Monday, September 17, 2007

Back in Action

So, I've been out at a training class for a week so I haven't been updating at all. A lot has happened since my last post on many fronts.

First off, I managed to do my weekly trip to the courthouse last Friday. Picked up a pretty substantial amount of leads since it had been two weeks since my last visit. This was great since I took the big plunge earlier in the week. I got over my qualms and made some calls to my potential investors. Some of them were duds, more real estate agents that weren't actually investors, but I found one who acts as a wholesaler. He is willing to split any sales profits with me 50/50, which was an unexpected but positive happenstance. So after I gathered my leads on Friday I emailed my collection to him. I didn't do the extra research this time since I'm not sure what information he wants. It seems the approach he takes is to send out letters to people and then work with whomever contacts him. I'm not sure if anything will come of this yet, but it's a nice feeling to think that there is a potential out there for my efforts to come to a profitable conclusion.

I ran into an older guy named Jim at the courthouse while I was there on Friday. He was looking at the foreclosures as well and does his own wholesaling thing. Apparently he normally goes to the courthouse near where he lives in Annapolis and every so often will make the trip out to Howard county. He gave me some advice about joining an REI and to hang in there and stick with it. I should have asked him more questions, but running into him caught me off guard. Maybe I'll run into him again, so we'll see.

I had not given any thought to going to other courthouses. The investor I talked to said that he use to go to the one in Baltimore and would get hundreds of hits each time. I'm not sure the frequency he went, but the idea sounds pretty good.

My current plan is to procure a laptop, which will greatly increase the speed I can copy down lead information, and then maybe try to find ways to hit up the other courthouses. It's hard to fit in time to do it around work, since they are open during normal business hours only, which is the same time I'm required to be at work.

I'd like to start working at home more, since that would eliminate commute time and give me some more flexibility. There seems to be some snags and grumbling about my training from last week and what budget to charge it to, so I'm currently keeping a low profile until whatever details are causing problems get ironed out. I'm hoping after a few solid work days back at the office things will be closer to back to normal. I guess I'll just wait and see.

At this point I'm happy with my current progress. I'd like to contact some more investors, solidify the information for my leads and then start adding other lead sources for the future goals. I'd also like to expand my operation to more than just me. I realize having investors that provide the capital and finish the purchase process counts as more than just me, but since I don't have an opportunity to do much during normal business hours, I need to find someone who can.

I'm also done with the GMAT. My scores weren't as high as I wanted but I am proud of my writing score of 5.5/6. I need to being the process of putting together all the information I need to actually apply to the schools. Plus there is still the matter of how to pay for it. Now that I'm back at the grind I guess I have more time to look into that.

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