Extortion From The Dallas Police Department and Officer James Swafford

We get a call from Officer James Swafford of the Dallas Police Department telling us that there is crime on our property and asking what we were going to do about it. That’s right what are we going to do about it? “There was a man on the property selling counterfeit shoes” and “Some one I’m not sure who but someone in that apartment is selling drugs” Sounds like excellent police work Officer James Swafford you should be promoted to chief of police. I guess the real world or at least the Dallas Police Department doesn’t actually do any police work. So much for the high standards television sets for us with CSI.

So after we pick up our jaws off the floor realizing that as ridiculous as it sounds but in all seriousness Officer James Swafford really wants us to stop the crime. Oh yes this is also after we put in steal magnetic card access gates on all entrances of the property. We ask what can we do you are the police. He suggests we need a guard there. Oh did I forget to mention that the police department is only a block away from the property? We politely tell the officer that we can’t afford that and his answer to us is “Well can you afford a lawsuit?”

Wait this is America right? This is extortion! I’m being bullied by Officer James Swafford because I’m not batman? Does he expect me to put on a cape and cowl and fight crime in and around my apartment house? No he just want’s me to pay him to stop harassing and threatening me! This sounds like the bully who steals lunch money from the little kids in grade school. I don’t know what kind of a person Officer Swafford was in grade school but if his actions and morals as an adult are any indication of his grade school days. I’d say he was the bully of the playground stealing other kids lunch money. I never backed down to the school ground bully when I was 8 and I’m not about to now. We we’re eventually sued by the City of Dallas with Officer James Swafford testifying against us in court for knowingly allowing crime to be committed on our property. Which is part of what caused us to abandon the property and file bankruptcy.

Applying for a Secured Credit Card

I applied for a secured credit card today to start rebuilding my credit that the City of Dallas has destroyed, thanks to the Dallas City Attorney and the S.A.F.E Team. I had a credit score of over 800, it'll take me time to rebuild it to that level again but I've got to start somewhere and the only place to start with a credit card is with a secured one.

For those of you who don't know a secured credit card is one where you have to deposit money in the credit card companies account and that's your credit limit. Here are some important questions to ask if you're in need of rebuilding your credit with a secured credit card.

• What is the annual fee?


• What is the application fee?


• What other fees are there? (Insurance policy fees, etc.)


• Do you report to all 3 major credit bureaus?


• Will the report to the credit bureaus be flagged as a secured credit card?


• How much interest will my deposit earn? What kind of account will my deposit be held in?


• What is the interest rate?


• How long does the money have to stay on deposit after the account has been closed?


• How long will it take to switch to a secured card with regular good standing?


• Is there a grace period?

The best secured card I found was a Bank of America Credit Card.

Certified Letter From Dallas

There's a certified letter from Dallas waiting for us to pick it up at the post office, this can't be any good. ~ sigh.

What More Can the City Of Dallas Take From Us?

Today We received a letter from Gary Fitzsimmons Dallas District Clerk

The letter is an order to reinstate to docket and reads as such:
On Nov 17,2008 the Court considered the City of Dallas' Motion to Reinstate to Docket this matter upon the docket of the Court. The Court having been made aware that the bankruptcy estate herto filed by Defendant Hewitt REI LLC no longer includes 2828 Cleveland Street Dallas , Texas based on Trustee's filling of Notice of Abandonment and no objections to such abandonment were filed with the clerk of the United States bankruptcy Court, for the District of New Jersey, Newark Division grants Plaintiff's motion.

It is therefore ordered that this matter be reinstated on the active docket of this court.


The City of Dallas has sunk their teeth in and have not let go. We have filed Bankruptcy and have no money the property is in the process of going into foreclosure. What more does the City of Dallas want?!

Our bankruptcy attorneys have told us that this is a time for us to start over, but it doesn't feel that way at all.

"Greetings, You have been sued. " Thats what the paper work says that I just signed for delivered by courier.

No Credit Card Debt

No Credit Card Debt Yet Still Bankrupt

I have always viewed having a credit card and using a credit card as a privilege. I still view this as a privilege, a privilege that has been taken away from me by Mary Supino the city of Dallas attorney and a few other Dallas city officials. I have ZERO credit card debt, something that in this day and age is a rare case. I only had 3 credit cards each from a different credit card company American express, visa, MasterCard so that I would have the flexibility to use visa when American express wasn’t excepted which happened more often that I thought it would as the American Express card was my primary card I used most often which I had a history with for over 15 years all of which always had a zero balance. It’s not that I wouldn’t use my card mind you, I’d actually use it every month but I would pay each bill in full when it came in on all 3 cards. You se in addition to seeing credit as a privilege that was given to me for being responsible I also view credit cards very differently than the average person. Credit cards are like a small monthly loan. A micro load if you will that gave me a feeling of safety and honor. I never had to worry if I had enough cash with me to make a purchase with a small instant monthly loan that I could use knowing that I had the self control and discipline to never let it get out of hand and charge something that I could not pay off in full right away. But this is not to say that my credit card bills were not always small, occasionally my monthly bill was upwards of a few thousand dollars which, yes even then I stuck to my credit card rules and paid in full several thousand dollars in one shot, for example when I purchased my now wife’s diamond engagement ring and a few other times in my life of the occasional large spending. This is the way that one can live when they are frugal and conscious of their financial situation on a month-to-month basis.

This privilege however as I said earlier has been taken away from me. For recently all three of my credit card companies have sent me letters notifying me they are canceling my cards and I am to cut them up and send back my cards to them in pieces. They have been canceled on me despite a zero balance because I am forced to file bankruptcy due to an impassable compromise between me and Mary Supino Dallas City Attorney and the city of Dallas Texas. How can someone how is responsible with ZERO credit card debt, frugal with their money with a credit score of over 800 have their credit cards taken away from them? I have the city of Dallas and Mary Supino Dallas City Attorney to thank for that.

Good Bye Tenants

Dear Tenants,

The city of Dallas and the Dallas Police Department has forced us to abandon the Blue Ridge apartments where you currently live. What this means is that we will no longer be collecting rent or paying for trash removal, electric, utility or any other bills. Eventually the electricity in the common areas will be turned off.

For your own safety and security we highly recommend that you leave the property as soon as possible.

We have no idea what steps the city will be taking with this apartment. The City may try to continue to improve the apartment and rent it out, or they will just demolish the entire building and turn it into a vacant lot.

Best of Luck and God Bless

Bankruptcy

I fell in love and married my wife and we bought a property (a 15 unit apartment in Dallas TX) as an investment to secure our future and for our plan to have a family. A crime was committed on my property and I live over 100 miles away. The crime could have happened on the street but because it didn't the justice for us was to force us into bankruptcy. That's what i said Bankruptcy! I live in the United States of America and am a citizen so why is it my fault? Why should I have to be punished? I have been frugal and hard working my entire life and the result is destruction. This is a nightmare and I want to tell my story to protect the next person who will be bullied by the city of Dallas City Attorneys and threatened with extortion by the City of Dallas police department.

Beaten But Not Broken

The road to financial freedom is difficult. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. We no longer have the property in Dallas, we've officially filed bankruptcy both personally and for the LLC that held the property. The city of Dallas has driven us to this as no other options were available to us. We have been beaten but are not broken we shall recover and achieve our goal of financial freedom. Nothing will stop us.

Best and Worst Cities For Renters

I recently read an article on Forbes.com by Matt Woolsey called Best and Worst Cities for Renters, that I am summarizing here. I have found the Forbes website to be a valuable source of information, and an amusing place to find some top 20 lists. (I like looking at the lists of the top billionaires in the world. It helps me daydream.)But the article about the Best and Worst Cities for Renters had a lot of good information that I wanted to share with other investors. It was no surprise to read that the highest rents are paid in New York City and San Francisco. The 2.8% vacancy rate in NYC is partially responsible for keeping the rents so high. The sales prices of homes are much higher in the city, but so are the incomes. So those people who cannot afford to buy a home and need to rent, have a higher income than in other areas of the country. Therefore they can afford the higher rents as long as the cost is still less than that of buying a home.

In places like Cincinnati, that are expecting 100% more new homes this year will see a slow down in rental prices of only 2.7% (the lowest increase nationwide). More inventory slows the growth of prices and rents in the city. This rental increase is predicted to be the slowest nationwide. For a comparison, a 2% raise in construction in Washington DC is expected to lead to a 5% increase in rents there.

Job growth also plays an important part in rental rates. Salt Lake City boasts one of the most rapid new construction rates, but it still cannot keep up with the rate of job growth in the area of 3.1% in 2008. Of course more jobs means more people and higher wages and increases in sales prices and rents.

“Slow sales countrywide means more opportunities for renters as developers and homeowners look to lease their properties while waiting for buyers.” This is happening in Miami, but a lot of the new rental units here are unsold condos that are not really affecting the overall rental market.

Those are the basics of the article. I hope it was informative.

What real estate to buy in 2008.

This week we attended a meeting of the New Jersey Real Estate Investment Club. The topic this week was What real estate to buy in 2008. The founder of the club, Christopher Goodson, was going to talk to us about his recommendation for investing in the New Year. Since it is a real estate investing club, it was no surprise that he recommended investing in real estate. It is also important to point out that he recommended buying real estate for the long term, and not flipping or short sales. He had a lot of good things to say about flipping and short sales, but he believes that it is vital to invest in real estate for the long term.

He believes, as a lot of economists currently do, that we are in a recession. A recession is simply defined as “A period of general economic decline, specifically, a decline in GDP for two or more consecutive quarters.” I have never followed the GDP levels, but from what I have heard, it is easy to believe that we are in a recession. But being in a recession is not necessarily a bad thing, especially for people just starting to invest in real estate. I am a big believer in going back to the basics. Everything that we do is based off of some basic facts and ideas. It is vital to never forget those basics, or any new knowledge gained is baseless. These are some of the basics that were reviewed before Mr. Goodson made any investing suggestions:

There are 4 ways to make money in real estate:
1- Rental Income (cash flow)
2- Depreciation (phantom cash flow)
3- Amortization
4- Appreciation

Mr. Goodson believes that a lot of the problems that investors are having is because they bought real estate based on appreciation only. We were in a long period of time that saw unprecedented increases in real estate appreciation. A lot of investors were buying real estate based solely on the appreciation. They were willing to lose some money every month in hopes to make it all back plus extra when they finally sold. Those who did not sell prior to the downturn of the market have not been getting the returns they expected, and I am sure that a number of them have lost money.

The main thing that he stressed throughout the whole meeting was that you should only buy real estate that is cash flow positive, even if your goal is appreciation. In a nutshell this is what he was recommending to all of us for 2008. Only buy real estate that cash flows. He also recommended buying 2-3 family houses. (Please keep in mind that he is only speaking about buying real estate in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania Metropolitan Area. The rest of the country was not discussed.) He made this recommendation because of the abundance of these types of properties, and the ease of using alternate types of creative financing, such as seller financing. Since real estate has not been selling quickly in this area, sellers are going to be more willing to make creative deals now, in order to make the sale.

Keeping Financial Records

Filing taxes should be considered an illegal form of torture. It seems to just get worse and worse every year. I spent years struggling to file them myself and I was never sure that I did them correctly. Since I have switched over to professional accountants, I have never been happier.

I have been trying to keep close track of all of the expenses that we have had for this property, because we will need to file soon. I wanted to make sure that I was organized ahead of the game to save time. Of course, the accountant will be filing for us, but we are the ones that will be supplying him with all of the numbers that he needs. We used this same accountant for the past few years. When we were filing last year, and knew then that we would be buying an investment, I should have asked him how he wanted the information organized. I have it all in a excel file now, so sorting it into different views will be relatively easy. I know a lot of people use Quicken, or other similar software, but I have never found the need. A few spreadsheets have been easy enough to set up to keep all of the records that I have.

I have one spreadsheet for expenses that are not directly related to the property that we bought, but that we still might be able to use as a deduction. There are phone and internet expenses, FedEx bills for some of the bidding and closing paperwork that we needed to send overnight, and just some general office supplies. I do not yet know how much of these things we can use as deductions, but I have them all on my list anyway.

Then I have a sheet for the expenses that directly relate to the property in Dallas. On this sheet I have separated the closing costs from the operating costs. Linked to this sheet is one for the income the property generates. I have it broken down by apartment numbers, that I transferred from the monthly statements from the property managers. But I also just have the monthly totals that then are linked back to the operating costs page to give a running total of the profits.

Once we meet with our accountant I will know how good or bad my record keeping has been. Then I will come back and share any insights into better record keeping.

My goals for the New Year

1-Buy a second real estate investment
2-Create information products related to investing
3-Have more blog content and expand the information on it
4-Start a second website with other information products as source of income (topic not yet determined)
5-Write a business plan and create prototype for one new product (item not yet determined)

Those are the basics of my business and financial goals for the year. I also have certain goals for the one investment property that we now one, but I will review that separately.

1-Buy a second real estate investment. There is a lot more to this than just this one sentence. Our first property we bought rather conventionally. This was a unique experience that taught us a lot. But for our next investment, we are going to try to purchase it with different methods.

2- Create information products related to investing. I have so much information inside me, and I just keep picking up more. I want to put it all down on paper and see if it will sell. Secondary sources of income are also essential to my overall goals of becoming wealthy. A lot of the information will come from my personal experiences and opinions, as well as market and general information. I want to go beyond the “rah rah-you can do it” that is currently on the market.

3- Have more blog content and expand the information on it. This is pretty self-explanatory. I feel guilty about not writing on my blog as much as I should. I have re-prioritized my time to allow for more time to create content. I also have more time to research and learn about different investment topics that I want to share with the world.

4- Start a second website with other information products as source of income. This is sort of a vague goal at this point, and I have yet to decide what the service is that I will offer. I have some other interests in my life that I am passionate about. The site may be an interactive community of sorts, or a reseller of a niche product or something entirely different. My first step is to take my top two or three ideas for this site and do a little bit of market research to see if how plausible the idea is. Then I will develop a marketing plan for promoting the site, and set up a simple site to launch it.

5- Write a business plan and create prototype for one new product. My husband and I are big fans of the show “The Big Idea”. The Donny Deutsche show features entrepreneurs who have had simple ideas and made them into million dollar businesses. A lot of the ideas come out of simple frustrations in daily life. So, we have examined our daily lives and come up with a few new products. We understand that bringing a product to market can take more than a year. So my goals for this year are simply to pick one of the products that seems most feasible, write a business and marketing plan for it, and create a prototype. That sentence makes it all sound so simple, but it will actually be a lot of work.

Now, not only in my list of goals written with pen and paper, posted on my desk, but the whole world can now read about it. I am not getting away from this now!

A NEW YEAR!!!!!!

I will be the first to admit that I have been delinquent in my blog writing duties. But since it is a new year, I have been reviewing my goals not only for the year, but for my entire future. The good news is that I still plan on becoming wealthy.

Every January gyms across the country are loaded with new people trying to keep their New Year’s Resolutions to lose weight. By early spring, most of those people will not go to the gym again until next January when they make the same resolution.

Setting goals is a daunting task for me that I have never enjoyed. I always have the ideas in my head, but I have never been comfortable putting pen to paper to document it. The fear for me has always been having the proof at the end of the year that I have not accomplished the goals. Once I put pen to paper I become accountable for those goals. But last year I bought my first real estate investment and it has changed my perspective quite a lot. A lot of the fear that I one felt is gone. I am now officially accountable for every single one of the goals on my list.

The first few items are personal items that will not directly affect my financial future. After living in my house for two years I need to make a decision about how the living room should be furnished before another year goes by. I think it is important to have personal, family and business goals on the same list. We can all define ourselves in more than one way. All the aspects of life need to be tended to in order for us to grow as a whole. Too often we spend so much time and effort on one thing in life that all of the secondary and tertiary roles get lost.

Be reasonable when you make your list. If you think there is not enough time to accomplish an item on the list, then break it down into smaller components and set the goal for just the beginning steps. I don’t mean to tell anyone that they cannot accomplish anything they set their minds to do. I am just advising to keep in mind that some things are harder to accomplish over night then others. Time is also a limiting factor for all of these things that we do. Hours in the day are limited, and I tend to lose functioning after a certain hour of the night.

PAY DAY

We have finally received our first paycheck from our apartment building. $4906.22.

I made color copies of it and plan on keeping it in a special place, sort of like what you see restaurants do with $1 bills put in frames behind the register. Officially it is not the first money that we received from the apartments (we were credited for a prorated portion of the rents at closing), but it is the first official check that we have received from rent.It will not always been for this same amount. The property manager has been doing a lot of work for us, at an hourly rate, in order to get the property in the running condition that we want it to be. They roofing and the siding are still being replaced, but the security gates are fully installed and awaiting fire department inspection. Once these things are fully completed, the property manager will not have as much to do outside of collecting the rent, and any minor repairs that may arise.

As I mentioned in my last post, not all of the tenets are caught up on their rent. But this payment covers two months worth of rents, minus two $800 management fees from the get go. Other fees that were deducted were for permits for repairs, and lawn services that the property manager paid for, new lease fees, and the service fees for each time they had to meet with the various vendors. Basically the property manager pays for the cheaper items out of pocket first and them gets reimbursed from the rent payments. They way she does not have to contact us for every little item that is needed and then wait for us to send the money. It makes less work for both of us.

So, what do we plan to do with this money? Not much at this point. It is going into the bank to re-build up our cash reserves for the next investment opportunity. We are just adding it back into our cash reserves. We are not big spenders nor are we prone to splurging. We are already looking for other properties, and the more cash we can set aside, the more properties we will buy. When the money starts to pile up faster than I can invest it is when I will finally feel comfortable.

Renters

When it comes to our first real estate investment, we are relying solely on rental income as the only source of income. There are no coin-op washersand dryers on site or anything else that could bring in extra income. In away we feel that we are at the mercy of our tenets. We have not raised the rent on them We are considering a moderate increase once the repairs are all done. We realize that our tenets are below the national poverty line, and we do not want to put any extra pressure on them to pay us more money.The problem is that they do not pay their rent on time. It is not just one or two tenants that have this problem, but most of them have this problem. I think that it is not a problem of discipline, but a problem of the lack of money. So, we have been trying to think of a solution. We have discussed payment plans with our property manager, but she did not sound too hopeful.

I have made no secrets of my plans to be a philanthropist, and I genuinely want to help people like our tenants who are at the bottom of the financial barrel, so I have been trying to think outside the box for a solution. I have thought about starting a business where employees could work for me from home, so that I cannot only have these people as tenants, but as employees. The major problem I have with this is that my tenants do not have access to computers, and most if the jobs like this require internetaccess. I plan on doing more research for opportunities for people in these situations to see what sort of solutions area already out there. I had an idea, before we even closed on this property, to give everyone of our tenants, regardless of their payment history, a break at Christmas time. I was thinking of either a discount for the month of Dec, or a freemonth of rent depending on how well we were doing for the year. At this rate I do not know if we can pull it off for this year, but I still want to do something for these people. So, we are considering sending them gift cars to the nearest grocery store.

Rich Dad LIVE

This past Tuesday, my husband and I went to see Robert and Kim Kiyosaki speak live at a small college in NYC. It was an event sponsored by public television WLIW. We learned about the event when we caught one of his shows with fund raising breaks interspersed throughout. We made a donation and received two tickets to the event. If we had donated more we also could have gotten a set of some DVDs and books. We just went for the tickets. For anyone that has even tried to get into the city thru the Lincoln Tunnel between 5:30 and 6:00 will understand why we were late to the show. We missed about the first half hour. But once we sat down it seemed like he was discussing items that we had seem him give similar speeches about on tv. There was one item that we caught that he has promised to talk about during this seminar. He was going to reveal the next big thing in investing, or at least the next big thing in his opinion. I am sharing that revelation here with you now. SILVER. Silver is supposed to be the next hot item to invest in. Of course if everyone who listens to Kiyosaki invests in silver stocks, the price will go up. I know that he already owns some silver, and may even have ownership in silver mines, so it will be good for him too.

Discussing the future of silver was just the briefest portion of the seminar. He mostly spoke about what the tools are needed to be a successful real estate investor. He discussed what he refers to as the Financial IQ:

1- Make $
2- Protect
3- Budget
4- Leverage
5- Intelligence

He referred back to these 5 points several times throughout the evening to help solidify the points he was trying to make. He also stressed three important things that every investor needs.

1- Good Partners
2- Good Finances
3- Good Management

In fact he had a gentlemen with him who was his business partner and owned a management company. Unfortunately I do not recall his name. But he was a valuable part of the evening because he was able to discuss in some details how he has worked the numbers on some past real estate deals with Kiyosaki. He believed that an important part of investing in not just the property management, but the management of the finances of the purchase and sale of the properties. I would love to hear more from him. He actually had a product that he was selling that night, but we were not in the mood to spend any more money that night, so we did not even look.

To go back to some of the points above. He suggested starting businesses as the best way to make money to invest in. Of course it sounds a lot easier than it is for most people. But I think that it is excellent advise that I plan on pursuing. Unfortunately I missed most of what he said about protect, which I would love to see if he covers this topic during his TV programs. It sounds self-explanatory, but I think there may be some secondary definition or twist that he adds that I am upset that I missed. Budget and Leverage were two important points as well, that I did hear fully explained, and were pretty much what you would expect. Keeping a budget is important for any thing that you do. I also think that preparation of the budget is also important, especially when presenting the deal to investors. Kiyosaki is also a supporter of the art of leveraging one property to buy another. He is a believer in good debt. A lot of the examples that they discussed were deals where the property was reassessed and refinanced after purchase in order to pull out the initial cash investment in the property. He called this infinite leverage.

They glossed over the points of creative financing and using investors, which as points that we wanted to hear more about. So, at the end of the evening, after we got our books signed, we asked the other gentleman (He was more accessible that Robert or Kim.) and asked if he could share some of the gems of creative financing. Of course there is no easy answer to that question. He mostly said that networking is the key. Just getting yourself out there and letting people know what you do. So, I asked if it was the person or the deal that really sold investors. He believed that it was the deal first and then the people. This was my assumption too, since most people only care about the bottom line. But it was still good to hear it from someone with a lot more experience.

Starting New with the Investment

We had secretly hoped that we would be able to make money right out of the gate with our first investment. We weren’t really expecting to, but we were hoping to. We knew from very early on that the building needed to have a new roof and new siding put on, but a few other surprises have popped up, along with their price tags.

Our first priority was to have the roof and siding done to prevent further damage to the building. This property had a history of deferred maintenance, so we wanted to try to get some of the big problems out of the way to try to protect against further damages. Our property manager set it up for us, and we spoke to the contractor ourselves before starting.

What we weren't expecting was a notice from the local police. We knew that the building was in a bad neighborhood, but we did not know that the police were cracking down in the area and putting pressure on property owners who ignore the problems with their properties. Fortunately it is not in my nature to do unethical and immoral things involving other human beings. I saw this as another opportunity, not only to improve my investment, but to improve the whole area for everyone involved. So, we spoke to the police officer about how to improve the property. So, we are going to be putting in security gates at all the access points to the central courtyard. We are hopeful that this will solve some of the crime problems and give our tenets some security. Of course we are also putting in policies to screen potential tenets, and will evict any tenets that cause continual problems. So far it is working well.

Our property manager asked us today if some of the tenets could contact us directly. Of course, one of the main purposes of having a property manager is so that tenets do not call us with every little problem, but we have given them our mailing address. Now we just have to wait and see, but the manager made it sound positive.

Closing

The trial and tribulations of closing on this investment seemed never ending. In fact we were due a small refund at the time of closing which we still have not received after a month and a half. (I am told that it is in the mail.)

The entire closing process was a very daunting task indeed. I only made it worse by how worried we were about the whole thing falling thru now that we had finally reached the end. The paperwork was never ending. I am sure that we duplicated information many millions of times. We had to supply all sorts of forms to the lender, not just the basic application forms with the details about the property, but notarized forms to prove that we were who we said we were, and even a form to say that there was never a dry cleaning business on the property. At points I thought that the paperwork would drive me insane. Every time I thought that it was all over and I had sent in everything that I needed to, they would request more. Maybe it was due to the lender, maybe the type of loan, or maybe the type of property, I just do not know.

My plan is to put together a list and copies of all of the documents needed for closing, or at least the ones that we needed for this closing. So then in the future we can have the items available in advance to make the process smoother. I have just not had the stomach to go over it all again. But when I do I will post it as a reference for everyone else. I hope that it will be a useful tool for anyone who is on the selling end also since the seller supplied a large number of the items.

We closed on our first apartment building.

There were times when I wasn’t sure that we were ever going to make it to the closing table. Even the last few days were a little hairy at times. But we did, as a matter of fact, close the transaction. We are now officially Real Estate Investors!!!!!!!

There are a lot of steps to the whole transaction that I have not yet written about, but I plan to go over the whole thing in future entries. For now I am looking ahead to what we are going to do next. First we need to do is make sure that all of the terms are clear between the management company and us. They were employed by the seller, and we have decided to keep them on, and we want the transition to be smooth. Then we are going to go over the estimates that we have already received for replacing the roof and the siding, and arrange to actually have the work done this summer. I have no idea how long the work will actually take to get done, or how soon anyone can start the work, but we are hoping that the actual cost remains within 20% of the estimates. We were fortunate that the appraised value came in higher than the amount that we paid. So, we have $25,000 instant equity, plus the amount of cash that we put down. Once the work on the roof and siding is done, (and maybe a few other minor repairs) we are going to try to get secondary financing on the property and pull some of our money out for the next investment. I have no idea how much of a difference the work that we are doing will make on the appraised value of the property. The hope is that the value will increase more than the amount that the repairs cost.

Until then, I am waiting for the feeling of being a new real estate investor set in. It still does not quite feel real yet. Maybe it will feel more real when we lose on our second investment.

The Millionaire Inside

On CNBC, there is a show called “The Millionaire Inside”. I caught part of the show the other day, and found it rather fascinating. They had four guest experts on to advise people on how to make money the same ways that they have, David Bach, Phil Town, Loral Langemeier, and Barbara Corcoran. I cannot give you all of the details about their personal backgrounds. More of that information can be find on the website for the show, http://www.cnbc.com/id/17912006, and I am sure that Google searches will also pull up even more info. I am going to do that myself to see if I can learn more about them. I always like to know what sort of background people have in order to put their advice and experiences in proper perspective.

There are some very important points that they made that I think are worth repeating and thinking about. I jotted down a few points during the show.

Invest early, and don’t fear your first investment.
This sounds pretty basic, but most people don’t follow these rules, including me. I wish that I started investing with my very first paycheck, or at least in my 20s. Instead, I am starting in my mid-30s with the better late than never philosophy. If you think about it, I might not be wealthy until my 40s or 50s since I began later in life. But I am going to be 50 one day either way. I would rather be wealthy at that age, then in the same boat that I am in now. So I don’t let these thoughts stop my actions.As far as fear is involved, it is difficult to keep ones emotions in check. Fear is a natural response to any new experience. I just have to keep in mind that investing is a risk and fear is just a natural part of it. The trick is to not let it rule your actions. I take a deep breath and look at the each situation objectively and just give it a try.

Pay Yourself First
This point really struck out in my mind. Just yesterday I read just the opposite information in a book about buying businesses. The point that the book was trying to make was that a lot of small business owners end up paying themselves last, after all of the other business needs have been finished. What the experts on the millionaire inside were trying to point out was that this is the incorrect mindset to have. If you are going to be in business to make money you need to make sure that you get paid, and paid first. If this does not work, then the business needs to be re-evaluated.

Buy, don’t lease
Home equity is your single greatest asset
Building equity is a point that I keep seeing come up over and over again. It is better to own your own home than to rent. That is a basic idea of building wealth.This was a point that the show emphasized, but not just for personal residences. They stressed that if you are going to own your own business, it is also important to own the property that houses that business. Not only is it another excellent source of income from other possible tenets, it is one extra safe-guard for the business.

REIT can be an easier way to invest in real estate
I have not personally looked into investing in REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts), but I am going to look into them and report back.