All Forum Posts by: Andy Hayes

To piggyback on Nick's thread, I have a few spaces available for Friday night at the Hyatt. I'm only booked for Friday, so I can't offer anything for Thursday or Saturday night.
I used one of my Hyatt suite upgrade certs for a suite. The (Aspen) suite is really a lockout; there's a normal room that connects to the oversized 'suite' (about the size of 2 additional rooms). The 'suite' has a murphy bed and one or two couches. I'll be happy to put up some people ... anything above 2 and I can't guarantee anything better than the floor.

My apologies; poor verbiage on my part. I'll edit my original post.
There is absolutely no regret on my part for the path that I have traveled over the last decade.

As a part timer, it meant taking a job anywhere, any time, doing anything. All of these jobs were important but were hard to fill that most were not willing to step forward and volunteer for. Lots of tent living in a part of the world where most would not want to go.

I keep forgetting that I can't use the same language that was used when I enlisted back in 1980 - things like 'embrace the suck' and 'FUBAR' don't play well to a wider audience. Sorry to all who were offended by my barracks lingo.

George, I'll chime in on this one. I've rented for several reasons.

1) My work history since 9/11 has sucked. I was a fairly new United pilot who still flew part time with the Guard. I lost my airline job in Mar 2002 and had to take any job that no one else wanted with the Guard and then the AF Reserves to keep an income. I took a couple of civilian jobs but they didn't pan out.
There were points in 2003/4 that I alternated living in a storage unit, my car, and hotels. When I updated my security clearance, I had 16 different addresses in 10 years. Which brings me to

2) I've moved around a LOT. Chicago, St Louis, LA, St Louis, DC, Miami, DC, San Antonio, DC, San Antonio, Tucson. There are hefty round trip transaction fees on real estate. I crunched the numbers quite a while ago and came up with something >10%. Realtor commission, loan origination fees, title, inspection, appraisal, points, etc. And finally,

3) I saw increasingly exotic mortgage products offered 2001-2007. This told me that we were in a real estate bubble that would eventually pop. With my spotty income stream, I couldn't buy anything until ~2006 and by then, I was in the DC area and was looking at unsustainable numbers. You simply can't build 50K new housing units/yr when the population growth is 15K/yr (that was the county stats in metro DC that I was looking at). Speculators were going in and buying properties - they were fine with leaving the properties vacant and riding the capital appreciation on the asset. I knew that was unsustainable.

... that answered my question. Are you talking granularity or general numbers? In other words, given my numbers below, do you think I'd have to worry about my credit score being below 740? I haven't used credit (other than credit cards) since 2000, when I got a car loan. I haven't had any loans since then so I haven't worried about my FICO score.

My FAKOs are:
CreditKarma: 769
CreditSesame: 832
Equifax Score Card: 760-850

My daughter (22 years old): pulled her CreditKarma score and it was ~780. She's very good about credit and I added her as an authorized user on my oldest credit card a couple of years ago. Her student loans and car are paid off and she has no debt other than paying off her credit card every month.

On the Credit Karma report for me, it had one account in collections. So I got a free annual copy of my TransUnion credit report and found an unpaid parking ticket that went to collections. I'll take care of it.

CreditKarma also lowered my score due to low average age of credit lines. I closed a bunch of dormant credit cards a few years ago and pretty much only use one credit card, which I pay off the balance every month. That gave me an average age of open credit lines of 3yrs 10mos.

I also took a hit for total credit lines (5 open, 9 closed) which is low - I would have scored higher on CreditKarma if I had more lines of credit.

I'm not going to worry about any of these issues yet but I want to have a 740+ FICO when I take out a mortgage.

Chris, I'd probably find out if the home is renter occupied prior to bidding.
I looked at your website and I'm assuming you're looking for properties to fix and flip, not become a landlord. IF the renter is aware of the Protecting Tenants At Foreclosure Act, they would probably exercise the right to stay in the property for 90 days or the end of their lease, whichever is longer.

I was renting a house that was foreclosed on in 2009. The bank, BAC, tried to kick me out but I let them take me to court. It was thrown out and they were going to take me back to court again after 90 days in spite of having a long term lease. After 4 months of living rent free, we agreed to accept cash for keys instead of going back to court because my wife didn't want to deal with the bank anymore.

I hope this is appropriate to post - please delete if it's not appropriate.
I'm a tightwad and I suspect that there are others on this forum. If you're a AAA member, you can book the AAA breakfast rate through hyatt.com for Friday and Saturday night for $116.10 - it includes two breakfasts in the Altitude restaurant. While it states buffet, they'll credit the buffet's cost toward other menu items - The Benedict (eggs benedict) is awesome and with a drink is about the same cost as the buffet. Two breakfasts is definitely worth the extra $7.10.
I don't know how long the $116.10 AAA breakfast rate will last but that seems to be the usual slow season weekend rate at this hotel. At this time, I show both king and double rooms available at this rate.

The Bigger Pockets rate for other days is better than what's offered on Hyatt.com.

You can get two of your credit scores for free and a range on the third for free. I just did this last night. My understanding is that this will be a soft pull.
Credit Sesame will give you your Experian score,
Credit Karma will give you Transunion, and
Equifax Credit Score Card will give you a range.

Here's a link I found from someone who walks you through the various sites: http://www.moolanomy.com/826/get-your-free-credit-score-online/

Is the pre-approved price negotiable? Or if the numbers work, is it best to simply offer that price?

Thanks in advance.

Chris, thank you very much for your generosity. I've booked my travel and hotel; I'll definitely thank you in person.
... and I'll make sure to pay it forward when I can.

It sounds like both tickets are spoken for. If that's not the case, I'd be grateful for the opportunity.
I'm just getting started in gathering information and the Summit sounds like a great place to get a lot useful information.