Hello BiggerPockets members. My name is Jeff Waid and I live in NW Georgia about 45 minutes from Atlanta. A long story as short as I can make it...sorry
I started in Real Estate Investing in 2004 on a dare from my cousin who started very young and had several rentals before he was 21. I attended some classes with Bill and Kim Cook in Cartersville, Ga., and was hooked big time. Over the next 5 years or so I was able to leave my Corporate job at Coca-Cola and enjoyed success in Flipping/Rehabbing/Renting/Developing/Building and generally doing deals that made sense. In the collapse of 2008-09, I lost most everything and had to liquidate long-term holdings to pay creditors. After a period of blaming myself for being too aggressive, I realized the main reason I couldn't weather the storm was under-capitalization.
My absolute truth is the knowledge that this business can provide long-term wealth and the freedom to manifest whatever you can dream. My goal now is simply to amass enough cash flow to replace my lost retirement and finally retire as soon as possible so I can go fishing, permanently! I want to be able to support my family well and provide lasting benefits to my spouse and 4 children so they never have to worry about money.
One of my favorite speakers was Zig Ziglar and my favorite quote of his was "You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want".
I have tried to live this quote in my life and is probably the reason I love to train people on how to do things in my 9-5 career more than anything else I do.
So, I'm back and ready to get going in this amazing business again and saw the BP website and all of the resources here as the smartest and fastest way to cut down the learning curve. But Jeff, you say... You've done over 50 deals and blah blah blah, you should be able to just start over again easily. Guess what, things are different now and I need some guidance on what is working and what is not working. In 2004 I had a $300K-Line of credit and enough foreclosures in front of me to keep me busy for 10-years. I was a "We Buy Houses" sign guru and my phone never stopped ringing. I had none and I mean NONE of my own money in anything and the banks wanted me to spend more even up to 110-125% LTV and they were paying for the rehabs. I did subject-to deals and short sales before they were even a thing in Ga.
Today? What works? How do I find deals? How does financing work? I'll do the work, I am not scared to take steps, sit at kitchen tables and make offers like a madman (I had the record in my investor group for 32 offers one Saturday...).
These are all things I'm hoping to learn here on BP.
Thanks for reading to the end.
Jeff
