Real Life and Real Estate

End of a year and a decade.

2009-12-30T07:12:00.000-08:00

So this is it the end of 2009 and the end of the first decade of this millennium. I accomplished a lot of different things this year and decade, yet I am missing some important things in my life at the same time.

This year has been at times great in every aspect of life in so many more ways than any person can ask for. It has also been very trying in some personal aspects, but I digress I should have expected it. Business wise though the year closes with a bang,tomorrow I will have my last closing of the year. So I guess I am set business wise, personally is a horse of another color though lol.

Next year I have set the goal of closing 50 deals, I also will be putting out more material here and in other places. I have grown to be completely comfortable in my abilities now which will allow me to do one of the things I enjoy most in life, helping others!

Under the advisement of some great new friends I have made this year (Shae and Nick), this very blog will re-debut next year with a new name and location! That will remain secret for now. I thank all of you for reading this and being responsive to it also.

I am excited about some new marketing ideas I have been testing out, they are getting an even better response than I originally anticipated and they also happened to be essentially free! I have read and studied in the neighborhood of 7 complete wholesaling courses and hadn't seen any of these ideas so I wasn't sure if they would work or not. Yet me being willing to think for myself a little bit came up with something new lol, of course when you have a big goal like I do for the next year it's best that you get as many leads as possible.

The rest of this week though won't be spent relaxing unfortunately, one I am no good at it, two I have so many other things to try out. My buyers' list is something I am trying to get sorted out definitely, getting everything completely organized is another task on the immediate horizon.

Here are a few websites everyone should check out if they haven't already www.gogladiator.com Harrison Painter is one of my favorite people I have met via twitter. www.goodfaithinvesting.com Shae is a great person and a much better blogger than I am lol. www.subject2.com Nick is a cool guy and adding to my investing strategies for the new year. www.biggerpockets.com another great networking site for real estate investors. http://justinmcclelland.com is another good blog by a young guy hustling hard.

Well that is all for now I hope everyone works for what they want in the new year, it's a lot better to achieve a goal through hard work than having it handed to you! That's probably the most important lesson I learned in my first decade of grown upness lol that is so not a word. It doesn't matter if you are flipping houses, contracts, a nurse, a doctor, a corporate puppet, or whatever just remember two simple words and you will have the best year and decade of your life going forward.DO WORK!

Time and The Real Estate Investor.

2009-12-09T04:10:00.000-08:00

So since I am up at an unusually early hour even for me I figured why not give a little advice or even rant a little bit. Time is the most important thing to not only real estate investors, but really everyone in general. Some people don't understand the power of a four letter word as simple as time.

Time is a word that has so many different little meanings, there are 24 hours in a day and the average person uses a third of their hours on earth sleeping. So right off the bat 8 hours of our time is spoken for. There are 16 hours left for you to get everything else you have to do accomplished. Time is also what everyone uses to schedule the other things in life like work, doing things with friends, family, girlfriends/boyfriends, activities, etc. Time is also what we put in to educate ourselves, earn money, or just to build relationships.

Yesterday I talked to a quote en quote "real estate investor" he had a property on craigslist listed; so I gave him a call I had a little interest in it, but really I was just calling to see what all he had. Then that's where the time comes into play; he wasted my time trying to sound like a big shot, he obviously hadn't put in his time educating himself on his new profession/exciting new hobby, or learning how to create a working relationship with someone.

First of all if you are getting into this business reading a free 5 page e-book does not, will not, nor will ever qualify you to be an expert! Put some time into learning what you are doing before you alienate yourself from everyone you try to sell to. Second read your e-book more than once if you are gonna tell anyone how the "business" works and how you know everything about it to avoid dumb mistakes like; "buying from me is easier than buying from a Realtor because there is no title or anything to deal with." Third when interacting with someone pay attention to them or you are wasting their time. Don't ask the same questions repeatedly, take your index finger and follow along your sorry script you are reading so you don't lose your place. Lastly and this is a good one for anyone keep your appointments! We all have a bunch of things we could be doing whether it be researching, following up on another lead, or something with family. So when we plan to give our time to you respect it enough to let us know something came up or whatever as soon as you can. Showing that you value someone's time can go a long way to the betterment of any relationship!

So it's been a rough few days and I'll know in a little while if it is getting rougher my son got a little sick last night, but I am hoping he is okay.

On a side note I made some great new contacts and actually had great conversations with @entrepreneurHI and @motiv8td. Matt and Nick look forward to talking with you guys again soon! As well as I am excited to talk to @ShaeBynes today also. Shae is always so helpful and her blog is great too. www.goodfaithinvesting.com

Post Holiday update

2009-12-01T09:30:00.001-08:00

Hello again avid readers. So this past week was Thanksgiving as you all know, and I hope yours was terrific. Anyway the holiday was a wonderful thing from a personal standpoint, but business wise the turkey coma did not help any at all lol.
I realized this so I went to work on Saturday, well figuratively speaking, I checked out some of my leads, looked into the properties, and then picked two at random and called them. Now for me just cold calling someone is a huge deal. Until Sunday I had a small phobia of talking on the phone to people I don't know. Any hesitance I once had is now completely gone, it was so much easier than trying to do as much by email as possible. No bogus scripts, no waiting two days for an answer to a simple question, just a simple conversation and it was all wrapped up in ten minutes.
As for the fun part I had both contracts in hand by Monday evening and buyers for both properties before noon on Tuesday. Take care and stay tuned for more.

Real Life and Real Estate: The Wild Weekend + 1

2009-11-16T20:44:00.000-08:00

Real Life and Real Estate: The Wild Weekend + 1

The Wild Weekend + 1

2009-11-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

So it hasn't been that long since I last wrote, but enough has gone on over the weekend that I feel like updating everyone again already. First of all I would like to thank everyone that has been reading and commenting via twitter. So away we go.

As you know from my last post I have set a few goals for myself for the remainder of the year. I found a couple of sellers who were motivated and either agreed to terms or had a good enough asking price that I couldn't pass up, oh wait agreed to terms in an understatement...

Seller one started off great we had great communications back and forth, I even got to flex some negotiation muscle and knocked a few thousand off of her asking price even though it wasn't necessary. (Tip: Sometimes you can make a good deal great ,but you won't if you don't ask for anything.)We agreed to terms on the deal and then chaos ensues as soon as she gets the contract. She asked a few questions that I answered clearly to ease her concerns, but she insisted upon some contract changes be made so I reworded it to say exactly the same thing just in first grade terms. Then she decides that she wants to make more changes which was fine I just wanted it to be over. Yet she finds a way to ask for more changes at this point I personally would have lost the deal due to a patience issue; but my assistant saved things by catering to the seller and saved it all. (Kudos to you Katie)Somehow though we still had to make a new closing date and put time to move in writing which isn't an issue. Finally I got the contract today and an end buyer in place.

Seller two however was the most motivated seller in the history of earth it was so quick and simple with him from beginning to end. His asking price was so low I tried to offer him double even knowing what he wanted, and he politely declined. It's such a good deal I'm thinking of trying out putting a tenant buyer in it. I'd appreciate any comments or advice from others who have experience with tenant buyers/ owner financing. My mentor sometimes takes too long to answer questions lol. My email address once again is gregoryleonharris@gmail.com

Thanks for reading and god bless.

This Week In My World.

2009-11-13T11:57:00.000-08:00

So this week has been more of an education week and wading through last week's crazy idea of making 40 offers. Okay that's not entirely true I did play too much Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 lol.

Anyways this week I have been conversing with people in markets a little bit further away than normal but I've got buyers in those markets now as a result as part of doing my due diligence. However these people seem to be in love with email which is fine ,but it would just be easier to talk on the phone for 10 minutes and be done.

This new REO guy I've been talking to has a crazy list that somehow everything is the same price or has a huge gap in between point a and point b ,and as I'm starting to find out in the ghetto. It kind of makes finding rehab buyers a little more difficult it's an interesting challenge though.

I started training my new assistant Wednesday I think she will do great and has already been a big help. As she learns the right questions to ask she will save me an extensive amount of time that will be allocated to finding more deals.

I have decided that for the rest of the year I'd like to wholesale two houses a month. I know it doesn't sound like a whole lot, however I'm finding where you find one deal two or three more come right along with it. I will also be focusing on my direct mail marketing which will set up a good start for next year.

Thats all for now next week I'll try out a new format.

Special Subject

2009-11-04T16:18:00.000-08:00

This is a special volume of the Real Life and Real Estate blog. Today is one of those real life moments it is my son Quentin's sixth birthday! So first happy birthday to you my son who is getting pretty good at reading.

Second his birth is one of the best things that I have ever experienced. It changed my life in a positive way, it could no longer just be about me. Which in turn improved my relationships with other people especially strangers. To me becoming a father teaches you to care instantly for someone you have never even met.

So in some regards my son is responsible for multiple levels of my successes of the last six years and all of them in the future. He gave me a reason to succeed and softened up the tough guy enough to care about others genuinely. It's strange what you can actually learn from anyone if your eyes, ears, and heart are truly open.

So the next installment will inform and update everyone about a special challenge to myself. It's actually been an exciting and amazing week stay tuned. I promise the next one will be more directly real estate related.

Day 1 A.B.

2009-10-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

So today got a little interrupted but it was for a good reason, my son received an award at school so I gladly went to the assembly. Most of my time today was spent compiling the leads that I've gathered from just driving around into a new program for REI I'm trying out. I won't name the program at this time in the blog; one for the simple reason I don't know enough about it yet to say yes its good,bad,or in between. Two I don't want to endorse anything that I wouldn't guarantee is phenomenal. If you're interested in what it is you can send me an email and I'll tell you the name and where to get it.

So after I figured out where everything went I made 5 offers. I only heard one no so that's a decent start. Also got an end buyer in place for a house I had under contract from my old system using some new marketing tactics which should turn about an 8500 dollar profit.

Started shopping around for a website host also for 2 websites that I have built.

So that's it for this one hopefully I start appearing on google soon and pick up some followers. I changed the name still kind of playing around to find the perfect title. Thanks for reading tweet to all of your friends to follow this blog too lol.

Hello World

2009-10-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

So this is my first blog and I will tell you about myself and the mission. My name is Gregory L. Harris I am 28 years old and live in Chanute, KS. I am a single dad with a son named Quentin who turns 6 on November 4th and have a lovely girlfriend Katie. I've done a lot of things successfully from boxing and MMA ,which I will always have passion for, to acting to working regular old jobs. I have some great friends and family even though we have our differences on various things I love them all. Anyway I am now dedicating myself to real estate investing I have learned so many things and I will share helpful tips with my readers. I've recently obtained new mentoring from some of the big name guys in the business so you can follow me day to day under the new tutelage. Feel free to get in contact with me on any questions, suggestions, or even just to chit chat. The title of the blog is a reference to my philosophy on accomplishing any goal the fastest way to reach it is a straight line and full speed ahead. Thank you for reading I haven't written a whole lot in the last few years so the sentence structure will improve lol.