As i mentioned briefly in my last few posts I have been working on a new blog in order to take advantage of a features not offered by blogger.com. If you are so kind I'd be greatful if you would follow me over to my new location. There is no doubt that I would not have gotten as far as I have without the help of everyone who has read and pushed me.

THANK YOU!

And this way to my new blog...

StrugglingInvestor.com

I'm not sure why exactly I picked this house, but I'm going to be making an offer on the Mt Pleasant property.

As you may recall it's an Estate property (ties in nicely with the whole probate thing I'm going after). Has been on the market for 45 days, not long but they have already dropped the price 30k from the original asking price of 369k. So that is a sign of motivation I would say. The property is a very big lot that a larger house (which tends to be the thing in my town) could be built on.

So those where the reasons. I'm going to go drive by it today on my way home from work and then I've got to sure up what the ARV would be in that area of town. My educated guess would be 360k for a 3/1. So breaking that down into an MAO...

arv(360,000) * .60 - repairs(70,000) - Profit(5,000) = MAO(141,000)

the biggest question that I have no idea about is the repair costs. That really depends on what my buyer wants to do with the house. If they want to knock it down and build a 600k house or if they just want to repair the place and maybe add a bathroom. I guess this is why it's so important to know your buyers.

Anyone have any suggestions on what to do about estimating repair costs? Houses that have had old people living there, in my area, always seem to need the bathrooms and kitchens, flooring and painting completely redone.

So that is where I'm at today. I've got to re look at my goals for this week to make sure I'm on track.

Later

This week is going to be a busy one! My main goal is to pick out 1 or more of these 4 houses to make an offer on. Take a look.

Let's review last weeks goals.

1. Create Facebook Page - DONE
   
   I managed to pull this feet off. I did catch some flack from my friends because I've told them many times over that I will not ever create a facebook page because I'm not in high school. Well they will soon find out why I created it when it's full of Real Estate Investing stuff. Not sure how it all works just yet but If anyone wants to send me a friend request the email I used is scostell AT yahoo DOT com.
   
   
2. Post Ads on Craigslist Looking for houses - DONE
   
   I did this early last week and got no responses through my squeeze pages and one response through email that was just a spam response. I think I need to put more ads out there. For this coming week I'm going to put up ads on monday, wednesday and friday. We'll see if that helps the responses
   
   
3. Go to Court House on Friday and Find Probate files - DONE
   
   I was really proud of myself for doing this as this is the exact type of thing that I would keep putting off. I just put my head down and went for it. I found the surrogates office no problem and with an example docket number that I pulled from the online search, I ask one of the employees where I could find it. She pulled it out for me and I was then off and running. I've got a few key questions about probate files now that I will post about tomorrow, but I'm ready to go back this friday and pull leads leads and more leads...woohooo!
   
   
   
4. Find a home to make an offer on, then make an offer. - FAILED
   
   I found a few homes I wanted to do more research on before making an offer, but I didn't get it done. Ii will be making the offer this week. I want to do this badly as I want to find out the process and be ready to go for the next time. Shae I know you are gonna get on me for failing this one...
   
   
5. Redo JerseyRei.com and Rei-Links.com - DONE
   
   This is done, but only sorta. I still need to add alot more information to the sites, but the setups are there and I'm adding new content every day.
   
   

This weeks Goals

• Make an offer on one of the houses I picked out
  
• Go to the courthouse on Friday and get Leads
  
• Mail letters to Probate Leads
  
• Get my new blog up and running
  
• Post Ads looking for Sellers and Buyers on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
  

Have a productive week!

I was reading through my daily blogs and came by a post by Scott Carson that listed the 10 traits a successful investor has as opposed to the 10 traits and bad investor has. Have a read...

10 Characteristics That Make Up Good And Bad Investors

The one major characterisic that I must continue to work on is "to talk with other people". I'm a shy and quiet person by nature and it has always bugged me that the simple task of picking up the phone to call anyone, even my friends, is nerve racking.

I fear that I will not have anything to say, not be able to say what I mean (this happens all the time) or just sound stupid. Depending on who I need/want to call one of those is always the reason why I don't dial that number. I've been working on this over the past year and have gotten much better, but still have a long way to go.

For those that have similar problems, I'll share with you what works for me the best. As soon as I think of a person I want to call I just pick up the phone and call. I don't say I'll call them later, tomorrow or whenever. I call them right then and there. If I'm really nervous I just tell me self "Do it!"

Hope that can help someone.

Articles

I'm in the process of reworking my blog and moving over to a WordPress based site. The main reason is that it gives me more flexibility and I can add different pages like an about page or an articles section. This brings me to my question...would anyone like to write an article about some aspect of wholesaling for me to post on the site? It doesn't have to be long, 500 to 1000 words. I can't pay you, but it's always good to help out your fellow investors :) Just thought I'd ask. And you can put a back-link to your blog or website and gain traffic.

I've been trying to write one article a day to try and get about 20 articles before I launch the new site. I'm far from a writer and my sentence structure and grammer is about a 2 on a scale of 10, but if the info is good who cares right??

Goals

My weekly goals for this week are going ok, I've posted my ads on craigslist and placed my squeeze page links in the ads. No responses yet, but I'll keep that up for sure.

I've also identified about 4 houses I want to take a look at and possibly make offers on.


Funny Stuff

I had a dentist appointment scheduled for today. Thought I set it up for 7:00pm but apparently it was 7:00am. Got a call on my way to work asking where I was. I'm sure they weren't happy. I blame my wife...hahahaha...oh crap hope she doesn't read this.

later

Dave Ramsey
I've finally got'n to the point in the book where it's time to start taking action. My wife and I don't have a lot of debt, we've got student loans, two car payments and a mortgage. We don't carry any credit card debt from month to month so we are ahead of most people who would normally follow The Total Money Makeover program, but I want to get rid of ALL my debt. Dave recommends you list your debts in order from least to most. Then start paying off the lowest amount first. That is our student loan which current sits at about $2500. I'll report back on how this goes on a monthly basis. We should take care of this one quickly.

Probates
I've been trying to think of what types of leads would consistently supply me with deals and I keep coming back to probates. The average age in my farm area is 40 yrs old with a population percentage of 15% over 65 years old. Since most people who live in this area stay here, those people who are 65 bought back in the 60's and 70's and have A LOT of equity. My parents who live in town bought their house back in 1976 for 80k and the home is now worth 550k.

Many of these elderly folks are moving on in one way or another if you know what i mean (trying not to sound harsh)? Elderly people tend not to take care of their houses and thus makes it harder for their heirs to sell the place...enter me. Of the 5 phone calls I've gotten from my mailers, 3 of them have been from estate properties. This should tell me something and is why i've been trying to get to the court house for the probate leads.


Hacked Websites
As I mentioned in my weekly goals post, my two websites got hacked and some how they deleted them entirely. Just a warning for those who use Joomla to build webpages, be careful what extensions/plug-ins you use as some may have security holes that allow a hacker to break into your account. Joomla is a great tool and I will continue to use it, but I'll just be more careful and back everything up.

I've gotten the prelims of my sites back up and running. So take a look and if you have an suggestions drop me a comment.

JerseyRei.com
Rei-Links.com

Figured I'd do something new and list a few good blog posts that I've read in the past few days.

Lots of Investor Updates

Stop Work Order

Blogger tip: create a dropdown menu for your labels

Current Recession in Context

As the weather gets warmer so does my will to get this real estate investing career humming. This past week was a short week for me because of Memorial day last weekend so I only set myself 3 goals. While I only officially finished one of them, the other two kinda worked themselves out. Lets take a look...

1. Create a Buyers Squeeze Page - DONE
   
   My biggest problem here was finding out what to put on it exactly. I posted a few question in the forums I go to and they helped out. Let me quote a response (by Fadi Zeidan) that I thought was most helpful..
   

   Who are your buyers? bad credit looking for owner financing, investors, or good credit average people?
   
   bad credit:
   give them this great talk about how your company specializes in finding affordable owner financed homes regardless of credit, the benefits, and how it works (very simple), and with time add testimonials.
   
   Investors:
   this is for wholesaling, a simple sign up can do with some sample deals they can find. They would get an email of all available deals as they come in and they can contact you for the one they like.
   
   Good credit:
   tough one, what is their inventive to buy from you vs buying from a realtor... Finding greatly discounted properties that need little to no work?
   
   
   information I would look for:
   1. area of town
   2. age of home
   3. size of home
   4. bedrooms/bath/garage
   5. condition
   6. price range
   7. how much down payment they have
   8. Employment
   9. current income (PITI shouldn't be more than 50% of their monthly income, ideally within 36%. this would prescreen some of them)
   10. Contact information
   11. How soon do they want to move
   
   For wholesalers of course it is a different story.
   
   Just some ideas
   

   
   
   Here is my Buyers Page. I think it stinks but I'm always my worst critic.
   
   Buyers Squeeze Page
   
   
2. Ask my Realtor if my Coastal Funding PreQual is acceptable.
   
   I never did this, but I am going to take Steph and Shae's advice and just use it. Why raise any red flags. I've heard in the business that it's better to ask for forgiveness then for Permission. I don't agree with that completely, but in this instance it is the best tactic for sure.
   
   
3. Figure out how to use the online information I found on Probates at my surrogates website.
   
   Well I don't think I'll be able to find the executors address to mail anything to unless I go to the courthouse. The list gives me up until the prior months probated cases (so aprils) and gives the docket number and the name of the executor, but not much else. So i'll go armed with that info to the courthouse this friday and see what I can dig up.
   
   I hate taking time away from my wife but Friday after I get out of work at noon is the absolute only time I can go. Anyone know if the Morris County courthouse has weekend hours?
   
   

This weeks goals

If I get all these done I'll make some great strides! It's a lot to take on but I want to push myself. It does suck that some of it is repeat work

• Go to the court house on friday and find the probate files (3 week in a row for this one, COME ONE ALREADY!)
  
• Find a home to make an offer on, then make the offer!
  
• Redo my JerseyRei.com and Rei-Links.com websites because they were HACKED and deleted (If I get a hold of the person who did that I'm gonna most likely go to jail)
  
• Post ads on Craigslist looking for houses
  
• Create a Face Book page (my wife is making fun of me cause I told her I'd NEVER create one of these. Seems so High School!)