My learning experience

[Charles Whitaker]

Hello all,

I wanted to let everyone know my experiences as a newbie investor growing wiser and richer. First, i would like to thank all those here who have helped mold me and those who offered exceptional advice along the way, i appreciate every bit of it.

I started learning about REI in August of 06' and purchased my first rehab in march of 07'. That rehab taught me many, many things which have helped me grow along the way. i now concentrate more on the bathrooms of each house when doing my inspections. all together we had a net profit of 15K on this one, a very good start.

The second property was the beast, I've heard that every investor has had one of these. The first three weeks of the rehab was spent levelling this old 1927 pier and beam house(not fun). We spent way too much money on materials(definately for the area) and way too much time since we do all the work ourselves. This property taught me more about material costs, labor costs, and the cost of using a shotty realtor. In the end we had the highest priced sold listing in the area :mrgreen: We only lost about 2K(the school of hard knocks is quite expensive)

We also purchased a monster 3/2 two story home at the same time we had the beast. This rehab was relatively easy but we realized that a simple conversion of the downstairs dining room into a master suite would boost the ARV by 15-20K so we followed that route. We are still in the midst of this rehab which will be wrapped up within the next few weeks. Potential profit of roughly 30K.

Also, at the same time of owning both of these properties we purchased another SFH. We gutted the bathroom and kitchen and not too long after we realized that we lacked the manpower to rehab this property within the allotted time of the HML term. We decided to wholesale this one and made 10K from it, sold within a week. To bad all of this money went into the beast which sank.

That is where I stand so far, A few loses but well worth the education that I have gained. The key points that I would like to emphasize is don't over do the beginning learning process. You can only learn so much from a book or forum before you actually jump into the unknown, this jump is key to your success. Everyday I look for opportunities; not just in real estate but everywhere. Once their disguises are known then they are easily identifiable.

Now, I am making a few changes to the business plan to allow for growth. Rental properties will definately be in my future and I plan to branch out to other markets very soon.

Best of luck to everyone