Well I read the paper again and found another gentleman who was willing to hold some financing. Sooo in the past week I’ve looked at 4 multi-unit properties. A duplex, a triplex, a quad and a 6-unit.

The 4-unit I really liked. Keep in mind that the duplex, triplex and quad were all owned by an Amish gentleman.

I gotta tell you that I pulled up to the property and I was looking for his

I mean there wasn’t any transportation near the property and you definitely needed it to get there (of course I was assuming he lived on a farm or something.) I even asked him “how did you get here?” He said his “assistant” lives around the corner and dropped him off.

I gotta tell you folks he was filthy. I mean his hands were nasty….soo dirty. And folks will tell you well it’s because the Amish are hard workers and you know what I’m not going to deny that they are hard workers on the farm, but he definitely is not a hard worker when it comes to his rental properties. They had TONS of deferred maintenance. Don’t get me wrong he was the nicest man….really nice, calm, well-mannered, etc. but when he asked me for a ride to his other properties I kinda didn’t want to give it to him because he smelled reallllly bad. I’m not even kidding. But I gave him a ride.

So I have to do the numbers on his triplex and quad, cuz I’m not interested in the duplex. Then today I looked at a 6 unit. Veryyyy well kept property in an area that is completely new to me (actually so was the Amish dudes properties.) The 6 unit is the guy willing to hold some financing. He claims he has someone else interested in it as well…but as we all know, “being interested” and making and offer and actually going to settlement are 2 different things, right?

I’m going to do the numbers and make him an offer too. Where will we get the money for any of these properties? Hey…maybe a private money lender who wants to earn a decent rate of return on their investment. Ever since I got private money for my last 2 atms (which are doing very well, by the way) I’ve been casually talking to folks about private money.

On to my current rental property….tomorrow I will be posting a Demand for Rent notice on the property and I’m 99.99999% sure I’m evicting this tenant this month. I’m not even going to tell you his excuses because I really didn’t listen as I didn’t care. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a very nice landlord, but I’m very firm as well. And I stick to my guns and start the process when you don’t pay (and especially when you don’t call and give me a heads up as to why you haven’t paid…not that I care to hear your excuse, but it’s just a courtesy thang with me I guess……ya know?)

Anyway, I really like these tenants and apparently the hubby is asking if his dad will bail him out (mind you, the tenant is a grown man, in his late 40′s or early 50′s.) I told him that if his dad or brother bails him out this time that I would be willing to sit down with him and his wife and go over their finances with them and help them come up with a budget. Basically, the guy has a spending problem….he buys crap and then has no money for the bills.

Btw, he called me and said “Thank God I got your message before Maggie.” His wife has no idea what’s going on with their finances…he started whispering to me and said “I gotta go outside, Mags just got home.” Soooo, I told him that he needs to tell his wife what is going on and that she perhaps may even be the better person to handle the finances since he can’t do it…..I said she’s gonna know tomorrow when I put your notice on the door.

Soooo I hope that his dad can bail them out and I hope that they “fix” themselves but I’m fairly confident it’s not going to happen. I was chatting with my father tonite and he said “don’t worry, you won’t have any problem renting that place in this market.” Sooo I hope he’s right because I just did my personal budget with Kathy and paying my rental property mortgage is NOT in the budget lol

More on that in my next post. Btw, my hours are changing at the BMW job. I just asked the General Manager if I could work 9 to 6 on my early days and 10 to 7 on my late days. Reason being is that school started and I need to be here in the morning to get Joe off to school when Kathy is traveling, plus I want to get home at a relatively decent time to go over his homework with him and get him to bed at a decent time. The GM was fine with it.

P.S. I’m doing ok with my diet and exercise routine. Well I don’t want to call it a diet, it’s more of a lifestyle change where I start eating better………and I’m doing better on that aspect moreso than the exercise routine, but it’s cuz I’ve been so tired from working my tail off (work work and then atm’s.) This week will be better hopefully.

P.P.S. And yes, I’ve been losing weight. hehehehe

Friday we both helped Brandon move out of the house and move into his new home….Immaculata University. Every other week now Kathy and I will be all alone at the house (unless she’s traveling for work of course.) As you know, Joe is at is dad’s one week and our house 1 week…..so we’ll have him every other week at least.

I gotta tell you guys…I was really excited that Brandon was moving out. Him and I haven’t been seeing eye to eye lately….I won’t get into why, but his last week here in the house I was really impressed with all of his initiative that he took and I think he found a new maturity and sense of responsibility that last week. (I think a part of him was doing it to say to his mom “I’ll be ok, don’t worry about me.”)

Anyway, I gotta tell you….Kathy is away now and I’m home with the kitty cats and it is Q-U-I-E-T around here. I mean seriously. It’s crazy….I mean Brandon and I may not have gotten along a lot lately but darn at least we were both here to talk to one another lol This is definitely gonna take some getting use to for sure. He stopped by today and I was all excited to see him lmao He didn’t stay long tho but that’s ok….he’s having fun. He starts school tomorrow.

Oh and on a Joe note….I drove Joe and Kathy to the airport Friday nite and I kept saying how I was tired. Joe was psyched to get on a plane (he’s 10, remember?) Anyway, Saturday morning Kathy tells me that Joe was worried about me last night (friday when I dropped them off) and I asked her well how do you know he was worried about me?

Kathy said Joe just started crying and Kathy’s looking at him like wtf? lol And she asked him what was wrong and he said “I’m worried about Carey. I”m worried about her driving home, she said she was tired. And I wanted her to come with us.” So Kathy told him not to worry that I’d be ok and that she told me to text her when I got home. He said “ok, well make sure you let me know when she texts you she’s home.” lol Cute kid, huh?

Ok now on to the Motivated Multi-Family Seller…..when I get to work I’m there an hour before the sales guys get there so I read all of the papers that we have delivered to us. Well I found an ad where a few places were listed for sale. I called and they have single family houses and smaller multi’s for sale….duplexes up to a quad.

Anyway, I got an appointment to check out 3 of his buildings tomorrow after work. Hey maybe we’ll have another “What would YOU Do” post.

On the eating and drinking end…..I just made a smoothie with Kale, Collard Greens, Spinach, Banana, Grapes, Blueberries, Raspberries and Almond Milk in it….and let me tell you it looked like shit, but it tasted absolutely AMAZING. Yummmmmmmy.

Good thing I’m back on track with my thinking. Working a 40 hour work week for someone else for 2 weeks now sure has a way of bringing out your thinking cap!

Guys and gals I have to tell you that I am more psyched than ever before now. I think I got this “work” pattern down at BMW, my body is now accustomed to getting up early even on my days off and I totally feel better “emotionally” knowing that the bills will get paid. Add to all of that that I do not like working a “normal” job and I’ve got huge motivation written all over me.

I haven’t been this excited since I wrote my freedom post. It’s on like donkey kong now!

Who’s got anymore ideas that I’ve been missing? The last post I made a few days ago Esi and Al made some great comments…..does anyone else have any more thoughts on finding motivated apartment building owners?

Why try to reinvent the wheel right? I mean seriously all of the commercial folks are saying that a wave of commercial foreclosures are going to be coming………..how about getting to them before they reach foreclosure?

I think the 2 ways I mentioned above are good as well as probate deals, but the big time consuming problem that I’m thinking will arise is the fact that I’ll probably have to sift through 99.9% of single family deals to find the apartment building owner deals. Wouldn’t you agree?

I wonder if there is a way to get by that? Are there any other techniques that you commercial guys and gals use to find motivated apartment building owners?

I’ve been doing direct mail, but I’m really just sending out a mass mailing to apartment owners…I’m sure my results would sky rocket if I was sending out a mass mailing to MOTIVATED APARTMENT BUILDING OWNERS!

Soooooo fess up (please) how are YOU finding motivated apartment building owners? (Btw, going to check out some reo’s this weekend that I found on the MLS…there’s another technique. An oldie, but always a goodie!)

Hmmmm let’s see….what have I been doing all week? Basically driving BMW’s. lol And no I’m not kidding.

My favorite so far was this one:

That one above is a convertible 328i. It was pretty hot!

And than drum roll please……I learned to drive a manual on this puppy on Friday:

That one is a 335i. Nothing like learning to drive stick on SOMEBODY ELSE’S BMW, eh? (and in case you’re wondering……I did a pretty good job driving after my learning session (the other guy that got hired with me taught me how to drive stick when we were out for one of our joy rides.)

Now as far as real estate goes…that’s what you really wanna know right? Well I have to tell you that since not working a “normal” job in soooooooooo long (over 4 years) that this week was extremely exhausting. Not only did I start this job this week, but Kathy was away for work in Houston, Tx and we (aka I) had Joe for the week. Luckily our next door neighbor friggin rocks so she helped me out a great deal last week.

The bottom line is that the job is bearable right now BUT overall it’s definitely giving me the motivation that I need to do what I need to do. This week is the start of my new schedule…basically work 2 nights and 3 days (and switch every other Friday and Saturday. So if I work Friday, I have off Saturday and vice versa.) I think I’ll need this week and perhaps next week (hopefully not) to get situated with my schedule and to hopefully not be exhausted when I get home and then I can concentrate on working my real estate in.

I did start re-reading this Dave Lindahl book: Multi-Family Millions: How Anyone Can Reposition Apartments for Big Profits(affiliate link.)

But if any of you folks have ideas on how to find motivated apartment owners, please let me know. I’m going to try to sift through the foreclosure notices and try to get my hands on those that are filing evictions or that get judgments on their behalf but I’m foreseeing some issues already with that…..but I’ll see what I can do. Any other ideas?

You may remember when I went to the Greater Philadelphia Apartment Associations Trade Show a few months back. While there I met a super nice lady who actually hires folks for property management companies. I advised her that I’m looking for a property management company to work with and that I’m actually not a property manager looking for more employees.

Now on to why you should network with property managers:

1) They know the areas. They know and understand which areas most folks are buying in, which area most folks are avoiding and which areas are up and coming. (Think this type of information is valuable?)

2) They know rental values in the area. They know which areas the rents are raising, which area the rents are being lowered, which areas rents are stabilized, etc. (Do you think you’d like to know this type of data when getting into multi-units and perhaps when getting into a new market?)

3) They have good contacts. They know great brokers to work with, they know great attorneys to work with, they know great contractors, and the list goes on and on. They KNOW people that can be important to your business!

4) They know costs. They know how much typical expenses will run for particular types of properties. (More information that would be helpful?)

5) They may send you deals. This is the reason I decided to write this post. I spoke to Mary in great length after receiving her email and we spoke a few times. After building some rapport with Mary I asked her to please let me know if any of her clients are looking to sell or if she hears of anyone that’s looking to sell. She said no problem. Then lo and behold just last week Mary send me an email telling me that this particular property is for sale and that she thought she’d send it to me to take a look at it! How about that folks? Now grant it, that property may not be a great deal, but that’s not the point. The point is Mary thought of me and sent me the information about an apartment building for sale. So if she did it once, don’t you think she’ll do it again the next time she hears of a place for sale? I certainly do. That is huge! I immediately emailed Mary and thanked her. Perhaps I should send her a lil thank you as well……what you think? I think that would be a good idea.

Can you see why one of the key people that you should definitely be networking with are property managers? They could be one of the most useful contacts you make in a day.

Realistically, I think we could offer 1.1 Mil, but I think I’m more comfortable with the MAO of $1,050,000. So I countered back at $1,015,000 and told him to let me know what the seller says.

Also, had a conference call with a broker team yesterday to go over a property we saw with them. They are asking 1.6 Mil and realistically our MAO is about 1, 375,000 ish….they paid 1.4 Mil for it 2 years ago….they weren’t having it. But the broker team is super duper nice. I wish they would get us some more properties because I’d love to see them make a commission because they are so helpful, the broker I mentioned first is kind of a jerk (for now.)

I’m heading to the courthouse to see if I can somehow fanagle (how do you spell that?) a list of evictions that were awarded to landlords and they will become my new “direct mail list.” I think I really want to find MOTIVATED landlords that own apartment buildings….I know they are out there. So far only the small guys are calling me back…..I want the bigger complexes to call me too!

I went to Toastmasters again last nite and it was a lot of fun. I made the decision to join the next time I go and surprisingly enough Kathy told me she was going to join too! Which is really strange because she is scared crazy of public speaking and told me she doesn’t even want to get up at Tmasters. But I think she had a lot of fun there the last time I took her there so hopefully she’s coming around!

The job hunt is not going so well. Which may be a good thing? I dunno. I mean I need money BAD but I’m really not so fond of a “job” per se. I probably wouldn’t even be thinking of finding a job if I didn’t switch gears into commercial real estate. I could have definitely made a decent living from wholesaling, but switching gears into commercial real estate is like completely starting over. I mean that’s ok because passive income is where my passion is, but it is harder and taking a whole lot longer than I anticipated.

Ohhh I’ve also been working on my Gay Marriage website. I look at my adsense stats and my traffic and I see I’d be making a ton more money if I just got my traffic back up to where it used to be when I use to work on it all of the time. Plus, if I had more traffic, I could also solicit more business from attorneys and other types of companies to advertise on the site. I have a few now, but nothing major yet. So my goal is to work on that some more in the evening and get it back up in the ranks where it use to be and then start sending out emails and calling folks to advertise. I think it could be a realllll money maker if I put just a little bit of effort into it everyday (perhaps that could be my 9 to 5 job after it gets rolling while I concentrate on commercial real estate.

One more thing: we have an appointment tomorrow to meet with another potential ATM site. I made the decision to pull the machine from the newer chinese buffet place. They don’t leave the machine on all of the time after me telling them repeatedly to do so, so I told them we’re pulling it. I wonder how the small business loan environment is? Because the only think that stops us from buying up a bunch of machines and just pounding the pavements and putting them in tons of locations is money. I’d say realistically we’d need about 20 to 25 machines out there working for us to live just fine, while we concentrate on commercial real estate (well I’d be just fine, that’d still below what Kathy makes.)

So, we would need 14 to 19 more machines then…and that equals about $42,000 to $57,000. Hmmmmmm. Something to think about. Obviously, there isn’t much money coming in when you’re out developing business, of course. But after they are all placed there is. Something to think about. I don’t think our LLC has been around long enough tho. I remember last time I got LOC for my business I had to be in business for at least a year. We’ve only been doing this since July of 2009. Something to think about.

So far this week we looked at 2-30 unit properties, 1-36 unit property and I looked at a a duplex, triplex and 4 unit the other day and a 4 unit (possibly 5) property today. I just scheduled a Saturday appointment for a duplex. Normally, we might not be interested in the duplex but I spoke to the lady on the phone before and she just faxed in the fax back form. On the form she gave a price and then said “or best offer” (I love hearing that) and wrote real big: Need to Sell!

After talking to her again and asking why she needs to really sell it’s actually kinda sad. This is the part of investing that I think sometimes may be a bit more difficult for chicks rather than guys. Ya know we get those emotion things involved. I mean I’m not saying that affects my buying decision but I’m definitely super sympathetic and empathetic. Anyway, she lived in a house that had mold issues for sooo long, TOXIC MOLD issues and 1 of her cats and 1 of her dogs ended up dying because of it and now she’s super sick because of it. So she has to move (and no, she doesn’t live in that house anymore and no, that’s not the house she’s trying to sell!)

The properties I seen today were very nice. The nice rental units I have EVER seen….EVER. There are 4 units now (single family house, a duplex, plus 1/2 a duplex.) Plus, the husband wants to make the other 1/2 duplex into an apartment. So it’ll be 5 units total and they want $750k for 4 or $790k if the 5th apartment is done first. Uhhh no. We offered 900k on a 30 unit! (and eventually, I think they’ll go for it, because that’s what it’s worth…) But the sellers I absolutely adored….older couple who just want to retire (home improvement/roofing biz) but they are a lil unreasonable right now.

I’m pretty sure we’ll draw up an LOI for the 36 unit we saw the other day and I’m seriously trying to figure out how on earth we could purchase a 120 unit property that is 70% occupied. I think it’s got HUGE upside……but I’m still trying to get my head around figuring things out that aren’t the “norm” yet.

Things are chugging along….I told Kathy that I don’t think properties are the problem and that we need to concentrate on finding private money more. We decided that for the smaller deals we’re going to seek out debt investors to just lend the entire loan amount and for the bigger deals we’ll use equity investors and just take a percentage of the deal. Equity investors just doesn’t make sense for these smaller deals…..financially speaking for us, anyway.

I finished a free report on Investing in Emerging Markets last night and today or tomorrow I’ll finish our Investor Brochure for folks that are potentially interested in investing in commercial real estate deals.

That’s why I put my ass in high gear to get this investor brochure together. The next step is to set up a meeting with him and his wife (I guess he’d want her involved…I dunno??)

So far, my monthly poker tournaments have found me 1 private lender and potentially 1 more. There’s another guy that comes sometimes that I’ll definitely hit up….but haven’t seen him in a bit. I know he’s got bucks too!

Ok off to finish my brochure now. Oh and if you are reading this and you’ve done any deals with 100+ units that had 70% occupancy or around there, please email me. I’d love to talk to ya!

I’m being a tad bit impatient though because I really don’t want to have to get a j-o-b! Know what I mean? I will though if I have to…I mean if it’s necessary to help take care of my family while I do the apartment thing on the side then it’s ok. That’s not the worse position to be in (it may seem like it because I’m not your “normal” type of job person…..but it would only be temporary.)

You might say “well why don’t you wholesale while working on apartments?” And I’d say that’s a fine idea, but realistically to be successful at wholesaling you’re busting your ass and networking and marketing and doing all of the things that I honestly, want to spend my time doing with apartment buildings.

Sometimes I have that conversation with my self and it makes sense and other times it doesn’t. But the big key is, just because you have a deal under contract when wholesaling does NOT mean you’re necessarily going to bring money in (deal could fall through for a number of reasons, etc.) And if that happens, well that doesn’t do the whole family bank account much good

Trust me, I am not dissing wholesaling in any way shape or form. I made some decent money as a wholesaler but I also remember that to make that decent money I worked my ass off. Not that I’m afraid to work my ass off anymore but I want it to be focused on apartment buildings. The goal: to accumulate enough apartment buildings that throw off enough passive income for me to live off of and for Kathy to live off of and quit her full-time gig (Remember my F R E E D O M post? That’s what it’s all about. ) Passive income does not happen from wholesaling.

If anyone sees a flaw in my thinking please let me know. My debt, folks, is really pissing me off and really determining all of the moves I make. I don’t know if you remember, but I “borrowed” enough money to live off of for 3 months in hopes that we’d get an apartment deal by then……..well I’m tired of paying nearly the minimum on my debt and I’m tired of being broke all of the time. I know a j-o-b is not my end goal, but I think I may be considering it a stepping stone to at least allow me to put a crap-load more money towards paying off my debt while I work towards my passive income goals.

Btw, yes the atm’s are kicking it, even the new one….but still, doesn’t throw off quite enough for me to live off of completely yet.

That’s the bad news, but now for the good news. I’ve been a networking fool lately. At toastmasters, whenever I meet folks and definitely at that tradeshow I went to last week. I think I may have found myself a new private money lender at the tradeshow (we’ll see,) I found an awesome contact who referred me to a property manager and the property manager was fantabulous and she referred me to 2 commercial brokers and told me she’d keep me informed of any properties that she hears coming on the market.

A lady at karate last week saw my WE BUY HOUSES lettering on the back of my car and asked for my card. She called me last night. We spoke. They owe more than their house is worth….I told her I could probably make her an offer and do a shortsale but she’d walk away with nada. She understood and said she’d talk to me in the future when they saved enough money to move out. In the meantime, she tells me about a 12 unit apartment complex near us that she’d like to move back into because the rent was dirt cheap. She tells me that the landlord tried to sell the complex before but the deal fell through. The owner since moved into a retirement community. Of course, I talked to her about that complex and she said she’d get the info for the owner (since her mom still rents from her) and give it to me so I can call her, plus she’d pass my info along to the owner as well. Fingers crossed!

Toastmasters meeting tonite again and I’m bringing Kathy with me aka dragging her kicking and screaming with me! Afterwards, we’re going to drive by 2 properties; a 6 unit and a 12 unit that aren’t far from there. If we have some interest in the neighborhood, which I’m sure we will, we’ll make appointments with the brokers and put in LOI’s.

Friday, we have a 3:30pm appointment at Starbucks with a broker I met at the tradeshow. He knows of a 45 unit property that will be coming on the market sometime soon in our area. And I know, I don’t drink coffee…lol but I like Starbucks’ banana nut bread and their strawberry banana smoothies. Yum.

Saturday, I still have to confirm, but may be seeing a 4 unit property. Monday have an appointment to see a 2 unit property. These are all smaller than I’m really interested, but I don’t think it hurts to practice. These gave from my mailings.

Just got another fax back form from my mailings of a lady that has a 10 unit. We’ve been playing phone tag tho. Sent out 255 pieces, 9 came back undeliverable and we got 5 responses so far; 3 by phone and 2 by fax back form. Just over 2% response rate. Not as good as the last piece we did.

Tomorrow we are going to a Chamber of Commerce mixer to see what we can make happen. It’s $10 for non-members. We still don’t know which chamber to join yet. So we’re just going to the free events and any of the cheaper events for non-members.

And today, I’m going to have Kathy call our next potential private money lenders to set up a lunch appointment with them tomorrow or Friday (those were the folks who were excited to do real estate deals with us but went on vacation.)

Soooo things are definitely moving along, but I don’t foresee an apartment deal by next month, so that’s why I mention the j-o-b thang.

Over and out for now.

P.S. If you haven’t check it out yet, do me a favor and check out my shorter private money pitch and tell me what ya think!

Ok so you remember the longer private money pitch that you saw on video, right? Well this is my shorter private money pitch. And I know the video says I’ll be using it tomorrow at the convention, but I actually recorded that video a few days ago….so I used the pitch all day yesterday at the convention.

I think I even shortened it and went into detail if folks asked questions. At first, I have to admit that it was a little intimidating being in a huge convention center with soooo many people and not knowing how to approach folks or what to say, etc. Because of course, I just wanted the opportunity to try my pitch. After a while I started to get the hang of it and felt more comfortable talking to folks. After a bit I would randomly sit down next to folks just to ask what they do for a living lol

I got 1 guy who told me he thinks he’d be interested and to definitely email him. Another couple seemed interested but they didn’t have any contact info, so I gave them my biz card (probably never hear from them.) About 1 or 2 other folks seemed like they may know folks that may be interested. I got biz cards and I put EVERYONE into an excel spreadsheet today, along with some notes on the back of their biz cards. I’m going to stay in touch with everyone, but definitely with the potential private money folks.

Met a couple of new mortgage brokers and commercial real estate brokers. Had a free lunch, free dinner and an open bar (I don’t drink so I just had 2 sodas.) Also attended a free seminar on financing in today’s market. All in all it was a pretty good day.

So….what are your thoughts on this private money pitch vs. the longer private money pitch?

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