The Crawford Chronicles

I was greeted by the radio this morning a bit before 6am telling me it was 39 degrees. Now that is chilly. They are predicting it will get down to at least 28 tonight. Better cover up the plants. Better check first if they survived last night. Didn't expect it to get so cold so fast.

It was beautiful this morning. The air was crisp and clear following yesterday's rain. There was frost on the lawns and some ice in the streets. The mountains surrounding the basin were covered in snow, a rare sight for this early in the year.

Oh, and the Pack won last night. So that set the tone for a great morning.

I heard from my REA last night that the house I am interested in has been pulled from the market. She told me that Zillow is not always up-to-date, but it had been on other sites as well. Evidently, it was a short sale, which was not indicated on any of the sites I looked at. I don't have time to get involved with a short sale and would not have pursued it had I known. The bank pulled it late October, so she is anticipating it will hit the market as an REO some time soon. I think I'll ask her to find out which lender owns it and maybe try calling the Asset Manager to see if he'd be willing to make a deal before releasing it back to the open market. So while I haven't totally given up on it, I will pursue any other possibilities that present themselves.

I'll be talking with my REA today to see if she has any properties that match what I'm looking for. I also hope to make contact with my mortgage broker this afternoon.

Talk to you REA about sending you the MLS in your target area and price range, that way you can get more up to date info about properties. For example I have houses in my zip code under say 155k sent to me automatically, the REA doesn't even know when they come to me. It will take her approx 10-15 min to set up your search criteria and then you will automatically recieve an email when a new house comes on, or another price drops etc, plus you can see the remarks regarding the house, short sale or REO etc. You can have several different "matrices" set up for you. It beats having to scour zillow.

Cathy (go vikes!)

Hi Cathy,

Thanks much for the info. I had thought only licensed REAs had access to use the MLS; didn't realize they could share them with clients. I'll ask her to set me up this afternoon.

I have to admit I've been watching as many Viking's games as Packer's this season. Once bitten by the Favre Fever, you never lose it.

I didn't come into the office yesterday because I had doctor appointments and needed to get my car in for some work. I used the time in between appointments to check out an open house and drive by some properties I am interested in.

The open house was for a 701' condo. I now realize how very small 701' is. It is a 2 bedroom/2 bath. They are asking $175K for it. There are very many condos/townhouses on the market here now and many of the ones that are less expensive also have upwards of 300 additional square feet. Plus, the neighborhood was not that great. So this one is definitely a pass.

I also checked out a house that is going up for auction this weekend. It had been listed for $249K and the opening bid is to be $89K. The pictures looked like it was in pretty good shape. However, as soon as I pulled up I could see all the work that needed to be done on the outside. It is very small on the inside and the layout is unappealing, with one bedroom immediately off the living room and leading directly into another bedroom. This of course could be remedied with tearing down a wall and then expanding both the second bedroom and the living room. But the kitchen and both baths all need to be torn out and totally redone. All this without even checking out the heating, plumbing, and electrical, which I'm pretty sure are all in a sad state. The best thing for this property is to do a total tear down and put up a new house and garage. The lot is a good size and could accomodate a nice size home, especially if one were to go 2 stories. But the neighborhood really doesn't support putting that much money into this property. So even if I had that much to spend, the numbers do not work for this property. It was a good experience to check it out though.

The possibly good thing about this visit is that there is a house for rent just down the street. I'm going to call and see if they are interested in either doing a lease to own (for myself) or if they perhaps want to sell outright, at which point I will see if I can get an assignment.

I then went to look at another house I'd seen on-line that is listed at $250K. After my first experience of the day, I wasn't expecting much. However, this house was very nice and I'm going to call my REA to see if it is still available and if so, to arrange a viewing. I have no problem with seeing myself living there for 3 years to meet the terms of obtaining the tax credit.

After that it was time to get to the doctor and by the time I left my appointment, it was dark and I still had to get my cats to the vet. I'll pick up with my REI activities tomorrow.

Forecast is for rain through the weekend. We need it so bad that no one is complaining.

My car had to go back into the shop yesterday morning because the parts didn't arrive Wednesday. I dropped it off and walked down the street to a coffee shop where I had some breakfast with a side of Dean. I spent my over 2 hour wait there re-reading PFREN and taking notes. I always feel a sense of optimism and can-do attitude overtake me when reading the books. It's not just because of Dean spelling out how to do the deals, or examples of other students' success, but the fact that he cared enough and instead of just churning out some dry facts book, he filled it with inspiration. I'm so grateful to him everytime I crack one of his books open.

I heard on the radio that the foreclosure rate is down October to November, but it is also 18% higher than it was a year ago, with one in every 450,000 or so homes in foreclosure. And of course, in some parts of the country, such as mine, the rate is much higher. Not only is the state in serious fiscal trouble, but the city is $1B in debt and the word bankruptcy has come up in conversations on the radio a couple of times this week.

I have a stack of places I printed out from the MLS and I'm going to drive by them this weekend. I'm also going to drive all the streets in a section of the valley that appears to have quite a few opportunities for investment. I also need to follow-up on some calls regarding For Rent signs I've seen in the past week.

I hope everyone has a terrific weekend!

And I've obviously fallen short on that score. I'll try to improve and post even a little something every day because it helps keep me focused on RE matters.

Looking back at my posts from just a few months ago makes me smile as I see how much I've learned since then. It's incredible how much you can learn without realizing you've done so. All that information and those experiences just become a part of your memory bank that you use as if they had always been there.

I haven't met the goals I set for myself regarding assignments, but I do now have some solid buyers that I met through my REICs and I've started working with them. I'll for sure post when I've closed my first deal. And my need to move is no longer urgent, which is a relief because I was looking at buying properties in my price range that I really didn't want to live in. Now I'll be able to build up my downpayment and monthly income with RE deals so that I can afford a nice place. I figure a portion of my RE earnings will go toward my new home, some into savings, but the bulk is going back into my business until it is built up to where I want it to be.

I received the EDGE 2009 this morning and I'm as excited as a little kid at Christmas to tear into it. When I finally admitted to myself that there was no way I could attend EDGE 2010 I was heartbroken as I had so been looking forward to it. But I am so very happy that Dean offered us the great deal to get 2009. I'm going to spend my lunch time digging into it.

Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success. - THOMAS J. WATSON

I was able to spend a bit more than an hour watching the first EDGE dvd yesterday. Dean's enthusiasm is infectious. I found myself answering his questions to the group out loud and at one point laughed at myself when I raised my hand when he asked who in the group had done something (don't remember what the something was). I plan to spend my lunch time watching more. I also need to fill out the exercise that he did with the group at the start of EDGE 2009. I can hardly wait to get back to it.

It was also nice to see some of the other students that I know through DG.com and the Empowering Conversations series in the audience - Joe and Stacey seemed to get quite a bit of camera time.

I keep hearing that prices are going up in California but I don't see it yet. The MLS Morning List that I get always has houses that have cut their prices by $5,000 to $25,000 or more. Seldom does one increase its price. There are houses here that have decreased their asking price by more than $100K over several months. I realize it was because they started too high, but I think dropping so far so fast shows a desperation on the part of the homeowner. The houses I find that I'm interested in when I'm driving the neighborhoods are all priced below FMV. And I know there are SOOOOO many foreclosures here that the banks are holding back. I'm thinking any price increase may be artificial due to the the fact the extension of the first time homebuyer credit is soon to expire. We'll have to see what happens at the end of the month.

Aside from spending time with the EDGE today, I'm going to research a site that sends you props that are 30-60-90 days late in payment. This would allow me to approach the homeowner BEFORE he received the NOD and if nothing else, at least allow me to establish a relationship with him so that if he doesn't want to work with me immediately, he may come to me in a few weeks or a month for help. And of course, I would follow up to see if perhaps he had changed his mind if he initially was not interested. So, my plan is to get signed up with this service to help me be a step ahead of the competition.