All Forum Posts by: John Blackman

You should provide an amortization schedule to your subject-to buyer.  This should keep you out of hot water and clearly document when it will be paid off, so if you are ever in any doubt, just go to the amortization schedule you gave your buyer.

If you have enough cash flowing assets to show good income, that can satisfy a bank as long as you have equity in those assets.  You will likely need two years of tax returns for most banks to be happy with that income.

When I left, I just looked at my pipeline and cash pile.  I had 6 months of life in the bank with exiting deals scheduled to occur in that timeframe and several years living expenses in the neat 12 months of exits.  Now I took a bit of a risk because those exits hadn't happened yet, so if they don't click off as expected, I may need to re-enter the work force.  Fortunately getting a new gig is not hard for me, so I can take on consulting work as I need extra cash.

Just make sure you have a financial plan and give yourself some wiggle room.  If you are counting down to the last dollar and something unexpected happens, you may find yourself back in the job market.

Good luck,

I don't use specific sites as inbound marketing portals.  The whole point of inbound marketing is to establish yourself as an expert with a track record that people seek out.

People will come to you based on how credible you appear.  Credibility cannot be purchased for $9/95/mo on any web site.  It takes time.  You have to engage with your community, help them, contribute to them, and demonstrate that you can deliver your angle on the real estate business or any business for that matter.

Linked In, Bigger pockets, or any portal where you are adding value back to the world in the form of advice or insight are great ways to make friends and contributions to others.  Only then will you have people seeking you out for your services.  People don't like to click ads in general.  They like to seek out like minded friends and professionals who are good at what they do.

So use the web to demonstrate that by giving away your knowledge for free!  Some people may run with it and do their own thing.  Good for them.  Others will say, hey you know what you're doing, would you go make my money work hard for me?

Good luck.

Are you going to backfill that?  It looks like a basement.  Is there a garage opening on the other side?  I've never seen a slab that high.  :)

You will learn quite a bit in getting your license that will provide a good framework for many different types of real estate deals.

The obvious benefit you will get is selling your own deals without having to pay a 3% sales commission.  This is great at first when you can handle the volume of deals you are producing in a year.  If you scale then you will be your own bottleneck and will need to hire agents.  That will be a great problem to have though.

Getting your REL is cheaper than most GURU courses, and you will learn some core RE material at the very least.

I'm sure it depends on your market, but most of the subject-to financing rates are around 7-9% in central Texas from the deals I have seen.  The underlying note is usually around 4-6%.  YMMV.

The damaged caused by your toilet was not technically a flood.  It is water damage from a faulty fixture.  It really all depends on your insurance policy.  Depending on the cost of the damage versus what your premium might go up, it's probably worth a call to your provider.  Any reputable insurance company should tell you what your options are.  They may cover the repairs, but again depends largely on your policy.

Look through it with a fine tooth comb, see what the policy says.  With that information talk to your insurance agent and they will let you know your options.

WEEK 7

Overview

Slab poured, and framing lumber is scheduled for delivery on Monday.  We're going vertical next week.

Pictures

WEEK 6

The plastic is installed and the steel is on site, the termite treatment is complete, the pre-pour inspection is scheduled for Monday 9/29 and the pour is scheduled for next Tuesday 9/30.  So next week I should have some pretty slab pictures.  For now I've got steel, plastic, and forms.

Complete this week

• Plastic installed
• Steel delivered
• Termite treatment

To Complete next week

• Install steel
• Pour foundation

Blocking Issues

• None

Video

http://youtu.be/yuGeAERGYA0

WEEK 5

We had a new problem I haven't faced before this week, so maybe you can learn from this event.  We were all ready to get our foundation inspection and the city came out and told us we were going to pop the McMansion tent based on our form survey.

Well it turns out surveyors sometimes make mistakes and they had labeled the finish floor elevation a foot higher than it was supposed to be.  So on the ground our foundation was one foot lower than on the survey.  So the city inspector says fix your ____ and call me when it's done.

Good thing for us we have a survey company that is really fast.  In most cases this might take a week for the surveyor to find a time to visit the site, make the change and get you a new survey.  Ours had it done the same day, but we still had to wait for the inspector to come out again which he did. 

However by the time we ironed out that wrinkle, it rained for the rest of the week.  This is a perfect example where even a one day delay can turn into a 1 week delay.

Lesson:

Double check the paperwork.  It's tempting to think that just because you paid for something it's done right.  People are not perfect.  Inspect everything.  Trust and verify.