Hi ho, Hi ho, its off to work we go!

My new duplex!
Well today was my first full day of production on my new duplex I bought. I must be crazy, I haven't even closed escrow yet, but all that is pending is the title search and my mentor has owned this house for probably over 20 years so there is no way there is anything going to come up on the title and if there is, he will fix it. So I'm not worried about it, he gave me permission to go work over there, so I'm busting on it.

Sweating in freezing weather
Being that it was less than 30 degrees today, I bought a new pair of insulated coveralls. Then the gas company was coming to install the meters and light the pilot lights on the furnaces, and I wanted to smash out this brick decorative wall that was falling away from the house, and if the meters were in, it would be impossible to swing a sledge hammer in there and remove the thing, so I was swinging the sledgehammer as fast as I could smashing bricks out for a few hours. Can you imagine being in freezing weather and totally sweating? I was happy to have worked up a good sweat though, it proves my coveralls are good :)

Surprise surprise
So I got that done and the gas man shows up. He gets one side working and then discovered that the 2nd furnace is gone! It was so dark down there I didn't even notice. But being the resourceful person that I am, I've already got a used one I found for 100 bucks. I'll install it myself or get someone to help me. Maybe my mentor has one he'll throw in. Then I couldn't find the washer drier hookups for the north unit. Maybe both sides are supposed to share them? Anyways, I really need to use my inspection list on the next unit I buy. I mean, I looked it over pretty good but I shouldn't have missed these two things.

Todo or not todo
But to me its no fun writing up a budget and calling for prices on every little thing. I like to just get a ball park figure in my head and go for it. I don't have the time to write down costs and stuff. I just get in there and do things and get it done and try to save money as much as possible. But I know what stuff costs for the most part and I have a little cushion in the budget so I can do it this way. Now if I was doing it for someone else, I'd nail down a detailed budget and todo list ahead of time. But I like to fly by the seat of my pants on these things, within my mental estimate of what needs done. I am going to write a todo list tomorrow though, at least for the north unit which I plan on having "for rent" in a couple of weeks at most.

Plumbing!
Wow my mentor gave me a crash course on plumbing. I guess this stuff is just too easy for me because of my auto body repair experience I have. All the same kind of stuff applies, thread tape on the thread connections and clean the pipes with acetone, then use some glue stuff to glue CPVC pipe together. So today I did my first real plumbing work, and it was so easy. I installed a new level shut off valve yesterday and then today I replaced about 4 feet of pipe and made an elbow corner. Fun stuff!

Critical work first, pretty stuff later
I always like to make a place livable first. So I tackle all the critical tasks first, then I move to cosmetics. What good is a living space if there is no heat or water? What if the floors are shaky and give way under your weight? So I like to fix all the core issues before doing any paint or hardware improvements. So the basic plan is to get heat, water, toilets, showers and stuff working, get siding on the front of the place ASAP as weather permits so it has some basic curb appeal, then I'll fix any drywall issues, and replace flooring/paint as needed, window coverings, etc.

Anyhow I'm off to a good start on the place. I've got a lot done already. I'll post some pics soon.

Going full time into real estate!

Ground Breaking News
Wow today was ground breaking! Not only did I receive the contract to buy my next property and will sign tomorrow, but my mentor revealed to me that he wants to partner with me on some some house flipping! I'm still going to keep my businesses open part time, but my main focus for a while will be real estate.

The value here is that I'll get paid to work on flipping some houses, and share in the profits. The real value though, is I will gain massive construction knowledge and be able to pick my mentor's brain about the real estate business and learn everything there is to know about it.

I'm really excited because I really enjoy working on houses and I'm sick of the game industries ups and downs. Its next to impossible to get a deal or get contract work, and I'd rather just create my own games anyway, so this will allow me to actually build wealth consistently. I really felt like I was getting my life on track when I was doing my first rental, then to be laid off and unemployed right after making my first investment was devastating. I mean, here I was getting my life in order, and I had a sweet plan to financial freedom, and then BOOM, I'm laid off. With no money coming in except for residual income from some projects, it was pretty hard dealing with the feelings that my dreams were once again slipping away from me. I mean, yeah I could have sold my rental and had some money, but I didn't want to. What is the point? I can see selling some down the road, but not now.

I'm also planning on and have actually started on writing an ebook about real estate. The real value to it though is you'll be able to subscribe to private forums and ask questions about real estate and share your success stories with others, etc. I bought the musclenow book for just this reason, it came with lifetime email support from the author. To me that sets a product apart from all the rest. I mean, there is only so much you can get from a book, but if you can talk to the guy who wrote it, to me that is virtually priceless if you are passionate about a subject! So I'm going to sell the book for probably 19.99 and then forum access will be 9.99 a month. We'll add value to the forums and have videos on how to do common construction tasks, repairs, etc.

The joys of being self employed

Well I've never been this broke in a long time. My account is never under four digits, and frankly my comfort zone is 5 digits. Thats what makes us scramble, when we are below our comfort zone. Frankly, I think I've done better than most Americans could. Try NOT working for over three months and see how your checkbook holds out! Not to mention spending a few thousand on an investment, and to take on more expenses starting a new business. So I'm scrambling to make ends meet but I think the scramble is nearing it's end.

I'm 99% sure I've secured a loan which will get me in the door of my next rental house, and it will give me enough money to get through the holidays, and after that I have an investor ready to go on a flip project. My computer store is slowly picking up speed, but I think its the kind of business that will take a while to build and its a nickel and dime business. Every job is about 10 to 100 dollars, there is no serious gravy to be made from any one client. But I think over time it can grow and I'll hire someone to help with it and it will be another decent little income.

Then I think I have a game deal landed, hopefully two game deals landed. That will be huge for me, and that is how I bread my butter.

But the few things that have been keeping me alive or slowing the bleeding process here, have been real estate and residual income I have from game sales and license deals. I'd have been dead in the water if it weren't for that extra money coming in. So the key to me, is to create more passive income. Earned income is great, but its never steady, so the more I think about it, the more I want to focus my energy towards passive income. Passive income is freedom, and freedom is great, period.

Need funding for a flip, have buyer already!

Ok I'll be blunt, my credit is not that great after filing bankruptcy. Banks won't touch me even though my credit score is still about 650. But I have a deal that could make good money and give me a job for a few months.

I'm pretty sure we could get the property for about 35k, maybe less, put 20k into it (10k labor, which gives me a much needed job right now) and 10k in materials or so. Thats a maximum of 55k investment in this place, plus holding costs. I have an end buyer that I think would pay 75k for this house, but if you don't want the sure thing, we could try selling it on the market. Comp houses are worth 80-110k in that area. I think this place would be worth 85-95k easily after I complete the renovations.

If anyone is interested in helping with the project and want to make some easy money, email me: joel@4drulers.com

New ways to make passive income!

I'm falling in love with passive income. In fact, I've got a spreadsheet calculating my future passive income based on a property I'm going to buy, a business and some inventory I'm selling, and current passive income. My monthly total will be $2,232.25 NET in just a couple of months. Considering I had ZERO passive income at the start of 2008, I'm totally amazed at what concentrated effort on the right PATH will bring to your life. Granted, Thats just barely enough to live on, but if I can land work that pays what I'm used to - $4000-10,0000 a month, I'll be richer than I can really imagine.

However, the game industry is on the downward spiral. It continued to bloat to the point where 100-300 people were working on a title for years, and those costs are now crippling the ones who are not producing top selling titles. So we're seeing layoffs and its really hard getting contracts any more. So basically if I can't find work in the industry, I'm living like a pauper on 2200 a month.

But thats ok, I know I will find work. I always seem to make a deal with someone or find something I feel is worth my time. I'd like to try a house flip deal, I have many spotted which would be profitable, but my credit is too poor to really get a large loan.

Oh on to the topic! I like to ramble too much. New ways to make passive income:
Sell a business on a payment plan. Sure it would be nice to cash out, but frankly most buyers won't find going into formal debt with interest and all that to buy a small business very attractive. So you sell on payments.

Another way I've found is to sell software subscriptions. Not only do you make money on the sale, but next year when it renews you will get a commission from that. Lots of software companies have affiliate programs and these are great ways to make some extra passive income.

Of course, the best way is real estate. You don't even need to own it. I'm renting a building but I have the rights to sub lease and I've got a small area sub leased for 50 a month. I like home rentals the best, and I want to buy more real estate as fast as humanly possible.

Every successful business person I know or have met, has some kind of real estate investing going on. Its just too good and solid of a business. Eventually I am going to write a book on it, once I hit the 6 figure a year income level anyway, or get a net worth of over half a million I think I'll be good enough to share my info with others at that point.

Write a book! Book sales will earn you passive income. If you have specialized knowledge, write a e-book and sell it! I plan on trying a few out soon myself. Lord knows I won't be doing too much real estate renovations when its going to be freezing out soon.

Be a deal maker. It seems like theres always a deal to be made if you talk to lots of people. Find out what they want and arrange it, and make some money. People pay for information. If they can't afford your services you set them up on a payment plan and then you have passive payments.

Create a benefits program where your customers can pay you a small fee each month which adds up to an in store credit. You can match their money with your own so every 8 dollars they put in you put in 2 or whatever. Then they have this credit they can use to buy stuff later, only redeemable at your store. Auto draft their account and you have a few hundred people doing this and your making good money just doing that. Tell them its a great way to budget for a disaster if you repair things like computers, or a way to plan for a new computer every few years by saving 10 a month towards it.

The #1 way to make passive income is to simply have things for sale on a web site. Most anything I put up for sale, eventually someone buys it! Action = results, don't ever forget that key!