Ladies and Gentleman,

 I have reached the point of no return.  My phone is ringing off the hook with leads, and because of my full time job, I cannot adequately service each and every one.  Leads are falling through the cracks.  After work each day, I have about 10 voice mails of ways that I can make money in real estate.  What more evidence do I need?

THIS IS MY CALLING!

Yes folks this is overwhelming evidence that is undeniable even to the part of myself filled with fear of what the future will hold.  Our Company, New Haven Homes is now placing 35 bandit signs a week in our market areas.  We are getting many calls, and many opportunities to purchase properties.  My other company, Spartan Residential LLC, receives so many calls off of our advertisements to lease out rental properties, that I cannot keep up anymore.  MORE TIME IS NEEDED, and my full time job is hurting my real estate business.

A countdown has begun, one in which many preparations will need to be made in order for my transition to the business full time to be flawless.  I have come up with my own personal game plan, and have begun to implement the action steps necessary to put me in a position to reach my real estate ambitions.

Soon I will be giving my employer notice that by the end of tax season, April 15Th, 2010, I plan on leaving the firm and heading into Real Estate Full time.  I am doing this so that I have given them adequate notice of my departure, and hopefully not to burn any bridges.  Once this key step in the process is done, reality will finally sink in that I am committing to doing this.  THERE IS NOTHING THAT WILL STOP ME!

Can’t wait to continue to share stories of this journey, but now is the time, and there is no time like the present!

Kind Regards,

Manny

Hello Everyone!

Just wanted to blog about a small success that I had in my newly established Property Management Business called Spartan Residential LLC.  You all know me from my wholesaling company, New Haven Homes, LLC, but recently I decided to dabble in the property management arena, specifically the leasing side of the business.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been finding the majority of landlords by calling for rent signs and posting ads on craigs list to attract landlords.  Currently I am trying to lease approximately 10 units in the CT area.  In a matter of two weeks, I have scheduled about 6 showings after I screened the potential tenants for my landlords (Credit / Background Check).  Today will mark the first tenant who will actually be signing a lease, solidifying my first payday for Spartan Residential LLC ($500 property mangement fee).

Mind you I am still full time in accounting, so I was able to create extra income for myself part time, and all I was doing was simply posting ads on craigs list and making a lot of phone calls.  This business is what will take me out of the accounting world because I can see myself making it grow and taking over my current income stream.

Just thought I would share my small success, and if anyone else is in the business, please shoot me an email.  Perhaps we can exchange property management strategies!

Stay tuned for updated blogs from New Haven Homes, LLC in a short time from now!

Kind Regards,

Manolis

New Haven Homes, LLC

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Hello Everyone,

I am a recently new buy and hold investor of a 4 unit apartment building, and I had no problems renting out 3 of my units when I purchased the property by using the free advertising resource of craiglist.  It truly is an amazing website, and it is pretty much the go to place for renters who don’t want to use a Realtor….which is nearly all of them.

Seeing as I felt it was easy for me, especially because I ran my own credit and background checks, I thought to myself, why don’t I do some property management for other people and see if I can learn more about property management, while at the same time meeting other landlords in the area and earning a few extra bucks here and there.  Well, I finally got off the side lines,and I decided I was going to get into the business.

Little did I know, that by just contacting a total of 4 for rent signs in my area, I began to manage a total of 50 units!  Mind you, I am only a leasing agent who coordinates showings and fills vacancies (non of the handy stuff), but I was amazed at how quickly someone can get into property management. Renters are everywhere, and vacancies are everywhere.  The landlords I am dealing with appreciate my professionalism, as my background is an accountant, and so far I am very close to filling my first two vacancies for these landlords.  I have arranged with them to receive a flat fee of $500 per filled vacancy, and they had no problem accepting that cost.

Another interesting thing about property management is that if you have places to rent, you will be able to find tenants.  Don’t start with the tenants in property management, start with the properties.  I just place my ads on craigslist for the properties and I am getting tons of phone calls and emails from it.  I am so excited about the amount of volume that I actually believe that property management will be the best and quickest way to get into the real estate business full time.

I am developing some detailed questionairres to get information about my prospective tenants and landlord to best be able to match the vacancies with the tenants I am dealing with.  Also, I ask the landlords if they are looking to sell their properties, so that perhaps I can find a great deal for myself to purchase in the near future.  I am leveraging my skills in helping them in order to obtain their knowledge through our discussions with one another.  This is also helping my wholesale business as I am finding potential buyers for my clients.

In short, perhaps those people stuck in the fulltime run of their jobs might consider property management as an alternative resource to get into the business full time, and get on the ground experience with the real estate market in the local area.  In a few short weeks, I feel exponentially more knowledgable about property management.  Hope this helps others in their quest for real estate riches.

Kind Regards,

Manolis

New Haven Homes, LLC

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I just spent the last hour reading a great series of articles on social media optimization and strategies.  I guess it is fitting that I came across these articles through a Twitter post.  I am constantly amazed by the use of online strategies for marketing, information outreach, and to build better online communities.  If anyone some time to spare, I highly suggest reading these articles, as they provide a great knowledge base on building an online presence, etiquette to use when participating in social media platforms, and some cool tools to help you succeed in meeting your online goals.

The link is as follows: http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/12/top-10-social-seo-posts-of-2009/

Some of the main lessons I have learned so far on this topic are to:

- Always try to provide great content for the end user

- Be genuine in your message

- Strive to make posts/articles/connections with the intent to benefit others in the online community

- Have fun while delivering your message

I hope everyone enjoys these articles as much as I did.

- Pete

New Haven Homes, LLC

Join me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/PeteNhhomesLLC

Join me on LinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/petergiordano

Tonight was the first night in almost two years, where I do not have to think about studying. I feel like Morgan Freeman, when he is finally released from Shawshank. But unlike Morgan, my freedom doesn’t come with a parole officer. Last night I found out I passed my Certified Public Accountant (CPA) exam. It took me a little under two years to pass the four tests. I only passed one test on the first try. I failed two of the tests once each. And this final test, I passed on my third try. Each test took me about 2 months of studying.

This has been my greatest test so far in perseverance. With a business background, most people have the intelligence to pass the CPA exam. The key to passing is the same as being decent at sports or playing an instrument. You have to constantly practice. The easy part is opening the book. The hard part is opening it almost every night, for 2-3 hours, for 2 months straight.

I’m hoping now I can shift this energy to bettering myself as an investor. No one has to be the most intelligent, well-spoken, or professional person to succeed in business. But, as an entrepreneur, you have to be persistent, fail over and over again, and try to gain a little something from each failure. I’m hope I can fail enough times in real estate to call myself a success. And maybe have a little fun along the way.

“Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson

- Pete, New Haven Homes LLC

Facebook fanpage – http://www.facebook.com/newhavenhomes

Preferred Buyer List sign-up site for investor deals – http://www.wesellnewhavenhomes.com/

New Goals for 2010

My partners and I just had a meeting to set our goals for 2010.  2009 was a learning year for us and through reading books, interacting with other investors, and just getting out there and doing things, we learned more than we could have imagined. 

We set our 2010 goals as specific as possible so that we know where to focus our energy.  We came up with the following:

- Buy 1 buy and hold property per quarter, preferably with partial seller financing to get in for as little money down as possible. We are looking for around a $500 cash flow minimum.

- Refer 5 potential tenants a month to landlords, running background checks for the landlords, and placing the tenants.  We are looking to make $500 for each tenant we place.

- Do 8 wholesale deals (1 every 1.5 months) at a minimum of $5,000 per wholesale.

- Do 2 light rehabs during the year, keeping repair costs to a maximum of $25-30k.

With these strategies we should make a minimum of $150,000.  If even partially successful we can spring one of our 3 partners into the business full time.  One we have one person full time, it is only a matter of time before we all are in the game completely.  From there, we can multiply the number of deals we do by 10, as we won’t have our normal full time jobs at that point.  Hopefully we learn as much in the next year as we did in the last one, and are able to have fun along the way.

- Pete

Owner, New Haven Homes, LLC

Join me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/PeteNhhomesLLC

Join me on LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com/in/petergiordano

Join me on RealEstateInvestor.com – http://www.realestateinvestor.com/NewHavenHomesLLC

I recently came across a site called Twitter Karma and thought it is a good site to share with everyone interested in growing their twitter following.  As Twitter does not want you to follow a lot more people than are following you, every now and again you have to go in and unfollow people.  Twitter Karma is a program that lets you unfollow everyone who does not follow you without going into every single person’s page and manually unfollowing them. 

1. Go to http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/

2. Enter your Twitter login info and click on “Whack”

3. This will load up all of your friends.  Click on “only following” to provide all of the people that you follow, but do not follow you back.

4. At the bottom of the page click on “check all” and then click on “bulk unfollow”.

5. The next time you log into Twitter you will no longer follow anyone who did not follow you. 

I hope this is helpful.

 

Join up with me on twitter at http://twitter.com/PeteNhhomesLLC

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Hello Investors,

Many of you may have seen my previous blog post on my excitement to attend a Commercial Investing Seminar and the various topics I was hoping would get covered.  Well, it is day 1 back from the Seminar, and the excitement has increased 10 Fold! The amount of knowledge that I obtained in that seminar now has equiped me with the general framework of the way that commercial investing works.

What were my largest take aways from that seminar?  I will attempt to summarize a few of them now.

1.  Commercial Property Valuation:  I learned about a rule of thumb that investors use to quickly make offers on properties based on the gross rental income that the commercial properties produces called the Gross Rent Multiplier (GRM). The multiple that is used varies based on the type of property you are evaluating, meaning that the GRM is higher in middle income apartment buildings as opposed to low income apartment buildings.

I also learned about the capitalization rate and how it affects the value of a commercial property.  If you know the net operating income (Income less expenses, excluding debt service) and divide it by the capitalization rate for the area that you are investing in, you come up with an estimate of the value of your property.  The way to find the cap rates is why speaking with local bank representatives and asking them at what Cap Rate their most recent commercial deal was completed at.  You may also ask knowledgable commercial realtors in the area.

2.  Finding Investors for Debt or Equity Partnerships:  The instructor went through an “elavator speech” that you must continually memorize and apply when you meet people.  If someone asks me what I do for a living, I tell them “We buy apartment buildings in emerging and stable markets.  We buy for cash flow and in areas with a strong back end.  I am always looking for properties and parters, and am willing to give equity and debt positions.” Naturally I will make it my own, but that is the general gist of what you must say to potential investors who like commercial investing.

Think that sounds silly?  Well as I was taking the shuttle back from the airport last night, I met someone who asked me that question, what do you do for a living?  I told him the above statement in my own way, and he then revealed to me that he was a Commercial Real Estate Investor who purchases Industrial Warehouses in California! He gave me his card and said that if I ever need any help with my business, to give him a call.  This man has had 25 years experience at CIGNA’s real estate division, and 6 years ago struck it out with a few other partners to do exactly the type of investing I am looking to get into.  Do not take that Bolded Elevator Speech Lightly!

3.  Demographics and Location:  This is perhaps the most important piece to the real estate puzzle for commercial properties.  Did you know that you can request demographic information from large malls and from large retail stores? They have all of this great information available and have talented people creating these reports.  All you have to do is head to the leasing office of a large mall, or call the real estate departments of national retailers to speak with these people, and they would be happy to send you a demographic package.  What do you do with that?  You see if the type of people who frequent the area, the income of these constituants, and how far they are willing to drive.  You also want to figure out where the people who work at the mall live.  That might be a good place to purchase a commercial plaza to service the needs of the local working population.

In regards to location, I never knew how important the location of an entrance and exit to a large plaza was.  I also didn’t think about tenant placement in retail plazas as I do now.  Think about this, on what side of the traffic would you want a Dunkin Donuts placed in a commercial plaza?  On the Way To Work!  I never thought of it that way, and this has opened my eyes to a complete different way of looking at commercial properties.

I have learned so much over the last 4 days about commercial real estate.  I already have begun to implement the lessons from the seminar, and already I am seeing the results.  In addition to wholesaling residential prperties, 0ur business of New Haven Homes, LLC will now consider the possibility of creating a commercial division, and the prospects and possibilities are endless.  Writing this blog is helping me re-enforce all of the important topics I learned, and I will continually post more about commercial real estate in the coming days and weeks to share with you all my experience.

Kind Regards,

Manolis

New Haven Homes, LLC

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How many of us out there feel like they are doing a lot of work on their business?  How many of us out there are not seeing a lot of revenue coming into our business for our efforts?  Well if your anything like me, then you understand that you can get caught up in doing a lot of busy work, but not be doing the type of work that will bring in business.

I have been slowly monitoring my actions and the resulting re-actions, and I have come to see the activities that bring in revenue.  I have decided that everything else can wait, and I will now only focus on the things that bring in income.

A few of the things I have identified are as follows:

-Bandit Signs & Placement

-Making Offers on Multiple MLS Listings at 50-60% FMV per offer

-Prospecting for Clients by Making Phone Calls

-Prospecting for property leads by calling Realtors (Both Residential & Commercial)

-Prospecting for Buyers by Attending REIA’s

-Prospecting for property leads by meeting wholesalers

-Placing Ads for Buyers and Sellers in the Newspaper

ANY administrative Item in your business should begin to become systematized.  You should not be putting a lot of efforts into administration because that is not bringing revenue into your business.  This lesson could be applied to everything in your life, and I look forward to getting my business booming very shortly.

Kind Regards,

Manolis

New Haven Homes, LLC

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Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to share a small success that I had yesterday.  We received a lead off of our bandit signs that we have littered all across CT for a property for sale in a working class town in CT.  The sellers seemed very motivated as the house was shared 3 ways from a probate ruling.  One of the 3 owners made some bad financial decisions and had a $13,500 lead on the property, and there is back taxes and back water bills on the property.

Another motivation was that the owner mentioned that his wife had medical problems that their insurance was not covering, and that they needed the money to help pay for the impending financial impact that her condition would have.

With this in mind, I ran my Maximum Allowable Offer calculation based off of what the owner has give me for information, taking into account the liens, as well as the $10,000 he estimated in repair costs.  I made sure to tell him that we will be inspecting the house ourselves to ensure that repair estimate of $10,000 was in line, and if it wasn’t, that we would have to lower our offer accordingly.  He had no problem with that statement, and said that if your contractor says it is more than $10,000, he would agree to lower the price of the property.

So I gave him my offer, and he Accepted!  (YIPPEE!)  Two days later I set a date to drop by his house to get my option on the contract signed so that I had control over the property for due dilligence, and potentially wholesaling capability.  The first hour of our meeting was talking about their life together, and how he use to be in Residential and Commerical real estate.  He was reminising on that time, and he mentioned to me how he use to go down to the town halls and get information on properties that weren’t listed in order to prospect for good deals.

When I heard how passionate he was about his passed, I somehow remembered that my company offers referral fees to people who find us deals if we were to close on them.  I mentioned this to him, and his eyes lit up with excitement!  They had fallen on hard times with medical bills, and this was just the project that could keep him busy.

The rapport I built with these sellers is incredible, and I now have an excellent, qualified bird dog to scope our the local area and throw me leads.  Do NOT under estimate the powerof building Rapport.  It is extremely important, and make sure you listen to the needs of the seller.  It could produce a win / win for the both of you!

Now we have the decision to make.  Do we do our first REHAB ourselves on this property?  Or do we wholesale this great deal?  Decisions-Decisions!

Kind Regards,

Manolis

New Haven Homes, LLC

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