All Forum Posts by: Doug N.

Great point, and with a slightly irregular data set, you have to hand-parse the remaining records - sometimes I will sort by the 'extra' field/string length, and then run two different cut/append operations (1st part, 2nd part) to make it all pretty again. 

And if I have not memorized a formula like ^ Todd's masterpiece, I will cut the column(s) out of Excel and paste into Notepad (or NP++) and find/replace the delimiter...

@Todd Plambeck nice work, you can hang out at my place anytime.

Generally speaking, one could argue that folks sell MF properties for pretty much all the same reasons you'll find in any good country western song...

dog died

girlfriend left

new girlfriend wants more stuff

CF/IRR sucks

etc.

^ what @Dean Thompson said. Every day.

This thread is like groundhog day.

Today (again) we are applauding @Gilbert Dominguez for another insightful post - what a great writer!

Keep it up!

Hello All -

I am working on a small database project, and if it turns out to be useful, I can post a little something about it. My project is not finished yet, but I have posted some random screenshots below.

I have been meaning to write about data, and I have started a lot of drafts, but I have not posted them. While editing the drafts into something publishable, I find they are generally too detailed, or too geeky, and probably outside the scope of the average BP member.

But… I really like data. A lot. I have no idea why. I dislike math, and statistics, and coding, but I can have a great time structuring data. It’s a great feeling, wading into a fresh dataset and remixing it into something that works for me. Cleaning, classifying, relating, re-calculating and converting… I put on a long trance mix and deep dive into the data. It’s a good time.

To me, data can really be anything - it can be literal ((WordPress, Access, Gmail, Podio), visual (last 20 parcels visited), auditory (a conversation string with someone), and more. Thunk of this way, it’s clear that everyone on the planet uses databases, and quite often. 

To me, an ideal database is one that is best able to work for you, the author. The data must be easy to access and manipulate, and interop (exports, data exchange) should work well.

And therein lies the trick, and the heart of this post: how do you use your data, and make it work well for you?

I am really interested in hearing your data stories. Anything from mapping to customer lists… how do you handle your data? Love it, or hate it? Online, or off? Big, medium or small data? What do you like for tools, techniques?

Post projects if you have them!

#RedAlwaysMeansSomethingImportant

Learned this at a guru worshop.

A thousand pictures are worth... um...

Giving back to the Internet.

“Which Starbucks do you want to go to, honey?”

Some data thoughts for thinking:

“The most valuable commodity I know of is information.” – Gordon Gekko

“War is 90% information.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

“The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight.” – Carly Fiorina

“Data is the new oil? No: Data is the new soil.” – David McCandless

Looking forward to some good posts!

OP is a gentleman wholesaler for sure. Some folks should be taking notes - class is in session.

Congrats, @Jamal L.

Hi Aaron - 

This is a great opportunity to educate the seller as to why the property will sell at a discount. Perhaps they know, but maybe not - they sound like involuntary property owners.

I would prepare a letter for the seller, explaining all of the possible issues in some detail, and let them know you are a fair and informed buyer, and that you can get them out of the property quickly. And (good letter) > (agent's verbal presentation of your ideas).

I would talk to the county (or city) re mandated hookup schedule - they would know a lot more than the water/sewer provider. Talk to long range planning, or get a copy of the general plan, etc. There is often someone who knows the whole story - sometimes you have to ask around.

Like K Marie Poe says, albeit in a different area of REI: take a problem child property and diligently apply creative solutions.

Keep us posted!

I always use the French 'parcelier de gros' when talking to folks. It's informative, and right away I can tell if they remember any French from college.

Like many things in life (shampoo bottles, etc), adding some occasional French makes everything... nicer.

Seriously, wholesaling is as wholesaling does.

A lot of bashing here.

I have wanted to post a little something on wholesaling for awhile. It's a function of the person, and nothing more. Smart wholesalers will perform smartly, and slothful ones... slothfully.

I see wholesaling as essential to any REI process, no matter what you want to call it (and esp no matter what personal characteristics you'd like to assign to wholesalers in general, lol @Richard C. )

A blue collar wholesaler I know just finished coding a nice bot to scrape 7k location jpgs to their parcel database. In the past few days, they have also published about 5k full attribute parcel line KML records to Google fusion tables (=interactive online mapping), cleaned up three county shapefiles, made custom relational databases from 1.65mm records, and so on. All that with no VA.

Can you believe those damn blue collar wholesalers, exploiting the tech gap in REI? What will they think of next?

Hi Theresa - 

You're looking for curb appeal on what's apparently a nuclear test site barracks - not an easy task. Everyone here at BP salutes your fortitude.

I would contact some folks in the State Department, ask them who they use for urban planning and bomb site reconstruction. They may be able to help.

Seriously, I would look at what they did at the old Alameda base here in the Bay Area. Sometimes it takes renovating an entire area, but the result can be pretty nice. Or drive through (on google earth) areas like Treasure Island, Fort Mason, etc. Any redeveloped military areas - sometimes they turn out pretty well. Best of luck!

you probably just need to upgrade chat to chatroulette, and watch the new users roll in.