Real Estate is not easy nor is it inexpensive to learn how to do it right (part 1)
By JD Hawki | July 13, 2009
The profession of Coaching and being an Educator can sometimes be stressful. For many years one of the things I used as a distress-or was to buy and rehab houses. In 1986 I started driving the communities I lived and taught in until I found an old house that had a lot of character and was a bad house in a good neighborhood. I would make an offer at or below market depending on how much rehabbing it needed. When I acquired the property I would start fixing it up to rent and hold until it would appreciate enough to make a little money and I would move on to the next house. I become pretty good at this because appreciation would always come through for me so I could have a small write off and earn a little extra for my time.
Up until 1986 I was a single parent trying to help my X raise twin daughters from long distance. Then they both got married and started their own families. I started more aggressively buying and rehabbing houses as I was not interested in getting married again. This went on for many years then I met a lady in 1994 who knocked my socks off. We got married a year later. We had a lot in common in that she could work as hard as I could, was interested in Real Estate and was good as understanding the concepts of creating properties that would sell. She was and is very good at staging, color coordinating and also seeing trend potential of Real Estate.
Shortly after we got married we decide to move out of our apartment and buy a house that needed rehabbing and had a lot of potential as well as character. We thought we wanted to learn Real Estate from the ground up and to us that meant doing the work ourselves. One of the toughest things about remodeling this house was removing 8 layers of wall paper and paint from the walls. Because of the transition we were in of making a new life for us both and getting settled we took about a year to transform this old house. When finished we decided to put a for sale sign out in the front yard. It sold to the first people who stopped by to look it over. We knew then for sure we could do this business and that we were good as a team.
Shortly after our marriage my wife”s craft industry job begin to play out. Because of our success on this old house make over she decided to start her own buy and rehab Real Estate business. Since then we have rehabbed over 18 houses through the years.
We knew now for sure we wanted to do Real Estate. With my wife working full time buying and rehabbing houses I would help her on week ends and when I could. A few years before I retired we decided we would start looking for a property we would like too retire to some day. We did not care where it was at that time. However we did have a few requirements. The main requirements was it had to be no farther than 10 to 12 miles from a Walmart, unique, a lot of character, a few acres with water and a old house with a lot of potential.
(see our next bog as we continue the rest of the story)
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
Times Are Changing, especially as it relates to Real Estate
By JD Hawki | August 27, 2008
I have been involved in Real Estate one way or another for over 35 years (1973) when my father ask my brothers and I to go in with him and buy some wooded land in Southwest Missouri. We thought he was a little, well you know “off his rocker so to speak”. We all went along any way because he had never guided us astray before so why would we not trust him now. He kept telling us that, they don’t make land any more and if we would just buy and hold this land, it could be the ticket to our retirement some day.
We took the opportunity to buy several hundred acres for around $15.00 to $25.00 an acre. At that time we all thought that was a very expensive investment. I guess mainly the reason we all felt that way was because we all were trying to raise families and were all teaching and Coaching. We were in a very rewarding career but one that was (and still is not) not very lucrative as far as income is concerned. We all took on the burden of making those monthly payments.
Our father had told us that we would only have to make these payments with him until he was ready to retire and sell his farm. He was getting to the point in his life that he wanted to (needed to) retire. He had worked all his life on the dairy farm and had wanted to leave it to one or all of us. I guess in one since he wanted us to farm but in another he knew how hard the work was and how hard it was to make a living on a dairy farm that he would say stay, but pushed us out the door to get an education.
Even though we all turned out to be Coaches he never really liked Coaches before and had trouble understanding why we decided on Coaching for a profession. That feeling on his part came about mainly because we were all Athletic and the Coaches were always asking us to play or practice when dad thought we should be milking the cows.
He did go ahead and sell his farm a few years later. He received enough funds from that sale to have enough to live out his life and to pay off the land we had acquired a few years earlier.
Back to where this story all started in how Real Estate has changed. For many years we held the land and it’s value would go up a little and then something with the economy would go sour and down it’s value would go. Basically it never changed much and then suddenly in the 2000’s it’s value begin to go up to a point where to us it was turning out to be like our father had predicted.
Anyway to make a long story short now that we have all retired from education we decided to sell the land. In this year of 2008 it sold for, well lets say (lot more) more that what we payed.
The other area that I have been associated with Real Estate is in buying, rehabbing, and either renting or selling single family residential properties for many years on a part time bases. When I retired from education in 2004 I went into business with my wife who had her own business of buying and rehabbing and selling properties. We have stayed actively involved over the last few years buying and rehabbing (doing most of our own work). and now, well times are a changing. All you have to do is watch the media for a few minutes and you will have a good understanding about what I am saying if you don’t already know.
As my father always said you can only paddle up stream so long. You will either have to figure out a better way to paddle or another direction to paddle. We are taking our experiences and paddling in a new direction. We know and understand Real Estate and are putting that experience into helping others like you who may need to find a better way to paddle or another direction to paddle.
We have figured out another way to paddle and have taken out experience in Real Estate to another level. We are using our time to work with owners (like you) of Multifamily Apartments who need to move in another direction with their ownership. It begins with you contacting us and giving us a brief overview of your situation and what you see as your needs. We then use our experience to offer you solutions. It may be that you are a burned out landlord, economics has changed, want to retire, financial hardships with ownership (close to foreclosure). What ever we can help
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Landlording/Multifamily ownership (Had Enough)
By JD Hawki | August 10, 2008
Every day we live, just as sure as we breath it’s inevitable that change will take place in our lives. It can be good, bad, welcomed, or hated, but rest assured it will happen. It is true in all aspects of our lives no matter whether it’s in our family life, economics, personal, business, or any other area of our life. We are each constantly placed in a position where we either have to acknowledge this fact and make adjustments or we begin to move away from being in a position of being a happy productive person.
Today we specifically are reaching out to those who are owners of a Multifamily Apartments. Those who may have experienced a change in their life that puts themselves in as position that they need to figure out a better way of dealing with their ownership or maybe dispose of their property. If you are a burned out landlord, want to retire, or maybe your family situation has changed to the point that you need to sell. Or it could be that your property has become a financial burden. What ever the reason we are here to help. We have several years of experience working with people in helping them to refocus their lives and accomplish their goals. In addition to having the experience of working with people we have years experience working in Real Estate.
What are we offering and how do we do it! It begins with you contacting us and sharing with us your situation and what your needs are. We contact you at your suggested time and way (e-mail, phone etc) and discuss in detail what your needs are and how we might help. We first offer our expertise’s to look for solutions ( EXAMPLE; If your Multifamiy business has become a finanacial burden and you are looking at a possible foreclosure we might do a short sale or we might locate a buyer who may want to purchase your property). It might consist of offering a free (one time) consulting session where we offer our guidance (experience) to HELP make your situation BETTER. In some situations if it meets our investment criteria we might be interested in buying ourselves.
To begin the no obligation process click on request consultation. Follow directions and we will get back to you ASAP
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »