DG (Dave&Gay) Journal !

So glad you have come to the site to post and make a journal! You will LOVE all the interaction here, and having your own journal is such a great tool. It keeps you accountable to keep taking action and gives you a place to come back to and read how far you've come. You guys are doing great - closing deals, networking and partnering! Congrats and I look forward to following your story.

I just wanted to share something with you. It took me a little over 6 months to close my first deal, But in the last 9 month I have closed 20. It gets easy everyday. Keep us posted on your progress. What can I say the success acamady is great.

Randy

Yes, you've probably got some information overload, but we bet you've been amazed each day how much more you know. We are continually impressed with our knowledge each time we do a deal...things start to make sense and you can see a couple different strategies with each one.

Keep it up! And Keep sharing your stories with us!

Congratulations for joing Dean's Success Acadmey and starting your journal. Your journal is a great way to keep yourself accountable and share your insight and knowledge with other DG Members. The DG website is packed with information and inspiration. The name of the game can be to get your name out there and network, network, network, Everyone probably has a contact or knows someone that can assist your efforts along the way. The key is making sure everyone knows about your real estate efforts. Good luck and continued with real estate investing. Believe and Achieve! - Joe

We will be closing this Friday on a house that we will fix up and flip. It is a 1 bed, 1 bath. We will finish the basement to make it a 3 or 4 bed, 2 bath. Our original offer was for 60k, but after our due diligence period we asked for concessions for plumbing, etc. etc. and they accepted our counter at 55k. We will put about 35k-40k into the house, and our RE agent is confident we can sell for around 125k. We are partnering in this deal with a family member who has cash for the down/fix up costs, and we will finance the rest. We have actually had a fellow investor be quite negative about it. He has about 3 flips that he has not been able to sell in the same city, different area in the past several months. It is sometimes difficult to know which "voice" to listen to. We have run it by the Success Academy and gotten the go ahead from them! Most importantly, we feel good about the numbers.
We are now in the due diligence period on another property for the next few weeks also, and can begin repairs on the first one after we close on Friday.
Oh, we also just went through our first "eviction" experience on the only investment property we owned before getting into the the DG program. That house also needs major fix up ! We are going to be busy !!!
Stay tuned . . .

We closed on the flip house as planned, and have been busy tearing out and remodeling ever since my last entry. The re-hab is going well and we are just now getting to the "putting it back together" stage !!! It has a new roof, plumbing, electrical--we are going to make it "good" for another hundred years as we promised the sellers !
We are also now working on our "eviction" house and have torn out the kitchen, bath, carpets, etc. and have ordered new windows.
As if that is not enough going on, we are also scheduled to close on a historical home that we won a bid on in the next week or so, which we will move into. Because of that, we will be renting, or renting to own our current home and have been marketing it also. Wheww ! We are busy, but it is all good! Thanks DG for all your help--I listen to part of an empowering conversation, or one of the Edge 2009 cd's most every day ! We soooo want to be at the Edge 2010 event coming up, but maybe next year !!!!!!

We closed on the home that is on the national historic register that we won the auction bid on last week! We had to jump through many 'hoops' to wrap this one up, but we feel it will be worth it ! The home was being sold by the state of Utah, so we had to play by their rules as well as the federal government as we purchased with an FHA loan. Long story----Wow ! We even got to have TWO closings !! Anyway, we will move into this home, and we have a signed contract & money down for a renter in our current home for the next year.
We are finally into the 'putting back together' stage on the flip home we are working on--we did end up making 3 more bedrooms, a bath, and a little 'nook' area in the basement, have the oustide re-stuccoed and painted, and have 'skimmed' over all the wallpaper upstairs (all the walls AND ceilings were wallpapered)and are getting ready for paint.
Our 'eviction house' is also almost to the 'put back together' stage as we had new windows installed last week, and just need to finish up some plumbing and electrical, and then can start the painting and flooring.
We have a few other offers out there on other properties, and just found out today that we have a sweet deal 4-plex under contract so we will start our due diligence on that. We will partner with another family member on this one also.
Thanks DG for all the great information and inspiration !!! We are busy, but busy is GOOD !!!

We closed on the 4-plex a few weeks ago. It was listed at 158K, we offered 175K as we got into a "highest and best" situation--but there was plenty of wiggle room for cash flow even at that. We got it under contract and in the inspection found a small amount of mold in one unit and got abid on repair for that at 10k, so asked for concession of 10K and closed at 165K! We will have cash flow of almost 2K monthly, and at least50K in equity from the start! We partnered with another family member on this one!

Catching up with you guys! Wow you have done some amazing deals - most excellent! I am jealous of your 4plex - I want to get into some of those, as I've learned that vacancies in multi units dont sting as much as vacancies in single family homes Are you finding your deals off the mls? Thanks for sharing with your posts and look forward to reading more

We are excited to have submitted all the "paperwork" for our 5 deal refund (we actually have 6 deals done)!!!!! We are struggling a bit now with getting all our properties fixed up and tenants in all of them so we can see some cash flow ! Thanks to the DG family for ALL of their fabulous help along the way ! It has been a great ride and we are still learning more all the time, and looking forward to much more success. We have signed up for the Set for Life system and are VERY VERY excited to announce that we will be at The Edge 2011 event !!!!!

Wow ! I'ts been a while since our last journal entry. We got our 5-deal REFUND in the mail last week !!!!
We just closed on a 1 bedroom condo that we aquired with help from some of our investment club partners. It was a seller finance deal at 40k with $2500 down. We will hold and rent it.
Our 1st "flip" house is done and out on the market, and we have acquired another one to start on.
We also placed tenant/buyers in a property that we have a lease option agreement on. They should be ready to purchase in the next year or so and are so happy to be in "their" house.
We have a couple of others offers out there, and a duplex (2 cute houses on one lot) under contract. We are talking to people and making offers all the time. We are targeting seller finance deals and really inexpensive REO's right now. Oh, and we were invited "out to lunch" with 2 small bank VP's a couple of weeks ago--hoping to do some business with them.
We are moving forward and it seems that doors just keep opening up for us. Don't get me wrong, there are times when it still seems that we are "spinning our wheels", but we just keep trying, and when we look at where we were a year ago compared to now, we can really see the progress.
Our other focus right now is getting cash flow going--even though we did our 5-6 deals in our first year, we are not like many of the "super star" students who made 5-30k on each of those deals. We are just beginning to see the cash flow now.

We sold the flip house we were working on !!! We learned a lot of lessons on that one, but didn't make much money ! We like to call it our "education tuition" on flips !?!?
We did finally purchase the 3-pex that our previous entry talked about. (The one that we did lunch with the two bank VP's. We ended up closing on that one in August of 2011. (The initial "lunch" to discuss it was in January of 2011). We closed for the exact same amount we had offered them back in January, with financing through their bank with low down payment, and great terms. Funny how long that took, but whatever works, right ?
We attended The Edge event in May of 2011 and got very inspired, and motivated to take it to the next level. It was so awesome to be in the room with "super star" students (yes, they are real) that we have watched and listened to on dvd's for a couple of years, and just with other like minded people.
We actually signed up for the advanced inner circle training at that point. We spent the next several weeks with weekly calls from our coach, Matt Walton, and then attended the small group two day conference with Dean & Matt (Larson) and about 12 other students in Arizona in September of 2011. That experience was INCREDIBLE as we got some specific advise for US and where were at the moment ! We learned sooooo much in those two days from Dean and Matt and from everyone in the group and their situations and questions ! INVALUBLE EXPERIENCE !!!!
The goals we came home with from that were to:

Re-finance the properties we have acquired (hopefully to pull some cash out)
Build our qualified buyers list
Find the perfect agent

We are working with a local bank on the re-fi's
We have added about 5 qualified buyers to our list and can't wait to do our first "assignment" deal !
We have a couple of prospective "perfect agents" we are working with

We are looking forward to our 2 day on site mentor in the near future, and some additional training in the Lehi, Utah office !

We are super busy managing our 10 properties, and 15 doors, and 2nd flip is about ready to put on the market, or we may just market it ourselves as rent to own !

Just a little update---We attended the two day advanced training in Lehi this month ! We enjoyed two fabulous days with Matt Walton, and Nathan Street, and even a SURPRISE appearance by Dean himself on the first day !!! It was again, a great experience and so fun to be surrounded with the experts and also the other like minded, motivated students who attended with us !!! We always gain so much through these events, both in knowledge and motivation to take it to the next level !
We also got a signed contract on another no money down "lease option" deal that we have been working on for several months. We are now busy marketing that one and trying to find a rent to own tenant/buyer to put in place.
We are hoping to get all of our investment properties re-fi's done in the next few weeks--that has been a long process, much more than anticipated, but will be great to get done.
Our buyers list has grown to about 20 buyers and we feel close to making that first wholesale deal soon !!!!! We continue to build that list weekly through calling for rent signs, bandit signs, mailers, etc. etc.

congratulations on all your achievements accomplished in the last year! quite amazing! I just caught up with your journal-thanks for sharing.
Are you re-financing all properties in one loan, or doing them individually?

wishing you continued success,

We just placed a lease to own tenant in the property we "acuired" back in February! We put 2k in our pocket now, and will cash flow $150 a month while they are "renting", and have the potential to make somewhere around 10k when they exercise their option to purchase in a couple of years. We were also able to help the homeowner avoid a short sale or even losing the house to foreclosure altogether. She has moved out of state and the house has been vacant for about a year while she tried to sell it on the mls with no success. Her mortgage payments will now be made monthly through an escrow company by the tenants, and she no longer needs to worry about the maintenance ! The new "tenants" are a middle aged couple and have been renting apartments for years and years and are so excited to be in an acutal home with their own yard that they will be purchasing. This is one of the many things we love about this business--creating win/ win situations for everyone involved !!!

Hello folks! Just wanted to say hello. I t was nice meetign you at the edge event. I sent you a message regarding my blog at http://kloppopoly.blogspot.com/
hope you can check it out and like it. Glad I actually met some people on DG now.

We thought we had our first Wholesale deal done last week, but when we got down to the end, the seller did not have possession of the deed yet, so the buyer wants to wait until that is in place. Seller is "holding" it for us ! But we will just keep moving forward with other leads. We also met with a new agent that we hope will submit our offers more quickly--submitted 5 in 2 days already ! (previous agent had about 40 and hasn't told us he submitted any yet !?) We also met some great new buyers--one at a community function we were volunteering at, and one who is the landlord of potential tenants--great way we find buyers lately--calling current landlords of potential tenants !!!!

Finally, our first wholesale deal is complete ! This one was way too much time/work for the amount of money we made, but it is finally done. We learned lots from doing this one, and are perfecting our system and making more offers every week. Our goal is to repeat the wholesale technique over and over again !
We also SOLD the second flip house we did, which feel so great, so we can concentrate for now on wholesaling. We may do more flip houses in the future, but much differently than the first two. Again, we learned a ton from doing these.
We are a bit embarrassed to say that we are STILL trying to find a bank that will work with us to refinance our buy and hold properties, but we WILL get that done also--which will really move us forward !