All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

Jon Klaus & Jon Holdman make great sense in evaluating your property. I typically don't come across non-conforming properties, so I never had to figure out value for such. given the above suggestions, how does that comp out for your situation?

either way, at 47/sf in an 80/sf market, you prolly can't go wrong w/either way to eval. how does the lot size compare to the other comps?

Hi Brandon Turner... I tried to do a search on a few terms to see how they compared to yours... it looks like there's a rise in "buy a house," but that term doesn't reflect the frenzy back in bubble cycle. however, i do think "buy a house" reflects intent... just as intent and trend of real estate speculation during the hype (bubble) can be reflected in the term "real estate investing"..

just off hand, you can find most of the data from census, zipskinny, school district gov site for area, bureau of labor statistics, zillow, trulia, google is your friend... just really need to know what you're searching for and you'll be able to find most of the data you need online.

as for rental data, I have been able to find that thru rentometer, trulia, zillow, and definitely craigslist! what you might want to do is get a good range for your target profile. i think CL is a great source b/c you can at least figure what your bottom range is for rentals and what rate you'd be competing with / using for your rent comps.

hope that helped get you going in the right direction!

good luck!

How much time do you put into your REI business? That's the question I've been pondering lately. I'm exploring a new career in RE as an investor. I've been evaluating my current resources, schedule, and limitations and trying to figure out how to maximize my time to get up to speed. In reviewing my goal setting, business planning, scheduling, and how I'm going to maximize my time in REI, I'm a bit frustrated with the timing of recreating myself/career and the recent turnaround in the r/e market. Just when I'm starting to feel ready/comfortable to ramp up in the flip market like it was 2010, the market resets like it's 2004!

Anyway, after counting (several times) the real hours I can devote to getting started in REI, I'm a li'l frustrated with how that compares to what others (i.e., Will Barnard & J Scott) have mentioned in how many hours they devoted when starting up. I tallied about 25hrs (max) per week vs. 80+ hrs above mentioned to startup! at my stage of life, kids/family are perty important and take up a good chunk of time.

haha..

I'm afraid when I finally do put in my equivalent hours, I'll miss the next uptrend cycle! ughh.. ok, enough complaining. I think what I really need is to take inventory and meticulously plan out my strategy working with what I have and who/what I need to grow from here to reach where I want to be.

Anyway, I think one of the best pieces of advice I've read from the forum is to really work backwards from where we want to be and figure out and do what we need to do to get there.

Here's to wishing an effective use of my 25hrs /wk to my new career!

so my long answer to the short question by the OP... 25hrs:

75% deal finding
25% networking
all while thinking in the mindset of systematizing, leveraging, and optimizing...

For certain lack of bookkeeping detail does not reflect quality of work. Its really about procrastinating on what we despise..

These days, u can find a reputable one thru a host of services..yelp, Google places, angieslist are the few that come to mind..

If you've done it for a while, you should be able to diagram a work flow n even stages for that workflow detailing all the parties to interact with as well as a decision type chart and timeframe for each segment, right? Once you see that all on paper, you can begin to better see areas of efficiencies and inefficiencies and come up w a draft system to work with and evolve.

While an online system might sound good.. maybe after u have detailed your own workflow,you can use other tech n comm to implement in your own for a better customized, fitted, and streamlined system for your group.

Just thinking out loud..

Good luck!

Rob K

OHHHHH... you have to CLICK the list that pops up to do a mention!

Minh L.

sigh... ok... i get it now.

Joshua Dorkin

however, it DOES NOT WORK in "edit post" already made mode

@Rob K
@Rob K grr... how does this darn @mention work??

haha... hmmm... I used to be one of those contractor types who don't bill right away. :) While I did make good money, it wasn't so good that we didn't need it.

Unfortunately, and I suspect this is the case for everyone who's experiencing this seemingly "weird" phenomenon from their contractors, it's most likely that (as @Minh L. mentioned) they are not the most organized nor have a system. I'd sometimes go without billing for up to 90days easily. Getting busy was a factor, BUT there was always time to find in between jobs and sleep that I coulda billed.

It was weird when I stepped back to observe my own behavior. WHY would I NOT want money for work I've already done?? Of course, it wasn't that I didn't want it. I SO PROCRASTINATED and dreaded dealing w/paperwork. My solution became having a bookkeeper bill for me - that worked VERY WELL... Eventually, the light turned on, and since I had to detail the work done on the invoice anyway, it didn't make any sense to pay someone to send an invoice.

I think it's a level of lazy... but more so, an unfortunate result of procrastination from (at least for me) a fear of paperwork and dealing with all the boring admin stuff. I just wanted to do the work, not the follow up admin crap! :)

Today, it's about lining up a system and having it ready to execute... and that's how I am approaching REI. it's tedious, but I want to learn from my mistakes and be better than I was before. I look back at how I did things before, and I just shake my head. SIGH... it's not THAT hard! But I guess like a lot of other things we tend to procrastinate on, it's rarely the difficulty of the task that keeps us from executing - it's the emotional/irrational fear of xyz that keeps us from taking the first few steps!

Haha.. ya.. the forums w all the content and live interaction make for a very engaging focus of time :)

As for alternative investment, I meant niche or focus in r/e.. I'm biased to r/e. Where else can u have leverage and an investment that cannot go to 0 overnight?!

As for other ideas.. I'm sure you'll eventually find something the more you explore bp... hopefully before it becomes an issue w the wife.

BTW, if you or ur wife or both have a 401 or ira, might want to consider further into your calcs how to turn that into a resource and leverage for your r/e investing. Might b better than where it's currently invested.

Good luck! And ya, if you search for self directed ira on this site, you should find more about what I'm talking about if you're not familiar.