My new prospect

Hey dude. I'm making an offer on a house that I looked at the other day for FR. It was a realtor referral and I asked the agent who called for the estimate that I'd be interested in it if his clients weren't. His clients got a whiff of my $15,000 estimate to fix the slab and took a pass so today I'm making an offer. It's a 3br slab house, approx 20 years old with a out-of-whack slab and it's uglier than dogshit inside. It should sell for $80k - $85k all fixed up purty so I offered $37.5k as is. I'm aiming to buy it for about $40k. It's a bank repo, and banks are notoriously bad about cutting down their prices but hopefully they'll play ball with this one as it's been on the market for about 140 days already.

Wish me luck!

Checking out, bitch!

'sup, bro.

Glad to hear all's well con su familia, your sinus infections notwithstanding. We're all fine over here.

Sorry to hear your back's giving you trouble again. Maybe you should take like a month off the working out and jogging? Weight training is mighty unforgiving when you have bad discs. Take some time and just recuperate a bit. My advice, for what it's worth.

My girls and I will be taking a week long vacation next month to go visit Mark and then come to Houston for awhile. I think I'll use that week to take some time off the iron myself, though I'll stay on the diet. I have a feeling that if I get off the diet, I'll never get back on it. I'm in my ninth week now and, though I feel good by and large, I also feel bone tired a lot of the time, especially at the end of the week. I think a week off next month will be well-earned.

As for Clay, you probably know him better that I, but he's always impressed me as having a good head on his shoulders. I don't know his bride-to-be but I think he'll do well in marraige. As for him being too young, I don't know precisely how old he is, but I'd be surprised if he is any younger than you were when you got married almost 12 years ago now. Yeah, cripple shoes wearin muthafucka, how 'bout that shit?

Ooh yeah! This house is safe now! I have exorcized the demon!

Sorry, gratuitous Ace Ventura quotes. They just kind erupt out of me at random now. Erica thinks I've developed Tourettes Syndrome, I think it's the BFL-related physical and mental exhaustion. Be that as it may, I think Clay will do fine.

Have a good Friday and weekend and try to post if you can. Give Christian and Emily big hugs from Uncle James.

Checking in

Hey bro.
Nothing exciting going on over hear. My household has been fighting a nasty sinus infection the last couple of weeks. Haven't worked out in a week. My back is really giving me fits right now. Work is busy. Should get VLO closed by end of March. I love negotiating on big ticket items. I think Clay is getting married this weekend. I see a train wreck coming in his near future. Too young! I'd like to get up and spend a night with you guys in SA. I just have to get my everyone well. We did have a good time in Austin. Dad looks good. I think he has lost almost 20 lbs.

See ya,

RC

Tuesday morning

Good morning. Well, I hear that you all had a nice weekend in Austin. I also heard diets were tossed overboard and that y'all practically had a food fight, so much was consumed. Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, I heard. At least, that's what dad told me. Of course, he's still trying to twist my arm to join Weight Watchers even when he doesn't take it seriously himself. Unbelievable. Anyway, I hope you all had a good time and that Rebekah had a pleasant trip to Arkansas.

I did upper body yesterday and jogged 20 minutes on the treadmill this morning. The jogging is by far the best cardio work there is in my opinion, but it makes me sweat for like an hour afterward. Anyway, my pecs are getting stronger but I tried to single 275 (on the barbell bench) as my last set and I couldn't get it up. Mostly because of the joint pain. You know, by and large, my shoulder feels a lot better and doesn't hurt nearly as bad as it did a few months ago . . . except when I put a lot of stress on it. Oh well, I'll keep at it.

Why don't you, Rebekah and the kids come see us sometime? You know your room is always ready.

End of week 8.

Hey brother. Well, this was the end of week 8 I think. This morning I ran on the treadmill for 20 minutes, something I don't think I've done in 10 years. All in all my body feels good. I feel powerful and even my shoulder doesn't hurt so much anymore. And - knock wood - I'm still doing well on the diet. As long as I keep to the discipline about the protein shakes, I'm never overcome with hunger and so I don't feel the need to overeat. Also, after being at a plateau of about 294 for the past 2 weeks, I finally broke through and lost 4 lbs this week. So I'm now at 290 lbs., still heavy of course but 23 lbs. lighter than I was 2 months ago.

Hope all's well over there. We're having a relaxing Saturday over here. Erica's got the bug to "faux" our kitchen so we spent the morning at Home Depot looking at paints for this project. She might call Rebekah for advice because we both liked what she did in your upstairs bedroom.

Tonight, Erica and I are going to the "Slingin' Ink Tattoo Expo" where I am going to get "Courtney" put on my left arm. This'll be my third tat. Jeez, I am turning into such a cracker! I've even got a chin beard going!

Is the Valero deal still looking good?

Cripple shoes and other thoughts

Hey brother. Not too much to report lately. Dad has been down for the past few days and since his workday begins at 6:00 am I missed my workout yesterday. I made up for it by doing it this morning instead of the usual Thursday cardio. I'll do my final lower body workout tomorrow and then really nuke myself for cardio on Saturday.

I actually jogged on the treadmill the other day. I thought I'd do about 5 minutes of running at the 4.5 - 5.0 speed after some warmup and I ended up doing 15 minutes. I had to stop not because my legs demanded it but because I was running short of time. I'll try to go for 30 minutes this weekend. If I can get that, I'll buy some shoes (yeah, let's talk about them cripple shoes!) and begin a real outdoor running program.

Anyway, hope all's well over on your end. How's your back feeling?

Simmer down now!!

Don't be hatin on the guy that out bid you. You're turn is coming. Beck and I looked at a couple of houses yesterday. One is an investor owned property. The house needs some extensive work on the asthetics but seems to be in decent overall shape. I was excited until that evening when Mom informed me that this guy has decided to release the house. I think it's a mistake unless he is willing to invest like at least $5K to do some exterior landscaping and painting. Maybe he'll change his mind. The second house was a foreclosure and total piece of crap. I am not going to get involved with anything that needs more than a good scrubbin and some paint and flooring.

I have tweaked my routine a bit. I am now lifting and doing cardio 4X wk. Mon., Tues., Thurs., Fri. Starting w/ 20 min. on recumbant bike followed by 30 min of lifting. Chest on Mon then Back and Shoulders on Tues. Legs on Thurs. and Arms on Fri. Shake things up a bit,, you know, like for everybody.

Beginning of week 8

Good morning! What's new?

Okay, couldn't resist that one. Well, how did your house hunting go this weekend? I found a more motivated agent to work with me and found that, of the three homes that I made offers on in December, one's still on the market, one sold and one let the listing expire and took it back off the market. The one that sold is one that I found when I looked at it for FR. Her house was such a piece of shit (albeit one in a fairly nice neighborhood) that I talked to her about taking an all cash offer from me to sell it. I was talking about number in the $30,000 to $40,000 range (the house had an ARV of about $85 - $90K) and she seemed interested but then her son told her that I was trying to screw her so she ran off and listed the damn thing. About three potential deals fell thru before I made a backup offer of $30K but it eventually sold for $50,000. If it was an investor who bought it, he's gonna get hurt. That thing was rotten from the slab to the shingles and was not one you could value add with just a bucket of paint and some new carpet. Fucking asshole, I hope he goes broke on it.

Anyway, Erica, Courtney and I went to Austin this weekend. We stayed in a Hyatt downtown (my girls being hotel addicts) and met dad and Susan for dinner one night. We went and saw the LBJ Library and went to see the Capitol too. It was a family field trip. However, for the second week in a row, I missed Saturday cardio, last week because of Billy's funeral. Those are the only ones I've missed though.

Hey dude!

Didn't get to the gym for cardio yesterday. I was up at 5:00 to fly out at 7:00 to Valero. The deal is looking very good. That's all I'll say (don't wanna jinx it). I've found a few foreclosures that I am going to investigate this weekend. Houses that would go for 90 to 100. I'll try to pick up for > $40K. Get something for your girls for Valentines day. Have a great weekend. I'm off on Monday for Pres. day. This company takes off more holidays. Not complaining.

Investing

Well, I think one part of the reason that my investing career can't seem to get to take-off speed is because I have an unmotivated agent. So, I'm firing her today and having a new one find out what the hell's going on on the three properties that I've made offers on in the past few months. I didn't expect any of them to be accepted as they were all lowball offers but I at least expected some kind of response. I got nothing, like my offers just went poof.

So today hopefully I'll be able to kick some of these deals back to life.

Staggering to the finish line . . . again

Will there ever be a week when I'll feel as strong on Friday as I do on Monday? Jeez, I was a little stronger this morning than I was yesterday but still had to drag my ass through it. For the record, I did upper body this morning.

I notice that we're back to one hand clapping here, bro. Where are you and what are you up to?

Draggin my ass

Hey. I tried to go do cardio this morning but I started seeing spots after just 5 minutes on the skiier. This is the first really bad day I've had on the program and I think it's because I'm not as disciplined as I should be on the eating schedule. I'm eating less than I should because this new protein I bought, "Whey Protein," though a lot cheaper than Muscle Milk, tastes like shit.

I'll make myself eat better today and hopefully I'll have a better workout tomorrow morning.

With regard to the house, I've requested the comps from the listing agent and as soon as I see them, I'll make an offer.

My new prospect

I looked at a house in Terrell Hills this afternoon. TH is San Antonio's River Oaks. The home is about 50 years old and sits on a 1/2 acre lot. Get this, it's 17 1/2 inches out of level. It's about a 1500 sq-ft house and it has the worst foundation I've ever seen. Once it's leveled, the plumbing will break all to hell and gone and the roof will buckle. The sheetrock will break up so bad that the house will need to be gutted to the studs. I love it. Houses like this - in neighborhoods like this - put wood in my shorts.

I think I'll offer $40,000 for it. I would imagine that it has an ARV of between $125,000 to $150,000.

The wheels are still off of the bus.

Wanna hear my excuses? My back has been killing me and now I have a sinus infection. I am going to the gym tonight. I started researching spinal disc replacement. It is still in the experimental phase, when it becomes mature technology, I am going to consider it.

Aw man, yo momma's teeth

Alright shitheel. I've got a stack of files for houses I've looked at over the past few months so I'll kick myself in the butt and get those off center. I'll also finalize my approval for financing. I've met with a hard money lender and all I need to do is get him my application to get the last of my ducks in a row on this. You need to find one yourself in case you haven't done so already. Just google "hard money lenders - Houston" and that should give you a start. I would also recommend that you join a real estate investor association there and get active in it. You can learn a lot and meet a lot of people who can give you good advice.

Look Rob, I appreciate that you're so eager to get into this. But you do have to be careful. I have a tendency to fall into "analysis paralysis" and end up measuring these deals so long that they go away before I can make an offer. You can keep me rolling and I'll try to keep you from falling into any quicksand.

Are you back on the diet? I did cardio this morning and I feel good right now, even though it's cold and rainy here today.

And no, the title of this post doesn't mean anything.

Hay is for horses

When I said that the house is worth 100, I meant as an investment. Fully rehabbed, it would go for 140. It could be redone for around 10.

What's this bullshit about excercising caution. Did we excercise caution when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor? No! So pick up your skirt, grab your nuts shout "I AM A MAN!!" Now, let's go make some money. I'll race ya to $100K.

Hey

Watch your step, dude. I may know 10 times the stuff you do but I also know where a lot of the pitfalls are too. If you want to do this together, than yeah I'm all for it. But we probably need to spend a lot of face time together. You always give me a charge to get off my ass (which is a bit slimmer these days thanks to your challenging me) but you need me to give you a bit of caution.

Right now, I'm not interested in income properties. One day I will probably but right now I just have NO interest in being a landlord. I'd rather find the ugly duckling house (preferrably one with a fucked up slab), fix it then sell it. To do that successfully you need good margins and I can tell you that buying a $100K house for $95K isn't a good margin. And what happens if he agrees? Do you have a hard money lender set up?

If you haven't yet, you need to get your ducks in a row before you go jumping into this pond. Next time you come to SA try to make it an overnight trip and we'll talk about it some more.

I did upper body this morning. A pretty good workout, too. Are you back on the diet?

Good to see you and Erica this weekend

Hey bro.

I watched a Carlton Sheets DVD last night where he interviewed this guy who buy's houses that are in need of cosmetic repair and does some light rehab and resells them. The guy averages over $40K in net profit! Mom told me that her old partner Carol manages foreclosures for a bank and can help me out in this area. I am going to do this!

Erica mentioned to Rebekah that Dad said something to you about you not being ready to be an investor. If that's true then it is the biggest bunch of crap that I have ever heard. James, you know 10X about this stuff than I do. Don't wait until you think you know everything, you never will. This isn't brain surgery. Let's be accountable on getting into this business. I will commit to you that I will have a contact on a home a month from today. Thats March 9th.
I met with a guy yesterday that has his home listed in the For Sale by Owner magazine. It was in the Copperfield area. This guy was asking for like 147 when it's only worth like $100. I may send him a low ball offer of like 95K. I don't think I want to mess with him though. I am meeting with another homeowner this week. I think this one is a candidate for a lease/purchase deal. We'll see.

Peace!!

Thanks

Robbie, just wanted to tell you, from me and Erica, thanks for having us over last night. I had fun visiting with y'all and playing with Emily on the computer this morning.

Billy's funeral sure was beautiful, wasn't it? That guy sure was loved. Not that I'll be there to see, but I hope my funeral is like that one. Like I said, I'll make sure yours is!

We got in to S.A. hungrier than a pair of sharks and I almost lost discipline tonight at Chilis. I managed to hold the worst of my impulses with only a few chips and I ordered the guiltless grilled chicken (which came out dry and tough as a shoe sole) with a rice pilaf, corn on the cob and grilled veggies. I'm still hungry enough to seriously consider biting off my own hand so I'll have a protein shake in a few minutes.

BTW, Erica told me that Rebekah told her that Jim and Sarah are moving to New Braunfels. Is that true?

End of week 5

Hey, I'm typing this before I pack a bag and get ready to drive to your house. I fucking nuked my legs in the gym this afternoon. I did 14 plates for my last set of leg press. I feel like rubber south of my beltline so I guess it was a good workout.

I'm not going to fuss at you about your diet discipline going all to hell, either. You didn't need this as a weight loss thing nearly as badly as I did. For what it's worth, I'm still doing pretty well on the diet although I'll bet I probably gained a bit of weight this week. I can feel myself muscling up, esp. in my legs and I think I'm at the "stasis" point where my lean gain will offset my fat loss for awhile.

We had a sales meeting at Dad's house this morning. Every time we get together, he gives us his newest harebrained schemes for turning things around. The truth is - and this "truth" is only my opinion - we're overexposed in this market. No other competitor, not one, has offices in both SA and Austin. Most of them are here in SA and handle both cities out of one market. In fact, for foundation repair, I would argue that the two cities are in fact one market.

Dad has had an office in San Antonio since 1996 and it has never been profitable. And I don't expect that it ever will be. The guys in Austin all make good money but SA salesmen never do. Dad has a very "shoot the messenger" kind of response to thoughts like that so I don't bring it up often but I have told him my thoughts on that. Twice.

My shit-or-get-off-the-pot time will expire when Megan gets out of high school. I'll keep my faith and a positive outlook until then but if I'm still in the same boat by Spring 2005 that I am now, it's adios papa.

Robbie, please keep this to yourself. I needed to vent.

See you tonight.

Low energy today

Hey, did 20 minutes of stairmaster this morning. I'm finding that I'm getting in to the gym later and later in the morning and that, instead of becoming easier to wake up, it's getting harder the further I go in this routine. This is the end of my 4th week on the BFL program and the 5th week working out overall (remember I did my own thing the first week). I have missed NO workouts, not even a cardio day.

Things are back in motion on that house I told you about that I'm working with an investor on. We tried to get a quick "rent-to-buy" buyer a few months ago but that fell thru because of the customer's bad credit. The strategy was always to "short-sell" the house anyway. It's a ugly duckling with pretty good potential. The foundation's fucked up like you wouldn't believe and it stinks like mold and cat shit inside but it has an ARV (after repair value) of about $90,000.00. When you "short" a mortgage, you convince the mortgager to sell you the property for less than the mortgage amount. For that to happen, the previous owner has to deed the property over to you and walk away from it AND the house has to be a complete piece of crap. The mortgager has to be convinced that there is no way that they'll be able to easily sell the property so they cut their losses and sell it to you. The problem is that unless the owner is at least 60 days behind on his mortgage, the mortgager won't talk to you about it. Thus, the delay.

I'll keep you up to date on this as it goes along.

email

rcooper77095@sbcglobal.net

DSL

BTW, I love the new DSL. Tell Christian he was right to want it. We got sbc Yahoo DSL and my email here at home is jcooper711_at_sbcglobal.net. What's yours?

. . . dollar!

Hey, well we just spoke with mom and she told us that the wake will be Friday night, the service will be Saturday morning and the burial late Saturday afternoon. I'm still deciding what to do, whether I'll come in Friday after work and stay with you alone or with my crew. Erica wants to come with me but the logistics of it all will probably mean that I'll come in alone. I'll let you know.

Had a pretty good upper body workout today. The shoulder hurt but I was able to bench the 85-lb dumbells (the heaviest my gym has) for my last set. I used 50-lb dumbells for my last set of curls.

Well, almost time to sit down for dinner (baked chicken and vegetables). Talk to you soon.

Another day, another....

Dial up is a bitch. We got SBC Yahoo DSL about 3 months ago. Christian bitched at me for about 6 months to get it, so I finally did. Are you coming into town tomorrow? If you do, then I will get you a guest pass for Friday morning at the YMCA. Have you tried Atkin's brand pasta? It's actually not that bad if you have a good sauce. I missed only my second workout in 5 weeks yesterday. Both of them were cardio. I needed to rest my back. Did Abs/lower body this morning. Not much intensity, about a 5. But since you get 90 points for showing up, I get a 95, which is a solid A. I was excited to hear that Erica is showing an interest in Real Estate Investing. It is so much easier and better if both people are committed to the same goal. I think Rebekah is going to get involved in it with me. There are leasure learning classes at Cy-Fair college that offer courses in real estate investment. I am almost 2/3 of the way done with my Carlton Sheets course. Like you, I am always very skeptical of someone who advertises with infomercials, but it has been a very good course. One of the recent recorded seminars that I watched was how to purchase and manage multi-family units or apartment buildings. More headaches but much greater potential for higher revenue.

I'll see you this weekend.

Trying to stay on track!

Hey brother. Went in and did 20 minutes on a machine I call the "cross-country skiier." I've never gotten on one before because they look silly but 20 minutes on one this morning changed my mind. Like you, I'm feeling more and more tempted to break the diet. I'm resisting though.

We always have to make compromises. I can't expect Erica and the girls to eat tuna and chicken with me for every meal so I end up eating what they do, just a lot less than I used to and now I insist on having a vegetable like green beans with every meal. Brother, I'm telling you, I have eaten mountains of spaghetti in my life and limiting myself to a measly "portion" of it takes a major effort of will.

Glad to hear you're muscling up. I wish I could but I can't push myself hard enough north of my waistline because of this damned shoulder.

We finally got DSL set up in our house this past weekend. What made it a pain in the ass is that my home only came with 2 phone jacks, one in the kitchen and the other in the master bedroom. Installing a jack in the office would have involved boring through my brick veneer and then stringing a cable all the way around my house to the phone box in the back. No thanks. I bought something called a "wireless-B router" and an adapter card for the computer. I needed a pro to set it up for me but now that it's up and running it's pretty cool. I was sick to death of dial-up AOL.

Trying to get back on track!

Rebekah is taking a computer class on Mon. and Wed. night, so the kids and I had pizza for dinner. So restarting, all over again. I had Atkin's cereal this morning and drinking a shake right now. My weight has actually gone up since starting this routine, 241. I am in week 5 now, pretty exciting. I definately (<--spelling error?) see an increase in muscularity. I don't know if I told you about the new YMCA about 5 min. from the house. It has zapped my motivation to go to the gym in the early morning. I just stop in on my way home. Very conveinient.

Middle of the diet blahs

Robbie, the way I see it, we're both in the mid-diet blah stage. This is where I always lose it and quit. I lose a few pounds and get bored with the routine. I'll stick with this one though because I don't want to look bad in front of you by quitting. You don't want to look bad in front of me, do you?

This is my first time on this routine so I'm not really bored with it yet, though I also am having trouble keeping to the eating schedule because my appetite is so much less than before. Anyway, I was a total pig for free day and I did legs this morning. Felt really strong & pushed up 12 plates on the leg press. Must of still had the Krispy Kremes in my blood.

God, that sucks about Billy. Looks like you and I will be seeing each other this week.

The pace of the blogging has slowed.

I am really struggling with dieting right now. Not that I am eating a bunch of shit, just not getting enough meals in. Still haven't missed a day in the gym yet.