Busy, busy, busy

The title of this blog post says it all. :)

The problem is, I'm not even busy with REI related events, and that is frustrating.

The crowning event that has contributed to the atmosphere of busy is that I've taken in the other 3 kitties from the litter that was born three weeks ago. (I blogged about it here.) The mother cat had taken the remaining 3 kitties to the neighbor's shed, but today the neighbor took down the shed and so I rescued the kitties. My mother in law works with someone who does animal rescue, so she will be taking over finding them homes and getting them weaned and adopted. They need to be bottle fed for another week or so, so I will continue with that job, since I'm already bottle feeding the other 3 kitties. The 3 kitties that we took originally are going to remain with us.

I'm not going out tomorrow except to take the kids to school, so my goal is to get the goals set forth so I can hopefully get something going by the end of the year.

Anyway, that's all for now!

I have an agent!

Well, I finally bit the bullet yesterday and walked into the local Keller Williams agency to find an agent that could help me out. After the last two attempts at finding an agent ( I blogged about it here and here) I was hoping the third time would be the charm.

I met with the agent on duty, but unfortunately couldn't sit down with her at length, as she had someone already with her in her office, but I did get to explain briefly what my plan was, and she took down my name, phone number and email addy. Within less than an hour, she had emailed me back and directed me to her KW website, which has the MLS Finder, where I could register and conduct my own searches. This is not really direct MLS access, and the format leaves out some things I am looking for (days on market, original listing price, etc), but it's a start. I am going to email her about getting a search for sold listings, so I can plot them out (thanks to Tar Heel Ed and JerryNJ at Flipping Homes for that insight!) so hopefully that won't be a problem.

Anyway, I hope that I can build a good rapport with this agent and get some deals done!

Good news, bad news....

First the good news:

I met today with a property manager who was very kind to take time out of her busy schedule to talk with me about the rental market in Spartanburg county. She advised me as to what school districts were good rental areas, what the price ranges were that rented well, and what areas to stay away from. She also talked to me about the eviction process in the county, their management fees, tenant screening, etc. She also said I could email her with potential property addresses and she would give me her opinion as to what the property could rent for, and how quickly it could get rented. This information is key for cash flow analysis.

I learned a great deal from her! I will definitely be using her company for property management for any properties I pick up, and recommend her for any properties that I wholesale. She was honest and forthright and was appreciative that I wanted to learn more about the market.

The bad news:

DH get's paid tomorrow, and he missed his period bonus. :( Just another reason to kick it in gear and get some wholesale deals going, so we can have our own period bonuses. :)

Also, as an aside, the guy I spoke about before in the previous post did call back yesterday and left a message, basically saying, 'Ok, thanks for letting me know that it wasn't a spam email, sorry about that." and that was that. LOL

Anyway, I drove past the Keller Williams office and saw the "agent on duty" sign and was tempted to stop, but I had to get home to feed the kitties, so I will try and go on Monday, as tomorrow is a shopping day. :)

I guess that's all for now.

D-Day

Just sent the email to the broker from my local REIA, re MLS searches and such. Fear is such an overwhelming force with me sometimes, I need to beat the living tar out of it with a stick. LOL

Will keep you updated when I hear back from him......

UPDATE:

OMGosh!

WTH?????

I just received an email back from this guy -saying that I've been reported to The Internet Crime Center, the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Assistance! This is ridiculous! I just called and left a message on his voice mail saying that my email to him was legitimate. What in the world???? I'm speechless. When/if he calls back, I am NOT going to work with this guy. You don't send out emails to people like this.

I guess I'll be walking into a Keller Williams office this week....have to arrange it around feeding the kitties first....

Good grief!!!!

New addition to the family

As if I don't have enough to do already, I can add one more thing to my list - I am now a foster mama to 3 newborn kittens.

We have a stray cat who was pregnant and gave birth to six kittens on Wednesday. She wound up keeping three and left three in the yard (it's a long story), so I took them in. It's almost like having another newborn baby in the house.

Here is a pic from yesterday. They are doing well, and I'm just taking things day by day, as newborn kittens don't have a high survival rate without their mothers, from what others have told me.

On the REI front, the agent who called from Craigslist never called me back, which is fine. I've decided I'm going to email a broker who is active with the local CREIA to see if he will help me. If he doesn't, I'll do what Kelly suggests and talk to an agent on the floor with the local Keller Williams office.

Anyway, I hear someone mewing, so I guess I'll see what's up before I go pick up the kids.

Have a great weekend!

A bit of an update

This is going to be a semi-short post, as I need to get off the computer and get some things done around the house.

Only one phone call from my Craigslist ad for investor friendly agent. I called him back, but not right away (that fear thing again). I don't think it's going to work out. First, he doesn't have MLS access for my area, but for the county next to mine, but said that he knew someone who does. I made the ad explicity clear for what area I worked with, so I don't get it. Why call? Second, he wants to meet with me first so we can talk more about what I need and whether we would be a good fit for each other...and he wants to meet in the next county over. Now, I don't mean to complain, but why should I go to the next county over to meet with an agent to talk about working in my county? He is supposed to call me back today to set up a time to meet later this week, but I think I'll just tell him I found someone to work with locally and thank him for his time.

I am meeting with a property management company this week, so that's good. I just want to get a handle on what the rental market is like out there, so I can evaluate properties more accurately for cash flow.

I went to my women's investor focus group meeting today, and I'm just not sure I'm going to go anymore. Most of the ladies invest in Greenville, and I'm focusing on Spartanburg. But I also just don't feel like I fit in. So I don't know anymore. They only meet once a month, so it's not a big thing....just not sure what to do.

Anyway, not much else going on.

Drum roll, please!

I just emailed Kelly about this, and thought I would share it on the blog, so everyone can get their laugh this morning.

I finally sat down to call the local board of Realtors about having unlicensed MLS access as an assistant. I dreaded this call all morning. It's kind of ironic - I spent 3 years talking to strangers for 8 hours a day (I used to work for ADT as a customer service rep), but now I have a panic attack calling strangers.

So I bite the bullet, make the call and............

Drum roll, please!!!!

The local board of realtors does not have a provision for unlicensed assistants to have their own access to the MLS. She said I would need to access it through the agents login.

HUH?????

I guess in Spartanburg, we do things a little differently. After all, we were the only library system in the COUNTRY that didn't allow for books to be renewed. I'm not kidding. Thankfully they revised that policy a couple of years ago, though.

So anyway, I guess it's back to the drawing board for me, and I'll figure out this MLS access stuff when I get set up with an agent.

On the road to MLS access...hopefully!

Well, I am very close to getting MLS access, thanks to Kelly and her awesome article that she posted on her blog here. Kelly has been tremendously helpful, especially when it comes to helping me determine how to approach the real estate agent. She even did some of my "homework" for me, which was a big boost to me for my confidence level. Many, many thanks, Kelly!

I have my ad up on Craigslist and am basically waiting for the phone to ring. If for some reason it doesn't ring, I'm going to see if anyone at my CREIA Women's focus group would be interested in helping me.

I will keep y'all posted!

A shout out to all of my internet friends!

I just wanted to say that I absolutely love my internet friends! The list is long, but it includes Kelly, Scott, Shae, Jodi, Eileen, Steph.....I'm probably forgetting someone, and if I am I have to say that I'm so sorry!