Week 15 | An Offer.....Finally!

We are very excited to be at this point. The last couple weeks have been very busy with mindset development, networking and taking action.  My wife and I finished Rich Dad Poor Dad. I also mentioned previously (maybe I  did)  that my mentor recently purchased a triplex.  He got a stellar deal with a lot of fixing up to do.  That new endeavor led to some great conversations and an opportunity to offer my assistance to help him with his project; not that I'm any handy man or anything.  During our conversation last week, I was prepared to explain my super big picture plan to purchase 20 properties that cover all our living expenses with their cash flows.  I was challenged with he started questioning where I was with my first deal.  At that point, I realized my head stays in the clouds way too much. It's important to have a plan and goals, but it's even more important to take the first step.  He suggested that I focus on getting that first property and seeing how well it fits into my wife and my lives?  This helped my thinking.  I don't think I'll ever not think RE fits into my life, but it made sense to get the ball rolling. I've learned a lot over the last 14 weeks, and it's time to take action. 

I was also really impressed by the Set For Life podcast and realized that I should be taking a holistic financial approach to our goals.  How are we doing at saving? What opportunities are there for me to be earning more outside of RE so that we can save more for RE? How are we at giving ( more on this later)?  I'm extremely grateful that my wife is frugal. She balances me out in this.  We are going to commit to living wisely and saving hardcore. 

So, now that she is learning much about investing, we are looking at properties and analyzing deals.  It totally pays off to work as a team.  This week she found the property that will soon become our first offer!!  Prior to finding this property, I got together with Curt, a local investor and received some great tips about house hacking as a couple.  My wife isn't too keen about moving out of our apartment but is open to the idea in the future.  Personally, I think it's quite  adventurous to split a duplex on an owner-occupied loan, live there for a year and move on to the next. This idea sparked our interest in duplexes.  At this point, we turned our attention to multi family and here is where my wife found an amazing duplex just outside our target area. The numbers looked  great and meets the 50% rule.  We got pre-qualified with our local CU and placed an offer on it tonight!  I'm grateful for the fact that I have an investor friendly RE agent as she suggested we initially offer $20K below the asking price.  We'll see how this goes. 

Regarding giving, a special event is coming up during this time when it's easy for me to be self-focused, greedy and materialistic.  Every year, our church has a missions drive called Generosity Sunday, where members give generously to different efforts of the congregation from supporting smaller churches around the south-east and world to contributing to early childhood development efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa. My wife and I had a great time discussing how much we want to have generous hearts and be faithful with the resources that God gives us.  Surely RE has great wealth potential but it would be for naught if were to selfishly indulge in it and not have a greater, godly purpose.