2012: Year In Review

Greetings!

If you're following my blog post, please forgive me. This year has been quite the journey!

It's always a blessing to reflect and see God working in our lives and in our businesses. We've experienced great strides and we've also experienced some loss. Nevertheless, we serve a mighty God who can do extroardinary things!

Landlord Partnership Program- We've added three new landlords to our partnership program this year, allowing them to increase their occupancy and also serve our community. However, we lost our biggest landlord partner due to unprofessional circumstances. As business professionals/servants, we must be willing to cutoff those "dead branches" that will affect our reputation. We are confident that our partnership will continue to grow and that our community will embrace those who need a second chance at obtaining housing.

Financial Goals- The only financial goal this year was to pay off all property taxes (city and county) in cash. WE DID IT! No credit cards were used! We're closer to eliminating all of our business debt :0)

Utility Assistance Program -    Our idea was noble, to assist individuals with high utility bills by placing services temporarily in our name in order for our tenants to payoff their bills. We started with 11 tenants and now we're down to 5 due to non-payment of services. We've had to pay about $1,000 out of pocket in unpaid utility services. Yep, it sucked, but what can you say?  Love costs! We have temporarily stopped accepting new clients, but we will ensure that our program going forward is iron clad.

Networking-  We've joined the TN Housing Coalition in September and we've met and talked with several new non-profit partners. We've also talked with the Binghampton CDC in recruiting some of their construction students to assist us with rehabbing and unit turnover. The biggest highlight of the year is that we've joined a facebook group called Kingdom Driven Entrepreneurs. It's always good to be in the midst of other servants who are making big strides to empower our communities! If you want to join, feel free to search for the group in Facebook.

Housing-  Our tenant base is mostly referred by our non-profit partners. We've recently experienced a huge referral base of families averaging less than 1K in monthly income. Most of them had a recent eviction due to job loss, had to care for a sick loved one, etc...Therefore, we stepped out on faith and did the unexpected. We decided to reserve a portion of our properties for tenants referred by our non-profit partners and only charge them 30% of their income in rent. We welcomed our first tenant this month and we are looking forward to sharing this benefit in the future. Keep in mind....we're not receiving any subsidies or tax benefits. We saw the need and we took action. I challenge every landlord to extend the same courtesy to a family in need :0)

My personal goal is to have the Bell Investments website up and running by January 1st. Can I do it? You bet I can! I can do ALL things through Christ who gives me strength!

Note to Self...

The race isn't given to the swift or to the strong, but to the one who endures to the end. DON'T GIVE UP! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Sonja