I'm a Real Estate Loser

Good Morning World, I'm a Real Estate Loser.

So over the past few months we have been looking at investing into real estate again, we purchased our home, a multi-unit a little over a year ago, we were able to fix up the property using a contractor and have enjoyed having a touch of what we wanted in our unit, while still receiving rent to help with the mortgage.  Because we have had success I was looking for ways to purchase more real estate, most likely buying and flipping the property(the shows on HGTV add to the mix) or even a buy and hold strategy to pay off the mortgage and get a little extra cash on the side each month.

Despite my enthusiasm and reading biggerpockets a real estate website for advice, the fact remained we needed a down payment for these homes and in most cases since the market we are looking in is mostly comprised of all cash investors.  In a stroke of two worlds matching up, a family member was looking to invest and felt comfortable with our decision making, which would include there money expected to be paid back in full and our name being on the loan and ultimately responsible for both the loan and any money used in the transaction.  So you can imagine my excitement, someone was willing to gamble on us in the real estate market.  I was so excited, let's make some money, watch out Donald Trump, Richard Kyosoki ain't got nothing on me, I will own Chicago one house at a time!


REALITY hit just the other day.  We have put multiple offers on properties, some low, some high, some all cash, some loan, most REO, but overall we are batting a big fat 0.  I think the crushing blow came a couple weeks ago.  We had previously submitted an offer on a house, the asking price was 181K and recently dropped to somewhere around 155K.  We felt the right price for us was to get this property at just a touch below 140K, we submitted the offer and this was rejected through Homepath which is where the government sells many of the properties from mortgages that were previously backed by FHA mortgages.  I was a little bummed out but we were on our way to San Francisco and I felt like we gave our best offer.

Then about a month later, I noticed the price had been dropped again to almost exactly what our original offer was, so I contacted our real estate professional to submit our offer again and even increased our bid a couple thousand over asking to make sure we put our highest and best offer to win the property.  After more than a week we were told we did not win the property and later saw the house move to conditional, taking it off the market.  That was the last time I have really been excited for a house and have decided it is best to focus in other areas where I enjoy my time more.

So today I am a Real Estate Loser, lost multiple bids, feels like have seen 50 houses in person to no avail.  It's a little frustrating, but as my wife says if it were mean to be it would have happened.  I think that I need to focus more on other avenues that I enjoy, including writing on the blog, my ebay store http://stores.ebay.com/GQ-Casual and my Shopify store gqcasual.com, which I just started in the past week or so.  We are still on track for the 7 year retirement, paying off debt as we go, I really believe we can make it.  Cheers and enjoy the read.

Don't forget to comment I love reading it.



 

Back to Basics

So I have been going at my diet and exercise for either 5 or 6 weeks and have a weigh-in on Wednesday(I skipped last week's weigh-in so it's 2 weeks worth). But what I have noticed is after the initial weight loss or the initial portion control we slowly go back to our old ways. Now I have done a great job of keeping the workouts fresh and new switching them up every 3rd workout, ie incline dumbbell press Mon and Wed, then Fri and Mon I will do side crawl push ups. I do this with every exercise, so nothing gets stale or old, why not switch it up with my diet and tracking of my meal plan?

So I have decided to get back to basics and switch things up. I was tracking my daily food and exercise and things I would accomplish during the day and then I started missing a day here or there and now I'm not even carrying it around. That is why I'm losing a pound and not 5 pounds, my mind and body have gone back to my old way of life. You have to have a lifestyle change when you change something that you do everyday.

So my major changes will be:

> Writing everything down in my journal

> Blogging more about finance and fitness so I stay motivated.

> Keeping my diet strong for the whole week with portion and measurement control

When I weigh in tomorrow I hope I will have lost weight at least a couple pounds, but if not I will truly get back to basics and start off with that 5 pound weight loss like I had in week 1. Steven Donovan working hard.