Accountability Tuesday (well Wednesday Morning really)
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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
