All Forum Posts by: James Hamling

To clarify another point @Tiarnan Gormley: 

I EMPHATICALLY disagree with any & all advice being given of: sit-tight..... wait..... be patient.... watch paint dry..... do nothing..... 

Wait for what?! 

Seriously, FOR WHAT?!

Name 1 successful person/business who "waited" themselves into success, just 1..... 

How about just 1 who "analyzed/ researched" themself into success........ 

No.... 

Not just no; HELL NO! 

STOP waiting, start DOING!. 

Get ACTION centric. 

Yes, be methodical, be with purpose, have a plan but MOST important of all EXECUTE, DO, TAKE ACTION. 

Your going to the London School of Economics, your not some punk day dreaming from Mom's basement working PT at McD's who's best achievement was the dugout ya made in metals shop and got your first -B of your life wondering how to get Grant Cardone "rich" with you $85 of deployable savings...... 

You've already achieved so much more than so many! BIG high-5! 

Waiting is the enemy. 

Picture the BIGGEST graveyard in the world, stretching as far as the eye can see, horizon too horizon. This is the graveyard of great ideas, plans, hopes and dreams that were never done. Know what it says on those grave stones: "Waiting.....". 

Take ACTION. 

Act like tomorrow might be your last day on earth because some day, it will be. 

Mark Cuban didn't "wait" until he could start at billions. Mark Cuban started by selling flippin garbage bags Door-2-Door. 

Daymond John literally sat in a dumpy apartment at a sewing machine and then out on the street selling what he made. 

Billionaires. 

What separates the 2%...... 

ACTION. They didn't wait, they took action, and kept taking action, and kept taking actions. 

Don't wait, take action. And keep making them 1% better than the one before. Learn as you act. 

Doing is a mighty powerful teacher. 

Fail UP. And keep failing UP. Fail often, fail frequently and keep-failing-UP. 

PS: 

Here is a detail tip. Notice when I spoke of London STR I used the words "gain control of a property" and NOT "buy a property"????

Ownership is NOT necessary. CONTROL is what matters. Control. 

If in your shoes, I'd be sorting my marketing strategy, and jazzy ways to do my frunishings, marketing budget, how to Gorilla the hell out of it. And touching with owners pitching ways I can gain control, to then monetize. 

Dang right, I'd be trying to find jazzy ways to lease, to then run as STR. And again, Gorilla the hell out of it all, so yes it would be crazy outlandish asks and efforts. Deferred rents to let me launch, furnishing on deferment, etc etc..

I'd get very creative with it, and when people are saying "your nuts" I'd know I'm in the right zone of things. 

Musk was nuts, Bezos was nuts, Cardone, Jobs, all "nuts", every great was "nuts" until they were relabeled a visionary, path blazer, innovator, genius. 

Don't wait. 

Don't wait for "perfect", don't wait to be sane. 

Be "nuts". Go out and start making your future come into existence. 

What action can you do now, TODAY, that moves you even 1 single inch closer to your future? 

Go do that, NOW, right now, TODAY. 

Don't wait for the future, make it. 

@Tiarnan Gormley I think your really going about this in the worst way. 

Your looking at this really cool and unique position your in, and focusing on it as a problem. 

So all you see is problems. 

You already decided what it is you "should" be doing, while simultaneously stating you don't know what you should be doing..... So yeah, of course it's confusing and vision filled with problems. 

Do you want to be great at Real Estate Investing? 

If so, step 1 is rewiring how you look at things. You need to rewire yourself to ALWAYS look for the opportunity. LOOK at what ADVANTAGEOUS, what competitive edges do you have, how can those be best used to engage in the opportunities at hand. 

Right now, your fighting saying this square peg won't fit into the round hole. 

So stop, stop trying to put square peg's in round holes. Step back, take in the situation around you, what peg's do you have, what hole sis there, what is there that CAN be connected. 

Right away the most obvious is STR. And with that, oh-man there is SOOOoooo many things you can do.

Fear the issues of tenant nightmares, fantastic because you won't have that with STR.

Your right there buddy, freaking LONDON, literally a "bucket list" destination for people the world round. Are you kidding me. What a GREAT golden opportunity. 

You are positioned right at one of the top 10, if not 3, STR markets on the planet buddy!

Ireland..... Scotland..... I mean come on! How many people every year pour out there life savings to come for a vacation, just from TX, not even mentioning the US or rest of world. 

Now let's compound that natural advantage by fact your from TX. Is this connecting yet? Be that person who set's up some STR's there, runs em there, and really caters it to the US "bucket list" tourist.

Look, if you've spent any time in UK you already know the US tourist is WAY different than say the German tourist. Way WAY different. 

How many Ameircans have culture shock when get there? How many struggle in there bookings, to find way around, ask "what is this corn-dog like thing"..... 

You could be "The" STR "guy" for American tourists. Setting them up to do well. Prep that if gonna be in London public rest rooms on every corner is not a thing, so empty that "tank" before head out.

Prep em on the need to experience a Sunday Roast at the Royal Windsor with a pint. (seriously, it is legit "last meal" worthy". 

There is SOoo much opportunity for you it's insane. You'd be a dang fool to waste your energy or effort's on ANY US standard rental more or less Sec8, are you kidding me?! 

And all those skills you going to have to learn and master in UK to get a property under control, operate it, market it, monetize, operate etc., ALL 100% translates to anything and everything you will do when back in US. 

Will it be difficult? Hell YES. 

Guess what, it ALWAYS is. What matters is it will be WORTH-IT. 

To go from 0 is "breaking in" the the biz. It WILL always be like smashing through a wall with your head as fists as the hammer, you will "get bloody", it will hurt, it will exhaust you, it will test you to your breaking point and beyond. That is the reality. 

Simple does NOT mean "easy" or pain free. 

But man-alive, you are in such a GREAT place with amazing advantageous. Don't waste that. 

When you deliver a PREMIUM experience, especially one so curated for those persons what do you think they will do? You'd be delivering BIG and powerful solutions. People reward you with there appreciation and $$$$. 

Don't be average, be AWESOME. If for no other reason than you can. 

You wanna be the 2% so BE the 2%. Stop focusing on problems and focus on opportunities and solutions. And BEING exceptional. 

BE the 2%. 

"CA ran out of water...... do you have ANY clue what kind of water delivery system would be needed to handle multiple wild fires of this magnitude?...."

Yeah, I do. 
The empty ones already in place in CA, neglected to, ya know, have water in em. 

Hey, how about that genius move to turn OFF the power, including to the water pumps. Has CA never heard of generators? Did nobody ever stop and say "oh, hey, maybe we should keep water pumps going because, ya know, no electricity no water pumping, NO WATER". 

Ran out of water, LMAO. That's the drunk driver saying the car just wouldn't drive straight. 

Quote from @James Wise:

Quote from @James Hamling:

Quote from @James Wise:

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @James Wise:

Thought this was interesting....Trump may withhold aid due to LA's water policies.

About time. Although some people will yell that 'this is mean, of those poor people' it has to be done like this. Otherwise it would be like giving your teenage kid a new car, which he crashes, and you just buy him another one without talking about responsibilty and consequences.

 Ya man, folks out in Cali are wild and have a lot of miss placed rage. Check out this PM I got from a BP member.

And how much help and aid did CA send North Carolina and Tennessee?????? 

Oh yeah, that's right; DIDDLY SQUAT! 

Hey tough guy, how about you come out to TN/NC and talk smack.... "you sure do got a pretty mouth...." 

 lol, someone also left a death threat on the HoltonWise voicemail system. I'll probably end up uploading it to HoltonWiseTV, but for now here is the automated transcript from our phone system. I am guessing it's the same Daniel H who PM'd me. Dude has a few screws loose.

Hey @Account Closed do you got anything to say about this? 

Hey, remember the CA people say how it's the greatest most bestest ever ever. CA sun shines better, CA water tasts better, girls are prettier, bestest economy, just EVERYTHING in CA is better..... 

Sooooo CA should have no problem at all flipping that bill, right? 

I mean, hey, your such the awesomest and EVERYBODY loves CA #1, so no doubt every CA resident will be ecstatic to help chip-in for it all. 

Let em reap what they sow. 

Quote from @James Wise:

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @James Wise:

Thought this was interesting....Trump may withhold aid due to LA's water policies.

About time. Although some people will yell that 'this is mean, of those poor people' it has to be done like this. Otherwise it would be like giving your teenage kid a new car, which he crashes, and you just buy him another one without talking about responsibilty and consequences.

 Ya man, folks out in Cali are wild and have a lot of miss placed rage. Check out this PM I got from a BP member.

And how much help and aid did CA send North Carolina and Tennessee?????? 

Oh yeah, that's right; DIDDLY SQUAT! 

Hey tough guy, how about you come out to TN/NC and talk smack.... "you sure do got a pretty mouth...." 

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @James Hamling:

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @John Clark:

Quote from @Eric Bilderback:

Quote from @Bruce Woodruff:

Quote from @Eric Bilderback:

 I hear people say it from global warming all the time.  I don't believe anyone can look at how forests are managed and come to the conclusion it must be global warming.  Maybe I'm wrong but that is my perception of the Burr and the public in general.  If that wasn't the publics opinion we would have a ton more great jobs in Oregon and many other places.  

What would be acceptable if there wasn’t global warming is not something you can get away with now, because there is global warming. It’s not a binary cause. Global warming now is the nudge for a lot of fires, hurricanes, etc. it will soon be accepted as the primary cause. If something is not all white doesn’t mean it’s all black.

I thought you guys were calling it climate change now? Because it is always changing, but not always warming.....gotta cover your bases y'know....

If it was a "fact" that carbon emissions, carbon in the atmosphere, is factually the culprit for climate change. 

And all these things are, factually, a result of climate change.....

Why isn't anyone sending me $4 billion to launch daily carbon capture filters into the air to remove it all back down to net 0 in a few years?????? 

Hell, I'll give a discount and we'll call it $2 billion. 

Think about it. How dang cheap is it? A mylar balloon, the cording, bus sized filters or heck, let's make em building size, it's cheap, crazy cheap. 

Launch in S hemisphere where there is a fraction the air traffic of N. 

If all this billions upon billions upon billions of damage WAS because of carbon caused climate change..... And we have the tools for cheap to capture carbon...... Why isn't anyone doing it? Why isn't UN or any government funding it? 

Actions, they speak so much louder than words...... 

Those frauds just buy 'carbon credits' so they can feel better about themselves, they don't really care or they would alter their lifestyles instead of pounding the rest of us with the guilt, Lol....

And if we look at the temps for the last millenium instead of the last century, they can show that although we are in a temporary upswing, we're really on a slide into a colder era. Bundle up!

Yup. 

400'is - 900's ad, was an "ice age". Than again 1300's-1850's the "mini ice age" or better known as the "dark ages". 

What made those happen? It's a cycle, the planet has NEVER sat at a static climate, it's an ever changing and cycling thing. 

Now do i think human activities can have impact on this, 100%. But that's the question never answered and always glanced over is what, to what degree, in what direction. 

And than, the ACTIONS. Was there a push for global carbon capture to lesson this thing of impact? Nope. Instead, the answer was to make a new money making market off of it. A Carbon Stock Market. Invent a global tax (Carbon Tax) and invent a token of credit against those tax's (carbon credits) and shazam a market where traders can buy, sell trade, option, leverage, hedge against these and the flow of them. A new Wall Street, CARBON STREET. 

Nobody put 1/10 the effort into carbon capture that they did to shazam this new "Carbon Street". 

So what do the actions say? It's mostly about making $ out of the world economy WITHOUT actually producing anything of value. 

If we took every trader from W.S. and threw them into the ocean today, how much less food would the farmer make next week? What factories would stop? How many electricians would hang up the belt and wait to die. NONE. 

It is an item of MAKING MONEY and NOT of producing, transporting or bring to market any goods or services at all. It is the "Mosquitos" of the economic system. 

What will more "mosquitos" solve? 

Not a damn thing. And they know that, there not dumb. 

But sheeple sure as heck ARE dumb. Happy to turn off brains and regurgitate what "Baaahhha" the herd is yelling of the day. Even if straight off a cliff. 

If it was a "fact" that carbon emissions, carbon in the atmosphere, is factually the culprit for climate change. 

And all these things are, factually, a result of climate change.....

Why isn't anyone sending me $4 billion to launch daily carbon capture filters into the air to remove it all back down to net 0 in a few years?????? 

Hell, I'll give a discount and we'll call it $2 billion. 

Think about it. How dang cheap is it? A mylar balloon, the cording, bus sized filters or heck, let's make em building size, it's cheap, crazy cheap. 

Launch in S hemisphere where there is a fraction the air traffic of N. 

If all this billions upon billions upon billions of damage WAS because of carbon caused climate change..... And we have the tools for cheap to capture carbon...... Why isn't anyone doing it? Why isn't UN or any government funding it? 

Actions, they speak so much louder than words...... 

First of all @Diana Teng, have you ever gone to a restaurant and asked "is the food here worth buying?". 

No, right. There gonna say it's all good, get this n get that, it's great. 

Well that's what you did, you announced your "hungry" and "who's got something good to eat for me to buy"

Having commanding market intelligence is absolutely necessary. 

It's not a "should" or "good idea", it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. 

There is 1 catch and 1 only that can lesson this requirement. That is if purchasing EXISTING performing investment real estate AND have very good clarity of every facet of the transaction ESPECIALLY reasoning for seller selling, AND you have decent market intelligence. 

Anything else is GAMBLING.

You can think your gonna "find a great team" but heres the catch; If you know diddly-squat about that market, how do you know what is a "good" team member or not? 

Good decisions come from INFORMED decision making. 

Anything else is luck and relying on luck is gambling. 

So YES, getting informed is paramount importance. 

And keep in mind; getting sold and getting informed are 2 very different things. How do you know the difference? You FEEL one, and you KNOW the other. Heart or head, feeling or knowledge. 

Do your research, pick a market from research results not opinions. Narrow the list down then, last step is make the time and go tour them. 

Lastly, if all this process seems like just too much and not for you, I suggest talking to @Chris Clothier that's who I'd personally go to if I wanted to make some market purchases off someone's word of it.

@Mary Jay this is a question about ACCURACY in accounting. 

Look, I will try to simplify this: 

We have 3 parties money; (a) the landlord investor, (b) the lender giving a mortgage for purchase money, and (c) the tenant paying for use. 

If your doing REI to it's full potential, you don't pay 100% of the purchase price up front in cash. You pay a down payment, closing etc. Let's call this 30% of the acquisition price.

For simple math let's say it's $100k buy. You, the investor have a capital outlay of $30k. That is your capital investment. 

The lender paid $70k, and only asks for $750 per month. 

That $70k is NOT your capital investment! Because you didn't invest that capital, the lender did. 

Now the tenant, say they pay $1k per month. 

Some would say they have a "cash flow" of $250 per month. And there kinda right. BUT, it's NOT net profit. It's not even profit at all, it's capital recapture. 

Because you have a capital investment of $30k. 

So if all stays static, that means at yr 10 you will have 100% return of your capital AND NOW you have net profit. 

Now in reality, rents go UP every year. That means your rate of capital return should, if done correctly, go UP each year. Meaning, TIME, your gaining TIME. The TIME for 100% return of capital outlay shortens. 

Now, say in yr 2 you have to do added work and spend another $10k of improvements. That's an ADDITIONAL capitol investment made. 

And if in yr 4, you SELL, and reap the reward of $100k in appreciation, now your "realizing a gain" from the appreciation gains. 

Appreciation is only a THEORY until a person SELLS, be it gain or loss. 

The tenant paying down that mortgage, the capital investment the financing made into the property, is a form of appreciation. It's theory until realized. ie SOLD and $ in hand. 

The POWER of Real Estate Investing is: 

- Securing an asset via only having to give a capital investment of a fraction of it's price. 

- Having other persons pay for that other purchase capitol that you did not spend. 

- Getting to keep all the rewards of appreciation over time be it in rents and/or market value. 

If you understand the math of it all it should come very clear, the game is NOT best played (1) buying in all cash, (2) buying and sitting on a property for decades on end. 

The game is best played following the strategies for the phases one is in; growth, dividend, end of life. 

Growth is best served TRANSACTING properties to HARVEST appreciation/equitable gains for redeployment of those gains (better know as PYRAMIDING). 

Dividend is marked by a restructuring of holdings, simplifying things, getting out of day-2-day and just being the owner. Often many consolidate into MFH. 

End of Life is just that, getting set for that inevitable end. Some sell everything and ride off into the sunset, others prepare a trust and train the next generation to take the helm. It's very personal and varies wildly. 

Point is, to just buy and hold for eternity is not good strategy or math. That's a residents approach, not an investors. 

Generally a 3-7yr hold is optimal timing. Otherwise the risk exposure to Cap-X grows exponentially. And cap-x, that's a fast way to watch great returns go to 0 fast.