All Forum Posts by: Brian H.

@Dennis M.

Heard that.  I will check them out.  Will make a point to better utilize my time away from the restaurant.

@Frank Wong

It's not the hours that is as much of a burden as the mental end of managing kitchen employees. I've work kitchens for years, used to push 100 hour weeks at an old job at certain times of the year.  Just can be really hard to focus and organize my thoughts after a 12 hour day dealing with the kitchen.

I will definitely do a self-evaluation of my free time. I think that would help. I can do it on my whiteboard to make it more visual for myself...  maybe even, at least for now, schedule what I do in my "free" time as well. 

Thank you guys.

@Joe Villeneuve

I hear ya.  Yes.  I will reach back out to them and see about getting more organized and on top of that piece of this.

@Mark Fries

No, you are right. My girlfriend even points out how negative I have become over the last maybe 4 - 5 months.  Granted, the heavy mental stress of running the kitchen (kitchen employees are a strange, rare, exhausting breed) really wears me down... but I was ok this time last year and cranking forward.  I have been doing yoga maybe 4 nights a week and trying to meditate more because (surprise!) it helps.  It's just the whole fitting-everything-into-my-day piece.  But that there is another excuse! haha  I am a hard worker... have my dual degree in math and stats, minor in finance... so I have the head for this stuff and the drive, as you said.  Just need to cut that anchor... 

It's funny. I had to stop and delete more excuses right here. Thank you for that. Hearing it from someone besides my girlfriend helped. I love her and respect her and hear her, but sometimes we need to hear it from an unattached party.

I have a couple people with some expendable cash that would maybe be interested in making some money with me but they are also incredibly busy and work out of town (both on oil rigs), so lining up our times are incredibly difficult.  Otherwise, not sure how I go about finding a partner.

That's the dream, man. That's what this is all for.  But the issue with that, at this point, is there are two kids in the picture. My SO and I are also steamrolling our debt. We are putting almost $1800 towards our debt each month, but I REALLY want to be fully debt-free (not including business debt) before I think of leaving this job.  She is almost completely debt-free and then we will tackle all I have left, which is a measly $40k in student debt.  If it were just me, I would stop today and attack this head-on.  I have the drive and determination and I can live off much less but the kids change all that.  One is starting to drive as well. Soooo... haha  Plus, I need to build up my business' working capital a good bit more before I just jump in.  My current five rentals cashflow about $2000 per month, after all is said and done.  They killed the 1% rule. Came in almost 3%. Got REALLY lucky. Older couple just done with renting and trying to get rid of the properties quickly.  Was out bid by a bigger investor who flew in from DC but they liked me more and how I was doing things, so ended up selling to me anyways, which was mind-blowing.  

But anyways, I'd love to stop and jump all-in. I just don't have the resources at this time, is what it comes down to. Which is frustrating because I also need more capital to really jump into a lot of these awesome deals I keep finding and can't quite make happen. Meh.  

Hey everyone,

I am just completely unorganized. My situation is stressful but I realize I am creating that stress mainly. I work 65+ hour weeks running a kitchen, so that is already stressful. I realized that I am looking at REI as my "out" from the food industry and this incredibly stressful job managing kitchens. Maybe that isn't healthy but I don't know how to reroute that thought process now.

I started with $20k on 11/2017 and as of 12/20/18 had accomplished one flip and obtained five rental properties (1 Quadplex, 3 Duplexes, 1 SFH). Much further along than I planned to be at this point already, but I have this voice just saying "we need to find more asap. We need to grow as quickly as possible." On top of that, I am just, as already stated, completely unorganized. I have an ok organization system as far as filing goes... but that's it. I have no decent method for tracking my communications with agents, the multiple analyses I may perform on different properties. It will be a sort of "Shoot... did I need to get back in touch with any of these people?" "Did I ever finish that analysis of that property? What conclusion did I come to?" Just incredibly scattered and that is causing a lot of stress.

Do any of you have some really successful, useful methods you use to organize communications, communication streams, thoughts, analyses, etc. to get everything straight and help keep your head MUCH less cluttered and unmanageable?  Anymore, when I sit down at my desk and computer before I even do anything, I am so overwhelmed because I have no idea where I even left off. Maybe I am looking in too many places for deals right now too.  But also when an agent presents me with a deal that could have some potential, I just feel overwhelmed even by that and kind of fall off the radar, whereas this time last year I was GO GO GO and chomping at the bit. Now I am chomping but then when the door opens I cower away from it.  Don't know.  Just wasn't sure if anyone else had run into any of this themselves.  I'm clearly overwhelming myself... just trying to figure out how best to organize my thoughts and such so my head can be more clear I guess.

Sorry for the rambling nature of this. Just trying to get my thoughts out so maybe I can grab some advice, especially on the organization piece.  

Thank you!

@Jay Hinrichs thank you for that haha

@Patricia King

Thanks for that.  Seems most of the positive reviews in this thread were from people that have never posted here before? Granted so was yours... but I am warier of an account leaving a positive review as their first post or two and never posting again... makes me think someone at the company is trying to pump them up. Maybe that is just me being paranoid. Can't seem to find many people that can say they have used them successfully or even gotten a callback?

@Joshua Watts So, saying each person will rent 8 - 10 sqft per capita... what current sqft per capita would you look for to justify a new construction or the purchase of an already existing facility?

@Scott H.

Is this a worthwhile investment as a newbie to the industry?  I just signed up for free but it has the "credits" thing... and just to click on a section of the site requires the use of a credit and they are like $18 each... so I am really confused about how to utilize the site without running up a crazy bill just to learn about it.

@Joshua Watts

Thanks for the information. I will look into your other post as well.  

I was thinking about calling as a "student" from the local university working on a business class project... and just getting that basic info... or is that super "sketchy" or "backwards"? haha I don't want to be a jerk or underhanded... I just feel like a good portion will not be interested in giving me the info. 

Whom do I speak to about feasibility studies? I have a couple other private investors and we are pretty serious at this point. We even found a great piece of land for sale at the intersection of two highways.  I'd love to just get as much info on the area as I can, even if I have to pay for a feasibility study.

When using that "rule of thumb" for areas in general... how would I determine the square footage of the already existing facilities? I am assuming I am not just taking the square footage of the whole property for the facility, but rather the rentable square footage of the total units they have on the property?