Closing, funding, finding a place to live.

The first check I recieved for fifteen thousand just posted to my account and the five thousand two hundred shows up on the account but hasn't cleared yet.

It is amazing what twenty thousand dollars will do to your spirits. I was giddy all day yesterday. We went to a wedding in Manti Utah for a great friend of my wife and I found everything to be funny. I have never tasted alcohol or taken drugs but I imagine the euphoria is about the same. I guess I need to get checks like that more often. Russell got a late Christmas present, the buyers got a new years house, and I can sleep better at night. The only real losers in this our my neighbors, not because I'm moving, but because on the loan docs it shows the purchase price at $222,000 with five thousand in closing costs which would put the actual value of the house at $217,000. When the reality is is that the buyer paid $235,000! Russ should write everyone in the neighborhood an apology.

I got a call from the agent working on my short sale purchase with the bank. I will post alot more on this later but want to get everything finished first!

Simultaneous closing

I had to wait to cool down a couple days before I got on and posted almost the rest of the story. Two days before Christmas morning Russell Peay decided to be a little more flexible and alot more greedy. Right before we bought the house from the Peay's they refinanced and got a loan with a prepayment penalty. Obviously not the brightest move but I guess he wasn't as stupid as I thought, just an ass. Russell realized that I had no negotiating power and took advantage of it. He called and let me know if I gave 3300.00 in concessions that would go directly to him he would work out the closing. But with the new closing I had to totally relinquish my rights and get bought out of the old contract. It wasn't all that bad I guess because we should still recieve a little over five thousand from them and another fifteen thousand and something from the new buyer. The only real issue now is making sure we recieve the money from the buyer. I don't have anything in writing and no real negotiating power except for possesion of the house. Caroline, the buyer, has been more than patient and reminds me of my grandmother. I don't believe there is a dishonest bone in her body, but we are still talking about more than fifteen thousand dollars. I have had to adjust my plans for the next few months because we are recieving more than four thousand less than anticipated but it shouldn't be too much of a setback. Amy has worked more than usual editing and the Satellite store has been doing better than usual. The really stressful thing left to do is find another house. We are supposed to be out of here on the 31st and don't have a place to go. Today our inlaws left after being here for a week so now we can resume packing and looking for a temporary house until the short sale in Springville finishes.

Ignorant Seller

I have never used so many cell phone minutes in one day. We are working on the close for the duplex we are living in that we are buying on a lease option. In the past when we have done this we have just reassigned the new purchase agreement to the seller and take a step back and just get our equity out of the house by signing a letter of interest in the property. Well when I tried to explain the situation to Russell Peay the seller his eyes glazed over and all of the sudden he was unwilling to listen or try to understand anything. He doesn't understand the process and is unwilling to be flexible in the least. We removed all liability and made sure he was paid exactly the same as per the earlier agreement but was unwilling to budge. He said "I have an agreement with you and I am only willing to do exactly what is said there which is sell you the house." I let him know that we could also assign the contract to the new buyer and he said that would be illegal according to orem city code. I didn't realize how ignorant he is but he was sure that if we assigned the agreement to the new buyers that we would be violating the owner occupation law in Orem. I don't know what planet he is from, but the close and the assignment can be at the same time, duh. Anyways, I can't believe the buyers are willing to be so patient but they love the house and are commited to buying it. I went over tonight and signed an extension on the agreement that brings it out to the 15th of January but I don't think we'll be delayed much past the fifth. The only real stickler doing this way instead of doing the assignment of the new purchase agreement is that all of the loan work has to be redone. I feel bad for the loan officer and his step-mother. Hopefully we can work this out because I'm getting ulcers! Next time I will not do a lease option but an owner finance. In that case I wouldn't have this problem. I am lucky that I had the option to assign the agreement

No Deal! December 19, 2005

This morning I called to find out if my family and I would have a place to live after tomorrow. My inlaws and their kids got here last night and this morning. We thought we would already be moved into our new house in Springville, the short sale, but alas, we aren't. So I called Nick, the one working on the short sale with the bank as the agent. He let me know that when he called the bank to find out where the house was in the process today, they said they hadn't recieved anything yet (everything was sent more than a month ago!). So Nick refaxed everything, but that doesn't help me for the next few weeks. (I'm also wondering how this happened that we are just finding out about this now, when Nick says he's been calling the bank to check up on it every day?)

My next call was to Mike who is working on the loan for his step mom who is buying the house I'm in now. He let me know that the house was still closing tomorrow or Wednesday and that most likely we could rent it back from them for the next week and a half, until New Years. So the good news is I don't have to tell my inlaws and my wife's sisters they don't have a place to stay for Christmas (not to mention my family!). The bad news is I don't have any idea when we can move into the Springville house or how long the short sale should take. Hopefully Washington gets the information this time and gets the ball moving on their end.

My wife isn't holding her breath on that one and has been researching houses and apartments that are available in the area. She found one just a block away that is a great deal, month to month. We'll call tomorrow and try to set it up as a back-up to move in January first.

Merry Christmas!

Lease option, Foreclosure, Marketing

I don't know exactly where to begin on this one because I should have been writing this every day as it happened, but I'll do my best.

So it all began in August of 2004 when we finished building the house in Springville. We put it on the market, expecting to be there for awhile. October 1, we received an advantageous offer for a lease option. The only negative was the closing date (October 15, only two weeks away) and the people that bought it (smokers without a great credit history). But, we accepted and then started looking for another house.

A friend of ours had to leave the state for a few months and said he would let us stay at his house at a discounted rate for a few months until he returned. We just needed a place to stay while we looked for our next deal so we gladly accepted. Well his temporary stay turned more permanent and he decided he wasn't coming back. We asked if he was interested in selling and he decided he would sell the house for what he owed. We agreed on a seller-financing option where I would cover the mortgage payments, earning the same principle that he was earning each month.

We decided to live there and list it for sale for $25 thousand more; then when it sold we would move and find another house. We ended up living there until May of 2006 when some friends of ours decided they really liked the house and were willing to pay a little more since they could buy it from us on a lease option. I had a three-year lease option to buy the house and so I resold the house on a two-year lease option. The deal stipulated that Ben, who we bought it from, would pay all of the closing costs and that Jorge, the new buyer, would also pay all of the closing costs, meaning that on top of the $25 thousand we could probably make another three thousand.

From there, we moved into a new house in a great area with a legal apartment and posted it for sale on the internet. We bought the new house for $217,000 and put down $5,000. We paid $1500 a month with $300 of the payment going toward principle reduction. Also, we collected $630 a month from the tennants below. That made our out of pocket expense $870 with over a third of that going to principal reduction.

In August of 2005 we started getting phone calls from Jorge saying he was getting foreclosure notes on his door and calls from people saying they could help. He was annoyed and wanted to know what was going on. I frantically called Benjamin, and he assured me that the house had gone into default through a bank error but he was making extra payments to bring it current. I decided to just buy the house outright so I wouldn't have to deal with the worry from Jorge. So I started the loan process and quickly got everything ready to go. When we requested a pay off amount, we found out the truth. Ben hadn't made payments in eight months (practically since signing the lease option agreement with us) and was getting close to foreclosure. What made matters worse is that the homeowners insurance hadn't been paid in over a year. They had placed a lien on the house and had gone to collections creating a hefty sum due because of all of the legal fees now tacked on. Ben now owed more than the house was worth, not to mention more than we had agreed I could buy it for. If Ben had made payments instead of living on the money I was sending him, he could have easily sold me the house for the agreed upon price.

Jorge moved out and called the police, not realizing that it is not illegal to lease option a house that is being bought on lease option (the permission is expressly granted in our contract). He just saw that my name wasn't on the title and thought I had fraudulently represented the situation. I rehearsed what had happened to the seargant that called (after I spoke with my attorney), and he got Ben's contact info and told me I should be fine but what Ben had done was a Felony.

The worst part of the situation, beyond the money and the inconvenience, was that I was caught in the middle of two "friends"---one who had repeatedly lied to me for months and had committed fraud against me, and one who no longer trusted me because he thought I was involved with the deceit.

So now we come to the present. I got an offer on the house I am in currently and sold it (cash out) for a profit of $18,000. We will also get the equity we have built up and the down payment, so it should equal a check for $26,000. We had the sellers pay half of the closing and now the buyers are also paying half of the closing, which means we shouldn't be out of pocket any closing costs. We were supposed to move on the first of December but the loan officer had some trouble with the conforming duplex. So after three appraisals and some fanagaling, we are supposed to be out in two days. The only problem is is that we have submitted a great short sale offer on the springville house, but the bank hasn't even assigned a negotiator to the file yet, even though it has been there for over a month.

To make matters worse my inlaws are coming on Monday for the holidays, and we were supposed to have already moved to Springville. So my family and I have to be out of this house the week before Christmas, and we have no place to live or host our parents! There are two hopes. One is that there is a miracle and Monday the bank assigns a negotiator, they love the offer, and we can close in a day (our loan has been out of underwriting for over a week). And the other hope is that we can rent the house from the people buying the house for at least until Christmas. I think the second scenario might be the closest to reality, but we could also end up living in a hotel with our stuff in storage. We have been packed for the last week, so we don't have to stress about that too much.

I'll keep you posted. I also need to write more about the day to day stuff, as well as my marketing, finding, and financing methods, which have proved invaluable. Oh, also how to have top notch legal representation for very little! Until next time . . .

How to become a millionaire in 7 easy (hah!) steps

I found this great article. I agree with most of it.

By Laura Bruce Bankrate.com

The road to wealth is not paved with infomercials. Those wee-hour TV staples would have you believe that you'll become "Fantasy Island" rich by placing tiny ads in the classifieds, or by buying up -- for no money down -- distressed property and selling it for millions.

Unfortunately, the only thing you're likely to get from watching those infomercials is dark circles under your eyes from lack of sleep. If you actually go to the seminar or buy the tapes, you'll probably just have more debt.
The truth is, unless you're lucky enough to receive a sizeable inheritance, you'll need to navigate your own route to prosperity. But while Bill Gates-style megawealth may be elusive, becoming a millionaire is definitely within reach of those who start young and develop the right habits. And anyone, at any age, can develop the traits that increase wealth and decrease debt.
"You can have money or you can have stuff, but seldom do you have both early in life," says Jason Flurry, certified financial planner with Planmark Capital Management LLC, in Alpharetta, Ga.
"Part of our culture is, 'Fake it until you make it.' Debt holds people back. They buy liabilities and they make those payments forever. Spend less than you make, live a modest lifestyle and don't live up to every raise. Some people have spent their prosperity for the next 10 years and they've done it on credit."
It's a matter of choices Flurry isn't suggesting you decorate your home in plastic lawn furniture, forego cable TV and dine on macaroni and cheese every night. But do you really need to buy a car that's so expensive that you must stretch the payments out five or more years? Do you have to have that 50-inch widescreen HD-ready TV right now?
Many people who choose wealth over "stuff" wouldn't consider spending money on the "latest and greatest" because they know their money can be put to better use elsewhere. Buying a "liability" would probably cause them stress because they'd rather buy an asset -- something that will appreciate over time and give them a return on their investment.
Flurry says he has a hard time getting some of his older clients to spend their money.
"They've been savers all their lives and the thought of spending $5,000 or $10,000 on a vacation is ridiculous; it doesn't matter that they're worth $3 million. They're really the last Depression generation and it's burned in their memory that they need to squirrel away money."
7 steps to wealth Paring it all down, we've come up with seven steps to becoming wealthy. Remember, wealth is relative, it doesn't necessarily mean "millionaire." The goal for many people is financial independence, says Stewart Welch of The Welch Group in Birmingham, Ala.
"That's the point in time when your cash flow from investments is equal to or greater than your income from work. Look at the statistics: 95 percent of the population never achieves financial independence. For 65 percent of retirees, Social Security is their largest source of retirement income."
The No. 1 reason people don't achieve financial independence, says Welch, is they don't have a written financial plan. So, that is our No. 1 rule for becoming wealthy.

1. Develop a written financial plan Saying you want to be wealthy isn't good enough. You need to come up with a workable plan and put it on paper.
"The written plan forces you to do something," Welch says. "Calculate what you need to earn and how to invest. The plan isn't just the goal, it's the whole thing -- the dream, the goals, the options. The options are scenario planning -- all the ways you can accomplish that goal -- open a Roth IRA, contribute to a 401(k).

2. Save, save, save The end result of your financial plan should be systematic investment. Get in the habit of saving money. Build an emergency fund in a money market account so you don't have to raid the rest of your savings and investments when there's an unexpected major expense. Make it a point to save at least half of every pay raise.

3. Live below your means Don't be a walking billboard for overpriced designer clothes, shoes, sunglasses or jewelry. Don't allow your house or car payments to be budget-busters.

4. Lay off the credit Some people say that if you can eat it or wear it, don't put it on your credit card. That's good advice, but take it further. Try not putting anything on your cards that you can't pay off in two or three months. You need only one or two credit cards. If you have a fistful, pay them off and cancel them. Remember, debt holds you back.
"It reduces cash flow for other things, including investing," says Welch. "If no one gave you money to borrow, you'd be better off and the economy would be smaller. If they only let you borrow 75 percent of the value of your home, you'd be a heck of a lot better off."

5. Make your money work for you It takes money to make money, but that doesn't mean you need a lot to invest. Open an account with a mutual fund company that has no-load funds and low expense ratios. Build a diverse portfolio and you can reasonably expect to earn 8 percent to 10 percent annually on your investments over the long haul.
6. Start your own businessIn the 1996 book The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy, the authors state that two-thirds of the millionaires are self-employed, with 75 percent of them entrepreneurs, and the remainder professionals such as doctors and accountants.
"The idea that most people inherit wealth is outdated. A lot is built through businesses. Business creation is the No. 1 driver of wealth in this country," says Zultowski.

7. Get professional advice A good financial planner can help you fill your portfolio with the right investments and dump the wrong ones. You don't need to relinquish control, but you do need to form a good working relationship with someone who has expertise in this complicated area.
"About 76 percent of those surveyed are actively involved in the day-to-day management of their financial affairs," notes Zultowski. "They get involved; they learn about finances, they're not day traders. They work with advisers but ultimately make their own decisions."
If you can't afford to have a financial planner manage your money, many of them will review your portfolio and make recommendations for a one-time fee.

This last point is a real stickler for me. The only advise I have received from the financial planners out there has been to line their own pockets. If you want the best advise here is the financial bible and a link to one of the essentials that just wouldn't fit in the booklist blog.

Forex

I have really enjoyed trading forex. I love the instantaneous orders and not paying commissions. I look forward to learning as much as I can. My system right now has worked well for me, and I will continue to use it until something better comes along.

Right now I use FXCM's trading platform for my demo account (paper money). I rely heavily on the professional trades that they post on their news platform (for both my real and paper trading). Their professional traders post supports, resistances, the respective strength at different levels, where they think the market is headed short-term, where the purported buy and sell orders are, and most importantly, their own trades. If they ever make it required to have an account to recieve these updates, I will definitely open one with them again. For now, however, it can be accessed along with the free demo account.

The trading platform I use is from GFT and is called Dealbooks. This trading software is so great that as soon as I found it, I had to open an account with them. They will let you try it free for thirty days and possibly a little longer but it is well worth trading with GFT in order to have access to it. Not only can you use the trading software and trade straight off of the charts, but you can trade mini's or in smaller increments than the usual standard lots without affecting the spread. The only cost of trading is the spread so it's great to find a broker that doesn't increase the spread for mini's.

I also use indicator 75 that is based on my Dealbook charting software.

Keep checking back or subscribe to this post to see updates as I learn.

The Web site for FXCM is www.fxcm.com. Download the free demo and the news plugin. You should paper trade for at least a few months (some books I've read have suggested paper trading for a year or more) until you feel confident trading and then trade for at least a year (on author suggested five years) on a mini account. It is amazing to see the difference between paper trading and real money trading! I average over 100 percent on my paper account but have much more modest gains, so far, on my real money account.

I have gotten the best value by using FXCM for my info and free demo account and www.gftforex.comfor my charts and actual real money trading. Here is a book that has given me invaluable insight on how to maximize profits and minimize losses. There is one more book that I read and loved, but I will have to add it later because for the life of me I can't remember its name. But I have found that while actually trading is really important, reading about it can save you a lot of frustration and money!!

Reading List

I have realized that a large part of who I have become has come from what I have read. The mindset and drive to take the path less traveled and to become an entrepreneur has come from life experiences but it has been solidified by the books I have read and learned from.

I think it is difficult to teach someone to be an entrepreneur, but I do believe that most of us have some ability within us, and it needs to be developed. In fact if you're reading this, you are on the right track. Many of my friends and people who have gotten to know me always ask what books I read to get my information. So I'll put together a short list of the best books and try to add books that are a little more specific to what I am writing about whether it is Real Estate, Marketing, Forex, or Entrepreneurship in general. Here are three that are essential and fun to read at the same time. They will help you start to develop the entrepreneur inside.

Waiting on a loan . . .

Well we are a few weeks past due on the closing date for the house we are in now. We were supposed to have closed on the first and recieved a pretty nice check, some of which we will put down on a short sale we are negotiating with a bank for. Once the transactions have finished I will add specifics but I don't know the legalities so will keep it a little vague. We moved into the house we are in now sometime around May. We had it listed on a great site that is inexpensive and creates a ton of leads. I will have to post on that later to explain more about our selling strategies and how we get top dollar for houses we sell. Anyway, the loan officer for the house we are selling is the buyer's step-son. I don't know if he is just not very well connected, but he is having a hard time getting the house through because it is a legal duplex. It has been a good thing in a way because we don't have a place to live yet because the house we are buying is from a short sale and we haven't finished negotiating with the bank. Again, I apologize for the vagueness---there isn't a whole lot of value in this post, but I promise once I update it it will be worth the wait. And it just goes to show you why everyone isn't doing real estate. The rewards are great but it can be so frustrating!

My wife reminded me of the first house we bought and sold. We had it on the market for six or so months with a Realtor and only had two walk-throughs. After our contract expired, we decided to try selling it ourselves. We had an offer and earnest money a few weeks later and were supposed to close in the beginning of August. But then, because of financing delays, we didn't end up closing until mid-November! Oh well. Who can complain when the money is so good?!

Make money surfing the web continued . . .

Well, it worked! I deposited $1,000.00 with 12dailypro, a hyip program, and they just sent me back $1350.00 after 12 days! I was a little skeptical to get involved with this but now I took back my initial $1000 and am just using the extra $350 they sent back to work the program. Maybe once I close on the house I'll add another thousand or two to keep in there all the time.

Basically at that rate you double your money on a monthly basis. Pretty impressive.

So, how can you get started? Here's what I did: I had to jump through some hoops to get the account set up. First, I had to register a paid email address because you can't use gmail, hotmail, yahoo, or any of the free ones because they aren't associated with a specific ISP address. Second, I had to register with 12dailypro and get an account set up with stormpay.com (their partner company that takes care of the finances). I then had to transfer money to stormpay and then from there to 12dailypro.

Since I got my money back, I am pretty impressed with the results and will take advantage of the free money while it's being handed out. What the heck.

For those of you who are like my wife and wonder why in the world this site would do this, let me show you why it's good for them. First, if you miss a day of checking in and surfing your 15 web pages, they don't pay you. You only have miss a couple for them to make money on your initial deposit (since they pay you less than you put in). In today's busy world, that probably happens a lot! Second, they make a lot of money through Stormpay (a percentage of all the money you put in and take out goes directly to them. It's small enough to make it worth it still, especially if you don't take the money out of Stormpay but reinvest it into 12dailypro without getting the fees taken out). And third (although there are probably other reasons), they make money from the advertisers since they can guarantee so many people seeing the ads every day.

Finally, it is important to remember that something like this is never a sure thing. In fact, in the terms and conditions it states that they can change the terms at any time at their discretion. So, make sure it is discretionary money that won't kill you if they decide to keep it (although that would kill their business so I don't see that happening for awhile at least!). But still, it is a 100% return a month, and the company has gotten good reviews online. So, if you're interested, put in some money, watch it grow, then take out your initial investment and just use the "free money." It will grow faster than you can imagine!

If you have any questions about this email me, comment to this post, or click on the links on the right side of the main page for more info.

A&R Technologie, INC.

I guess it's about time I put something in here about A&R Technologies, Inc. A year after my wife and I married, we decided to open up our own satellite retail store (primarily promoting DISHNetwork services). We had run kiosks successfully in the local malls for almost a year but the hours were overwhelming since we both attended University and college full time as well.

That first year we made a decent living but our living conditions were hardly decent (we were saving everything to earn enough for a downpayment on our first house). We lived in a basement---not an apartment but just a room in a basement. My wife and I (bless her soul) shared a kitchen and living room with the disfunctional family upstairs. What an experience! The good things that came of it were that we were able to save a lot of money and we found that we could live anywhere, even if it wasn't fun!

After almost a year in the mall, and a month before the birth of our first son, we left the kiosk, started our own company, and started doing the normal Dish Network retailer stuff: door-to-door, telemarketing, summer sales, and print advertising. Wow, what a learning experience. I am earning an International Business degree, but I could never have learned what I did in those two years anywhere but where I was. After being in business as a sole proprietor for a year, we decided to incorporate as an S-Corp. We sought out opportunities to expand to other areas and spread out to Oregon, Nevada, California, Idaho, Georgia (long story!), and Wyoming. After about a year, however, we realized that we weren't ready to expend the resources and time that it would take to be profitable in so many locales; we cut our losses and brought everything back home.

The lessons we learned didn't come cheap. We are still paying off $55,000 in credit card balances accrued during that time. We didn't realize that even when we were grossing $26,000 a week, our costs were exceeding our profits (primarily because of mismanagement issues, poor marketing decisions, and other problems we have chalked up to the learning curve), and we were definately not going the right direction. Hindsight is always 20/20, but it really would have been nice to diligently enter everything into Quickbooks and really measure what was going on so it didn't come as such a surprise that things were running so inefficiently. Also, to have daily and weekly reports to take advantage of good markets and to quickly get out of bad ones would have also saved us a lot of money. The ironic thing is is that running a Dish store that now offers television, telephone, and high-speed internet is less lucrative for us than real estate. My wife and I have made at least twice as much buying and selling houses as we have in four years of running the store. We can't wait for the day when we can either close the store or burn it down and just do real estate. We'll see. But still it is a great business and has been invaluable as a learning experience and also as a supplement to our income (or right now, just to paying off its own debts).

Hopefully this has been as useful to you as it has been to me. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to let us know.

Procrastination (Hurry up and wait)

Well the snow has begun to fall, and the roads are like an ice skating rink---slippery and covered with amateurs.

The hardest part about buying and selling real estate the way we do, besides moving every four months, is the down time in-between projects. So many times I come across other deals or opportunities that I would love to take advantage of but can't. We are supposed to close on the house we are in by mid-December and close on the north springville short sale at the same time. It is nerve-racking just waiting, and I really don't want to pack and move in the snow. We should get a fairly large check from the sale of this house though, so hopefully that will give me enough motivation to do it.

I am in a trade right now, shorting the dollar, and I forgot to close it before the market closed on Friday afternoon. Hopefully nothing crazy happens.

School is coming to a close, and I have three more powerpoint presentations to put together and then present. They are due tuesday so hopefully I can get them done well in time. Maybe just for fun I'll post one on this. The 12dailypro website is intruiging. I have finished a 12-day period and requested the funds. I am waiting to see if they actually pay out. I put in almost a thousand and took out 1400 after 12 days so it could be pretty lucrative. I am very sceptical because it is basically a ponsi scheme. But it should run for another year or two at least. I just want to get out what I put in and only invest what I have made. As long as they pay out what they are supposed to, I will continue to put money in. Well see. It takes seven business days to recieve a payout so I'll keep you posted.