Flip This Wholesaler

10/21/2008

Hi Everybody. Sorry for the lack of posting lately. It’s been an interesting 2 weeks. I started getting some emails asking if I was dead or something, so I thought I would write a quick post to let you know that I am not dead.

In a nutshell…..

*The “Stacy” deal is still not closed. Actually it’s supposed to close tomorrow but I still haven’t figured out how that’s going to happen. A miracle, perhaps. This deal officially takes the cake as the most horrible, awful, pain-in-my-ass-of a-deal I have ever done. Seriously, it just keeps dragging out, and just when I think it is going to work out….it doesn’t. I HATE THIS DEAL WITH A BURNING PASSION. HATE. IT.

*I got two new REO deals under contract 2 Fridays ago and sold them both by the end of the weekend (still not sure how I pulled that off, but I did).

*May be getting another REO under contract tomorrow that I already have 2 buyers for. This will truly be a miracle if it works out as it was the easiest deal ever to get- just hanging out there on the mls waiting for someone to offer on it. “Pick Me! Pick Me!”

*Have had the most stressful month of my entire life. Well, except for last year at this time. I have gray hair now.

*I’m getting sick. This does not fit into my schedule so I am just going to pretend like I am not sick. I’ll let you know how that works out.

*If you think there are no buyers out there, you need to pull yourself away from the TV and listen to someone who is out in the streets selling deals, right now, in this “crappy” market (that would be me). I went on a Ninja mission last week to find buyers. Put out 40 signs, and called every “for rent” sign in the city of Tampa. I am not kidding you when I say I have buyers lined up and waiting for me to find them deals. I am not blowing smoke up your ass, either. I swear to God, I have more buyers than I have houses to sell them, which is why I can not get sick right now. I NEED SOME MORE HOUSES! I have 10 to look at tomorrow, and I will be offering on every single one of them.

*I am getting a house from the bank for EIGHTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!! Can you believe that? I can not. It’s in a crappy neighborhood, but only needs about 8k in work and will rent for $750. I had this house sold in one phone call. The guy I am selling it to says he wants to buy a house like this each week for the next year. He is a cash buyer. This makes me happy.

*I went to see the Rays game Sunday night and had seats right behind third base. Had a blast. I spent the last 15 minutes trying to post some pictures, but my computer is evil and will not let me, and I am all out of patience.

*Someone is blasting the Spice Girls from their balcony right now and I am about to go outside and assassinate them.

And, that’s all she wrote.

Buenas nachos.

10/5/2008

Well, they say that when it rains, it pours, and I gotta tell ya, there’s a friggin’ monsoon following me around lately.

I can’t really come up with an explanation for why everything is going wrong all at once right now.

I don’t remember breaking any mirrors lately or anything like that.

Perhaps it happened while I was sleepwalking?

Maybe, while I was sleepwalking, I broke a mirror after seeing a black cat run in front of me while I was opening an umbrella indoors and walking under a ladder with it.

That makes sense.

Anyway, no new news on the “Stacy” deal.

Well, except that the buyer’s private money guy said he will only wait 2 more weeks and then he is pulling the plug. So, there’s that extra bit of added stress to deal with, which is AWESOME.

I sent in an addendum on Friday requesting that they lower the purchase price from 50k to 45k. I haven’t heard back yet from the listing agent as to whether or not they are going to sign it, but I figured it was worth a shot.

Of course we have to actually get clear title before any of that would even matter anyway, and I don’t see that happening anytime in the near future, so, oh well.

I got an offer accepted Friday (yay!), and the numbers were really, really, good.

This got me to thinking that perhaps I missed something when I went to check the house out. So, yesterday, after I almost ran out of gas in the hood, and then went to get money at an ATM machine at the gas station, and the machine ate my money and wouldn’t give it back (seriously) ….. after that, I decided to drive on over to my new “deal” just to check it out again, because something was telling me that this deal was just too good to be sitting on the market at this price for more than a day or two. So I get there and check out the inside, and then go out back, and see this for the first time:

Yaaay- a sinkhole!! Woohoo!

I suppose I could look on the bright side of this, which is that I was about to blanket the area with 30 or so handwritten signs, and that would have sucked. Also, sending investors to a house without telling them it may or may not be swallowed into the Earth by the time they get there, would make me look like a complete ass. How do you like that for positive thinking?

Oh, I also got a counter on Friday on a house listed for 52k, I offered 30k, and they came back at 36k. This could be good, but the house is in pretty bad shape, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’m going to bring my friend Dave by there later today to get his opinion on it.

I think I probably need to get it in the low 30’s (if you can believe that- it’s a 4/2 concrete block home), but I’m not sure. I need a second opinion. I’ve closed several deals with this listing agent, and he seems to put in a good word for me to the asset managers, because I always get really good counters on his properties…….so, I want to be extra sure I can get this deal closed before I put it under contract.

And, that’s all I’ve got, folks.

Let’s hope this week brings some good news.

9/29/2008

Today was not good.

Mrs. Hancock decided to stop taking my calls, the bank will not give me another extension, and we are supposed to close tomorrow. Good times.

The other deal that was supposed to close a week ago is probably never going to get to closing. The assholes at the bank’s title company will not return phone calls, and no one knows what is going on from one day to the next . Same old story. Blah, blah blah, I want to head down to Ft. Lauderdale with a bat…blah, blah, blah. You’ve heard it all before.

Oh, and I’m writing this post from one of the computers on the 8th floor of Skypoint, because my computer is FRIED!

AWESOME!

P.S.
No- I did not back up my files, and yes, they are all gone. Woohoo!

9/20/2008

I just love the ups and down of this business…..one day you think you’re going to close 2 deals in the next week and make ten grand, and then the next, you learn that both deals might crash and burn for reasons that you can not control. Gotta love it.

One of the deals “may” have a title issue that “may” take a few months to resolve. I have not been able to get a straight answer from the title company for a week and a half, so who knows what’s going on. Every time I call the lady at the title company, she tells me she will know for sure by the end of the day, and she will call and let me know. Then she never calls, and we start the whole process over the next day. It’s supposed to close Monday, but the likelihood of that happening is slim. The buyer, of course, is all ready to go.

The other deal (The Deal From Hell), the buyer is now telling me she is not able to come up with the down payment for the hard money loan that she assured me 500 times she had. So, unless she can come up with it by Monday, things are not looking good. I had a feeling this deal was doomed from the get-go, so I can’t say that I am too surprised.

I never heard anything back from the mortgage broker who wants to see me burned at the stake. I was thinking, just for fun, of putting up an ad in the singles section of Craigslist for “men seeking men” with his phone number on it, along with a picture similar to this one:

Hehehehehe.

Gotta go make some offers. I’ve got about ten out there right now, and plan on making another ten or so this weekend. I’ve been averaging about 1 deal in every 25-30 offers lately, which is pretty good, I think. I tend to get side tracked, though, especially when I have deals that are going South, and people threatening me.

Au revoir!

8/20/2008

You know it’s not gonna be a good day when your cell phone breaks for no apparent reason AND you get one of these put on your car.

All before I even had my coffee, too.

Good times.

Guess that’ll learn me to pay my parking tickets on time, eh? I managed to rack up $233.00 in fines since I moved downtown 4 months ago. Dang.

So then, I had to walk a mile or so back to Skypoint from the park (I take Jim to the park in the mornings, and always forget to bring a quarter with me to feed the stupid meter- hence the $233 in tickets).

I even made a trip back to my condo before I left to get a quarter so this very thing wouldn’t happen, but then I got to talking on the phone, and, because I am an idiot, I totally forgot to put the stupid quarter in the stupid meter.

Then I had to walk to the bank to get $233 cash (they don’t take any other form of payment), then walk to the stupid City of Tampa Parking Divison and give them my money.

Then back to my car.

By that time it was almost 2pm, and I was PISSED. Also, it was about seven thousand degrees out, and the humidity was 185%, which made the journey that much more enjoyable.

I decided I wasn’t going to let my irresponsibilty get the best of me, and instead of heading to the pool with a beer or 6, I decided to run 4 miles, then go stalk some buyers that I have been looking for. I ended up finding 2 of them (One was doing some work at a house he just bought, and the other had a “for rent” sign in front of one of his properties). Hehehe. They’re both mine now. Mine all mine….