All Forum Posts by: Timothy W.

I know. I buy 10-20 cents on the dollar so I get 80-90% equity on the day of closing on top of my cash flow. I was just trying to think of something to make him feel better. :lol: I'm sure Bend is lovely.

Dave's a good guy if you ever ever, ever ever, ever ever get to meet him. ;-) (Inside joke.)

How does Ontario, Oregon do on rent? I see property there listed for 60-70k. Like you said though, it looks like it's a drive.

As far as the national market - truth be told, there's a ton of cashflow out there. Luckily I'm in fly over country where cashflow is a daily occurrence. Flip side (no pun intended) is we get crap appreciation.....if you don't get forced appreciation on the buy.

Check Idaho - right next door to you (state wise). I'd bet Idaho is packed with cash flow.

Tim

"Laminate is scratch resistant and I believe water resistant also."

If you get the water up within 5 minutes, yes. Otherwise you'll be replacing it. Laminate is basically ground cardboard pressed into boards, then a picture of wood is "laminated" on top of the board. It works and I install it when I need good looking, cheap flooring in a rental - but any spills need to be taken care of immediately.

For rental property carpet - rubber backed carpet. 68 cents a square foot at Lowe's on sale and no need to buy carpet padding.

Tim

"Obama will end the war in Iraq definitively."

Curious. Did he say how?

26. Bought a multi.

By the way, here's a publication from the North Carolina Real Estate Commission and the Ohio Association of Realtors stating specifically that you legally do not need earnest money for a contract to be valid. With anything, do your own research.

http://www.ncrec.state.nc.us/pdf/publications/EarnestMoney.pdf

http://www.aabor.com/pdf/earnest_money.pdf

Personally I am primarily a conservative republican but wouldn't moan and complaing if we had a democrat president this next round. There has to be checks and balances in place. Even as a republican there's something that fundamentally bothers me about a republican white house, republican senate and republican supreme court.

I don't agree with a lot of Obama's views on many things, but I think he is going to win. There are too many factors in his favor. First, people want change. Ironically they want change, but don't know exactly what they want changed. The easiest thing is to change political parties in the White House. Second, Obama sells. He's an African American JFK. The guy is very charming. People underestimate that importance. Third, People keep talking about wanting to make history with this next election. They could either do it by electing the first woman or the first minority as president. The woman selection has created 30 years of an image that she is trying to reverse in 6 months. Not gonna happen. Bill was charming, Hillary wasn't. That was their whole marketing strategy before. Can't flip that. Obama's fresh. He hasn't been around long enough for a lot of bad press. They don't have an archive of bad soundbytes of him.

Would I vote for Obama? Doesn't matter - he's got Illinois locked up. lol

Tim

Good topic. FYI - I had one issue with my site where an online function didn't allow google to search keywords within a specific area. This was a huge SEO issue. Got it fixed in the meantime but watch those automated functions to insure that they don't hurt your SEO efforts.

I'm glad this was brought up because it raises a topic that's near and dear to my heart.

As far as this one deal - it closed and if there's anything that basic physics can teach you it's that what works once, can work again. You simply decide if you want to do it again. Personally I decided not to.

I actually avoid bird dogging, property scouting, and wholesaling in general. I only do them when I need to. Why? It's not true Real Estate Investing, as Ryan said. It's being a Real Estate Entrepreneur - a self employed one (what side of the quadrant is that again?). It's merely marketed as Real Estate Investing because that terms sells educational courses better than entrepreneur. Entrepreneur has a risky sound to it and for good reason.

An investor invests capital for a return. Bird dogs, property scouts, wholesalers etc. generally don't have the capital to invest - thus they do these deal chasing activities. An entrepreneur gathers resources to create value. That's what bird dogging, property scouting, wholesaling is - gathering property, information and investors to make a deal happen. Each of these activities is a singular event leading to a singular payout. None of it is passive income.

Why do you think so many new "investors" are having such a tough time in this current market? They're trying to act like "investors" when they need to be acting like "entrepreneurs". You couple that with the naturally low success rate of entrepreneurs and your bound to get the nonsense we see now. Can't put the cart before the horse unless fate provides you a windfall.

Here's the worst case scenario of this - I had a wonderful gal I was teaching basic cashflow investing to. She's a well paid software programmer who left a near 6 figure job to become a full time bird dogger because someone told her she should be a full time investor and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working out. I explained to her that she didn't escape the rat race. She went from an excellent job to being self-employed....or rather glamourously unemployed. She escaped the software programming rat race for the self employed real estate rat race....and she didn't even like bird dogging! She preferred programming! But she listened to somebody who told her to be a "full time investor" and drank the Kool Aid. I then explained to her that she could be both an employee and an investor and grow her passive income - and truly exit the rat race on truly passive income that exceeded her expenses. The look in her eyes when she realized that her job wasn't necessarily a bad thing that she should be ashamed for having was priceless. Did I sell a bird dogging educational course? No. Did I sell anything - yeah, $100 of training (but I paid for lunch and gas so it came out to $60...lol). Did I do the right thing? Absolutely.

Remember what Rich Dad taugh Robert Kiyosaki - make your money in business; hold your money in real estate. I doesn't matter if you make your money bird dogging, making toothpicks, contracting, or selling Prepaid Legal. These are all entrepreneurial pursuits - make money there. Invest (hold) your money in real estate investing. True real estate investing is investing earned capital for a return - buying cashflowing property, holding private notes (not brokering them), whatever it is you do.