Saturday, July 28, 2007

Need Stable Income… Get a Job?

To get a job or to do some wholesaling/bird-dogging for other investors or both? I can’t wait any longer without solving the issue of income.

We’ve had a few random places that we’ve been getting money in the last couple of months. That, plus credit cards have kept us going. But now both sources have dried up.

I can’t just run away from my responsibility and move in with my parents like I did in the past. I am married now and must support my wife. She NEEDS security/stability. The lack of stability has been an issue for our entire marriage of 2.5 years. That must change.

The source of income must bring in enough money to cover our bare-minimum living expenses of about $1,500-2,000, PLUS her credit card payments of $1000. So I need after tax income of $3,000 per month. (I’m not factoring in my mortgages and MY credit card bills).

We managed to continue paying all of HER credit cards. So her FICO score is still pretty good - though the cards are all maxed out. That’s the only thing that’s affecting her score right now. Good thing she is not on any of the real estate loans (except for hard money loan - hopefully they will not report).

Work under my “Rich Dad?”

I do have a very good opportunity to mentor under a millionaire real estate investor. I went to high school with a buddy who’s dad made all his money in the last down market in California - back in the 90’s. So he would be perfect to learn from. Can you see the next blog idea: “How to Make Money in Real Estate in a Down Market!”. :-)

However, rich dad is not willing to pay me a salary. I will have to make money by bringing him deals - under his guidance. So my money will come from finders’ fees / assignment frees. He will buy deals from me or help me sell the deals to other investors.

Problem is… I am not sure how long I will have to work before I find my first deal. So it’s not exactly a stable source of income - at first. (I did put in that one offer an a fixer-upper… maybe that will be my first one).

It’s a very exciting opportunity though! I will stay in the real estate game and learn to do it the right away. And make money while I’m learning.

I will have to work really hard - harder than at a regular job - but I will get rewarded for the extra work. Just like a salesman or any other self-employed individual - my earnings will be directly proportional to my production - not my title.

Or tie myself up with traditional employment?

If I get some full-time hourly job for 8 hours a day, my hands will be tied. I will have just a couple of hours a day at night to devote to continuing my real estate investing education and work on the business. I will have very little time to spend at home. My sleep, marriage, and social life will likely suffer even more.

I can’t just do a job. I do not want to give up my dream of financial independence. If I get a full-time job, I will continue doing my business and investing on the side. Finding time to do both will be hard (tried it before many times). If I must do that, I will. But it will probably take much longer to reach my goals.

An hourly job has limited earnings potential. Getting a 3% raise every year is not my idea of “upwardly mobile”. Making $25/hour writing code seems like a waste of time when I can sell a real estate contract for $5,000 after doing 5 hours of work = that’s $1000/hour!

So if I can work really hard for one month and find just 2 deals, I can make $10,000. That’s much better return on my time. This will also allow me to perhaps pay back all my debt instead of declaring bankruptcy.

This is the 1-in-a-hand-and-2-in-the-bush type of idea. (More accurately: 100 in a bush). A job is instant stability but limited pay. Doing my own business is future stability with unlimited pay.

The 1-in-a-hand is not exactly true. I don’t have any job offers right now. I still need to go out there and try to find a descent job that will cover our expenses and wife’s credit card bills. I do have tech / internet / programming background. But finding a good tech job is not exactly easy or fast.

I can hear some of you haters critics ready to criticize me about not looking for a job this entire time. “If you started sending out your resumes when you first got into trouble you would have already had one!“… sounds good but my reality is not that simple.

Last month, I did have a pretty good job opportunity present itself out of the blue. The pay was good and the work was right up my alley. But, honestly, I really did not want to take it because of the reasons above. However, I knew it was the smart thing to do. So I told the guys I will be starting in a week. Then the whole thing fell through.

Tough decisions!

I’m an entrepreneur at heart. It’s very hard for me to work in a cubicle. I will do it if I have to.

This week I must decide on a source of stable income! I can’t wait any longer or we’ll be on the street. Yes, my parents might take us back home… but how embarrassing is that? That would mean I really failed as a husband and provider.

I also need to meet with a couple of bankruptcy attorneys to get advice about my foreclosure situation, real estate and credit card debt. I’ve been procrastinating in this area. Plus, I need to consult my CPA about tax implications on short sales, bankruptcy and other stuff. I will compare their advice with some of your comments on the blog. I will report my findings later.

Hopefully I will find enough money to pay the professionals…

It’s going to be a very busy week!!!

113 Comments

  • 1. Practical Advice
    October 16th, 2006 at 1:36 pm

    You need to keep something in mind here: Your current post/thought process would be great for a guy starting from scratch. However, you are on the hook for 2.2 million dollars, and at best, you’re going to be in the hole for several hundred grand regardless of short sales or anything else.

    My advice is this: You should try to get contracting work. It will fluctuate (some weeks will be 80 hours, others will be zero) but you can use the off weeks to do deals. Also, anyone with a job will tell you that you can scare up an hour or two a day to work on side projects (RE deals) if you manage your workload effectively. Lots of people have jobs where they do 2 hours of work and surf the web all day… Certainly not a good harbringer of their future employment, but those jobs/people are out there.

    How many deals is “rich dad” going to help you out with? How tough are his guidelines? I’m not a “rich dad” but would love to find someone out there who can provide distressed RE at a big discount to me. You could start a company doing that, or just roll it into your consulting business.

    I honestly think you’re probably screwed, but there are a few ideas to get you rolling.

  • With each blog entry and every little keystroke you show it…

    How will you make it on your own? This world is awfully big, and buddy, this time you’re all alone, but it’s time you started living, it’s time you let someone else do some giving.

    You can have a town, why don’t you take it? Casey, You’re gonna Make it After All!

  • 1. Work on your priorities. Getting a stable base is more important than anything else. That means resolve your current situation and go back to a ‘normal’ job until you have paid off your debts and rebuilt some savings.

    If you do not do this… even if you manage to stay out of jail somehow THIS TIME, you will go there another time.

    2. The whole $5,000 for 5 hours work is BS. If you can only get two of those deals a month, that equates to $10K for 176 hours work (assuming that you do no more than if it were a day job). You have to include all of the wasted time looking at prospects that do not pan out, the cost of travel and shmoozing and the possibility that some of the deals will be less profitable than you hope.

    3. Do not knock renting. There are a number of aspects to Real Estate investing… If you buy a run-down property to fix-up and resell, that can be a reasonably profitable business, but a down-turn in the market can cripple you unless you have the option to rent out the property for a while. That reduces your cash flow issues and can keep you afloat until the market is better.

    4. It is not an either or decision. Most real Real Estate investors start off by investing on the side of their ‘real’ job. Only when they are making regular, reliable profits (typically from the cash-flow on rented properties) from their investments do they quit the day job.

    5. You do not need any more Real Estate Education that you have to pay for. Heck, you didn’t need the expensive education that you have already got. There are two simple facts that are the basis behind EVERY get rich quick scheme that actually works… 1. Buy low, sell high and 2. Do not expect to get rich quick. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. Instead, the ‘gurus’ have not retired because they can make more money out of conning amateurs than they ever made through Real Estate Investing.

    6. The best education that you can get is by doing the job. STARTING AT THE BOTTOM. Work as a Realtor or as a Property Manager or on a Construction Crew. Learn the trade. Make contacts with people who are trustworthy and competent. Learn what to look for. Learn how to resolve problems. Learn what problems can arise so that you know what to expect. DO IT ON SOMEONE ELSE’S DIME. You will make mistakes, and so you should. Your boss will expect them and help you resolve them. In time, you will learn from them and THEN, you will be able to start working for yourself and have a reasonable chance of success.

    7. I am 40 years old. I never thought I would make it past 30 but, like most of us, I was wrong. Declare Bankruptcy, try to avoid getting prosecuted (which may include having to pay back most of your debts even after the bankruptcy). Spend 10 years learning the trade and start afresh at 35. By the time you are 40, you could then be making a decent living from your own business and be building capital.

    Good luck… but remember that luck comes to those who work for it. See an attorney NOW and start building that stable foundation.

  • Casey,
    I really cannot understand your inability to have a more balanced perspective on having a job. For some reason you make it into an all or nothing scenario, when in fact a real job, with a stable check can be the means to springboarding your other finacial pursuits.

    When I was your age I had spent the majority of my youth traveling around and having a really good, yet irresponsible time. I was 24 and homeless and had come to the decision that I needed to stop messing around, quit using drugs and get real. I started out working for a painting contractor for $5 an hour. Five stinkin dollars an hour. This was in 1994. It was such a humbling/humiliating experience to do that, but it was what I needed to do to get things started.

    I worked about 50 hours a week and took my little pay raises and saved as much money as I could and watched and learned. ( I was now making about $8 an hour) After 9 months I purchesed an airless sprayer and enough tools to begin doing side jobs and my income doubled. Within another 6 months I was completely on my own making about $1000 week. I saved as much as I could and made a downpayment on a fourplex apartment and moved into one of the units and let the other three units pay the mortgage/tax and insurance. I gradually grew my business and was able to make a downpayment on another rental property that allowed me about $400 month positive cashflow. After that I started making down payments on land and used the rental cash flow to pay the payments. Come this February I will own all of my properties and land outright and will be sitting on a small fortune in equity and a very nice cash flow per month. All of this was possible because of small amounts of steady income to build a firm foundation. Your choices are not as extreme as you make them out to be. Wealth is achievable in this country with hard work, savings and smart decisions OVER TIME.

  • You should be deeply ashamed of yourself and your attitude. I would have more respect for you if you were honest and working at Wal-Mart, rather than who you really are. You don’t deserve to have your own business, and no wonder your friend’s father won’t pay you a salary, he probably knows that you could be looking at jail time and he doesn’t want his company known for hiring criminals. Shame, shame, shame on you.

  • Rent out your properties, doofus!! Collect 1st month + damage deposit on each lease… then you will have some income coming in and you can eat… while figuring your way out of this mess.

    Sheesh…..

  • Although I am certain that you aren’t making up the senario of your troubles, I’m not certain that you are actually being upfront about everything. Reading through your posts makes me think that you are putting on a bit of a show just to keep us coming back. If this is the case then congrats because you have a lot of people coming here just see what you write next.

    PT Barnum would be proud.

  • Casey:

    Do a reality check. Working for 5 hours to make $5,000? Depends how you define the work involved. Maybe you’d be on the phone for 4 hours and 1 hour signing documents. But I’ll bet it really takes a lot more time and bandwidth than you think.

    For example, the real estate agent who sold me my last house probably made $3000 per hour measured against how long it took to get the deal done, but it’s not like he does this all day every day.

    I don’t think your “rich dad” values your contribution if there’s no salary involved. (Not that I’d expect him to considering your judgement lately.) He’d probably “buy a deal” from anyone. That’s not true mentoring.

    For income, consider freelancing. It’s not stable, but it’s better than nothing. It could even lead to a job. It doesn’t have to be permanent. (But if you do freelance, be sure to pay your estimated taxes!)

  • Casey writes:

    “Making $25/hour writing code seems like a waste of time when I can sell a real estate contract for $5,000 after doing 5 hours of work = that’s $1000/hour!”

    You’re letting greed warp your thinking. From the “deals” you found in the past, except for the first one, when the market hadn’t begun to decline seriously, you have poor judgment about real estate values. You appeared to have paid too much for most of your 5-7 properties, though you _think_ they are worth more. (Hint: they are only worth the “clearing” price, not some intrinsic value.)

    So you’re letting the “$1000 an hour” fantasy warp your judgment once again.

    Another thing is that local real estate agents are ALMOST ALWAYS the ones who spot significant underpriced properties. It’s doubtful that someone in Sacramento will know the local markets, the trends, the local contractors, etc., in faraway places like Rio Rancho, Dallas, etc.

    (My hunch is that those involved in the deals in these far-off places saw you as a “mark.”)

    I’m not one who says you ought to get an hourly job…as you correctly point out, the looming debt demand your full attention.

    But your full attention should be on liquidating your properties just as fast as you can, at whatever loss is implied by market values.

    That you borrowed $3000 from a friend and then put part of it into YET ANOTHER DEAL is mind-boggling. You should be using any and all funds that come your way to hire the expertise you will nee to get out from under these debts without being charged with fraud.

    (It may be too late, but if you liquidate the properties and only face unpaid debts you may be able to avoid criminal fraud charges…it depends on how the screwed lenders feel about pressing charges.)

    You need to consult a good lawyer. Not the kind of lawyer you said you talked to a week ago, who you say was somewhat positive about your “raffle” idea. (Which showed obvious ignorance of basic laws.)

    If you don’t even have the money to hire a lawyer, it may be time to do what some people have suggested: mail in the keys and send letters to all of your various lenders saying you have no intention of paying any more. Then see what shakes out from there.

    Fantasies about “bird-dogging” for the next month or two, with “visions of sugar plums” ($10,000 fees) dancing in your head, are just that, fantasies. The silly “rich dad” mentality is something to sell books, not a real world approach to take seriously.

    –Tim

  • I don’t think its necessarily true that self-employed people make more money. Certainly some do, but this doesn’t mean anything. Based on the small business owners I’ve had personal contact with, I’d suspect the opposite. Most small business owners on the high end have extensive formal training and significant prior experience as an apprentice.

    However, if you lack formal education, it may be the case that you might not be able to get as much money as you like. There’s still time to fix this, you know.

    Also, I think you’ve fallen into a popular illusion that being self-employed means you have more free time. Quite likely, the opposite is true. I hate to say this, but from the buzzwords etc you’re using, it looks like you may have been a little bit poisoned by some of those seminars you have attended.

    Here’s my revised advice and appraisal. You should find someone you respect and trust, who is mostly impartial and disinterested, and tell them your situation, and ask them what they think. A parent or a long-time non-spouse friend might be good, as long as they aren’t in real estate.

    I think the advice the more responsible people on this blog have been giving is good; but it sounds to me like you just need to hear it from someone you trust and respect.

  • Try doing a little more free marketing of your properties. You haven’t done anything different other than the usual posting of pictures and basic information on this site.

    I’d say each one of your properties should have their own blog (it’s free as you know) along with links to local maps and sites that show schools, restaurants, colleges, bars, etc.

    Do a video walk through of your house. Again, it’s free. Just post it on youtube.com and then add it to your blog. Take a look at my site if you want for an example. Provide people with the opportunity to see each entire house without having to leave the comforts of their homes. You get enough traffic and publicity from all over the country as it is. Take advantage of it.

    My other suggestion. Take a breather. Get out from under these houses and loans and take a step back before you get back into the game. You don’t want to keep digging yourself further into a hole.

  • I can’t just do a job. I do not want to give up my dream of financial independence. If I get a full-time job, I will continue doing my business and investing on the side. Finding time to do both will be hard (tried it before many times). If I must do that, I will. But it will probably take much longer to reach my goals.

    An hourly job has limited earnings potential. Getting a 3% raise every year is not my idea of “upwardly mobile”. Making $25/hour writing code seems like a waste of time when I can sell a real estate contract for $5,000 after doing 5 hours of work = that’s $1000/hour!

    So if I can work really hard for one month and find just 2 deals, I can make $10,000. That’s much better return on my time.

    Well here you’ve just nailed the difference between fantasy and reality. I have the dream of Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Warren Buffett giving me everything they own, for no special reason. Plus a free tropical island and a ride into space. It might just happen. You never know.

    Every single reader of your blog has had your fantasy and would LOVE to have this happen. The trouble is that 98% of us figured out the odds of it happening were about as good as getting rich in Las Vegas. Many readers have surely tried to get rich in Vegas with $1,000 to $5,000 trips, only to learn why the casinos are so very lush and have such low, low room prices.

    You are in the process of learning the difference between GAMBLING and INVESTING. Everything you’ve done so far has been gambling. Investing requires that one balance the risk with the rewards, diversify, and be dedicated. Some investments will fail, but a wise investor won’t have too much tied up in any single thing (like real estate purchased on a guru-drunken binge). Investments are made with money that one could stand to lose. Investing is not done by leveraging oneself up to the eyeballs and beyond, hoping for a miracle.

    You now seem very lazy, very immature, very unrealistic, very impractical, and hellbound for self destruction. Without cashflow from a 9-5 grind you will financially die. Simple as that.

    Once again, spend your money on a psychologist before anything else. Or, get some free counseling from a preacher/priest, etc.

    Seriously.

  • i’m suprised you’re not making more on this blog. you should have some decent traffic at this point. try out a large rectangle right before the first headline. i get up to 10% CTR on some of my sites. could get you a few bucks.

  • Casey, this about sums up your situation, IMHO… http://tinyurl.com/yy8bay

    Hate the game, not the playa, yo!

  • A responsible person who wants to meet his obligations sucks it up and does what he has to in order to pay the bills.

    Clearly, you want to bird-dog for your friend’s father. Well, if you were not in such a precarious financial position, that might actually be a good thing for you to do. But sadly, right now what you need more than anything is regular stable income.

    As for tech jobs — here in Silicon Valley the job market is actually quite strong these days. However, most employer are savvy enough to Google job applicants before they hire them, and I suspect you’re going to have a hard time convincing someone to hire you after they read this blog.

    You might want to consider taking a lower tech job closer to home. Perhaps Home Depot, so that you can get a discount on the materials you need for your fixer uppers? Then move into one of your properties and work on it at night.

  • Have you thought about selling your Internal Organs on the Black Market? No, Really! You could probably get hundreds of thousands of dollars. Have you ever had Hep A or B? Tb? You look healthy enough and you really only need 1/2 of a liver to live a normal life. You need a whole kidney, but that’s why god gave you two! C’mon man, liberate the equity in your body!!

  • Casey,
    Come on now! If you are going to put every post into moderation, there is no way for the bloggers to interact and help in real time. You will lose viewers and posters.

  • Look at your situation, I would say that you have been bankrupt for a while now. The only piece missing is the bankruptcy filing.

    So go talk it out with the lawyers and get this behind you because the last thing an employer wants to hear is that you need time off to deal with a mess like yours.

  • Bird dogger,
    I’m an entrepreneur at heart. You an me both. All I can say is that this will strain your relationship big time.I have been self employed for the last 5 years. I have had some very straining times dude. It basically ruined my last relationship. I was struggleing an she didn’t really support me.Everyone was jealous because I wasn’t a nine to fiver either. Follow your dreams my friend. I’m following mine and that is all you can do.

  • Get a job. You need income and paying your daily expenses with a job is smarter than living on cards. You talk like having a job is a bad thing. I have two jobs and I spend time working with my girlfriend on entrepeneurial stuff when I can. You need to start living in the real world because the real world is about to catch up with you.

  • I’m pretty sure that Casey, while almost surely real, is now just performing for the audience — as someone earlier said.

    Some of these recent posts don’t have an air of authenticity, like the earlier ones did. He’s just moving from one “provocative idea” to another, to get a reaction.

    It’s time for us respectable folks to move on and leave Casey & Friends to their remaining audience of timeshare sales charlatans.

    Retire by 27. Lol. Give me a f-ing break. You can’t *retire* until you’ve actually lived to have something to retire from. Like the rest of the low IQ crowd, you delusionally think that you are clever enough to just find money laying around in places no one else is smart enough to look.

    There are 27 year olds who hit it big. They are usually *both* lucky *and* hard working. Seminar “gurus” are just snake oil salesmen. Anyone dumb enough to waste time & money on them and their prattle is fully deserving of the full wrath of courts, creditors, and angry ex spouses.

  • $70,000 to $100,000 per season for hanging christmas lights?! Let’s say the season is 60 days (and that’s stretching it). That’s more than $1,000 per day. Wow!

    (Unless I’d have to “unhang” them in January. Then I guess it’s only about $500/day)

    Oh, I also wanted to chime in on a comment made below another post — on what youth today wants, etc.

    I don’t know that all that much has changed in terms of wanting to grow rich. But when I graduated from college, it wasn’t all that easy to get a credit card. It doesn’t excuse Casey, but a system that lets a 24 year old rack up unsecured balances of $140,000 is insane.

    I read somewhere that many of today’s 18 year olds are still going to be paying for tonight’s pizza when they’re 30. That doesn’t surprise me.

  • Okay I know a little more about job hunting than real estate. I’ll just say you need to have more than one iron in the fire at any time. Try 5 to 10 potential job offers. In order to do that you have to be firing off resumes all day for at least a month. Set a goal to apply for 5-10 jobs a day. Just do it.

    Right now there is low unemployment so a guy like you with some tech experience could probably get multiple offers. Just get on over to Craigslist and have at it.

  • This post is amazing, my buddy. =)

    You want stable income; however, you don’t want “Traditional Employment”? That’s a new idea for everyone.

    Where is this logic coming from? I must have missed by Economics 101 in college!

    You know what. We are all done enlightening you because you simply have a “Get Rich Fast” mentality and never intended to work hard and SAVE money by WORKING ON A REAL JOB. So here’s what I know:

    70% of the self made millionaires are earning their money the HARD WAY. It takes them 20 years, 30 years to EARN/SAVE to become a millionaire. (College professor, accountant, engineers, business owner, landscaper, etc…)

    You think sitting in a cubicle makes you less a man?! You are wrong, my buddy. I sit in a cubicle for a telecom firm (9-5) and making over $135,000 annually with bonus and stock option. I work hard and I work smart to get where I am. “HOW’S THEM APPLES?”

    So, here is the only advice I will give you knowing that you only want to hear the ‘Get Rich quick’ way of living:

    1. Forget about getting a permanent job, it just won’t cut it. Instead, borrow more money from friends and relatives and then continue to buy more houses and condo right now. The market is still hot and you still have a chance to flip more houses. You know what, mybuddy. They don’t make more land. ;-) Keep buying them with whatever cash you have, housing price will bounce back next year. Count on it.

    2. Don’t worry about putting food on the family. You have credit cards, right? Just open a few more of them and Cash Advance everything and just pay the absolute minimum required. Who cares about FICO or credit scores these days?! As long as you can make 1 or 2 Real estate deals, everything will be fine.

    3. Don’t you ever, NEVER move back with the parents. What are you, crazy? This is a disgrace. They will look you down for the rest of your life. Be a man, my buddy. How can you be a husband without a big house and at least 2 SUVs and a 42 inches plastic TV, man, whatsup with that?! You absolutely need nice wheels to meet the real estate clients to talk about the deals, Come On. In fact, you also need new clothes, new haitcuts, go to a nice spa and make yourself shine. That’s how the big guys make their money, my friends. Who cares if the housing market is down and there are tons of houses in the market, as long as you dress well and talk smart, people will pay you good cash to buy your house. I guarantee that.

    4. Please don’t get a new job in software engineering, computer programming or, in fact, any real business. Those are stressful, long hour jobs occupied by minority groups with too much books in their bags and too little brains. Leave those jobs to them, alright; it ain’t worry your time, man. They are missing out the big bucks, everything is happening in Real Estate. You can’t miss the opportunity to make REAL DEALS, my buddy! Just concentrate on making the real deals. “You know what I’m saying.”

    I’m just an asian geek who cherish to make my 1.5 million in the next 13 years, retire by age 45. I am only half way there, What do I know. ;-)

  • Casey,

    If you’re for real, then you’re stalling and just starting to repeat yourself - “I must do…”, etc. Sounds like you know what needs to be done - quit surfing the web and go get a job, or call your lenders, or call an attorney. Just do something!

    If you’re not for real, then your material is getting stale and you’re losing your audience. Time to punch up your material and get Act III really going.

  • 26. Phillip Teets
    October 16th, 2006 at 5:41 pm

    The humor never stops as evident by this wonderful statement made by Have Some Compassion:

    “Get a job like window washing (on Craigslist $20-$30/hr.), or Christmas light hanging (this job, also on Craigslist and it you can make $70K- $100K in one season). These jobs are easy to get and flexible with your time.”

    I never knew that $70-100K jobs were easy to get. Why did I waste of those years in graduate school when I could have just worked as a Christmas light hanger and made what I make now without a master’s degree? Man was I was duped!

    The bottom line here is that “Casey” is brainwashed by the crap that the David Lereahs and Donald Trumps have been feeding him (for a price of course). Get a job like the rest of us, file the bankruptcy papers and move on. If you keep going with this “bird dogging/investment” nonsense you’re really going to get yourself into a situation you can’t get out of. Besides, your earning potential is approaching zero - you’re proven that ANYONE can get into RE “investing.” Think about that for a second.

    There’s a reason you had to pay to go to those seminars, think about that for a second. Do you really think that if someone knew the secret to making it as a RE investor they’d tell a room full of slackjaw yokel for $10,000? Of course not.

    You should really seek professional help, you’re showing signs that you’re completely brainwashed.

  • It seems to me that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

    Why can’t you get a part-time job. You could work for Wal-Mart, or be an afternoon receptionist for some office, and do entrepreneurial things in the morning. Sure, a part-time job is very little money, but it’s something. It could pay for your lunches, at least. Of course, if something better comes along, you take it.

    Why couldn’t you sell hotdogs or something at flea markets on the weekends? You’d probably make as much money as a job, while leaving your weekdays free. Sure it’s not as glamorous as real estate investing, but it’s real.

    You seem to be more of a gambler than an entrepreneur. The post by lsdblotterart shows the true entrepreneurial spirit. It’s about bootstrapping and accumulation of wealth. Slowly and surely. Lower profits with lower risk is better than higher profits with higher risk.

  • Retired at 27 or 35 eh. You are definitely very fat for doing nothing and being useless to the society. Hope your children don’t look up to you. Otherwise, they’ll be a bunch of lazy fat kids .. he he

  • By my calculations you’ve been LOSING $150/hr for every 8 hour day you’ve been “investing.” Where’s the harm in doing less of that and more of work? Every hour of real work not only gets you $25 but distracts you from losing another $150.

    You aren’t any good at real estate what part of that don’t you understand? You aren’t even bad at real estate. You are worse than dangerous in real estate. Do the world a favor, bow to the obvious.

  • What a pity all of that training you took didn’t help you understand that you should’ve been running a business, not speculating on properties.

    http://reitactics.com/2007ApprenticeProgram

    That course taught me how to do it right. If I thought you had a chance I’d consider paying the tuition for you to attend that class.

    When you really do start again, make sure you get the right help.

  • 31. BelowTheCrowd
    October 16th, 2006 at 7:34 pm

    >> I’m an entrepreneur at heart. It’s very hard for me to work in a cubicle. I will do it if I have to.

    Noyce, Moore and Grove were all entrepreneurs too. And they all worked in cubicles their entire careers. When I worked for them, Moore — all two billion or so of him — was still in a cubicle the same size as mine. Admittedly, as semi-retired chairman in his sixties he was only coming in part time, but when he did come in, he worked in a cubicle like everybody else. Grove had a cubicle identical to mine too, in which he worked as much as 9-10 hours a day every day. (He always said that there was no need for assigned parking spaces at Intel. He always got a space right by the door. Andybody else who wanted that space could have it, they just needed to get there before he did.)

    You have fantasies about an “entrepreneur’s life” that doesn’t exist. It’s all hard work, 10-12 hours a day.

    -btc

  • 32. BelowTheCrowd
    October 16th, 2006 at 8:02 pm

    On another point, it still seems amazing to me that people keep following this “rich dad” garbage, even though people who’ve researched Kiyosaki, looked at the people he grew up with and who livedon his street, as well as known businessmen in the area at the time, have all concluded that the “rich dad” as he is described, never existed. Kiyosaki, of course, won’t name him because he doesn’t want to violate the man’s privacy.

    (Oh yeah, in 1992, Kiyosaki wrote that his real (poor) dad was his greatest teacher. The “rich dad” isn’t even mentioned until he wrote his first bestseller in 1997.)

    Get a grip Casey. You’re following the cult of a guy who is a fraud, and who learned at the feet of Wernher Erhard, who was one of the greatest frauds ever. He’s led you straight to bankruptcy.

    -btc

  • Hi there, just found your blog. A lot of these people are tied to a full time job that they acutally hate. You’re living a dream (or maybe a nightmare), but at least your living. Invest in your eductation, that in the end is what will pay of the most. You may want to read this: http://www.bobparsons.com/My16Rules2006.html

    Good stuff. Keep going.

  • 34. Who the hell do think you r
    October 16th, 2006 at 9:08 pm

    Who the the hell do you think you r man?

  • I earn $58/hr and take the summer off. You have a very limited notion of what hourly work can achieve. Do you even know the best way you can sell 40 hours/wk of your own labor? Do you know what an hour of your time is worth *in the labor market*? Cuz mine is worth $58/hr. Sometimes less. Sometimes more. Yes, I create businesses. Yes, I do real estate deals. But fundamentally, if I need a stable income, at least I know how to get one.

  • Do not listen to these others. You can do it. This is a get rich quick scheme. Don’t allow others to tell you its not. Just start flipping(paper work shuffle) hard and fast. Easily done as long as you’re not lazy. Look at 250+ homes and a day. Make offers make 100s of offers. Don’t worry about that cell phone bill by the time the bill comes you’ll be able to pay it. Obviously these people don’t understand the RISK VS REWARD. I’d rather be DEAD than work a fulltime job. Its a crazy market where you’re at and guess what… if you can solve enough people’s problems you will be paid handsomely for it.

    I can see tomorrows headlines… “The Come Back Kid”

  • Have Some Compassion, that was probably the shallowest posts from a cheerleader I’ve seen around here. Perhaps, you should try editing before you post and then try to use some real-world facts. Seriously, $30 to wash windows or to put up X-mas lights? Are you sniffing something?

    Casey, if you listen to the shills on this place you will run into more crap than you can believe. I was in your shoes and there is NO easy way out. I’m not someone who didn’t put their money where their mouth is. I did that and got stomped on. Life isn’t fair and you will find that it is easy to give lip service. I’ve been there, done that , and had to bite the bulllet. I would listen to those who have been there as well because your cheerleaders are as clueless as they come. I lost my livelyhood, my marriage and my life. No s*** it was the most painful period of my life. But life goes on, if you let it. Eventually, you realize that it won’t matter because you can rebound no matter what. I’m better off than most people that I know and I have learned much because of everything.

    Casey, you are in for the s*** kicking of your life. Can you handle it?

  • “Getting a 3% raise every year is not my idea of “upwardly mobile”. Making $25/hour writing code seems like a waste of time when I can sell a real estate contract for $5,000 after doing 5 hours of work = that’s $1000/hour!

    So if I can work really hard for one month and find just 2 deals, I can make $10,000. That’s much better return on my time.”

    So far all of the “work” you have done “investing” in real estate, has netted you a loss of 2.2 million USD. How many dollars per hour “worked” have you lost? $25 an hour pure profit for honest work sounds much better to me. You’re so delusional it isn’t funny anymore.

  • 39. Goodstuff Leo
    October 17th, 2006 at 6:59 am

    A very important lesson you have not learned in speculating is knowing when to take a loss. Dude, you were lucky to catch a piece of the real estate bubble. Move on, get a job, and start over.

  • You are not an entrepreneur, you are a speculator. An entrepreneur puts in a lot of hard work (70-100 hours a week) to make their company succeed. They create something and creating things is hard. You are not creating anything, you are gambling.

  • I am concerned that you really think of what you have been doing as “investing”. The only thing in the equities/commodities markets to which I can compare what you are doing is shortselling massively leveraged futures contracts, solely on margin, without ever studying the market or looking at a chart. But unlike the futures market, where you get a margin call when the balance due approaches the size of your account, in the real estate market you just go bankrupt.

    Thats not even “speculating”- its like playing Russian Roulette with 5/6 of the cylanders loaded. All you have done is provide liquidity to a bunch of sellers so that they were able to top-pick the market. That and defraud your lenders, and by extension, the American public whos government organizations purchased your debts.

    Maybe you want to start a thread here detailing how you plan to stay out of federal prison- that would seem to be a more immediate concern for you than the debt you will never be able to repay.

  • 42. Take Some Responsibilty
    October 17th, 2006 at 8:13 am

    Chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga… Toot toot!
    What is that on the horizon? A brick wall?

  • I am really stunned.

    When I first saw this blog I thought you made some bad decissions at the wrong time. And of course I was very interested to see if you would manage to get out of that situation.

    Reading the last few posts that you borrowed money from a fried to buy another property and this one where you seem to ask if it is a good idea to have a steady income nearly convinced me that this blog is a fake.

    Unfortunatelly you have proved with various posting that you do exist and that you did invest in real houses.

    Get a job ASAP and then try to build a business in the evenings and on weekends.

    To me it really looks like your problem is not having a bad timing, but being to lazy to actually get your hands dirty. Attending expensive seminiars and waiting for the market to make you rich is not a job.

    If you really want to be have your own business and you have web skills, why don’t you build a portal for failed RE “investors”. There are many more Caseys out there that could need some actual help to get out of their mess.
    [Build this portal at night, after earning some money during the day]

  • Моя Леночка уверена, целый твой сайт обман, потому, что невозможно русскому человеку быть такой глупый.

  • Have you seen this? Clever way to boost home prices:

    http://www.naplesnews.com/news...../?business

  • Hahaha. Hope you like eating out of garbage cans, since that seems to be what you’re on the road to.

  • If any of this saga is true, Casey, you need to be evaluated (and if diagnosed, likely medicated) for Bipolar Disorder. Like, pronto.

  • Face it, you’re just lazy. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

    And we’re all supposed to “Have Some Compassion” because you need to get a job? What a joke!

  • From Bloomberg News: “Last year, when the home market peaked, the Real Estate Wealth Expo, featuring Trump and 70 other money mavens, charged as much as $499 per person and attracted more than 60,000 participants.”

    “Recent ads for the event offered a price as low as $99 for similar seminars that are scheduled in cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles and Toronto. Is there any connection between the 80 percent drop in the Trump Index and the measurable decline in the market?”

  • Casey,

    How was your Hawaii vacation?

  • Casey,

    Why don’t you call Suze Osman and see what she will tell ya? You will get tons of publicity.

  • You idiot. You have to be making this up, right? Just in case you aren’t, I’ll repeat what has been said a thousand times already. GET A REGULAR DAY JOB FIRST. Only AFTER you have consistent, stable income should you then consider SUPPLEMENTING that income by investing in real estate. That’s what I did, and eventually the real estate took over and I was able to quit my regular 9-to-fiver. But you have to have a STABLE base from which to launch yourself. Otherwise, you’re as dumb as all the other get-rich-quickers out there.

  • If you can do web programming, you can easily do this as a 10-hours a week during the day to meet with clients, 30-hours at night or weekends as to not interfere with your real estate business dealing which must take place during the day. I’m not going to tell you again that you are going to need a job, this is obvious. You are going to run out of money at this point. You need this job, and not to pay for the properties. The ship has sailed. You are going to be wondering how you are going to eat soon.

  • Here’s an idea. DO BOTH. Get youself some salary and then spend your after-hours locating properties. Sure that cuts down on your free time, but whoever said gettign rich didn’t take a lot of work probably never met a rich man.

    If you are serious about eventually getting into real estate full-time, then you should probably consider getting hired into the industry. Here’s a couple of example and how it would help make you a rich man:

    Real Estate Agent - Spend all your time working with properties. Buy the ones that are good investment deals, find buyers for the ones that are ready to move-in.

    Construction - Learn about how houses are made. Dealing with various materials. Maybe you can rehab some of your properties yourself, the ones you contract out you’ll actually understand what you are contracting.

    Mortgage Broker - learn about financing. Make some good money helping people re-fi and then make some good contacts in the industry who can help you get good deals.

    Property Manager - learn about finding renters, collecting rent, evicting bad tenants and managing a cash flow.

    There are dozens of real estate jobs, and each one can teach you something different about how real estate works. with that knowledge you become a specialist who can maxmize his knowledge into certain areas of investing and make some serious money.

    Without that knowledge you are still just a speculator.

  • You remind me of my sister. She spent most of her youth chasing pie-in-the-sky dreams of stardom, spending the money her roommates gave her for rent and utilities on acting lessons and dinners at Elaine’s so she could get discovered.

    Explaining to said roommates why the phone was shut off or an eviction notice was on the door was never fun. Walking through the neighborhood, we would have to cross the street multiple times to avoid passing restaurants she’d stiffed as a customer or got fired from as an unreliable and “surly” waitress.

    I remember once she poured her heart out about how she’d realized the error of her ways, wanted to grow up, start being responsible. She was asking me for a loan. I might have considered it if it was for some job training or something to get her started in a new career, but what she needed the money for, after all that soul-searching, was to sign up for Outward Bound.

    Not that I have anything against the program, but it showed that she hadn’t changed anything. She still thought “the answer” lay in something other than hard work, getting a job and doing your best and advancing.

    Years later she realized she was past the age actresses get discovered, and she got an office job. A couple of moves up the ladder and in very short order she was an executive assistant (who typed with two fingers) making about $65K. Did I mention she’s a high-school dropout? And to top it off, now she actually gets parts in small productions and works them into her schedule.

    I started out as an engineering major and most of my friends hated the prospect of being an engineer, but they had a goal: make enough money to invest in a business or real estate and after a decade or so of decent money-earning years, do that full time. But you can’t put the cart before the horse. You’ve got to put in the time to build a nest egg.

    The spectacular failures you’ve had show that you didn’t put enough time and thought and research into the deals you made. Any flipper or investor will tell you, you paid way too much for those houses. Even if you decide to stay with RE investing, you need to put more than five hours of work in to see a good return.

    You need to walk away from bad deals. You need to do the kind of negotiating that others are now doing to you. Five hours? It may take you five weeks, full time, to find a deal, if not longer, and five months to fix it up.

    In the meantime you could be earning $ from renting these properties out (and using that to pay a property manager who will keep the yards free of debris), and earning $ from a full- or even part-time job. You don’t need to be free during the day to be an investor; you can go see houses after work or on weekends. Other people do it.

    If you feel that strongly that you don’t want to work 9-5, get a job waiting tables or selling cars and work off hours. Making $3K a month is not that hard.

  • Wow, Casey!

    THERE ARE A THOUSAND WAYS TO SKIN A CAT!

    The challenge comes in discovering which way is the best way for you.

    I find it fascinating that most of the bloggers on this forum can’t get past “getting a job” as the one and only solution to your immediate problem.

    Worse, if you don’t accept their “one” way, then they call you a slob, greedy, or delusional, etc.

    The reason most of these people can only offer this one-size-fits-all approach is because they don’t know any better. They have no role models that demonstrate any alternatives, and potentially more effective, profitable approaches. In all fairness (here it comes), they are ignorant.

    They were never taught that working for money is a dead end approach to true wealth, and never learned how money working for them is the true answer.

    They believe that working for someone else is more secure than working for themselves. Well, I ask, “When was the last time they had the “opportunity” to fire themselves?”

    Someone on this blog “dissed” the teaching of Robt. Kiyosaki with, “The silly “rich dad” mentality is something to sell books, not a real world approach to take seriously”.

    I’m not sure what that means, except that he obviosly hasn’t read Kiyosaki’s work. There’s not a silly statement to be found. It’s not about “mentality” as such, as much as it’s about understanding money.

    Casey, I think you are on the right track in wanting to continue with your investing career despite the circumstances. It takes some sophistication to look beyond the obvious, and see into the future.

    It goes without saying that you have a large nut to crack in the meantime. I still think “bottom feeding” is a potential way to get relatively quick cash, but even this approach requires effort. And it’s not the only approach either. I can imagine you getting immediate cash in any number of legitimate ways. Consulting, offering computer-related services, etc.

    [BTW, Walt Disney filed bankruptcy more than a few times early in his career. Uh, so did Donald Trump, well into his career. Few remember, or care about this today. Either way, both failed their way to success.]

    In the meantime, however, I don’t think your immediate solution is only to “get a job”. I think another alternative is to IMMEDIATELY start thinking bigger than you’ve ever thought before and start taking MASSIVE ACTION.

    Let me be frank, without coming across as critical…because I really see someone that is trying to constructively move forward.

    Ok, here it comes…

    You have been thinking, acting, and following through in a “small” way. Small as in amateurish. I could be wrong here, but from my vantage point, you have been treating your investing business as a glorified hobby, rather than as a business. This is partly because you haven’t created a visionary, short or long term goals for yourself. Your goals are really vague objectives.

    That is to say, you “want to ‘be rich’”, instead of saying you want to be worth $7.5 billion dollars by the time your 45 years old and why… And you want to own 16 houses in the next 24 months and why…

    You need specificity to get yourself deeply, and sustainably inspired! You also need this to get others deeply and sustainably inspired to work with you. Small goals don’t inspire you, or anyone you want on board with you. So, “its” got to be big.

    That said, if you had been thinking bigger it would have required an assemblage of a professional investment business team (as outlined in Rich Dad, Poor Dad for example) that would have cautioned you away from your most recent acquisition strategies, and put you well on your way, over this last year, to passively earn, say, 2.2 million.

    To illustrate, your team Appraiser would have provided information that your entire team could have used to forecast profits and evaluate the pros and cons of each deal before you committed to it.

    Your team CPA would have advised you on the best tax, and title holding, approaches for each of your acquisitions, and kept track of your progress toward financial independence or lack thereof.

    Your team Bookkeeper would have shown you, in real time, what was happening, or about to happen, regarding your day -to-day cash flow and operations, and the impacts being made by each of your acquisitions.

    Your team Real Estate Contract Attorney would have kept you from signing the “liar loans” in the first place, and forced you consider “better” financing alternatives — which would have prepared you to wait and buy the really “juicy” deals that you would have eventually found.

    Your team Mortgage Broker(s) would have found you money to do every deal your team decided was profitable, without having to put one red cent of your own money into the deal, and without having to personally sign for one dime of it. Not only that, but he would have found you several private money lenders eagar to lend you money for a competitive price, without having any potential negative impact on your credit rating.

    In the meantime, your team Real Estate Agent(s) in your various farm area across the nation, would have been scouring the market like nobody’s business, using the information and buying criteria you derived from feedback from your team of professionals.

    Your team Contractor would have been providing you bids to help you determine both the project costs, projected costs, and where you needed to be in relation to your final offering price.

    That’s not a complete list of the needed team members, but it gives you an idea of why a professional team of advisors is essential to making it big, and making it really big with substantially less risk, in the long run.

    “Be Lazy” like Robt. Kiyosaki writes. Get professionals to do the work for you. :)

    I offer this advice, because I learned to follow this advice — after not following this advice!!!!

    So, why not immediately begin assembling a team?

    Walt Disney finally stopped filing bankruptcies after he literally talked his brother into coming on board as his business manager. Actually, Walt inspired his brother Roy with a big vision for the future, and that’s how he convinced him join him in partnership. The rest is history.

    Why not think BIG ENOUGH to INSPIRE the most competent professionals to join you, and get going!

    Answers to your immediate financial challenges will come as you move forward, but not if you wait for things to change.

    I believe you are on your way.

  • My cousin had the same mentality as you Casey. He turned down a number of $20/hr jobs because he decided he needed to make $30/hr to make it worth his time. So being unemployed and needing money at the same age as you, he and a friend started doing check fraud and some stupid scheme with credit cards. It worked great and for a while he was making tons of money and loving it. Less than one year later he was busted. They had so many counts against him he went to min. sec. prison.

    Casey, you and my cousin are just alike. After my cousin tasted the easy life he couldn’t work a stable job. After he got out of state prison, he went right back to the samed damned schemes. Today he is doing 5 years in state. Casey, it wouldn’t suprise me if the same thing happened to you. Jail is full of people who couldn’t be bothered to work for a paltry $30/hr.

  • Why wouldn’t you rent out your properties while you are waiting for foreclosure? 6 houses at even just $1000 per month each is $6000 per month. Sometimes it will take 1 to 2 years to lose a house from the day you stop paying the mortgage. Lenders are slow to initiate foreclosure. This could have been $72,000 - $144,000 cash in your pocket. Collect rent in cash. No checks, no paper trail. This is what the shrewd operators did in the last crash. In fact, in this market, if an investor offers to buy your houses “subject to” with say $500 down each per house, this is most likely what they are planning.

    One dude I knew (a bankruptcy attorney) used to buy upside down apartment complexes facing foreclosure. He would use shell corporations and put them in bankruptcy using every delaying tactic he knew as an attorney. He made a lot of money doing this.

  • BTW,

    That upper case “Astrid” is not me, the original lower case “astrid”. I’m confused but fairly honored to be trolled here.

  • Don’t worry astrid, anyone that matters can tell who the real you is. Same as sir x. No worries. btw classy ending to the flame war with linda.

  • Haterz? Only Fred Durst uses that phrase. Simple fact is, you messed up and your strategy was wildly optimistic and had no backup. Could’ve worked, but it didn’t. If you don’t like “haterz” and critics telling you what you don’t want to hear, don’t go public.

  • 62. Goodstuff Leo
    October 18th, 2006 at 8:21 am

    Fraud

    http://www.mortgagefraudblog.com/

  • Don’t you guys get it? He’s addicted to the idea that you can make a zillion dollars with only a few hours work, if only he can find the right property at the right time and the right buyer. This belief has distorted his perception of reality. He believes he is simply too gifted to work at a normal job–only an entrepreneurial endeavor will do. Here’s the thing: There are no guarantees in entrepreneurship, and plenty of risk. It works out a lot better if you have cash reserves to live on, which he doesn’t. He can’t admit to himself that he has reached the point where he requires steady money coming in to pay the bills (from a normal, plebeian job) and can’t take any more risks.

    Opportunity favors the prepared mind, and the only preparation he has is his overzealous, cultish belief in this ideology.

    His quotation of Robert Kiyosaki (”Rich Dad”), one of the premier con artists of the 1990s real estate boom, tells me all I need to know. Check out John T. Reed’s website on Kiyosaki’s background and the lies he told in his book.

  • J Galt,

    Thanks. SQT and her fairmindedness really helped defuse the situation.

    Hopefully the problem is now dormant and will never ever come back again.

  • QUOTE If I get some full-time hourly job for 8 hours a day, my hands will be tied. I will have just a couple of hours a day at night to devote to continuing my real estate investing education and work on the business. I will have very little time to spend at home. My sleep, marriage, and social life will likely suffer even more. QUOTE

    welcome to the real world you bum

  • asdf
    October 18th, 2006 at 5:59 pm QUOTE If I get some full-time hourly job for 8 hours a day, my hands will be tied. I will have just a couple of hours a day at night to devote to continuing my real estate investing education and work on the business. I will have very little time to spend at home. My sleep, marriage, and social life will likely suffer even more. QUOTE

    welcome to the real world you bum

    LOL now THAT’s FUNNY!!!!! :-)

  • You, are a funny one. Old enough to drink, vote and get into a miserable amount of debt and still you have no common sense. Suck it up crybaby and get a job.

    Why do all of those gurus make a living on the public speaking circuit, instead of doing things the easy way by using their own methods? What could be better than working from home and being your own boss, instead of living on the road and out of a suitcase?

  • This has got to be a fake website set up to drive ad revenue with irate responders. If you’re real, I find your ignorance of and unconditional faith in real estate markets offensive. You think people who work normal jobs are limiting themselves by not jumping into a pool of pirhannas to grasp at pearls that were fully looted 2 years ago?

    I’m the same age as you, and even if I didn’t have a dime, I would still have a net worth more than $2,000,000 better than yours, because I’m not retarded enough to believe everyone who’s shilling a golden ticket. How does it feel to be a tool for the prophets of the most mundane and generic of all dreams? You just want to make enough free money to justify laziness. Just focus on getting your sh*t together, man. Your gold prospecting has already cost you your dignity…how much more do you have to lose before you realize you’re flailing?

  • Nobody likes working in a cubicle for a living, bub. Suck it up and grow up.

  • If you were a seriously driven person (ie- the sort of person one MUST be if one is truly an entrepeneur), the loss of your social life that would follow from working a fulltime job whilst still pursuing your real estate dream would be a small price to pay. But you’re not an entrepeneur, you are simply looking for a quick buck. I hope your father never bails you out, because when (yes, WHEN) you *do* face foreclosure, it will teach you an invaluable life lesson that you sorely need.

    I gleefully await your inevitable downfall.

  • If you were a seriously driven person (ie- the sort of person one MUST be if one is truly an entrepeneur), the loss of your social life that would follow from working a fulltime job whilst still pursuing your real estate dream would be a small price to pay.

    This is so true. Every actual entrepeneur I know works crazy hours. Most driven people do not insist on “me” time, they are willing to sacrifice when they are young and able to build the business of their dreams.

    Failure is often inevitable, but rather than complain, they take their lumps and keep trying. It’s true that most successful people fail many times before their eventual success. But they are always willing to work extra hard. Your unwillingness to get a job to help pay expenses does not make you look like the go-getter you like to portray yourself to be.

  • 72. Entepreneur-IL
    October 23rd, 2006 at 9:08 am

    I was in a similar situation in the mid to late 90’s,…not with real-estate, but with I.T. contracting. Things were great until about 1998, then things started to turn down, and then tanked after 9-11. Companies stopped spending on I.T. or outsourced oversease. It sucked, but that’s reality in a capitalist society.

    So, as I was taking any I.T. temp job I could find, I thought about my own family’s successes. Both of my grandfathers came back from WW II with little of anything. Both wanted to become successful farmers and ranchers.

    My father’s father started by doing custom cutting for wheat farmers from Texas up into Canada for a few years to build up capital. Then he went to the local bank and obtained a loan and bought his first quarter section of land, as well as a tractor and implements to cultivate the ground. He used the profit from growing wheat and raising cattle to pay for his family’s living expenses and pay on the loan. He continued to custom cutt for the next 4 years, and used the revenue from it to pay down the loan or make payments on other land loans. During that period, he also did two other things that made him successful.

    First, he “rented” other land. In farming back then (and sometimes today) the way you rented was that you provided the equipment and labor and seed, the other party provided the land, and you both agreed on either a flat amount that you would be paid or you and the landowner agreed on shares of the sale of the wheat (usually 3/8 and 5/8 split). In this way, he better utilized his equipment. This money went into paying down/off his land loan and then towards the payments on the subsequent loans for additional land.

    Second, during the winter months (especially right after WWII), he would buy wrecked cars, tear them apart (with a sledge hammer, crowbar, and chissel) and sell off the different metals for cash. Again, this money was used to pay down/pay off other loans.

    He also found time to learn to be a licensed electrician, and subsequently traded working for a commercial electric contractor instead of salvaging metal and custom cutting. After about 15 years (45 yrs old), he had enough land to quit working as an electrician.

    He continued until his retirement, to live off of the original quarter section of land, and to use crop and livestock revenue from additional land purchases to buy and pay off more farm/ranch land. Eventually, he had so much land that he had to stop renting and actually hire someone to help him part time. That part time position became full time after a few more years. At 57, he was financially independent the way Robert Kiyusoki defines it.

    My other grandfather built many of the grain elevators that you see as you travel through the midwest, southwest, and plains states. He built the silo’s for about 4 years, and then used the money to buy land and,….gold coins. He sold the coins for a profit, and then begain a unique game of arbitrage. He would go to antique coin shows, and noted (for each coin collector) which coins they had (and the price) and which coins they wanted. He would then purchase coins that someone wanted, and sell them to said collector, in return for cash and some of their coins (that someone else wanted). For a day’s worth of being at a coin show, my grand father would walk away with 1) cash, 2) coins that someone from a previous show had wanted, 3) coins he would keep, due to his knowledge of their value and potential to appreciate. As time went on, he began to do this with silver certificates, currency, and diamonds as well. The additional cash was used to by additional farmland.

    He was able to turn his coin collecting hobby into a business, and also his primary revenue source. He had the ultimate dream of getting paid to do something he had fun doing. He would travel all over the United States, going to coin shows, and claming the t&e into business expenses.

    Eventually, he too hired someone to take over his farming and ranching responsibilities, which allowed him to continue traveling and going to coin shows.

    The points here, and the ones that I took from my reflections, is that they both had multiple revenue streams, they were willing to put in the hours to reach financial success, and they didn’t cut corners or in any way comprimise their integrity.

    Taking those lessons, I took a full time I.T. job for a state agency, to begin generating consistent cash flow. I then began working 20 hrs/wk at another employer to build up extra cash. My original intention was to buy farmland, but through contacts in my day job, I was able to become an employee of a consulting firm that manages physician practices. The work was enjoyable, and to my suprise, I was invited to become a partner after 1 year. It is an LLC, and I used my capital from my part time job to buy into the company. Now, I plan to follow my grandfathers’ footsteps by diversifying my income streams further. I and 3 other individuals plan to purchase duplexes and quadplexes, and rent them out. One of the other people has owned rental units for about 9 years, and one ot the other people watched their father make a living completely off of rental property income. Our timeline for a first set of purchases is 7/2007, at which time, I will quit my part time job. Again, this was done with sacrifice, time, and integrity. My plan, according to current projections, is to leave the consulting group in 10 years, keep the shares from the LLC, continue to grow my real estate holdings, and actually buy some farmland/ranchland and have a competent farm manager run it for me. My one final goal would be to buy some timberland, both for the timber and also for use as a sportsmens club during hunting season.

    The quick path, using leverage or flipping (or day trading),(although sometimes it is achievable) is most likely met with the results you have, whether it be real estate, investing in the stock market, farmland/crop speculation, or anything else.

    You would have done just as well using all the $$$ borrowed to play the lottery!!! At least then you could have used the gambling losses on your tax returns.

  • You want to sling blame?

    The mindset between an Entrepreneur and an employee is like RAMBO vs. Pee-Wee Herman. Look at all of you critics out there. “What’s good enough for me is good enough for him”. Half of you took the so called “safe secure way”. Sitting in a j-o-b until age 47. This is really anything but safe in today’s global environment. The truth is that most of you are full of fear and afraid to take risks.

    Your are not on the same level as this guy. He has experience you will never receive from your college education or a j-o-b (Just over Broke). Entrepreneurs get a j-o-b as a last resort. Not a first. Do you have the first clue what emotions are involved in going back “the cubicles”? DO you know how hard it is breaking away in the first place? No, of course not.

    It was not only the money but the human behavior that forced me out. For every $1; I’m making my employer $50. But wait! That’s still not good enough. Because anyway they can chisel me down ($) they will. In America inflation averages 2% a year. Employee raises average 3%. What does that number tell you? Now add in the office politics, fake good mornings, people taking credit for my hard work, seniority benchwarmer mindsets (yes you), underhanded office tactics, “intangible” benefits and the “smile or your fired” threat from middle management. This is just the surface.

    We dream of independence. And as such all young entrepreneurs, myself included (27 years old) are on a totally different level than an employee- even if we fail. You would not know what is like to hold a dream so close to your heart and put in the work it takes to achieve it to bring yourself back again and again from the brink of disaster. Giving up so much and working so hard to achieve our dreams. 70 hour work weeks, one day weekends…

    You 47 year old whiners with kids. You fatties. Is it 5:00 yet?

    Casey. No worries you will ride this out and get through it. And you will come out on top. The game will not be over for you when you declare bankruptcy. It’s just starting.8) you are going to be a multi-millionaire. Every successful entrepreneur has faced hardships a you have had more experience from this than any of these chicken little fearful critics on here pointing fingers and accusations. In 7 years most will still be in the same job. However when - and if - you have to declare bankruptcy it is only on your record for 7 years then its like it never happened. In the meantime you can focus on building yourself.

    My aunt and uncle did this and they KEPT their house and their cars using legal means. See what you can do. It is unlikely. But possible. That if you are physically living in one of the houses you can keep it. You will need to consult an attorney.

    Banks are the ones giving home loans away. I have even heard of illegal immigrants owning houses and getting mortgages here in Los Angeles. This is total lack of government oversight and the banks are just as guilty. They are more than eager to fleece people. And if they want to use the “credit score” as the “Holy Grail” to determine a person’s financial integrity to own houses - then this is the result. Bush can use some of the 1 trillion dollars in “funny money” that he just printed - to pay back the banks when this real estate market drops and people are for-closed on. Casey is not the only one.

    When it comes down to it he simply used the means available at his disposal to take the risks needed to get in on an appreciating real estate market and achieve success rather than be left out in the cold. Kudos to Casey.I was left out. Even though I can afford a house - my credit sucks. Sir your income is good but your credit sucks. Is all I ever hear. If that is their holy grail (the banks) then so be it! I blame all of this on the banks and government. That does not make what Casey allegedly did right. However the lack of government oversight, holding down interest rates to cover up a failed economy, the 50 year mortgage and everything else related to this “real estate” boom started a long time ago.

  • Casey,
    your situation requires flexiblilty. You have some web knowledge. Do some contract work. I see ads on craigslist all the time for PHP/MySQL contract workers. That could bring in a bit of coin for the short time. this blog should be bringing in something. Also, you can look at some ebay oppurtunities.

    you can’t do this with a 9 to 5 job. I wish i had a job for you, but alas i don’t. if you PM me we can discuss some projects i’m working on but can’t finish due to my golden handcuffs.

    stay in the fight.

  • What you are is a selfish idiot. Who covers all the fees the banks are accumilating us. You lied on your mortgage loans and hopefully will be prosicuted to the fullest. People are commending you??????? keep reading think its really that easy. we did a couple of flips didnt lye about our income your a f****** loser thats going to be on welfare. Get a job and stop being a bumb

  • “If I get some full-time hourly job for 8 hours a day, my hands will be tied. I will have just a couple of hours a day at night to devote to continuing my real estate investing education and work on the business. I will have very little time to spend at home. My sleep, marriage, and social life will likely suffer even more.”

    I don’t see how that’s impossible. I work a full 40 hour week. My husband owns a business, I do his business accounting from home (another 20 or so hours a week). I also attend school 4 nights a week. We’ve been married for 3.5 years and our marriage isn’t suffering (even though we only see each other between 10pm and 8am), I get 8 hours of sleep a night, I even manage to have a small social life.

  • Fantastic blog!

    If you want to see reviews of the top dating sites please visit Online Dating Sites

  • Your dream is financial independence? Everyone needs a dream, but not that dream… your dream has to be that thing you want to do when you get financial independence. I guess you have one of those too, and if not… well you’ll need it!

  • Just got back from Ann Goldschmidt’s intro seminar ‘Discovering Foreclosure Profits’ here in San Diego. Can anybody give me the skinny on these people? No I didn’t fork over $3000 to them. Thanks, jim

  • Casey,

    Ann Goldschmidt is having the Foreclosure seminar in our (San Francisco Bay Area) area this week with at lease one full page ad at San Francisco Chronicle (perhaps cost $30K) www.sfgate.com.

    If possible, would you might to share your view/opinion on the course please?

    Many thanks

    Ray
    another guy that wants financial independence out of real estate

  • They charge $4,000 for a weekend training class in how to pitch a short sale to a lender and strike a deal with homeowner, who has little or no equity, to turnover property to you. Premise is that lender will agree to a short sale that gives it only 60%-70% of fmv of property.

  • s issues and saving graces, and see if you can last and carve out a future with it. Hopefully you’ll find a place where that’s the case. Stay tuned for part 2 of this article. <>

  • I am Facing Foreclosure .com » Need Stable Income… Get a Job? [ msn ] Casey Serin, a 24 yr old Real Estate Investor blogs on getting Over-Extended Flipping 8 Houses and … But you have to have a STABLE base from which to launch yourself. Otherwise, you’re as dumb as …

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