DIG Main Meeting October 17th Review

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Hi Everyone,

Apologies for the delay on this.  My back was giving me problems on Thursday which restricted me to laying in a recliner most of Thursday, Friday and intermittently over the weekend, bemoaning my existence.  Unfortunately, I only caught a small portion of Thursday's meeting as I could not stay very long.
That said, it was a real treat to get a presentation from both Anil Dham and Dan Harvey, two DIG superstars.  Anil showed us a 9 unit deal he recently completed in Royersfod (I think).  While I didn't catch the whole thing, I did pick up a few things:
1. Some of his decision making on installing one unit in the basement vs. two.
2. A floor paint that is durable and does not seem to get dirty (I need to know what it is specifically)
3. That he left money in the deal--this was important for a couple of reasons to me.  Almost all of my deals have not required me to leave money in the deal.  I buy it with hard or private money, fix it up, rent it out, and refi it, pulling all of my money back out.  Over the past few years, however, this has not been the case for many of my refis.  In talking with many investors, the cash out refis are becoming less frequent.  Creativity on deals moving forward will be more important than ever.  Whether it's utilizing seller financing, or partners with money, we will need to think about mor
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DIG Main Meeting September 19th Review

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Good morning DigLand,

I hope everyone enjoyed last night's meeting.  For those of you that missed it, we had Rich O'Neill discussing how to bulletproof your rentals.  Two of the items Rich discussed caught my attention.  Using schedule 40 pvc pipes under the sinks with a cleanout after the trap because the pipes are smoother and more robust than the typical thinner pvc pipes normally used.  This will prevent damage and leaks caused by tenants jamming things under the sink.  The other item was oversizing all drain and sewer lines by an inch compared to code.  More space = less clogs.  I heard even Anil learned something new with the schedule 40 drain pipe idea!
On the networking side of things, I got to meet long time DIG member and answerline contributor Steve Ammon.  I had an interesting conversation with newer DIG member Joseph [last name]--sorry Joe!--about a project he's under contract for in Reading.  He plans to buy it in his own name, rehab, rent it out, then refi it.  He has a broker/lender who claims he can do a cash out refi for him as a rental held in his own name.  This is something I have not heard of...mainly because I've never attempted it.  I encouraged him to confirm this with the broker before purchasing in his name.  I also offered some options for him using an LLC and some of our local hard-ish money lenders in DIG such as Steve Hitlabid
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DIG Main Meeting August 15th Review

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Good morning DIG Fam!

Another month, another great meeting.  Last night we had our "speed networking" event where we have specialists in a variety of areas helming tables that guests and members spend about 10 minutes at a piece.  A bell rings, and on to the next table of your choice.
I can't provide a full feedback this month as I was with John and Jim Welsh at the table devoted to partnerships.  That said, it was nice to see the interest people had in our topic and the intelligent questions that were asked.  For those interested, the book we had on display was the BP produced "Real Estate Partnerships" by Tony Robinson and Ashley Kehr.  As what was no surprise to me, the Belles of the Ball were our wholesaling experts, Corey Ruyak and Mark Morey.  They had a full table up until the meeting ended.  It seemed like everyone else's tables were well attended, although I was up against a wall on one side, so my sightline was restricted.  Plust I was too concerned with stuffing my face with hot dogs and pretzels!
As much as I enjoyed our conversations at my table, the only negative was that I didn't get to experience the other experts' contributions and the conversations had at their tables.   Read More...


DIG Main Meeting July 18th Review

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 Hi Everyone,

There are times when I walk away from a meeting upset.  Last night was one of those nights.  The three gentlemen we had last night for our panel of wholesalers are truly superstars.  I walked away pissed at myself.  Pissed that I'm not nearly as good as them.  Pissed that they are doing what I want to be doing much better than me.  On the bright side, I woke up with a renewed vigor to improve my situation today.
Fortunately, I have three excellent sources to reach out to to make those improvements.  While I usually pull out a few pointers of things I learned at a meeting, i'm not going to do that from last night as there was just too much good info.  What I will say that I found most interesting is that all three do what they do in significantly different fashion.  Much like in life in general, there are many different paths to success.
I've seen wholesalers present at numerous RE investment events in the past, but this one I found to be the most eye opening.  It may have to do with my own increased knowledge and experience or the fact that I'm in the middle of working on my own marketing machine right now.  Speaking of which, it was about a year and half ago that I was taught how to set up my marke
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DIG Main Meeting June 20th Review

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Hello DIG fam,
Packed house last night, which should come as no surprise despite it being summer as Ashley Wilson was our speaker. In fact, here's my review: Ashley Wilson spoke. Nuff said.


OK, I can't leave it like that. It was just too good. Before I get into Ashley's awesomeness, shout out to some friendly faces that graced us with their presence last night--Anil was back again, now with a new HVAC company. As you can imagine, his company is slammed right now with work. Travis Edelman, long time A/L contributor, finally poked his head out of the bushes and showed his face at a main meeting again. And newbie Tyler Fox, a contractor I know from the gym (if you met him last night, you know why I know him from the gym, he could probably bench press Anil, Travis and me all at once) who was looking to learn about tax liens and pre-foreclosures---Marc Sherby, where were you??

Up on stage I gave shout outs to Raymond Lemire and Todd Hessbacher who weren't even there! C'mon guys, what's the problem? Were you in the hospital or something?

We all got to drink from the firehouse that was Ashley's presentation. A few highlights:
1. Much like driving for dollars with single family properties, you can do the same for apartment complexes! They don't need to look in distress, though, as you would be looking for with singles. You just need to train your eyes to start noticing them, then reach out to them.
2. Get the money first. This was an ey
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National REIA’s Monthly Government Affairs Update

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National REIA’s Monthly Government Affairs Update…

 

Sloppy Inflation: The discussion around inflation has become quite sloppy. Rather than focus on all the misstatements, please know that references to inflation “coming down” is in no way an actual reduction in costs. It is a reduction in the rate of increase. This is critical when thinking about budgets and longer term planning. The deflationary aspect of the econo
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DIG Main Meeting May 16th Review

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Happy Friday!

 

Another monthly meeting, another great experience.  Once again, the power of in person networking presented itself.  

 

  1. Sam Miller, our presenter, has been in real estate a while but only got into land development three years ago.  She got into it and got successful at it by networking.
  2. One of our members reached out to me by phone as I was walking into the meeting.  He ran into a situation I had posted about on the answerline where a business loan has ended up on his personal credit report.  How is this related to in person networking? We first met in person at a DIG meeting a year or two ago and have since met multiple times since then.  I put him in contact with everyone's favorite lender and mortgage expert, Bill Rookstool, who can help him navigate how to handle what happened here as it was beyond my area of expertise.
  3. I met a new member last night, Joe G, who was discussing a deal that had fallen through for him out in western PA because he couldn't get financing as his bank killed the deal.  As he described it to me, the deal made sense financially, so I recommended he speak with Bill Rookstool (two shout outs in one night!) to see if he could make the dea
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DIG Main Meeting April 18th Review

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Hi Everyone,

We had another great meeting last night with a great presenter, Tom Dunkel.  As usual, lots of networking occurred.  I learned a bit about the benefits of condo short term rentals, especially when first starting in the STR world from two different people in separate conversations.  Both of these investors are more experienced and successful than me, so there's got to be something to that.   Thank you, Tom and Marlon.

We learned a little bit about the new book club book, "The Go-Giver."  Contrary to Todd's busting of my stones, I actually do read a good bit, although not fast.  Yes, this book is short and easy to read, but it's also entertaining and teaches very good lessons.

Moving on to Tom Dunkel, last night's speaker about Self Storage.  When any speaker presents, even if you are not interested in the topic for your own specific investing, there are usually golden nuggets to be had.  Now, I was and am interested in self storage, but nevertheless, I pulled a few nuggets that can be applied to any type of investing.

1. Develop a team!  You can go fast by yourself, but you'll go farther with a team.   And more importantly, you will do less work IN your business and more ON your business, which requires less of your time.  This has been a stumbling block for me, personally, but I am working on hiring and developing a team as we speak.

2. An "A" employee/contractor is free.  What?!  Yes.  An awesome worker will make you more money than they cost.

3. Direct market expansion
-reach out to your competition to create a relationship (refer customers) 
-will become sellers someday
**John and JIm, let's start working on this today!

4. Boat and RV storage!  A severely underserved market with even less start up cost than self storage units.

Thanks everyone, for coming out last night.  Big thanks to Tom Dunkel for presenting.  I look forward to listening to my friend, Samantha Miller, present next month about investing in land. 
 

See you next time,
Matt Wahl
DIG President

March 2024 meeting -- Lender Panel

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 Another great meeting last night.  We had a fairly packed house to see Anil moderate a panel consisting of private-ish/hard-ish lenders Mike Yalowitz and Karen Fischer, whom I've used numerous times to fund my deals,
Bill Rookstool, everyone's favorite lender and market forecaster, and Bill Shipp, who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time yesterday and is yet another wealth of knowledge.


I've already received feedback from a number of members who were very pleased with the information they picked up during the presentation (shout out Jack Kelly and Jim Welsh).  For me personally, I missed most of the presentation as I kept getting caught up in conversations in the vestibule and bar area.  On the bright side, it was networking at its best, so I can't complain too much.  I got to meet some new members, including Jonathan Potter, a long time investor who I believe just came back to DIG, Tom Ammas, and I finally got to put a name to face in George Voutsinos, among many others.  I also heard a VERY endearing story about Don Rotanz helping out fellow member Diana Wong get 7 units under contract.  Congrats, Diana and a big shout out to Don! 
To my mild dismay, I watched no basketball, but I'll take the networking over
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One of the most impactful and lasting learnings I’ve ever had could be summarized as “Vision First.” I bet you find the same thing.

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When I first got started, I went through the whole “I wanna do it all!” phase that a lot of new investors do. Every new strategy I learned about was exciting, and they all looked so profitable, and I had big goals about money and lifestyle that absolutely DROVE me to buy all the courses, do all the things, and become a tycoon as soon as possible, leave nothing on the table in the way of opportunities.

 

Where did that land me?

 

Working 18 hours a day 7 days a week.

 

Doing a lot of things that didn’t really “fit” me. Like rehabs. Which were profitable but didn’t really fit with my ‘details are hard’ brain.

Stressed out.

 

Ultimately divorced.

 

Yes, I made a lot of money, but I had no life.

And I’d love to say that once I homed in on the strategies I liked and was good at, figuring out how to spend my
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