyer and this was his email response.

A Bill of Sale raises a red flag (in terms of fraud) but is not, by itself, a fraudulent act.  For example, if the Sellers have a working washer/dryer and sell it for $500, there’s a legitimate argument that it was sold for its fair market value.  If there were ever a legal challenge, we would need to show that $500 was a reasonable price to pay for that year, model and condition of washer/dryer.

Fraud only exists when an intentional act was done to harm another person.  For example, in a short sale, the lender usually issues a short sale approval letter that says, among other things, that the lender should receive X dollars and the Seller must receive no more than $0.00 at closing.  If I use a Bill of Sale to purchase the washer/dryer, and pay the Seller $5,000 when the fair market value of the washer/dryer was $500, then I’ve probably committed a fraudulent act.

As an attorney, I usually suggest that if you think you’re committing fraud, there’s a good chance you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing.  That said, there are many, many instances where a Bill of Sale is a very useful – and legal – tool to purchase personal property.

After this email response, we had a follow-up chat and I asked about my specific situation.  The Department of Health and Family Services was the only lien holder to discount their note.  This sole discount allowed for the other liens to be paid in full.  However, the DHFS did indeed specify the amount that they’re to be paid at closing, BUT did not specifically state that the seller is to be paid $0.00 at closing.  I asked, since that wasn’t specified in my correspondence with the DHFS, if that means the door is open to compensate the seller.  My lawyer replied that it does.  However, with any “gray-area” there are inherent risks.  He approximated, in this situation, the risk to be minimal.  But there’s still a risk, none the less.  The risk being that the DHFS, upon learning of seller-compensation, could come after me and argue that the seller compensation restriction was implied.

Here is the latest email correspondence with the DHFS:

Sale price $9,000.00 less $3,590.00 for mortgage, $275.00 City of Champaign nuisance lien, $315.07 Urbana & Champaign Sanitary lien.  H&FS will release it’s lien for $4,819.93.

Please send payment of $4,819,93 to Technical Recovery P.O. Box 19174 Springfield, IL 62794.  A release of lien will be prepared and file when payment is received.

See, nothing says that the seller must receive $0.00 at closing.  But all of this may be neither here nor there.  I was scheduled to meet with the sellers yesterday (the original scheduled date of closing) and try and renegotiate something that would allow them to walk away with at least a little something from the deal.  Not 9K, but something.  But…they canceled on me.  So that was it for me.  It’s time to play rough!  I’ll let yall know what happens once the gun-smoke dissipates.

- Peace Out

Liens, Real Estate, Short Sale DHFS, Fraud, Lawyer, Lien, Mortgage

So I will maxin and relaxin yesterday and cooking up some heart-attack food (fried chicken and french fries) before the super-bowl and I get a call from the owners of the “wholesale deal from hell” (that’s its’ new name).  I said I wasn’t going to blog about it anymore but…..I lied.  The sellers called to arrange a meeting so that perhaps something could be worked out.  Just as a refresher, this deal is the one where I negotiated a short-sale as their 10K property was upside-down by 60K dollars.  After the short-sale was negotiated, the liens were reduced to the sum of 9K, which took all of the sellers’ proceeds.  I spoke with other local investors about this and one resolution is to write-up a bill-of-sale for the personal property inside the of the house in the amount of what’s negotiated between the seller and buyer.  So for instance, a bill of sale could be written for 9K for the personal property in the house, as that was the original agreed sale price of the house.

Apparently, this is a common practice in this unique situation.  However, it sounds fraudulent as hell to me.  I mean, if not, then why wouldn’t ALL short-sale investors do this to compensate pre-foreclosure sellers.  Maybe they do…do they?  My buyer that the contract was assigned to is willing to shell-out another 7K, if I shell-out 2K.  It’s not a problem for me, but I’m going to run this by my lawyer first.

Welp, off to the 9-5

Real Estate, Wholesale hell, Lien, Short Sale, Wholesale

So it’s late Saturday night.  And I’m contemplating hitting the streets to “advertise”, because late at night is the best time to do it.  But the bad part is that it just snowed today and I know my white advertisements do so well against a white background when stuck in a frozen ground (I’m being kinda subliminal for a reason that I can’t explain here), I need to order yellow ones.  So anyway, I think I may do something else with my time tonight.

The booty-butt cheeks deal is likely to fall through.  And I don’t even give a sh!t anymore.  I just spoke with the sellers today and they said.  We feel like we should get 9K regardless of the amount of liens on the property.  Uhm….okay lady…that’s not how it works.  Especially since, they’re not going to get sh!t for that house any way that they look at it.  But oh well, I don’t even feel like going into detail anymore about it.  I’m passed being pissed-off about it.  I’m not even going to blog about it anymore (maybe).  But I don’t think I’m going to let this go.  After all of the work, that I put into this thing…aw HELL NAW!  They haven’t seen the end of Justin…AKA “J. Stacks”…AKA “I work harder than hard-working”…AKA “Mr. Who put this Sh!t together? Me! That’s WHO!”

I’ve got other deals in the pipeline so, it’s all to the goodie.  I’m not superstitious…but I think I’m about to stop blogging about deals before they close.  Big-ass waste of time.  I’ll either wait until after they close or don’t close to give details.  I think that’s the route I’ll take from now on.

On another note, “nonchalant Justin” is slowly dieing from the self-inflicted stab wounds of being “too nice”.  And Type-A Justin is slowly emerging.  I remember being a kid and listening to my Dad on business-calls with the last words being “f*** you” before he hung-up on them.  And I also remember as a kid, running to my Mom and whining about how some kid on the playground didn’t like me.  And she said then what she says now, “Boy, everyone CAN’T be your friend”.  So with that said, things ’bout to change ’round these here parts (don’t think I’ll ever take it to the “edge” like my Dad did though).  I can only be Type-A Justin while I have to though…I do realize “Type-A”-ness and the side-effects can kill.

I’ve got BIG plans, that only I can vision and the naysayers are coming out of the woodwork, like I care what they have to say.  I know what I’m capable of, so I don’t need you to tell me what I “can’t do”.  This must be how Kanye West felt before anyone would sign him.  He didn’t fit the mold of a typical “rapper” and many wouldn’t give him the time of day.  As Kanye stated, he played the song “Jesus Walks” for a label and they didn’t sign him!  This “Jesus Walks” music video is one of the best videos of all time.  I’ve gotta remind myself sometimes that Jesus has got my back.

Marketing, Real Estate, Wholesale Jesus, naysayers, Wholesale

Okay, this whole consistent blogging thing isn’t working out.  Clearly, I was supposed to keep with the “Accountability Tuesday” theme as of last week.  It’s of course now Wednesday.  So anyway, new rules.  Once a week, I’ll just have an “Accountability Day”.  How about that.

So, I’ve technically accomplished my 40-offer-a-week goal, but I haven’t.  90% of the issue was getting my system setup, and now that I do, I’m waiting on my lawyer to get my custom Option-Contract back to me.  It sucks to be stuck at idle…so I’m moving on.

New Weekly Goals:
1. Make at least one MLS offer each day, direct to listing agent
2. Deliver at least 50 brochures to houses in Urbana
3. Post 5 flyers

That’s it for now, I’m kinda stuck at the moment, to be honest.  My cash-flow is non-existent right now and I have no funds to do any extra advertising (direct mail, newspaper, etc).  So I’m sticking with multiple offers and the advertising materials that I already have for now.

- Peace Out

Accountability, Marketing, Real Estate Accountability, Advertising, Cash flow

Another week has passed and I spent about 15 hours working on my offer-making machine.  Good news; I’ve got it done and it’s ready to kick-out offers (on expired MLS listings).  Bad news; the Option-Contract that I was planning to enclose as part of my offer is garbage.

Originally, I was thinking of just mailing a short letter with a complete standard MLS contract.  Then I had a change of heart and felt the Keep-It-Simple-Stupid principle would be best.  So, I’m opting to send a short letter with an option-contract, perhaps the simplified approach will be better.  I had found this very simple Option-Contract on a forum about two weeks ago and I made some tweaks to it to fit my preferences.  I setup the mail-merge with it and my cover letter, I was feeling like the best thing that ever happened to real estate.  The best that ever did it.  So my gut told me just to shoot over the option-contract to my lawyer just to cover my bases…and I’m glad I did.  I received an email response that was about 5 paragraphs long, the cliff-notes basically explaining that the document was trash.  So…I’ll be stalled on the 40 offers until I get my shiny new option contract back from my lawyer.

The beautiful thing is that I have about 500 expireds to choose from.  I could just pace the offers at 40 each week or maybe just push out more per week to make up for lost time.  This has been a weekly goal for about a month now.

Once I have my new option-contract, perhaps I’ll post in detail of how I created this automated system I now have.  Surely at least one person may learn from it or get an idea for something better.

P.S.
I’m going to step-up my fitness regimen a bit.  I was looking at a measurement that I made back in January of 2009, and back then I had a weight of 210 lbs and percent body fat of 19%.  I then measured myself again about a week ago and now have a weight of 200 lbs and a percent body fat of 17.2%.  Not much of a change.  However, I haven’t really been pushing that hard with workouts.  It’s kind of hard to do so when you’re not specifically training for something.  Very hard.  I can’t wait until I have time for triathlons and such.

- Peace Out

Marketing, Real Estate Contract, Investing, Lawyer, Option contract, Real Estate

It’s been a while since my last post and a lot has gone down.  I’m going to change my Accountability Mondays to Accountability Tuesdays.  Mondays are just way too busy for me.

So to address the “40 offer/week” goal that I’ve had for the past 4 weeks.  I still haven’t reached it.  HOWEVER, next week it should be reached.  This is quite a lofty goal that is definitely obtainable, but not easily however.  I’ve almost perfected the process that I have in place to efficiently make these offers.  I definitely could’ve made the 40 offers in a manual fashion, but that’s just not my style.  I HATE to work HARD and NOT SMART.  That’s just plain dumb!  I’m sure you’ve heard the Abe Lincoln quote:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

I couldn’t agree more.  Spend the first four hours sharpening the axe and you could probably chop down 3 additional trees with the last two hours that you have to work.

I spoke once before about the system I’m creating for my offers to expired MLS listings.  I got hung-up for about a total of 8 hours on an Excel spreadsheet that would recognize my VLOOKUP function (if you’re an Excel pro, get at me, I’ll pay you).  I think there’s a bug in Excel that’s preventing me from doing what I want, so I’m transitioning towards the use of a SQL database.  I’ll then be able to write some queries that will spit out my data to a spreadsheet and then, I’ll get my mail-merge on.  *The geeks that are reading this, know what I’m talking about.*  If you don’t know, I suggest finding someone who does so you can work smart too.  So anyway, I say all of that to say, “I haven’t reached my 40 offer goal yet, keeping the same goal for next Tuesday”. Broken record I know.  But if you’re meeting ALL of your goals everytime, their not set HIGH enough.  There, I just made myself feel better.

Onward an upward. So on a positive note, I’ve progressed quite a bit in other facets of my business.  I’ve acquired an additional Realtor to include in my inner-circle.  This is actually a big-deal, because she is a Realtor that has numerous ties to investors in California.  I mentioned a while ago, my efforts to obtain cash-buyers that invested in a new condo construction near the U of I campus.  Well, this Realtor actually sold about half of the units in the complex and still corresponds with many of the out of state investors she sold to.  Her and her brokerage has a working relationship with the Marshall Reddick Real Estate Network in California.  We met on Saturday and discussed ways that we can work together in the future.  Basically, if she can bring me a cash buyer from her network, we’ll split deals down the center.  This is good.

Also, I met with one of the sellers from the everlasting wholesale deal #1.  I could tell that he was beginning to avoid my phone calls, so I got him to agree to a meeting with me.  Preparing for this meeting took an entire Saturday morning and the meeting went down Monday evening.  It turns out, he was just severely confused about the entire situation.  Confusion leads to frustration and  speculation.  Not good.  I explained all of the details with his liens and all of the options that he (doesn’t) have with this property.  I inundated him with information and had an answer to each of his rebuttals.  Following the meeting, I could see the defeat in his face.  He now really realizes he’s not going to see any money from this deal because it’s essentially a short-sale.  I meet with his Sister Wednesday night.  Once I explain everything to her, I should be able to speed this thang up and avoid any possibilities of legal action (specific performance suits, i.e. more time sans check).  By the way, I feel like a Realtor with all of this hand-holding.  It SUCKS to be one of them! I’m not holding your hand, I don’t know you like that!  In the future, I’m going to avoid these types of small, complex deals like people with halitosis (you thought I was going to say the plague, right).

And lastly, I met with the distressed landlord who wants to short-sale his rental.  I picked up 90% of the paperwork today and will return on Thursday to get the rest.  This guy is the epitome of a distressed seller.  And since he is an investor, I barely had to explain anything to him.  He pretty much knows how it works and is educated about what a foreclosure can do to his FICO.  His main motivation is to preserve his credit.  I wish all sellers could be like this.  Hopefully, I can get many more short-sales in the pipeline.  This is the second short-sale lead that I “stumbled upon”.  I can’t wait to start marketing to pre-foreclosures with a REAL effort.

And lastly (for real this time), I had my second meeting with a future business partner for a Tax Lien investing company.  I’ll reiterate that the Tax Lien/Tax Deed investing game is supremely slept-on.  Most investors who invest in these most likely don’t tell anyone and keep it a secret.  But, I don’t care, I’m going to start sharing it all.  After watching a fellow Champaign investor write a check for $560,000 at last years lien sale, I know this is something worth exploiting.  Me and my biz partner are going to create money out of air.  The plan is to borrow money and invest the borrowed money into Tax Liens.  We’ll profit the spread between the cost of the money borrowed and the net proceeds from the lien penalties whether redeemed or foreclosed.  Simple as that!

- Peace Out

Liens, Real Estate, Short Sale cali, excel, Short Sale, Tax lien