Happy Friday!
Another monthly meeting, another great experience. Once again, the power of in person networking presented itself.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 deal happen. Two lessons to be learned here: One, networking is important and two, just because one lender says no, doesn't mean all lenders will say no. Joe may be able to revive this deal and possibly get it at a lower number as the property still hasn't sold.
Getting back to the presentation Sam dropped many great nuggets of information but the one I liked the best, which I had actually learned before, was learning the zoning code to find out what you can do by right--meaning. you do not need a variance. What I hadn't thought of before was that she keeps lists of properties in a city or town that meet her criteria of what she wants to accomplish building wise that are located in zoning areas that allow those building uses by right. And, as always, the money is in the follow up. Just because a seller doesn't want to sell at a certain price today, doesn't mean they won't down the line.
On a comical note, it was funny to watch us all as a group timidly produce the answer to 5 x 5, yours truly included. And I was a high school math teacher for 15 years! Disclaimer: I'm actually fairly good at math, I just can't do it in my head. I need to read it or write it down.
Thanks to everyone who helped out with the grilling. Like my presidency, I got all the credit, but in reality I was just one member of a smooth running machine that included Mason, his wife DANA (I remembered her name!), Diana, Aaron, Stephanie, and some others (sorry to those I missed, I lose track). Even Todd Hessbacher helped out. I saw him flip one burger at the end of the grilling session....which he probably ate himself.
Lastly, I heard Ed McGarry's rehab numbers presentation earlier in the evening in the bar area went well and was well attended. He had Todd Hessbacher present about one of his recent rehabs in Philly. Unfortunately, I was sweatin to the oldies like Richard Simmons out on the grill so I missed it, but I'm looking forward to it next meeting.
Have a great weekend everyone,
Matt Wahl
DIG President