New Ohio Member Testing The Waters

[Duane Taylor]

Hi, So I guess I should start out by saying its grate to be hear and share how I found out about bigger pockets. Long story short I was just surfing the net feeding my curiosity about real estate investing when I stumbled across one of the podcast. I listened to a couple. decided to reactivate my iTunes account downloaded all of the podcast's and have been powering through them as fast as I can because their just that good. (I've only managed to get half way through episode 46 and have learned more about investing and real estate in the last week listing to them than I have in the last 10).

Any way lest move on to my investing background or lack their of. At best I can say that I've indulged in armchair investing off and on for say about 10 years give or take. Armchair investing like armchair politics is just another way of saying that I have enjoyed sitting on the sideline watching the rest of the world go by and occasionally throwing out my 2 cents based off of shoty information and speculation knowing just enough to get into trouble but not enough to get out of said trouble. I've had a couple of forays into investing I tried stalks even opened an account then got laid off and had cash out the meager account to keep up with my bills no more than two years after opening it and making a whopping I think it was $20. I tried again later with starting my own internet business after thinking that well I have an associates in multimedia and just got these 2 free tickets to a start your own e-business seminar. Dragged my mother along with me and then she turned around, with my prompting which I'm ashamed to admit, to purchase the 3 day workshop in Utah. We both gave it a couple of goes we got the web domains and chose our products and all was looking good, but then my mother discovered that she had chosen to narrow of a nitch and I couldn't get merchandise because I didn't have a brick and mortar storefront, and we let the accounts go. After that My mother tried Real estate rentals and I said after hearing grate thing pushed to actually go through with it. Unfortunately I think I pushed to hard because she decided to buy a couple out of state with out ever physically seeing the sites, against my advice,she then proceeded to chose the first property manager that was suggested to her by her new tax guy. The tax guy has been grate for her and she even made some money off of the houses, at first. Then it stopped working and she was forced to sell the houses and break even. The tax guy though has still been pretty good for her.

As for me while my mother was going through all of this I'm drowning in student loan debt. My sister down in Texas decides to move from her current apartment to a new one and me being fed up with having to work all the time to pay my loans decide to say screw and go town to Texas with my brother to help her move, sort of a mini working vacation if you will. Whilst down their I decide that when I get back I'm going to get a second job because I fed up with not having any time or money for myself. And on the way back we have an accident, I hit a patch of ice in Dallas and slide out of control thus bouncing off of the cement barriers like a ping-pong ball. Luckily no body is hurt, but we get back to Ohio and I find that the new car I bought in November and still owe $6000 on has to be totaled, and to add insult to injury the insurance company only pays $4000 for the car. So now I'm already in debt up to and beyond my eyeballs with student lone debt, but I also new a new car that I can't pay for. Ahh, the fun of just existing. Anyway. So I go to the same dealer that I bought the car from and hear my luck starts to change at least a little. The $6000 Prius that was on their site is gone but they talk me into buying the more expensive Highlander. They offer me full financing and talk the bank into combining the Camry loan with the highlanders so instead of paying two car loans that I can't afford I'm now only paying one loan for a little over $10000 at less than $200 hundred a month, and the dealer decided to take my $2000 down payment and applies it directly to the loan reducing me to $8000. (Now I relies that I didn't save anything hear but I'm starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel hear). Now I have to hunt for a second job, and hears were it gets fun. while looking for this second job I start watching a lot of HGTV and see their flipping episodes, and I'm thinking to my self as I watch them make $20000 profit on a single flip a 1/4 of my student loans that would be really grate to get into. Unfortunate I don't have $80-100,000 dollars to get started. I mean I don't even own a hammer. So how do I get into that and then it hits me, If I get any job that pays me at least $10 an hour in addition with my current job I should, if the planets aline the card play out and the fates agree, be able to pay my loans off in five years and still have a little left over maybe enough for a $10,000 house or two. not much I know but if I get a job at say a hardware job to boot well not only will I have that money but I will get a discount to buy the tools I need to flip houses and relearn some of those skills that I need to do it. (my dads a carpenter and taught me well we both just didn't relies it till recently). And I'm finding that a lot of these customers that I'm dealing with and talking to as they pass through my register are not only contractors but some are real estate investors and agents. One of which even offered me a rental at like $500 dollars. Unfortunately we weren't able to follow through.

So long story short I like the idea of invest and am trying to get a heads up of whats involved so that I can actually make a go at it. No I'm not doing anything more yet than educating myself. But I am developing a plan. one that I hope will reduce my more formal entrance into real estate from five years down to 2 or three thanks to some of the ideas that I gained from Dawn in episode 29 and Paula in episode 35 and Seth from episode 39.

I'm working out the average land retail prices per acre hear in Ohio as well as the average low for retail land hear in Ohio, and hope to have a more formal business plan hear in a few weeks if the numbers look doable for me, and I get some more info on marketing. I'm thinking about direct mail like Seth suggested. I may approach the funding from the pear-to-pear perspective that Dawn suggested. but then again I'm still working on the plan.

Sorry about the length.