I am going to be putting together a short series of posts that will list some great real estate investor blogs. These blogs will surely make it to your rss reader. Initially I was just going to make one giant list, but upon further analysis I realized that by breaking up the list into smaller sub-categories it would put proper focus on what each of these amazing blogs bring to the table.
Top 5 Up and Coming Investor Blogs
I first wanted to give a shout out to those blogs that are being maintained by Up and Comers in 2010. These are Real Estate Investors who have yet to really crack their first deal or are working hard to keep a past deal’s momentum going. The common strand in these blogs is the author’s dedication to hard work. Not one of them is afraid to fail and their ability to keep moving forward, from those failures, tells me these are by far the most interesting blogs to read. Never will you learn more about a person then you will by watching them struggle. These five investors will surely be around for a long time to come as apposed to the multitude of other investor blogs who start out strong but fade away as life happens.
These are in no particular order..
1. Kelly Flippin Cali by Kelly Miller.
Kelly is a fast mover and has no problem over coming her fears. She wrote one of the most useful articles I’ve ever read when it comes to getting MLS access without your license (How To: Get MLS Access WithOut Your License). She lives in California and has attempted to wholesaler there with little success, but that hasn’t stopped her from her dreams. She is pressing her luck in VEGAS now and things are looking up. Outside of being a go getter, she is very giving and that shows in her blog. One of my favorite posts was her most recent one, Tearing it up, where she lead off with…
On the way to the airport to catch the plane to Vegas right after Thanksgiving, we went to look at 5 houses in a lightning round of speed shopping. Two of the houses looked great , one might have been too pricey so I made an offer on one. On the ride back from Vegas, the bank asked for highest and best, I bumped it up just a tad, and BAM, fish on! Woo Hoo! I found out later, I was 1k less than the other cash offers????
Got to love that!
2. Good Faith Investing by Shae Bynes
Shae is by far one of my favorite people period. Even if her blog wasn’t about Real Estate Investing I’d be subscribing. Shae works a full time job on the side and also has a rental property or two, so she has done some investing before. However, Mrs. Bynes main focus now is getting into wholesaling properties in South Florida. She is an expert at networking and routinely will write about new networking opportunities she might have and the reasons why it is a good idea to start up that relationship. I’ve gotten a lot of ideas from reading her posts. You will also understand why she is going to be so successful because she does things like this…
I’ve spent the last two weeks thinking and writing about goals for this year, and now I’m at the tail end of the process of writing out the action plans for each of those goals which I’ve categorized into: Physical, Spiritual, Business/Financial, Personal/Relationships. I’m really excited to head up to Tampa next weekend to hang with my girl Steph Davis so we can do more planning, sharing of ideas, and just plain having fun.
That are the actions of a successful person! Networking, setting and defining goals and having fun are all keys to success in this business. We’d all do ourselves good by doing what she does. Shae also regularly posts articles to my site as well as is a guest poster on the BiggerPockets.com’s blog.
3. SAHM Real Estate Investor by Ingrid Armstrong
Ingrid is a special person. She works so hard at balancing her family, her tight budget and dealing with all the crap life has to offer that I find it hard to believe she can work in REI. The best part about her blog is how open she is about her personal life and the struggles she goes through. I root for Ingrid to make it more then anyone else and I know she will. This past fall I thought that maybe Ingrid would give up on Real Estate Investing and any momentum she had developed because of some family emergencies. Through it all she persevered and is getting so close to that first deal. Take a look at her last post, Another Lead in the pipeline.
4. Goin’ Flippin’ Crazy! by Flippin’ Carey
Carey has had some success with wholesaling a couple of years ago but needed to take a break to get some other things in order. She is now back with a vengeance and looking to take no prisoners. Her focus right now is multi-unit apartment buildings and is getting some good and some interesting responses from sellers. Like this one…
“Oh Carey. It sounds like you’re a woman, that’s good because if you were a man I would have been pretty angry. So you want to buy my property? Do you know anything about it? Do you know how much land it has? Anyway, you can call me back at this number.”
That just could not be made up people. You can find the rest of that post here, 2 More Calls From Our Direct Mail Campaign. Additionally Carey will talk about here other passive income streams such as her ATM business.
5. Live and Flip by Jason “BilgeFisherman” Miller
Jason and I have a little contest going to see who will get the first Probate Deal wrapped up and I’ll be honest I’m a little scared. The loser will give out a $100 gift card to one of the winner’s blog commenters. So if you are smart you’ll follow both of our blogs to double your chances of winning free money. In all honesty Jason is hard working and will do great things in the near future. His current focus is on Probates and he just got 147 leads from his supplier after 3 months of neglect on their part and is off to the races. On his first call he got “THAT CALL” that we all hear about…
Got my first phone call a few minutes ago. The lady on the other end was a bit unhappy with me. Let me see if I can remember all the words that I can share, scumbag, vulture, cruel, insensitive, all being screamed at me. Thank goodness. My letters are working.
I don’t care who you are, if you come out of a call like that and are still willing to take another, you are going to make it!
Look for my post next week about the top investors who are kicking butt and taking names
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Hey Scott!
Thanks for including me on your list. I can't wait until I get my first multi-unit deal and that way you can come back here and update your list saying that BAM I got some stuff done and I'm gonna keep on keepin' on!
I liked the rest of your top 5 too…..a couple are new to me so I'll have to check them out further!
Your blog was one of the first I thought of and I enjoy reading your posts, especially when you get a bit more personal about your life and how your family affects your investing.
Thanks for the shout out. Its only a matter of time before anyone of us lands that deal.
Aw, thanks for the shout out, Scotty! So sweet. You're awesome and I'm so excited to see you so focused with the probate investing. Keep movin' towards closing that deal by end of February!
You are correct. All awesome blogs!! To see you and Ingrid really working it is very motivating. I see Bilgefisherman comment on a lot of blogs, but will have to add him to my blogroll..
No problem Jason. Thanks for sharing your investing stories with us
You are very welcome Shae!
I just sent out another round of postcards, so should be getting some more calls by the end of the week.
Good idea to ad Jason's blog to your list and thanks for reading my blog. It keeps me going strong knowing that other people are reading and getting motivated by my actions.
Thanks Vannie
Carey stick to it. You can do it. Took me a year to get my first apartment deal. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Nice! I like to see people possibly connecting because of my blog. You are always so helpful Chris!
oh WTF!!! How come I can't make anyone's list?
I'm such a loser! what do I gotta do around here? make some bribes?
You're in my top 5 Nick.
Duh. How else do you think i made the list?
Um..Nick…it says “up and coming”….you've already done what others are working towards!
What happened to Chris comment? I got it in my email but it doesn't show up here? Weird.
And thanks Chris….I may just take you up on that offer. I appreciate it. Looking forward to buying my first apartment sooner than a year (or else I'm in big trouble lol) I'm thinking that I can get past the “fear” part rather quickly since I've already gotten passed the “fear” aspect with every other part of investing….so what's one more fear? Right? Piece of cake this time around
You're on one of my lists alright! LOL
I appreciate reading blogs such as these. It lets me know I am not the only investor working night and day trying to close my first deal. Its really a great learning experience when I close this house I will have a better idea of what I was doing wrong and right.
LeJonR
In hindsight I probably could have done it faster than a year if I had just stayed focus. I would say there was a 3-4 month fog where I was working multi-family but I was starting to doubt myself so I began testing other investing methods (wholesaling, which is great but it distracted me)
Then my mentor set me straight. He said, stay focused you are almost there. You dont know it yet, but the fog will lift soon, you just dont know exactly when. Then it happened!! I stuck to it, stayed focused on multi-family and got it. I jumped up and down for about an hour when it closed, total fist pump style (mtv jersey shore style… kidding, but I did grow up in NJ)
If you are getting responses from sellers from your marketing, turn up the gas and market more, all it takes is that one. Also, be constantly contacting commercial brokers. I know this can be intimidating and yes some will treat you like a newb, because you get the “Where do you own property?” and then your stomach sinks. You just have to push through that. Say something like, “I represent a group of investors from xxxx, and we are very interested in the area” (if you have spoken to the EDC of the area, you can add something like, “we are interested because of the initiatives in xxx area of the city,do you know of any properties for sale in that area” (makes you sound like a player)
Then tell the broker your criteria, “I am looking for 5-20 units in B/C areas, I prefer C areas. I am ok with vacancy problems as long as the property does not require an entire gut job(this is my criteria, but you get the idea). I am also looking in this price range xxx–xxxx, can you send me properties that meet my criteria”
One word advice, do NOT, do NOT say, 'I am looking for properties with assumable mortgages or motivated sellers that will carry the mortgage” You will instantly discredit yourself, the broker will throw your contact info away as soon as you get off the phone. It will make it seem like you just got out of a guru seminar.
If the broker asks, “how do you plan on financing this”, my stock answer, 'It depends on price and condition of the property, but I am prepared to bank finance this or pay cash if I can get enough of a discount.”
Even if you can't qualify for a loan, or dont have cash, trust me, if the numbers work, and you can find a deal where it truly is can yield 30+% returns for an investor, you can find cash. Also, if a property is more than 20-30% vacant, most banks wont touch it, so you would need cash or seller fi anyway. But the response I gave, just makes you sound more seasoned. Plus, alot of people are assuming mtgs and using seller fi, but just dont lead with it when introducing yourself to a broker.
Love talking about this stuff!!!!
oh
shit list?
Well, at least someone loves me
you are not yet on that list. You will see what list you are on in about a week.
Wow! Awesome stuff Chris! Thanks so much for all of the info there above. I will definitely use it and I'm totally focused on multi's right now. Honestly, I stopped everything else.
Just got another response from our mailings. So far 6 out of 278 for the first mailing. Not all good but like you said, it just takes 1. We'll be meeting with 1 of a few commercial brokers next week. Actually your comment was pretty timely because we were just wondering what the heck to say to the broker lol
I guess the A, B, C, D properties is all known throughout the industry. I was curious if all brokers would know what that meant or if it was just a “guru” thang lol It appears that they all know what that means from your comment.
Wow…thanks again. Great information there. I'm gonna print it out and I'm gonna copy and paste it and email it to Kathy (who is away for work now.)
Thanks Scott again for posting my blog here…without that post I may have never met Chris
You rock Scott! Muah!
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NP Carey.
I went onto your blog and read the 'About me' I think you can actually spin your response slightly differently, my response was for a person who has never done a deal. I did not realize that you have owned rental property in the past. So when a broker says, “Where do you own property?”, you can say, “currently I do not own any but a few years ago I had many rental properties in xxx and I am getting back in the game” Then you can use what I said above, either with 'I work with a group of buyers from xxx”, or “I am interested in buying some properties for myself as well I have some interested buyers from xxx looking for properties”
Of course, this is not exact, but you get the idea.
Some brokers will be hesitant to answer about ABCD areas, because as a realtor they can not steer you from one neighborhood to the next. Some brokers will be open, some will not, if you get a broker that is hesitant, just say, “I understand you are uncomfortable answering that question and I respect that, but I am not interested in D areas/war zoness. So I just want to make sure the properties are not in those areas and we dont waste each other's time.” (unless of course you are ok with D areas, can make a lot of money there, just have to be very careful and need to know what you are doing)
I find that using ABCD nomenclature added to my credibillity in the beginning, as long as you understand each class for properties and areas. As you are driving around your own local area, begin to classify the area and buildings, this will help you determine it quickly in a new city. There is no sign saying “We are now entering a C area”
OMG! I am just now seeing this, as I am trying to catch up on my Google Reader sites, since the laptop is back up and running! Scott, THANK YOU! I'm speechless (and I'm embarrassed to say, nearly in tears…I get emotional…lol) I'm still going at it, and hope to post an update tonight. Thanks again, Scott! You made my day!
Just keep up the good work Ingrid. Your blog has a different feel then most others and I enjoy that.