So I’ve covered alot of ground since Tuesday’s post.  I met with my Realtor on Wednesday and we went over my plans for making MLS offers.  The majority of our meeting was spent going over the Champaign County Association of Realtors contract.  I don’t know why, but I was expecting that contract to be more complex than it turned out to be.  That thing is only 4 pages long and very easy to understand.  I now have it saved in PDF form and since I have Adobe Acrobat, I can manipulate it so that I can do everything electronically, even my signatures.  You know I’m all about using technology for sake of efficiency so it’s on now!  To supplement each offer, he suggested that I enclose a letter explaining who I am and why I want to buy the seller’s house and also a bank pre-approval letter.  The bank pre-approval letter is going to be a mini-hurdle.  I have a 700 credit score and a decent income, but my debt to income ratio is through the roof (I finance a lot of my business on credit cards)!  I’m pretty sure that is a deal breaker.  I mean it’s not like I’m going to close on any of these houses, I just need the letter.  This is a classic, “It’s not what you know but who you know” situation.  I’ll figure it out.

I blogged yesterday at BiggerPockets.com and gave a very descriptive tutorial regarding the use of Yahoo Pipes and Hootsuite to automate some of your activities on Twitter.  Check it out:

Also, a while back I mentioned that CallFire interviewed me for a case-study.  They noticed the blog post at BiggerPockets.com I made about the use of the CallFire VoiceBroadcast service for Real Estate.  Check it out:

And speaking of VoiceBroadcasting; the other day I logged in to my MOHELA student loan account to check out how much I had left to pay and such.  I rarely log-in and check my account, I just send them my payment every month.  When I logged in I received a notice that said:

Required Profile Update:
The following items need to be updated on your profile.

Our records indicate we have a mobile phone on file for you. The following applies to mobile phones:

I authorize the school, the lender, the guarantor, the Department, and their respective agents and contractors to contact me regarding my loan request(s) or my loan(s), including repayment of my loan(s), at the current or any future number that I provide for my cellular telephone or other wireless device using automated telephone dialing equipment or artificial or prerecorded voice or text messages.

If you do not wish to give us consent to call you on your mobile phone, please update your profile.

Since I happen to be “in the know”, I knew exactly what this message was all about.  And this knowledge was obtained from researching the laws and regulations behind voice-broadcasting.  The FTC changed the rules on September 1, 2009, where every company now must obtain written consent from their clients to call them in an automated fashion with an recording.  This new law changed the game a bit for my marketing strategy, but I have another trick up my sleeve.

Today is the big day, well second biggest.  I’m going to pick up my 900 stamps from the post office.  Maybe they’ll let me get a couple of those bins to borrow to bring all of the stamped envelopes back in.  And check this out.  So I already mentioned that on Wednesday I had a meeting with my Realtor.  I was telling him about my Yellow-Letter technique and what my plans were and how I still needed to find a receptionist.  And he volunteered to take the calls!  This should be good because he is also an investor, he has the added edge of being a Realtor as well, so he should be great at taking all of the pertinent information and answering any real-estate-specific questions on the fly.  All I have to do is forward my phone to his and I’ll be all set.  I’m still thinking of getting another person to take calls in addition to him though.  He’s very responsive, but I’m expecting alot of calls and I don’t want any going to voicemail.  I can setup another receptionist and forward my number to that person as well.  The beauty of my Vonage line is that I can forward to as many numbers as I want.  Whomever answers the phone first receives the call. And I can track all of the calls online.  Gotta love VoIP!

Welp, that’s a wrap.

- Justin

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I’ve been up since 9am and it is now almost 5pm.  I haven’t left the bed for anything but to eat breakfast and lunch.  Sounds pretty lazy, right?  I know it does, however I have my laptop here with me.  I love this thing, it goes everywhere I do.  Since I behind a desk behind a computer for 40 hours a week at my 9 to 5, I refuse to do so otherwise.  If someone where to see me when I claim to be working, they would dispute the fact.  I mean, I’ll be laying on the couch with this thing, in the bed, on the floor, it’s the best!  I have desktop computer, but rarely use it for everyday computing.  I actually only use it to run some automated web 2.0 stuff, that I’ll post about some other time.

Anyway, I spent 7 hours yesterday sitting outside at the Coffee shop.  And I don’t even drink Coffee.  I don’t get the big craze over coffee by the way.  It’s bitter, hot and just plain nasty.  But, on the other hand I love beer, and I’m

sure some people have similar thoughts about it.  They’re both acquired tastes’ I guess.  But back to the point.  I spent alot of time at the coffee shop and did some research on two properties that I think I’m going to go ahead and put offers in on.  I know a requirement to successful investing is the abundance of submitted offers.  So I need to step my game up, in this aspect.  All the research performed yesterday on my farm area has given me a better understanding of what property values are in certain areas.  And I have got to go on another tangent before I leave this topic!  But coffee shops…people.  Why didn’t anyone tell me about the eclectic customers these places attract.  And I’m not talking about your local Starbucks, I think the franchises are neutral.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about, next time you want to get some work done outside of the house, go to your locally owned coffee shop.  You know the one where the girl behind the register has those plug earrings and her coworker has a tattoo sleeve.  Then just people watch and eavesdrop every few moments you break from reading or typing.  You’ll see.  Diversity is good but DAYUM!  And to think I thought I was liberal.  Maybe I’m not by just by comparison.  Nevermind me if all of this makes no sense.

Back to Real Estate.  I feel pressured to perform weekly on my BiggerPockets.com guest-contributor post.  Therefore, I brainstorm everyday about what to contribute.  I have a great idea for next week, it perhaps will need to be a two-part post.  But it will concern the usage of Yahoo Pipes for real estate leads.  Yahoo Pipes can be used with Twitter, it can also be used with CraigsList.  I’ll save the details for the post.  So be sure to check it out.  Also, aside from little ole’ me, there are some fantastic contributors on that blog.  I suggest that you add it to your RSS feed reader, I learn at least two new tidbits from that blog every week.

I just had a text exchange with the Mahomet property owner, who I provided with the internet marketing service (CraigsList, Twitter, Cars.com, YouTube, etc.).  He said that he is getting far more calls about his BMW that he has for sale over his house.  So, although Mahomet, Illinois isn’t necesarily a city that people across the nation know about, please help me broadcast to more people about his property for sale.  This place is awesome!  If you Tweet (which you should be anyway), please retweet one of my tweets about it (I am user “@schwaps“) or just tweet this link: http://bit.ly/qx0VZ

I thank you in advance.

If you checked out the link, you’ll see the illusion of the embedded YouTube video on CraigsList!  If one more person asks me for a marketing video, I’m definitely going to find some UofI students to subcontract the work to, perhaps film students.  They shouldn’t cost much and the end product should be better and it will take alot less of my time and effort.

Welp, that’s it for now.  I’m going to watch some TV online and then pump out a few offers.  I’ll keep yall posted.

- Justin

P.S.
If you have a self-hosted WordPress Blog, you need to get the Zemanta Plug-In.  I discovered this while guest-blogging on Josh’s site.  This plugin does all of the work for you when it comes to tagging and finding appropriate imagery to spruce up your post.  Highly recommend it.

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It’s another Sunday and I’m a bit frustrated.  I have an assistant that is avoiding my calls and a lawyer who is under-delivering.

My new local assistant who was given the task of hand-addressing and stuffing my envelopes let me know on Saturday that she needed more time.  This isn’t the issue.  The issue is that she now is avoiding my text messages and phone calls.  I’m a bit worried about this situation because she has over $200 worth of my stationary.  However, the beauty of her being local is that I have her home address.  So she can’t completely just dissapear on me.  Now that I think of it, I should’ve held some type of performance-guarantee deposit.  Which would’ve basically been a $200 deposit collected and refunded in addition to payment once the project was completed.  However, even if I was an assistant I wouldn’t go for that policy.  Hmm, I’d love to hear some ideas in the comments about this.  *Update* As I type, I just received a return text from her.  This is a plus, but she’s not completely off the shit list yet.

My lawyer that I was once so ecstatic about, is starting to let me down.  It was clearly stated during our initial consultation, that I was choosing a ‘new’ lawyer due to the lack of responsiveness of the one prior.  He explained that he realized that was an issue amongst many attorneys and that he was different.  I’m beginning to believe that in Champaign, maybe I’ll just have to lower my expectations a bit, possibly I’m dealing with the best-of-the-worst?  I’m not asking for my attorney to respond to my emails within 5 minutes and always be available via phone, or anything like that.  I just need someone who will deliver upon their promises.  A huge pet-peeve of mine is when a ‘professional’ states that they’re going to do something and they don’t follow-through.  Don’t tell me you’re going to do something just because you think it sounds good or that it’s something that I want to hear.  Here is what I’m talking about:

8-20-09
Justin, I’m out of the office until next week.  I’ll get back to you then.
- Lawyer

8-19-09
Update please.  Also, I have yet to receive an invoice from you.  I believe it’s been over a month since our initial consultation.
- Justin

This was an email that was sent to my lawyer and the reply.  And I haven’t heard shit since.  I guess on the bright side, I still haven’t been billed for that consultation and following email correspondences.  So at this point it’s like interest-free financing; that’s my optimism working.

Oh well, on a brighter note, my internet marketing operation is coming along.  I’ve setup a 2nd account on twitter, just to target the demographic that could make use of the Mozenda software.  I also have some automation in place with that account.  In a nutshell, I have implemented Yahoo Pipes, RSS feeds, and HootSuite to automatically @Tweet people who match my demographic criteria.  Maybe I’ll do a tutorial on this later, hmm.  Also, I spent damn-near all of today making videos about the Mozenda software and posting them to YouTube.  This should drive more people to my affiliate link.

Well, that’s it for now, I’m about to head to the gym.

- Justin

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I’ve got so much to do it’s ridiculous! There is never enough time in the day to get everything done that I need to. I barely got a chance to work out this evening, but I’m glad I got that in. I ran about 4 miles on the treadmill, by the way, I absolutely hate treadmills. 4 miles on a treadmill feels like 6 miles on the street.

But I have got a to-do list that is overwhelming and it goes a little something like this.

- Prepare for the meeting tomorrow with the Pastor who wants to sell his old church building and house owned across the street.

- Finish configuring my 2nd Twitter account, which I am using solely for internet-marketing (Mozenda). I have implemented some crafty tools that I’ll have to tell you all about in detail later (Yahoo Pipes, TweetAdder, etc.)

- Upload some YouTube Tutorial videos for Mozenda that will drive viewers to my affiliate link

- Complete the bid for the web development project for the new City of Champaign website. I got the numbers from the company I’m Joint Venturing with, I just need to complete the bid and hopefully I’ll make it to the interview and get the gig (which will be beautifully sub-contracted as I do the consulting).

- Put the finishing touches on a web site project that I took on about a month ago.

- Finish troubleshooting a local brokers’ website. He had contracted a local guy to create his website for 8K and the relationship ended on bad terms. The programmer completed the website with a Joomla CMS and gave the broker the files but it isn’t functional. I said I’d take a look…still can’t find the issue. For 8K, if I was that broker I’d be ready to whoop some ass!

- I volunteered to create a YouTube promotional video for the youth Illini hockey program in town. They need to spark some more interest in the sport or it may go down the tubes. I’ve already spent 6 hours on this, hopefully I can wrap the editing and such expeditiously.

I’ve also got some other stuff in the works that is a little to early to blog about. But, I’ll just tell you that I’m “going big” because is no “go home” for me. I’m getting excited just thinking about it. Let’s just say, my investment portfolio is going to diversify even more.

That’s it for now, gotta get back to work

- Justin

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Marketing, Real Estate Adobe Acrobat, biggerpockets.com, Voice over Internet Protocol, Vonage, Yahoo Pipes, Yellow Letter