All Forum Posts by: Mike Andrews

All of you who have posted above are why I'm excited to be a part of this community. I'm definitely looking to grow my business and influence and BP is a big part of helping me do that.

The key to hiring is to be vigilant. I've hired about four people over the past year and they've all been great. I definitely got lucky. Just make sure you don't ever stop thinking about those tasks. If you know what should be done and how it should be done then you can articulate that to someone else and you can also easily tell whether the person you hire can really do it to the level you expect, very quickly. One tip that's been great for me is offering a probationary period at which the person will make less money - say $9 - $11/hour - and once they've proved they are capable and qualified you increase that to the original amount you were going to pay them - say the $10 - $12 you were thinking.

Another thing to keep in mind is that to be successful in real estate you don't necessarily need to study it in school. Being on BP, staying on top of the news and making your own real estate investments is a great way to learn the business and you can study something else, like finance, economics or even political science, in school while you're learning real estate. Find something that interests you and study it. You'll be much more happy in college that way. And Thomas Handy is right, units are a great buy, especially right now.

If I were you I would research areas hardest hit by the real estate bubble burst. Those communities, especially if they are in position to rebound, will have properties that could increase exponentially in value once the market rebounds. Since you are in the armed forces you have the ability to buy with no down payment. If you have good credit, you can get a house (or two) for very little out-of-pocket and hold it while you're in school and look to sell once you get out. If you live in it and rent out the other rooms, you can live rent-free while you're in college AND make a hefty profit once you graduate.

If you're studying economics, finance, real estate, etc. you can learn precisely how to manage all the money you're going to make after graduation.

So it seems like every month someone new tries GoHoming.com and has a bad experience and asks the group if they've had a bad experience as well and everyone says, "Yes, it's terrible. Don't go there." Glad I've avoided it so far and will definitely continue in the future. I'm not sure if everyone gets the same "Related Discussions" at the bottom of the comment thread, but check out - http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/92/topics/69827-gohomingcom-experience

I think you may be targeting the wrong communities with your letters. If all you're getting is angry responses, you may be targeting a deeply entrenched community that has been approached with this kind of offer on multiple occasions by less than scrupulous buyers. Many communities, particularly ethnic communities, are resentful of new buyers coming into their communities, buying up homes and uprooting the residents who have lived there to gentrify the area. If all 200 of your letters were concentrated in one area, I would try expanding the area and moving.

People can be very skeptical of offers to buy their house because of the nefarious buyers that they've dealt with or heard about from friends and family. Keep trying, but think about moving to a different area.

It's updated now to show my colleagues as only colleagues and followers just as followers. Thanks Joshua Dorkin. This makes it a lot easier to see who I'm actually connected with.

Joshua Dorkin I still have people listed as both colleagues and people I'm following. Is this a glitch or just something that's happening to my account?

P.S. How do I hyperlink URLs? I tried clicking the "link" button when I submitted, but it just put "[url]" in front of the website url.

Has anyone else read this?

Housing: The one bailout America could really use

Definitely interesting. From the article:

"On top of the 2.5 million homes that have already fallen to foreclosure since the bubble burst, another 4.5 million mortgage holders have given up paying and are likely to lose their homes, she calculates.
'Shareholders of the world unite'

Millions more are underwater -- owing more than their home is worth -- and may give up if things don't improve soon. All told, Goodman warns that more than 10 million of the nation's 55 million mortgage holders could default by 2018."

Anyone have any thoughts on how likely this is? I know there are a lot of BofA homeowners that have stopped paying because of the lawsuits, etc., but this number seems a little crazy.