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December 2018

Personal Purchase Update

 

My newest house is complete! I’m still working on the refi so the full post will have to wait.

The basic numbers are as such:

Purchase price – 50K

rehab – 15K

ARV – 90K (est)

Rent – $950/monthly

This was a GREAT deal and I got lucky in a few ways. I’ll be excited to share the full details once the financing is finalized. 

 

What happened in November


I went to Texas! 

 Yeehaw yo! 

 

I made my way down to Dallas to talk real estate with a friend I made online. I took a lot of pictures, we took advantage of some great networking opportunities, and I got some decent pics! Networking is an incredibly important part of your career, and I don’t mean just meeting people, but BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS. If it’s not genuine, it’s not shit. 

Enjoy!

I finally installed email capture on my website

 Don’t worry I’m still not going to sell you anything! If you sign up, you’ll pretty much just get this newsletter sent to you once a month. No spam, and no nonsense, just a way to stay in slightly better contact so you don’t miss me when I go stratospheric.

I started doing a casual video chat with my brother

We talk weekly anyway so we thought maybe some people would be interested to hear our take on current events, complex topics, and just because it’s fun. Though at the time of this writing we haven’t uploaded anything. Soon! 

What’s going to happen in December

Not much to be honest. In some ways this is good, in some ways bad. The last few months have been very busy for me, especially since the BP podcast. I’ve been getting a lot more opportunities and I don’t want to expose to any large risks by moving too quickly unnecessary. Also known as shiny bouncy ball syndrome. 

So December is going to be focused on what has the biggest long term ROI: reading, writing, networking. I’ve been learning more, and a lot more about risk and while the world goes a little crazy, I want to remain tempered. Interest rates are rising, deals are getting harder to find, and competition is growing. I’m not predicting anything, but I don’t need to chase outsized gains just because everyone else is. No one else seems to be talking about slowing down or increased risk at all: this causes me concern.

So I’m going to wrap on my house, try to find another one. Work on the website, and maybe try to find a podcast appearance. That said, I’m always open to the right unplanned opportunity. 

Books I read this month

Manufacturing Consent – Noam Chomsky

Rules for Radicals – Saul Alinksy

Antifragile – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Bed of Procrustes – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Fooled by Randomness – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I read this book “Skin in the game” by Nassim Taleb earlier this year, and didn’t really know what to expect going in. I forget now why I originally read it. It was nothing like I’m used to. It was hard to like at first, and it’s a tricky read, only about complicated topics. It sucked me in though, and it does not take long to realize he’s brilliant. 

Then I picked up Anti-fragile this month and it really blew my mind. I can not get enough of this guy since I started. I’ve been watching YouTube videos of him, I cleaned off his book of Aphorisms: Bed of Procrustes. Which is an incredibly unique text of essentially modern day poems of economics, culture, behavior,  ancient wisdom, and shit talking! Before I even finished I decided to start reading Fooled by Randomness at night by hard copy (Something I never do). 

The whole series is called ‘Incerto’ and after I read the last one “Black Swan” I’m going to write a blog post about the whole thing. I may read them all again first. It’s this good. 

Want to get involved?

in 2019 it’s likely we are going to spend some considerable amount of time looking for a large multifamily property. If you’re interested in participating, talk to me about where you fit in. More information will come in this newsletter as time goes forward.5

I need someone to help me create a video page and tell stories. If you’re interested in Videography and story telling and want to work on some pet projects that I think have potential, I would love to hear from you.

Social media marketing. I’m no good at this, I need help creating a strategy and process. I’m not really sure what I need to be honest, but people ask me how they can help: this is an area I know has opportunity

Ever built and sold a course online for….anything? I’ve been slowly working on something I could market and sell that would provide tremendous value to people who want to do what I do. If you’re interested, and can help don’t be shy. 

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November 2018

Personal Purchase Update

I closed my last refi if very early October from the previous BRRRR deal I did. I started looking for a new deal immediately and I found one quick! Probably won’t be as good as the last deal but it’ll still be a good one! I closed on that house in mid october so 20 days between getting my money wired to me and closing on the next house. Not bad at all!I’ll make a full post for this one like I usually do once it’s complete. Currently it’s in rehab mode and not that much to talk about, in the meantime you can at least see the deed since the house is paid off. I get these all the time, and I put loans on them so it’s not really a big deal….but still kinda cool!

I was on the biggerpockets podcast!

 

This was a big deal for me because I’ve wanted to be on this thing for about 5 years now! Very exciting stuff. I talk about my real estate journey and some of my approaches to buying real estate. I’m a rookie podcast guest, so I was definitely nervous but tons of people have enjoyed it and I hope you do to. 

My phone has been BLOWING up since it went live and I’m trying to make time to answer everyone, I’ve also finally been convinced to start collecting emails so people can more closely follow what I’m doing. 

In the mean time, watch the interview and HYPE OUT! 

Click here to listen to it

I did a video interview with my friend David at his site From military to Millionaire

Spending my time meeting people on Skype

 

I’ve been doing video chat with people to provide information, build relationships,  and do coaching for free. 

I love meeting people and talking about real estate. If you want to do a free Skype/Google hangout conference with me please reach out! Some people have urged me to charge for my time and create a real ‘coaching’ business out of this, but for now I have refrained. For similar reasons as my above opportunity I think there is far more value in finding great people to invest in rather than simply making money off of a transaction.

So for the time being this opportunity will continue to be free. If you want to talk real estate in any capacity, even if it’s casual, please use link at the bottom of my home page (it says “Let’s meet“) to schedule a time to chat. I’m happy to help if I can and I love to meet people. 

Reading list

This was a bit of a short month for me in terms of books completed. I usually shoot for 4 per month, but the Gulag Archipelago is extremely long and dense. I think I’ll be stuck on this one for a bit longer than usual, but that’s ok because it’s epic and amazing.

Outliers – Malcom Gladwell

The Gulag Archipelago – Alexander Solzhenitsyn

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October 2018

Personal Purchase Update

Newest purchase took a tad longer than I expected. As I mentioned last month we had to go back through and do some further updates before we listed it for rent. It took no time at all to get a renter in there which was great, so I scheduled the appraisal with the lender. Hurricane Florence delayed us a week, but the appraisal went through and I got all my money back! 

Purchase price – 55K

Rehab – 10K

All-in cost – 65K

Appraised value – 100K!!!!!!

Rent – $950/month 

It shouldn’t be so easy to make this much money doing so little. 

I went to Fincon 2018

Fincon is an annual conference for financial bloggers. Tons of people in the “blogosphere”, youtubers, podcasters, and content creators of all kinds come together to talk shop. It was a lot of fun, and a useful learning experience. I came away super inspired and I’ve already bought my tickets for next year!
 

Click here if you want to see my experience as told through my camera]

Fincon has an interesting history for me. I had been hearing about it for years through people involved in the personal finance community, but it’s for bloggers. So when I started my blog, I got excited that I had a legitimate reason to go! So I prepared by redesigning the site, I got the nice logo made, business cards, and tried to step up a little bit so I didn’t seem like a total slacker. 

Unfortunately when I got there I felt like a total slacker anyway. Not in a bad way, but in a motivating way. It’s good to see the effort your peers are putting into similar work, helps hold ourselves accountable. Next year I look forward to trying much harder: more preparation, better pitches and branding, more deliberate networking. 

All that said, this event is FUN. I work at a bank and bankers are BORING almost universally, I was worried that hanging with a bunch of money nerds would be similar, (and it was kinda) but it was fantastic and I already bought my tickets to go next year! 

I made a mistake by not going sooner, thinking I didn’t have anything to offer, or wasn’t established enough. I wish I would had gone far earlie. 

 

What’s going to happen in November

I have 2 podcasts coming up! 
 
Very exciting times! Late last year I started this blog to share my real estate thoughts, shortly afterwards I got the opportunity to write for the official Biggerpockets blog regularly. Next up I’m going to record a podcast with them. No idea when/if it’ll air, but I’m excited to prepare diligently and make the most of this opportunity, no squandering! 
 
I have another podcast opportunity with them in the works but it’s still in testin so don’t want to jump the gun. 
 

I’m going to buy another single family home 

I had intended to start this process in September but had a slight delay, all things considered not that big of a deal. This will be my 3rd complete purchase and rehab for the year and that was my goal, excited to hit it!

Residential real estate deals are getting more competitive these days for sure. Margins are tightening and interest rates are rising, I’m starting to develop strategies for alternative paths forward. Keep you posted on what happens. 

Books I read this month

 I only got through 4 books this month but I’m quite happy with the choices I picked, especially Yuval Harari and Richard Dawkins’ new books. I read Roger Stone’s book because I wanted to see what this guy had to say, but it was drivel unfortunately. 

The Federalist Papers – Alexander Hamilton / James Madison

21 Lessons for the 21st Century – Yuval Noah Harari

Stone’s Rules – Roger Stone

Science in the Soul – Richard Dawkins

Want to get involved?

People are always asking to be part of our success, and we are always looking to bring in great talent.

If you are looking to provide some value and want to get involved, don’t be shy. Reach out!

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September 2018

I’ve decided to try and do monthly updates to catch people up on all my projects at once rather than weekly random articles with no particular coherence. This will be the first of many! 

Personal purchase update

My latest purchase has finished rehab! We had finished it and tried to rent it for about 10 days and then went through and made a few more adjustments. The house had wood paneling on the interior which was quite a bit outdated. I was confident that we could get the house rented as-is, but I wanted top range of rental income, and I really wanted to make sure this house will appraise for 85K or better. So after the rehab was complete, I looked at the pictures and decided it was worth sinking some more money into. I had my team pull the wood paneling down, install new counter tops, and a few other small odds and ends. Now we are back to looking for a tenant. The pictures are before we went back to redo those items.

This project has been going a bit slower than my last one. My contractor has a ton of his plate lately (somewhat thanks to work I’ve brought him) so this has fallen a bit to the wayside. Fine by me really because we have both been focused on other mutual projects. All that said, I’m happy to wrap this one up and get it profitable.

I started my side of the underwriting for this deal 2 weeks ago! That means as soon as tenant signs the lease at this property I can go apply for a mortgage with my lender, he’s going to ask me for a laundry list of “stips”: loan documents to satisfy lending requirements. This will include W2’s, tax returns, bank statements, insurance for all my properties, hoa statements, paid tax bills, etc. I have all these documents prepared already so as soon as the processor asks me for that list I can give them to her instantly, this speeds up my underwriting immensely AND it makes the loan processor’s life really easy. Win/Win/Win

I spoke on a panel regarding long distance investing

Speaking is something I’ve always been intrigued with, and there is a TON of value in it, but it’s a talent like any other: it must be practiced. I was fortunate enough to share some of my knowledge at a local real estate meet focused on out of state investing. I was happy to share my knowledge and hopefully, I’ll get the chance to do it again soon!

Thanks to Neil Henderson of www.summerskycapital.com for snapping this great picture of me! And another big thank you to Outback real estate investor group of Las Vegas for giving me the opportunity to share what I know.

Here is an article for Biggerpockets about why it’s important to build a team BEFORE you buy a house

The link to that article is here:

Newbies, if You Want to Land a Property Within 12 Months, You Need to Do THIS Now

I started using my talents and knowledge to help other people duplicate my process

Towards the middle of the month a guy reached out to me expressing interest in replicating my process. We made quick friends and started ramping him up to understand how I make money so easily. I showed him how I buy houses, introduced him to my ground team, and on August 21st we had an offer accepted on a GREAT DEAL.

Purchase price – 34K

Rehab estimate – 25K

ARV – 85K

Rent – $950/month

This is a sick deal and very happy I could help a stranger to make money using what I’ve already learned. I certainly couldn’t do it without my great ground team in place, so I’m thankful for them stepping up so well to take on these new clients.

It seems as soon as we started making some successful progress in this area another client reached out to employ my skills in the same manner. I’ve begun to move towards this opportunity in what I’ve tentatively called “Alexandria Consulting”. I will look to expand on this new demand and try to help as many people as I can.

What’s going to happen in September

I’m going to buy another single family home

Maybe my last for the year. I really want to move into a commercial purchase next year so I’m trying to slow down my cash usage for the time being. I fully intend to spend the majority of my cash assets on a large apartment and it’s unlikely I’ll have access to that income again for a while. So I’m hoping to get one more deal done and then shift my focus on the next big obstacle, although I will continue to assist others

I’m going to fincon 2018

My friend Lee Huffman goes to Fincon every year and raves about it. My FOMO was kicking in hard this year so I looked into it. It’s a conference for financial bloggers which neat but I’m not a blogger, rather I WASN’T a blogger. I literally started this blog so I could go and network and have a reason to participate. That was in December and since then my blog has provided me with far more opportunity than just one conference. If you’re on the fence about content production then my suggestion is to just get started. Put something together and start practicing, the results I’ve had in just 8 months have been staggering. Highly recommend.

Books I read this month

Are you reading consistently? This has been the massive life changing habit for me. Sad I wasted so many years thinking I was smart rather than working hard at actually learning. I clean off books at a blistering pace these days to make up for lost ground, you can see my list of August additions here:

Never Split the Difference

Raising Private Capital

Hitch-22

Guns Germs and Steel

Change your Mind

Want to get involved?

People are always asking how they can bring value and get involved with our process, but I’m not always sure what talents people have. Here is a short list of things we could always use help on. If you are looking to be part of a growing operation and think you can help us do better, reach out!

  • Blogging/writing/proofreading
  • Finding multifamily deals in North Carolina
  • Social media  strategy
  • Photography/videography in Las Vegas
  • Podcasting