Year in Review: Part 3

Reviewing September until December has been nice. It’s a reminder that even an idiot like me has the ability to learn from his errors.

The last four months of the year displayed how much I learned from my mistakes. Firstly, I was able to rent out the upstairs of property Chi in less than 48 hours after the tenant, Gary, told me that he would be leaving. This allowed me to profit off a turnover for the first time ever, plus I was able to rent it out to better tenants. I tried to make lightning strike twice when Lex and the Indians left the upstairs of property Alpha, but it proved far too difficult. There were too many things that needed to be done and it taught me a lesson in preventive maintenance. In order to make turnovers go smoothly and to even profit off them, an apartment has to be in “move-in condition” when a tenant leaves. This means two things: the right tenant needs to be in there, and things have to be fixed in the apartment while it's occupied.

I also had to learn the lesson of not panicking. When it took longer than expected to rent out the upstairs of property Alpha, I was really caught off guard. I had never received so few calls for an apartment. I started to panic and lowered the rental price drastically instead of taking my time and lowering the price gradually. I could have tried different strategies like “move-in specials” and the like, but I chose to lower the asking price from $900 to $800. This brought me Nicky. Not that she’s a bad tenant, but I could have done better.

During this period I joined the REIG (Real Estate Investors Group) and some good came out of it (the first meeting anyway). It was a mini-inspiration to be around other investors discussing business and buying strategies, and I got the greatest gift of all: Alfonso the handyman. Alfonso has been my best handyman and was referred to me by a member of the REIG. Although he gets busy with other jobs and takes some time to complete his task, he completes it. Because he’s a licensed contractor I can recommend him to do the work on the short sale property once I get the home improvement loan from the SFS (Smalltown Federal Savings) Bank. I also developed a way to avoid dealing with the harmful elements of my family with Operation LFS (Lie For Success). By telling everyone that my hours have been cut, that I’m going back to school to get my masters, and that I’m putting my real estate ambitions on hold, it prevented my family from asking me for money or asking me to come down and visit all the time. This also helped me to stop lending money out to Sha, my sister Rana, and my mom Rita who would either take too long to pay me back or simply not pay me back at all.

This period of time was good but it still had its share of failures. I missed my quotas for November and December and did not reach my quota of 15k for the year. I reversed all the progress I made during my P90X days by over-eating during NFL games and will now have to do another workout program to get back into shape. All in all, however, it was a good year. I learned a lot and plan to learn even more this year. I plan to continue educating myself in the real estate business so that I can maximize my profits and not fall into pit traps. I’m confident that I can make 2012 the best year yet.