Flip This Wholesaler

Sooooo, how did everyone do on their 30 day challenge?

I know I’m supposed to be setting a good example here, but I have to be honest and tell you that I failed miserably.  My challenge was to run 4 miles every day during the week, and also to make 100 offers.

So, yeah.  Not so much.

The running part was out of my control, though.  My back has been messed up since the beginning of the month, and it’s still not back to normal (no pun intended), so I didn’t really have a choice unless I wanted to torture myself, which I actually tried to do last week and was only able to run for 3 minutes before I had to stop.

As far as the offer-making part of the challenge goes- I ended up only making 24, which is pretty pathetic.  This was mostly due to me just having too much other stuff going on, and then there was a little bit of laziness sprinkled in for good measure…I’m not gonna lie.

So how did the rest of you guys do?

I heard from Matt and Art and Steph already, and they seem to be calling for a do-over….

I guess I wasn’t the only one who had an off month.

I think a do-over is a good idea, what do you say?  A chance to redeem ourselves….

My challenge for the next 30 days is to be up at 6am and swim 20 laps every morning (since running is temporarily out of the question), make 30 offers on MLS properties (I’m being more realistic this time around), and to come up with an outline for a new eBook/course that I’ve been putting off writing for about 6 months now.

If you want to participate in the do-over, just write a comment below and let us all know what you plan to accomplish in the next 30 days (and also, if you were a part of the last challenge, let us know how you did!).

We’ll all meet back here on the 1st of October to talk about how much ass we kicked….

Later Alligators!

P.S.
Speaking of kicking ass, did you guys see the unfreakingbelievable shot that my boyfriend R-Fed made at the U.S. Open Monday?

He’s such a bad ass.

P.P.S.
No, that was not his wife in the stands.
Shut up.

P.P.P.S
I had an awesome time on my road trip and I took a bunch of pictures that I want to show you, but WordPress is being very difficult right now and I’m about to tear my hair out of my head, so I’ll have to post them at a later date.

Warning: This post has absolutely nothing to do with real estate.  If you’re looking for a post about real estate, please come back in a few days.

So, I’m in the middle of packing right now (which I was supposed to do last night, but instead got sidetracked downloading free music from Limewire), but I wanted to write a quick post before I head out the door on a road trip out to the middle of nowhere.  Which is going to be awesome.

My friend Shawn and I rented a cabin on the river for a few days at this cool place where they have cave diving and canoeing, and all that kind of fun stuff.  I would post a link to the place we’re staying at, but you never know if there’s any axe murderers reading my blog, and this place is seriously out in the middle of nowhere, and that would totally suck to have some dude show up at the cabin door at 1am wearing a hockey mask and brandishing a machete.  Ya know?

Plus, I’m already a little bit freaked out because the last time Shawn and I rented a cabin (this was about a year ago at a different place), it was totally haunted.  I’m not even kidding.  When we got there, there was this guest book on the dining room table where you can write about all the cool things you did while you were there, and we read through the whole book (it went back about 7 years), and a bunch of people kept writing in there that the cabin was haunted.

We didn’t really think too much of it until the first night when I woke up at like 4am and noticed that the bathroom door was shut and the light was on.  I just figured it was Shawn, so I went back to sleep and then it was morning, and Shawn came into my room asking me why I left the light on in the bathroom and shut the door in the middle of the night.

He said he didn’t do it, and I know I didn’t do it.  Then he tried to say I probably just had too many glasses of wine and got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and forgot. Which was totally not the case.  Well, maybe I did have a few too many glasses of wine, but I never just get up in the middle of the night. Once I’m out, I’m out.

So anyway, the next night we had dinner and some drinks and then went to sleep, and I shit you not, the stereo that we brought (that was in the kitchen), turned on by itself at about 2am and started BLASTING Maroon 5.  I’m not even making this up.  I still remember the song and the exact verse that was playing…..

“THIS LOVE HAS TAKEN IT’S TOLL, ON ME, SHE SAID GOODBYE, TOO MANY TIMES BEFOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRE……”

I think I may have crapped my pants. (and not in a good way, Julie.)

Shawn tried to pretend like he wasn’t as freaked out as I was (because he’s kind of a Mr. Tough Guy kind of guy), and also I think he knew I was about to have a freaking heart attack and he didn’t want to scare me any more than I already was.

So anyway, we ended up staying the rest of night (if it was up to me we would have left right then and there), and then we got the hell out of there bright and early the next morning.

The End.

And the reason why I’m telling you this story is because crazy shit like this always happens to me and Shawn, so if you don’t hear back from me in a few days, please SEND HELP.  Although, I didn’t tell you where I was staying, so I guess that will be kind of hard.

My Mom, knows where I’m staying.

Speaking of my Mom, she tells me that I shouldn’t tell people when I’m going out of town because then they might break into my house and steal all of my valuables (even though I don’t really have any valuables except my laptop, which I’m taking with me so I can listen to all the songs I downloaded from Limewire last night).  And also, you’d have to pretty much be Spider-Man to break into my condo, but even so, just to make my Mom happy, I hired a professional Ninja to house sit for me for the next couple of days.  So, if you’re planning on breaking in, you better bring your A game.

Alright, I gotta run!

Have a great rest of the week, everybody!

P.S.
Now that I think about it, I bet Spider-Man could probably kick a Ninja’s ass.

Crap.

P.P.S.
Change of plans. I just cancelled the Ninja and called Chuck Norris instead.

P.P.P.S.
One time, at band camp, Chuck Norris ate a percussionist.

P.P.P.P.S.
Chuck Norris caught the Karate Kid in mid air with chopsticks.

P to the 5th power S.
Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool Chuck Norris once and he’ll roundhouse you in the face.

So, I was going to write another post last week letting you all know that I was heading out of town to Kansas City for a mastermind retreat with Steve Cook and the Flip Vips, but then I had too much stuff to do before I left, so I didn’t get a chance to write an update.

So anyway, I left for Kansas City early Wednesday and got back late Friday night, and have been in bed ever since because my back is so screwed up that it hurts to stand up, sit down, laugh, breathe, blink, etc.  Which is totally awesome.

The good news is, I had a great time in Kansas City (minus the part where this guy on the plane told me there were two Kansas Cities- one in Missouri, and one in Kansas, and then for about a half hour after I landed I thought I flew to the wrong state). Turns out there’s only one Kansas City, but half of it is in Missouri and half is in Kansas.

I had no idea.

Anyway, like I said, I had a blast at the retreat, and took lots o’ pictures for your viewing enjoyment…

Dinner and drinks @ Dave and Buster’s
L to R: Mike Ferriss, Brian Meidam, Steve Cavanaugh, Lawrence Roberts, Russ LaBrasca,
Steve Cook, Yours Truly

Craig Fuhr with a yard of beer at the Yard House

After closing down the Yard House, we headed to this place called Danny’s.
That’s Shaun McCloskey riding in the trunk/backseat.

While at Danny’s, we concocted a brilliant scheme to break into JP Mose’s hotel room
and ambush him when we got back to the hotel.
It seemed like a great idea at 2am.

“Be very quiet, we’re acting like high schoolers.”

“Alright, on the count of three, everyone run into the room and jump on JP!”
(Side note: I was laughing so hard at this point that I peed my pants. True story).

Law was the first one in, and I think he overshot the bed and fell off.

Next up: Craig.

Surprise!

Sorry, JP.  I totally tried to talk everyone out of this, but they made me come along.
And take pictures.

We met in the conference room bright and early for 8 hours of brainstorming.  We also watched
some videos on YouTube that had nothing at all to do with real estate.

Be careful what you wish for, JP.  Just sayin.

Bonjour, Yall!
Dinner at Jazz…

Lots o’ crawfish.  I was afraid to eat one because of the whole “pulling the head off” thing.

Shaun, Steve, JP, and Russ

Nate Andree, Ken Holmes, Steve Cavanaugh

Me and the guys

Cheese!

Fried strawberry deliciousness

Nate talked the singer dude into letting Craig sing a song for everyone.
Nice job, Craig!

There was a giant motorcycle outside the restaurant that sits on top of a fountain and spins in a
circle.  Nate and Law got on for a ride, and then security drove up and we all took off running.
It was awesome.

I smoked my first cigar.  It was not awesome.

I love you, man.

Back to Danny’s for a few cocktails and some good old fashioned arm wrestling.
And then we headed back to the hotel to ambush JP for the second night in a row.
Because we are all 12 years old.

The next day we spent another 7 hours brainstorming (I had to lay on the conference room floor the whole time because my back felt like it was going to fall off).  And then our fearless leader capped off the retreat with an arm wrestling match.

THE END.

So that’s what I’ve been up to guys and gals: masterminding with my pals in the Flip VIPs, peeing my pants laughing, ambushing JP Moses (twice), watching arm wrestling competitions, and being crippled.

Good times.

Well, except for the crippled part.  Being crippled sucks the big one.

10-4 over and out.

P.S.
Anybody have a jar of vicodin I can “borrow”?

P.P.S.

Flip This Book Club is meeting here this Thursday @ 8pm EST.  Shae Bynes will be reviewing this month’s book- Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill.  See you then!

So, I ended up getting that deal sold that I talked about in my last last post, although it was a huge pain in the ass, and I’m only making 2k on it.

None of my buyers who I thought would be interested in the deal, were interested , and after marketing for several days and not getting any positive feedback, I finally decided to just dump it.

Like I mentioned in my last post, these piece of crap houses can sometimes be hard to sell, even if they are dirt cheap, and especially if they are frame and have only 2 bedrooms.  The house I have under contract is frame with only 2 bedrooms, plus the 2nd bedroom is really more of a glorified closet, so it’s essentially a 1 bedroom house. Which is kinda hard to move.

When I made the offer on this, I put a 7 day closing in the contract figuring that the bank would send their addenda back with a closing date several weeks out, like they usually do. It turns out that the seller is a private lender with just a few properties to sell, and doesn’t need twelve years to close like most of the big banks do. So, what I’m trying to say is, I didn’t really have a whole lot of time to find an end buyer. The seller is ready to close Monday.

The guy I’m selling it to is a wholesaler/investor who does quite a bit of business, and is one of the buyers I had in mind when I said in my last post that I could probably just dump it for a few grand if I wasn’t able to find another buyer.

The seller wouldn’t agree to close at my title company, but since this was just a regular assignment deal (or so I thought), I figured it would be fine to close somewhere else- I mean what kind of title company doesn’t know what an assignment is?

I’m sure you can probably see where this is going…

So, I went by the seller’s title company Wednesday morning to drop off my EMD and also to let them know that I’d be sending over an assignment contract later in the day as soon as I got it back from my buyer.

You should have seen the look on the lady’s face when I told her I was assigning the contract.  She pulled her glasses down on her nose and did one of these…(seriously, she did)

I totally knew what was coming before she even opened her mouth…

She proceeded to tell me that it’s not legal to do an assignment, because you can’t change the terms of the contract without the seller’s consent.  I then tried to explain to her what an assignment agreement was and that I was not changing the terms of the original contract, but rather assigning my rights in the contract for a 2k fee.  Needless to say, I didn’t get very far with my explanation before she cut me off, shut the little window divider thingy in my face (seriously), and told me she’d have to check with the attorney and see what he had to say about it.

Awesome!

So, she came back a few minutes later and explained to me that yes, I could assign the contract, but I couldn’t assign it for a fee, because that would be changing the terms of the initial contract. Which is illegal.

??

Are you effing kidding me, lady?

At this point, as much as I wanted to sit there and argue with her (and also smack that condescending look off her face), I knew that it was going to be a complete waste of my time and energy to do so, so I just told her I’d be back later once I talked to my end buyer to see what he wanted to do.

My end buyer, thankfully, is as cool as the other side of my pillow and agreed that there was no sense in trying to argue with the morons over at the Law Offices of We Just Make Shit Up As We Go.

So, we wrote up a new assignment contract that says I’m assigning the deal to him for $0, and he’s going to pay me a consulting fee of 2k once the deal closes. There are several other ways we could have structured it, but most of them would involve a second closing, and since my assignment fee is only 2k, a good portion of that would get eaten up in closing costs.  Plus, doing a double closing would mean extra money for the seller’s title company, which would kinda be like rewarding them for being stupid…… “Hi, you’re a dumbass- congratulations, here’s $500!”

I don’t think so.

So anyway, that’s the story. The title is clear and we’re closing on Monday, which is good. There was also some other drama that went on with this deal, but unfortunately I can’t talk about it in public for reasons I can’t talk about in public. I know that’s totally lame, but that’s all I can say about the situation at this point.

In other non-real estate related news, I’ve decided to chop all my hair off again, which I’m doing tomorrow, and am very excited about. (Sorry Mom).

Here’s the picture I’m taking in with me….

I likey.

Alright, then. That’s all I’ve got for today. I’ve got offers to make and miles to run…

Later Alligators!

P.S.
Is dumbass one word or two? I asked on Facebook, but we seem to have a split jury.

P.P.S.
Thanks to all of you who are participating in the 30 Day Challenge with me! Let’s knock ‘em dead this month guys!

Alright guys, so we’re more than halfway through 2010 (which I seriously can’t believe) and I think it’s time to kick things into high gear, don’t you agree?  There’s still a full five months left in the year, which is plenty of time to turn things around if you’ve somehow gotten yourself off track.

It’s time to regroup, reload, and GET GOING.  Is what I’m saying.

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve decided to get back in the habit of making offers on MLS properties again, and I thought since it’s the beginning of a new month, I’d set a 30 day challenge for myself to make 100 offers before August is over. And also, to run 4 miles 5 days a week this month (M-F), for a grand total of  88 miles.

So that’s my challenge- 100 offers and 88 miles.

I’ve got my work cut out for me, eh?

And since misery loves company (just kidding), I thought I would invite all of you to come up with a 30 day challenge of your own and join me!

What do you say?

You say YES, is what you say!

The challenge doesn’t have to be real estate related- it can be anything at all that you want to accomplish over the next 30 days- whether it be a new habit you want to develop (like getting up an hour earlier every day to exercise), or a certain amount of deals you want to have under contract, or whatever your little heart desires…

The only thing I ask is that you be 100% committed to accomplishing whatever challenge you set for yourself.  No half-assing allowed here!  Think long and hard about what you want your challenge to be, and then commit yourself to following through with it come hell or high water.

You pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down?

If you’d like to join in the challenge, just leave a comment below with your name and what you commit to accomplish in the next 30 days…

We’ll all meet back here on the 31st of this month to tell everyone how we did!

Ready, Set, GO!