Monday, April 27, 2009

Accountability Monday

So here's the goals for this week:

Finish back sales tax returns
Bring number of Fixed Price auctions up to 100 on Ebay (currently 71)
Budget for flea market booth
Finish REI business plan
Clear out all clothing in the girls room

I did manage to get my one goal from last week done (100 total listings on Ebay). The goal for that is to have 500 listings total - 100 Fixed Price, and 400 Store. So now I will concentrate on getting the Fixed Price listings to 100.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

13 year wedding anniversary today!

I cannot believe it's been 13 years already. Where has the time gone?

Anyway, no celebrating until next payday. LOL Plus Harry has to work today, open til close, which is really a bummer. 

Hopefully sometime soon REI will be our main income.....

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Follow up Friday (1 day early)

Actually, if you want to get technical about it, it's about 4 min. early, because I'm writing this at 11:56pm on Thursday. LOL

So I can honestly report that I have not done ANYTHING I set out to do this week. (sigh) So these items go back onto the Accountability Monday list:

Finish back sales tax returns
Have 100 items listed in Ebay store
Budget for flea market booth
Finish writing RE business plan

There is a bright side to all of this, though. One thing that I left off the list, which should have been on the list, was getting the porch cleaned off. This DID happen today (with help from the DH).

Also, as per my previous post, here are the main goals based on the DR (Dave Ramsey) tenets:

1. Take action - see above

2. Don't listen to loser talk - hang around at Flippinghomes.com and keep reading my blogs that I'm following which are tremendously uplifting.

3. Give - call local ministry and see if they can use the abundance of toothpaste I have collected. Give to my church. Pack up box for my friend Jenn and send it to her Ebay trading assistant for her to sell.

Three Things from the Dave Ramsey Town Hall for Hope

These are going to be the base goals for myself each day and each week. All of the other goals will be derived from these basic tenets:

1. Take action

2. Don't participate in loser talk

3. Give

I heart Dave Ramsey. :)

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Please pray for Stellan today

Click on the picture on the right side of the page to see who I am talking about. He is in surgery as I type.

Accountability Mondays (posted 1 day late)

My friend Steph over at Flip This Wholesaler  had a post yesterday in regards to accountability. I need some serious accountability (LOL) so I'm taking her up on her offer and will be posting my goals on Monday and post my progress on Friday. So here is my list:

Finish my back sales tax returns (oops)
Have a total of 100 items listed on Ebay
Budget for my flea market booth (new income stream)
Finish my real estate business plan

Wish me luck!




Saturday, April 18, 2009

Nothing new going on

I'm kind of in a stuck mode. With our credit shot, no money in the bank, I should be looking at wholesaling.....but for some reason I'm not......I have a lot of fear right now, mostly fear of not being able to close a deal. My heart is really into rehab and rental real estate, and I know I don't have the resources to close on those deals right now if I can't find a buyer.

Anyway, Ebay is a bit slow right now.....spring and summer is normally a slow time for Ebay, so I shouldn't be surprised. But I'll keep listing....

Another thing I'm into right now is opera music. My mother is a HUGE opera fan, and she always listened to the opera on Saturday afternoons  when I was a kid. I never liked listening to it (neither did Dad) but for some reason now I have taken a liking to it. 

Who would have thought that I would enjoy opera music....

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Have a Happy and Blessed Easter!

We are going to church this morning (see our church here ) then going over to my mother-in-law's for Easter dinner. My MIL is a great cook, so I know we will be eating well! :)

I'll sign off this short blog post with a neat couple of YouTube videos of my favorite hymn - Jesus Christ is Risen Today!








Friday, April 10, 2009

No Ebay for me today!

I have been listing a little bit here, a little bit there, but today I'm devoting completely to REI today. My husband is working open to close (7am-9:30ish pm) so I might do some listings this evening. But today I'm going to devote to working on my REI business plan and setting up my website for private investors. 

Wish me luck! :)

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Running out of titles

Good blog titles, that is. Because nothing much is really happening....

Anyway, we did venture to an REO property that I found that I was curious about. It was listed for $54k, and the ARV looks to be about $93k, so I was curious to find out why this had not been taken yet. So we took a drive to see the area, as my county is very large, so I've only seen a small bit of it overall.

Well, we found out why it hadn't sold yet -- HUGE foundation problem. The house is kind of built into the slope of the property, kind of like a bi-level (it had a full basement), and a carport. Well, the carport area slab was sunken in, and the wall of the carport had seriously shifted. The front of the house also shifted. It would need a serious amount of repair, I imagine, to get it into livable condition again. It was in an ok area - kind of a mix of owner-occupant/rentals, and it was near the interstate (although I really didn't notice the traffic noise). Definitely good as a first time buyer house, or a RTO (rent-to-own), or even a rental. But I can see where a retail buyer is not going to go for this property, because I'm sure they couldn't get financing for it. And I guess the bank is being a bit stubborn on this and is just going to let it sit and adjust the price every few weeks.

As we were leaving, a woman drove by and told us that the house had had flooding issues and that "everyone had to get out". I felt bad for the previous buyers, because this probably happened while they were the owners and either they couldn't afford the repairs (maybe insurance didn't cover it) or perhaps they took the insurance money and walked away from the house (which I didn't think could happen if you have the mortgage company listed as additonal insured). I'm going to be keeping an eye on this, just to keep track to see if it gets sold and at what price.

I also called a broker who had been looking for agents to hang their licenses with her. She worked from home, and was basically a one person office. She was looking for at least one agent to work with her so she would have some cover when she went on vacation, but other than that, the agent was able to do their own thing. I explained that I hadn't gotten my license yet, but I was considering getting it, and basically wanted to do my own deals and have my own MLS access. She had no problem with that. The only thing that was a problem is that she was not a member of my county's MLS (she is the next county over). So I would have to call my county to see if I could subscribe to the MLS under her brokerage, even if she was in the next county and wasn't a member my county's Board of Realtors. This might prove to be a bit expensive, and might just mean I look for another investor friendly broker in my county.

Also, I was looking at real estate agent classes for my area. South Carolina requires a 60 hour course, and it cannot be held/taken online. The classes meet 8-5 on weekdays for 2 weeks. So that's something I would have to do while the kids are in school full time next year, and make arrangements for my mother-in-law or my husband to pick up the kids at school and look after them until I get out of class. I dont' think that will be a problem, but I would have to do it for the 2009-2010 school year, which starts in August.  No big deal - in the interim, if I find deals that I want to pursue, I can work with a local broker to make my offers with, and when I get my license I can hang it with them.

So that's about it for now. Ebay is slow for me, so my motivation for listing has gone down...but I need to list. It's the only way I can get better sales is to have more things to offer.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Goals for Sunday 4/5/09

Go to church
Take pictures of the kids (I don't take enough)
clean up the puddle of papers on the kitchen floor
work on REI business plan 


Saturday, April 4, 2009

I don't have any problems - another REI detour

I know this blog should be about REI, and I've already taken a detour once, but I must take another one, so please don't be hard on me.

I was introduced today to a blog titled "The Macs". It is mostly about a family's journey with their 11 month old daughter, who was diagnosed with cancer. I have been crying for the last 15 minutes, reading the entries. I cannot even fathom the pain that this poor Mom and Dad are going through and have gone through in such a short period of time.

When I read stories of tragedy, courage, faith, love, I begin to realize that I don't have any problems. None. Yes, I have a daughter with a heart defect, and we were under the shadow of open heart surgery for a while, but we have gotten past that point. She may need to have cardiac catheterization to repair her heart, but gosh.....

I'm not going to whine anymore. I'm not going to waste another day having this house look like a trash dump. I'm not going to sit around the computer all day feeling overwhelmed and just not do anything. I'm going to work on my Ebay and REI. I'm going to spend more time with the kids. Life is just too damn short (sorry for swearing) to just wander around aimlessly. I'm thankful and grateful for what I have.

Anyway, again, I'm sorry for the detour, but I just had to post this.

Here is a link to their blog. It has given me a lot of tears, but it has also given me a lot of thought:






Nothing really new to report

Still just kind of plugging along....the DH (dear husband) got a bonus in this last check, but alas, taxes took most of it....and then the stupid cell phone bill (because SOMEONE WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS went over HIS allocated text message allowance to the tune of $86) will take some of it...and then I went to the Dr. and the prescriptions took nearly the rest of it.

And the listing on Ebay only sold 4 items....I think I may have made a small profit or broke even, I haven't gotten my final invoices for shipping yet....

But, I keep listing....

I've decided to forego the bookkeeping business for now. I would honestly rather put the money I would need for Quickbooks and John Hyre's stuff towards getting my RE License. Plus, I'm not sure I could have really worked from home on this....my house is not conducive to visitors (translation: it's a mess), so I would need to meet with clients at either their office or a public spot, which would mean having someone look after the kids during that time.

So, it's back to just doing Ebay for now. Which is not bad really. The big thing is listing consisently, because having more listings will mean more sales.

I've also started to peruse the REO listings in the area. Some of them appear to be great deals, so I'm using them as kind of a study guide to get an idea of property values, repair costs. I would actually like to make offers, but I don't feel that I've done my homework yet. Plus, since I have credit and cash issues, I need to find either A) a hard money lender that I can qualify with (so far I have not found one) or B) a private investor who will work with me, so that I may submit a pre-qual letter with my offers. 

Anyway, that's it for now. Hopefully more Ebay stuff will sell at a profit so I can put some money aside. :)