Tuesday, September 22, 2009

One more day until the buying tour starts

We've had a few more busy days, it's about 6pm and I think this is the earliest we've made it back to our hotel. Sad thing is we've been looking at a TON of properties and meeting with a TON of new people, but neither the people nor the property have really excited us.

But, that's why we come here and do our due dilegence so we know we are working with and creating long term relationships with people we trust. We have written three offers, unfortunately two of them basically had offers pending/accepted the same day we were submitting ours so that's two down the drain. We submitted another offer today so we'll see what happens.

We've also been checking up on our contractor for the two properties we have being rehabbed and the nice thing is EVERY time we went by either property there was someone there working...so that's a good thing. For those of you coming on the tour you'll get to meet the contractor we've been using.

We also took a drive by a couple of properties that other investors have purchased while on the tour and all the properties looked good. Some issues with one of them so we made a phone call on Monday to adress them and stopped by there today and again soeone was ther working on the property and taking care of the issue.

Tonight we have to pick up one person at the aiport and everyone else starts arriving at like 8:30 in the morning and they arrive all day. I think we have a group at 8:30ish, 10:30isn and the last group around 3ish. We are also squeezing in a meeting at noon and our tour kicksoff at 6:30pm with our meet and greet at the hotlel with all the power team members and participants, it's a great time.

I'll keep you posted how the tour goes and what else comes up over the next few days.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Busy Couple of Days!

Well, we managed to get up about 8:30am on Friday and got some breakfast and headed off to our bank. We met briefly with the Branch Manager Marilou. Marilou and one of the loan officers from Regions Bank are part of our power team here and will be joining us on our tour next week.

After that we headed off to our closing on one of the properties I contracted last trip here. There was one small issue with the closing, but it was no real concern of ours. It was just the agents were going to get their commission checks, but again no cocern of ours we took our documents and hit the road leaving the agents to figure out why/how they are getting paid.

After leaving the closing we headed off to meet a contractor, Don, to walk through a couple of our properties to get a better handle of what needed to be done. The issue was we had a couple of bids sent to us but they were so far apart, NOT in price, but in what needed to be done we had to walk through the property to figure it out. One contractor said we should replace seven interior doors ($1,250) the other contractor had no mentione of doors. One said clean the carpet, one said replace the carpet, well which is it? Once walking through the property we and the contractor had a better understanding of what we wanted done. Agreeing to the work and the price they were going to start work first thing Saturday.

After that we headed off to Dayton to view that commercial property. We met our agent at the property and spent about an hour looking at the property. It's a 12,900 sq ft that is currenlty owned and used by the Boy Scouts who are looking to sell it and move into a new building. There are a lot of issues with the property and we estimated a good 75-100k in rehab, which when doing that kind of work could easily go higher. Though the property is being offered at a fair price we think that due to the work, the area and the fact that when the Boy Scouts leave it's vacant we decided it's probable not the best place for our money at this time. It has been listed for a very long time and we have some people doing some research for us to see if we might make a low offer just to see. We had a couple of more meetings at our office and at a couple of local food places with our insurance guy, HVAC (Heating Ventilation & Air Conditioning) guy and  with the President of the Greater Dayton Real Estate Investors Associatoin. We got back to the hotel about 10:30p. Oh, on the way back to Indy we stopped at a Mobile Home Park that we are interested in. We are waiting for more information on that.

Today, Saturday we headed to our proeprty about 10am to drop of a couple of checks to our contractor and they were already hard at work on one of our properties. Those coming on the tour will be able to see this property and the quality of work the contractor does. Once we finished up there we stopped for lunch and then headed to another property we have in escrow. I'm not sure when we'll close on that one because the seller has some title issues they have to get taken care of before we can close on it. We left there and met with a couple of local investors, both of which are newer investors and basically wholesalers. They gave us a couple of properties to check out so we did some driving around to look at a few. While viewing their properties we got a call from another investor and met with him too.

We spent a few hours with each of the investors and actually looked at a couple of properties into the night of darkness with one of them. We've made an appointment with him to go out tomorrow and view more properties. I think we are meeting at noon.

Well that brings you up to date...I'll keep you posted!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Arrived In Indiana

Aloha Everyone,

Randy and I arrived in Indiana this afternoon about 3pm. After picking up our car we headed off to a property that we are closing on tomorrow at 11am and then we stopped by a property that we have being rehabbed. We checked into the hotel about 5pm and then went out to grab some dinner where we also ordered the food for our Buying Tour's Meet & Greet on Wednesday night here in Indiana.

Tonight we've been catching up on emails and setting appointments for the next week. Tomorrow morning we are heading off to the bank that we use here in Indiana. On Tuesday I had them wire funds for a closing we have scheduled tomorrow at 11am. After our closing we are heading off to Dayton to take care of business over there and to check out a commercial property we've had our eye on.

Saturday morning we have an appointment to spend time with a local investor here to see what it is he does and/or what properties he might have available for our tour. Other than that we have nothing else scheduled at the time of this post with the exception of our SOLD OUT tour which starts next week Wednesday the 23rd and goes through the 27th.

I'll update you tomorrow on the outcome of the commercial property and anything else we do or get set up by then.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Back in Hawaii

Sorry for falling behind it was a crazy last few days in Indiana.

So, Friday I previewed about a dozen properties for our upcoming tour later this month. They are all from one investor that is liquidating some of his inventory. I believe he said he owns over 60 properties and is selling about a dozen of them. They will all fit nicely into the tour and are anywhere from 60-75% or so of value.

Friday afternoon I was supposed to get hooked up with Steve but I ran about an hour late and he other appointments later in the day so we ended up missing each other. He did email me a bunch of stuff but I'm still going over it. I'm sure some of it will be on our tour.

The weekend I spent crunching numbers and working on some new things both HiREI and Realestate-Extreme will have coming up, which you guys will love. I also went out and did a short video for someone that has a property they just purchased or will be purchasing where they had some work done and wanted to see how it came out.

I don't recall how many offers I wrote while I was there but as it stands now...I have had one offer accepted and actually spent this morning signing documents and Laura was kind enough to run them over to FedEx to get them there by Friday. The property has a value of 90-95k and I think we'll make it available for around 60k after it's fixed, not sure on those numbers yet so don't hold me to them. I have one offer being held as a "back-up offer" as they have accepted another before receiving mine. I have two offers that I have not heard back on so at this point I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I had a few counter offers of "highest and best" and I basically have not responded to any of them and just withdrew my offer.

As it stand now, we have closed on one property and will begin rehab and have two properties in escrow with two offers still pending. I imagine on the two in escrow we will close on them before the tour.

Randy and I are heading back to Indy on the 16th to check on things and get set up for the tour. We'll be staying until the 1st of October which will have us there a good two weeks.

I'm now getting ready for the HiREI meeting tomorrow night.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Another long day

Well I started the day off hoping to make a bunch of offers. Unfortunately, after looking at the numbers some of them just didn't make sense. A couple of the properties from yesterday were in areas that we had trouble finding comps on. When that happens you have trouble proving value so rather than mess with properties like that we just we'll just pass. Something I didn't realize too was that half the properties I viewed yesterday were HUD properties and the bidding doesn't open until Monday for investors. So, if they are available I can make offers on Monday...that didn't make me happy. So, I think that left me with 2 properties from yesterday and of course the were the 2 that were not really on my list because I'd have to get them for 50% of what they are asking for and due to the favorable area I wouldn't have a chance. So for those two I'll wait a couple of days and if they are still available I'll through in a low offer just to see what happens.

This afternoon I viewed 5 properties and stopped by a property we just closed on to pick up the keys to it. I was told the key was wedged behind the drain spout, which struck me as odd, but sure enough when i got there I found a single key stuck behind a drain spout. I went in and took a quick look around and everything looked good so now we need to get people working on it. I had two contractors go out and take a look at it and got one back today so I'm waiting on one more to come in so I can compare them.

As for the properties I viewed today I did make offers on two of them so we'll see what happens with them over the next couple of days. A couple, again, were HUD properties that aren't available until Monday. I've told the guy showing me these types of properties that I don't need to see HUD properties until I can bid on them. Why spend time looking at properties that I may never have a chance to bid on, not sure why he's not getting that.

Tomorrow I have two appointments, one at 11a with Gary to go out and view about a dozen properties and another one at 3p with Steve to talk about some properties he has. He told me he has a couple of package deals with like 22 properties and 43 properties so we'll see how they look and see if we can't get some great deals from that.

Well it's about 10:30p my time and I think I'm going to call it a night. Any questions feel free to shoot me an email or make comments below. Aloha!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Fun Day Viewing Properties

Alrighty, first I'll comment on some of the comments made on my first post.

The property that we wrote a contract on prior to arriving here was based on input from our power team here in Indiana. I received a phone call while they were at the property and they told me it fell into my buying criteria (this is different for everyone and depends on your ability to purchase, property condition, exit strategy and even your own comfort level). I made the offer based on their information and was later sent some pictures and of course the address so I knew where it was by looking at a map, but wasn't familiar with the area. We've been buying properties out of state for like 5 years so this is very normal for us to make offers and actually buy properties we've never seen. Today, I delivered the earnest money check for the deal. All I had done was fax them a copy of the cashier's check and told them I'd bring it with me since I was coming so soon.

As you can see by the time of this post it's after midnight here and I looked at a lot of properties today. I've evaluated them and plan on making offers on about 8 of them tomorrow. I'll make offers on 8 and hope to get some action on a few of them and actually buy 1 of them. I'll make low offers on some because I think they are over priced or need to much work, but if I can buy them cheap enough they make sense. As I always said "price cures all"!

I looked at properties today from about noon time until about 6pm tonight mostly on the east side of Indianapolis and tomorrow we'll cover the west side. I also have that appointment on Friday at 11am to meet another investor as he has about a dozen properties to look at so that's my plan for Friday.

Guess that's it for now I'll start making offers tomorrow and let you know how they pan out.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Back to Indiana

Well I meant to start this back up about a week ago but I've been so busy getting ready for our next SOLD OUT tour to Indiana I just kept putting it off. Anyway, it's now Tuesday about 8pm and I'm back in Indianapolis. I left Hawaii on Monday, flew all night and arrived this morning. I quickly drove by and inspected a property that another investor purchased from our last tour, which still needs some work. After that I went by a property that we just got under contract so I figured I should at least go take a look at it and I was pleasantly surprised with the location and it's condition. It's going to be a great property.

Then it was a quick lunch and off to the hotel to check in. I caught up on email and made some appointments. Tomorrow I'm meeting with an investor around noon to view properties all afternoon. I also set up an appointment for Friday at 11a to also view some properties with another investor.

So, now it's about 2:30p and I headed off to the escrow company to sign some closing documents on a property we purchased and should get the keys to tomorrow to start rehabbing it. I have a couple of contractors going out there tomorrow to get us some bids.

Okay now that I know to look for comments on the post :) be sure to make comments or ask questions and I'll be sure to answer them this time.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

You guys missed a great HiREI meeting tonight and a better after party at Any Place...did I mention it's midmight and I'm still there with friends :-D

Monday, August 3, 2009

I arrived in Hawaii last week Thursday and basically just chilled out at home for the night. Friday morning was spent in a meeting with my business partners Randy and Laura going over, in detail, all the things I did while in Indiana. I had to leave early on Friday, around 2:00p because I volunteered to referee an inline hockey tournament in Mililani Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday...18 games later I managed to survive! I can't wait until next weekend so I can play again, missed two weeks of playing between traveling and the tournament this weekend and NO that wasn't a typo and you didn't read it wrong...I play inline hockey, come watch if you dare :)

Anyway, I heard back from some of the offers I made. As it stands now I have one accepted and one still pending. Let me tell you about the one that was accepted, I think you'll like the approach I used.

I made the offer and of course within two days I was told they had multiple offers on the property and they wanted my "highest and best" offer. So, my highest and best offer was my original price (which was a cash offer), but I made my earnest money match my offer price and removed all contingencies from the offer, crazy right? Not at all...keep in mind that I had already previewed this property, had repair estimates and knew what I was buying. So removing the contingencies didn't worry me because at my offer price I WILL buy the property. I received an email this morning saying my offer was accepted. The nice thing about this strategy is it shows the seller that, 1-you are serious about buying, 2-you're obviously going to close the deal and 3-they won't have to worry about any contingencies killing the deal...it makes for a very attractive offer even if they have higher bids.

I'm still waiting on one more offer and have a couple of properties I'm looking at making offers on tomorrow, since it's already 11pm in Indiana there isn't much point in making an offer today. I'll let you know how my other offer turns out and any new ones I write.

Now I have to finish our Realestate-Extreme newsletter for our meeting on Thursday night, I'm guessing Miles (Laura's husband and our printer) would probable prefer to already have it.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

My Last Day in Indianapolis

Well today is my last day here. Yesterday, I went out with another investor who showed me couple of properties that were interesting but not what I was looking for. Someone can pick them up for about 45k with an value of about 70-75k. They are rented with two(2) year leases singed for $725 a month. I believe they were both section 8 tenants.

The results of my offers were not exactly what I was hoping for. I made two offers on HUD properties and didn't get either of them. They just came available to investors and apparently they were favorable properties with multiple offers that were obviously higher than mine. One of the offers we were countered to provide our "highest and best" offer. So, here is what I did...I actually left my offer the exact same dollar amount but offered to put the FULL offer price as earnest money and removed all contingencies. To some of you that may seem a little extreme, but keep in mind our name is Realestate-Extreme...haha...just kidding. Keep in mind that I have personally been in the property and I have already had a contractor go through the property to give me a rough estimate of rehab so I know where I stand. Basically, all I need is a clear title and I'd buy it so that's the reason for the strong offer. I have not heard anything on the 4th offer I made.

Today, I made two more offers. One was similar to above...as we went to send in the offer they asked for "highest and best" so I actually lowered that offer as I originally made a full price offer. I lowered the offer and again offered the earnest money to be the total purchase price, again making it a strong offer. The other property has been on the market for like 90 days so I went ahead and made a low ball offer just to see if they would counter or of course accept. So, I still have four outstanding offers as I wrap up my week or so here in Indianapolis and get ready to head back home.

Today, I was also able to get into a couple of other properties that investors from our tour last month are buying and took some video for them so they can see the status of their properties. I think I mentioned this before but this is one of the biggest reasons to invest with a organization that will continue to look after your best interest.

Well this is my last post from Indianapolis. I'll continue to post my daily activities when I get back to Hawaii in hopes that people following will get a little insight of a day in the life of a real estate investor.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Getting Busy Again

Well the weekend was a little slow. Saturday I did some driving around in thunderstorms and I didn't get into any properties. I did get the chance to take in some neighborhoods all around the city to get a better understanding this diversified market. Sunday I just relaxed at the hotel and did some research on the Internet and just chilled out.

Today I spent the day with Preston looking at properties and then had lunch with him and Ryan. I looked at a good dozen properties and we are going to submit 4 offers today. Two of them are HUD properties so I should have an answer tomorrow and the other 2 are REO's so it could be a couple/few days to hear back on those two properties.

As I type this blog Preston is out previewing properties for me with a contractor to make sure they fit my buying criteria and we have good rehab estimates. So based on those results tonight we will view more properties tomorrow and write more offers. Randy also sent me a list of properties he found online so I have team also previewing them and getting us estimates of rehab and the after repair value so we can make some offers on them too.

I've got some calls in and emails into other investors in the area that assisted us with our tour in June so I can get into some of the properties that were purchased during that tour. I've also be letting them know that we are planning another tour in September and they are all excited to see another group come back on a tour.

If anyone has any questions feel free to shoot me an email paul@realestate-extreme.com.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Heading out in thunder storms today. I 've got 13 properties mapped out googlemap says 2 hours of just driving time should be a fun day :-D

Friday, July 24, 2009

Offer Not Accepted

Well my offer was not accepted so back to the drawing board. I spent today driving around neighborhoods and found some nice areas we can focus on. I also met with Jim who's shown us a bunch of properties and he's a property manager we'll be using. I met with John too, he's the mortgage broker we've been working with. He is the guy pushing through our 100% financing for our properties. All you need is a couple thousand dollars for closing costs and your in.


Tomorrow, Saturday, I've got a list of properties from Jim and a few from Steve, who I met with on Thursday, that I'll be going out to look at. I've also heard from some guys that are buying properties here and I'll be going by their places tomorrow to and taking some video to send to them so they can see the progress of their properties.


My plan was to go out with Preston again on Saturday but that's been moved to Monday so it's given me time to look at other investors properties all day on Saturday and then go out again with Preston on Monday. Hopefully, I'll have time to get some offers out tomorrow on some properties I'm interested in.


Time flies when you're here...it seems like I just got here but this was my third full day here and I feel like next Thursday, when I leave, will be here in no time. Again, if anyone has any questions/comments feel free to post them here, facebook or shoot me an email.

Another Day

I had a busy day yesterday, Thursday. I spend the morning uploading those videos to the website so everyone could see some of the properties I was viewing. The afternoon I spent at Starbucks with a local investor, Steve, just talking about the market and opportunities. We spent about 4 hours just hanging out and talking story it was very informational.

There are a lot of good things going on here in Indianapolis and the market seems to be getting some steam, according to Steve. Preston the guy I spent Wednesday with viewing properties has seen a big increase in people buying up properties. He was telling me that if you don't make an offer within days of a listing and get it locked up...you just may end up in a "best and final" offer situation, basically a bidding war. It seems the key to success here is "acting quickly" when opportunity presents itself.

My plan was to submit 3 offers, but come to find out 2 of them are HUD properties that are still only available to "owner occupied" buyers and I will have to wait until the 27th in order to make an offer on them as an "investor" aka "non-owner occupied". HUD properties require them to be offered to ONLY "owner occupied" buyers first 10 days of the listing. Once that 10 days is over if there was not a high enough offer or no bids the property is opened to ALL buyers and bids will then be opened daily.

So, at this point I have one offer pending and today I'm going out to just drive neighborhoods just to check out different areas that we are interested in. If anyone from the our last tour here has any properties being rehabbed that they want me to check out just shoot me an email or text with the address and I'll check them out and get you a video of the progress.

I'll be going out again on Saturday to look at another 10-15 properties with Preston who is a local realtor we've been using. If you guys have any questions for me you can make comments here and I'll respond each night or shoot me an email directly.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Going to view more propertis and write some offers today, I posted some videos on our website www.realestate-extreme.com INDIANAPOLIS tab

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Viewed Properties Today

The day started early with a trip to the Regions bank to meet with the bank Manager. We now have a bank account set up for our new LLC and it has one cent in it...haha...Randy will be wiring money from our Hawaii accounts to our Indy accounts so I can start buying some properties

Today I looked at, I think, 10 properties all of which were single family homes. We had an appointment to view a four-plex but the we got a call saying they already had an accepted offer. The properties I looked all had an ARV (after repair value) of between 70-90k. Once they are fixed up they can be purchased for about 70% of the ARV and have rents from $650 a month to as much as $1,000 a month if you were to do a lease option.

I was hoping to make some offers on properties today, but it is 0:30p and I've been waiting on some details from the agent/investor that showed me the properties and haven't received anything yet...so it looks like I'll be writing offers tomorrow. I've identified 3 properties that I want to write offers on out of the 10 we viewed. The properties I viewed today needed rehab work from as little as $3,000 to as much as $15,000 and everything in between. I did have a contractor meet me at a couple of the properties to make sure my rough estimates were in line with what it cost here to get work done. Tomorrow, I'll double check the numbers that I'll hopefully receive sometime tonight and then drive the neighborhoods and write some offers.

I will also work on loading some videos to our Realestate-Extreme.com website. Just watch for the "Indianapolis" tab to show up on the left and that's where you'll find them.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Arrived in Indianapolis

Got in to Indy this morning and checked into my hotel and started working the phone. Spoke with the attorney's office to get our LLC paper work squared away. Called Regions bank and set up an appointment with the branch manager for 9am tomorrow to open a bank account in our new LLC. Like many of our LLC's it's a single member LLC, guess the name...Realestate-Extreme, LLC and yes it's owned by our Hawaii Realestate-Extreme, LLC, we do that to confuse people...haha.

Sent some emails and made some phone calls to wholesalers and reatlors in the area and have a full day planned tomorrow of looking at property. I'll be sure to shoot some video of some of them and post them on realestate-extreme's website tomorrow night.

Monday, July 20, 2009

on my way to Indianapolis...just enjoying a drink at the Honolulu Red Carpet. Flight departs in less than an hour.
I'll be leaving for Indianaapolis today to buy some real estate. I created this blog so you could follow my journey over the next ten days as I share my daily experiences. I'm at the office this morning and will be heading to the airport later this afternoon to catch my flight to Indianapolis.

Over the ten day period I'll be looking to purchase 4-5 properties and I'll keep you posted here, twitter, facebook and of course our Realestate-Extreme.com website.

www.twitter.com/paulvxavier
www.facebook.com/paul.v.xavier
www.Realestate-Extreme.com
www.paulvxavier.blogspot.com

Aloha,
Paul