All Forum Posts by: Gary Parker

Just Don beat me to it. I bought block house last year and didnt pull a permit for the work. I needed to replace the lower half of sheet rock in the three bedrooms. Just as i was having it pulled off here comes the city. I had to rip all the sheet rock out, replace the insulation, frame exterior walls to bring insulation to code, replace electrical and so on. Just because I took some of the sheet rock out.

Congratulations Nathan Emmert. Is the reason you refinance conventional because the 30% is a short term hard money loan on the original purchase? Also when you refinance is the bank loaning you 75% of appraised value with no down? Again, very cool how you put this together.

Good Stuff! Very much looking forward to this. As you know Michael, negotiating skills are so important after the marketing has done its job. How important would you say is it to have negotiating skills honed before increasing ones marketing?

I agree with what Monica Breckenridge said. The key thing she said was watch your margins. Sometimes not loosing money and paying attention is a great outcome. I am seeing properties asking for highest & best. I never would have guessed that six months ago.

As Jeff Sielicky alluded to just do what you do. Combine that with watching your margins as you buy and things should be OK.

I think we are seeing a temporary buying surge due to interest rates and a lot of retail buyers leaving the sidelines. Jobs and inventory supply will determine the next couple years IMO but I am no expert.

Check out books by Bob Burg and I really enjoyed "The Power Of Negotiating" by Jimmy Napier. The latter is an audio cd. It is pricey but I keep listening in an attempt to improve my negotiating skills.

When replacing the GFCI outlet make sure you identify the line side (power in) and the load side (power out) side. It will say line and load on the GFCI itself. Also make sure you keep the black and white wires together that came from the line or load side. Put the wires on the new GFCI just how they were on the old one.

There are so many deserving charities to choose from. I would support it. I currently support a local charity involving kids. Anything that supports kids would be good.

They start putting it back on you and it is time for someone new.

I associate "control freak" with being obsessed with worry the job will not be doen correctly. I hired an assistant about two years ago to help with research and marketing. To help with my worry that things would not be done correctly, I hired someone that was close to me location wise, was OK to work just a few hours, could work flexible hours and wanted to increase hours as time went on. I started off with having her do small parts of larger tasks and adding a little more of the task as time went on as I became comfortable with the performance. Slowly moving into hiring people helped me with my control issues. Lastly, you have to accept the occasional mistake.

Hello Will Hoyle I wish you the best of luck with your direct mail efforts. You didn't mention how often you were going to mail to each person. With direct mail it is best to touch the same person multiple times. Search for posts by Michael Quarles for expert advice on yellow letters.