Day 1 "introduction"

Today is a wonderful day and I will rejoice and be glad in it, each day I give God thanks for new mercies and another day to spend with my family. My God is what sustains me and my family is what motivates me, these two entities are the starting point in my investing career. Not that you care to know but I will formally introduce you to Marcus Maloney: I am a 39 year old, been married for 6 years to my wonderful wife Stephanie, and I have 3 kids (Lauryn 13, Morgan 5, and Justin 4). The reason I give you this detail is for you to understand the importance of my investing career on my families well being. We are in transition and this transition moved us 2500 miles from families and friends in Chicago to Phoenix, AZ; why you may ask hated Chicago winters and my wife had a great employment opportunity. Prior to the move I evaluated all the pros and cons and finally came to a decision. With no guaranteed employment (I have an MBA, education is overrated), and pulling 10k of equity out of our home we made the move. Wife is happy, kids are happy but I'm fighting depression everyday. I am able to help my wife because I have 4 rental properties in Illinois that is generating some income. It's difficult for me to get up every morning and everyone leaves the house but me. This is when I decided to take my investing career seriously.

Prior to leaving Chicago I was doing some digging around on the internet and found the BP Podcast. What a relief now I have some direction and answers to some of my questions; how to make real money investing, how to really ramp up my investing career, what to do with the properties I have. Your question now is how did you acquire your current rental portfolio? Excellent question, my mom and dad started investing in the mid 80s, it wasn't anything serious they wanted to do but a friend with HUD would always try and sell them on flipping (yes in the mid 80s). They bought the first 2 properties on the "other side of the tracks", the first was fire damaged and the second was a real dump. They used both as rentals. Mistake 1: rented them to family, even as a youngster I heard the complaints from my dad and my mom continually tell him it was the right thing to do to help people. Well you might guess how that ended, broken friendships, vandalized property, and high desire to sell. The fire damage home was sold and my parents were able to pay off a lot of debt, the second we still have as a rental. When they got tired of being landlords the property (business) was handed to me to supervise. I have always been a hard worker and my philosophy was always nothing comes easy. Even the rental property in my early teens I had to help demo, hang drywall, work with plumbers and help with solve problems, all during the times my friends were having fun. This was an excellent arena to learn but my dad was not very patient so a lot of the work was done out of fear. However his teaching tactics worked because I still like to do some of those things I learned years ago.

Back to the podcast; I really remember driving through New Mexico listening to the guest talking about marketing and yellow letters and my thoughts were what are they talking about. After research and being interactive on BP I've learned quite a bit, and now I get it. I'm starting my third batch of yellow letters (300) to absentee owners, I have received some calls from tire kickers but nothing serious. It's been over 6 months. One good thing happened during this time I was able to work with an established group of flippers and wholesalers. Through networking I was able to get a realtor to throw me a bone and a property that was listed for $314k with an ARV of $330k we got it under contract for $253, one bad thing about it I don't have a JV agreement so I'm hoping they remember me. I know this was not the right way to handle this but I was so excited about leaving the house and working I jumped the gun. We could really use the money.

We will call this day one on my journey

Day 2 Assignments:

I plan to look through some homes a realtor sent me

Study about making offers without a lot of EM

Follow up getting rental insurance on my properties

Follow up with the partners regarding the $253k deal

Call for rent ads and craigslist ads

Study subject 2, and seller finance deals